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Concept
Tablets of Stone
Summary
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tablets of the Law (also Tablets of Stone, Stone Tablets, or Tablets of Testimony; Biblical Hebrew: לוּחֹת הַבְּרִית lûḥōt habbǝrît "tablets of the covenant", לֻחֹת הָאֶבֶן lūḥōt hāʾeben or לֻחֹת אֶבֶן lūḥōt eben or לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים lūḥōt ʾăbānîm "stone tablets", and לֻחֹת הָעֵדֻת lūḥōt hāʿēdūt "tablets of testimony", Arabic: أَلْوَاحُ مُوسَى) were the two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments when Moses ascended Mount Sinai as written in the Book of Exodus.
According to the biblical narrative, the first set of tablets, inscribed by the finger of God, () were smashed by Moses when he was enraged by the sight of the Children of Israel worshiping a golden calf () and the second were later chiseled out by Moses and rewritten by God ().
According to traditional teachings of Judaism in the Talmud, the stones were made of blue sapphire as a symbolic reminder of the sky, the heavens, and ultimately of God's throne. Many Torah scholars, however, have opined that the biblical sapir was, in fact, lapis lazuli (see , lapis lazuli is a possible alternate rendering of "sapphire" the stone pavement under God's feet when the intention to craft the tablets of the covenant is disclosed ).
According to , the tablets were stored in the Ark of the Covenant.
In recent centuries the tablets have been popularly described and depicted as round-topped rectangles, but this has little basis in religious tradition. According to rabbinic tradition, they were rectangles, with sharp corners, and indeed they are so depicted in the 3rd-century paintings at the Dura-Europos Synagogue and in Christian art throughout the 1st millennium CE, drawing on Jewish traditions of iconography.
Depictions of round-topped tablets appear in the Middle Ages, following in size and shape contemporary hinged writing-tablets for taking notes (with a stylus pressing on a layer of wax on the insides). For Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) they still have sharp corners (see gallery), and are about the size found in rabbinic tradition.
Official source
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