Descent from Mount Sinai (Sistine Chapel) shows more episodes at the same time; the theme is described by the inscription on the frieze "PROMULGATIO LEGIS SCRIPTE PER MOISEM. In" ("Promulgation of the Written Law through Moses"). In the upper part is Moses kneeling on Mount Sinai, with a sleeping Joshua nearby: he receives the Tables of the Law from Yahweh, who appears in a luminescent cloud, surrounded by angels. In the foreground, on the left, Moses brings the Tables to the Israelites. In the background is camp of tents, with the altar of the golden calf in the middle; the Israelites, spurred by Aaron, are adoring
Antiquities of the Jews that Abraham taught science to the Egyptians, who in turn taught the Greeks, and that Moses set up a senatorial priestly aristocracy, which like Rome resisted monarchy. Thus, in an attempt to make the Jewish history more palatable to his Greco-Roman audience, the great figures of the biblical stories are presented as ideal philosopher-leaders. In another example, apparently due to his concern with pagan antisemitism, Josephus omitted the entire episode of the golden calf from his account of the Israelites at Mount Sinai. It has been suggested that he was afraid that the biblical account might be employed by Alexandrian