I think Deuteronomy 6:16 “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” Is not “except they did not have that rule until they repeatedly failed all their tests”.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you or maybe I am missing something, but I think you are wrong.
Except they did not have that rule until they repeatedly failed all their tests.
I think Deuteronomy 6:16 “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” Is not “except they did not have that rule until they repeatedly failed all their tests”.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you or maybe I am missing something, but I think you are wrong.
Science and skepticism existed before Deuteronomy, believe it or not.
Skepticism, sure. Science? Not really. The precursors of science maybe, but until you have a fully-developed scientific method, it is not yet science.
That totally sounds like something they’d do, do you have a source on that?