Visitors to Mount Sinai today find at its base a monastery, which would hardly remind one of the true worship that Moses learned about on the mountain above. Rather, the religion in the monastery focuses on icons. The one shown here is “The Ladder to Paradise.” It is based on a book by Byzantine monk John Climacus. After spending about 40 years in a monastic cell, he became abbot of the monastery and wrote about a symbolic ladder to heaven. But notice that some clerics are depicted as being drawn by demons down to eternal torment in hellfire. Vivid, but unscriptural!​—Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; Jeremiah 7:31.

In contrast with that false teaching, the truth is that the Almighty is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth.” (Exodus 34:6) Moses drew close to this merciful God on Mount Sinai.

[Picture Credit Line on page 9]

Pictorial Archive (Near Eastern History) Est.