According to various polls, a large fraction of Americans agree with the proposition that "the Ten Commandments form a good basis for an ethical life."
Also according to surveys, very few of those same Americans can actually recall more than a few of the Commandments!
I shouldn't poke fun at my fellow Americans, because until recently I also would have had trouble remembering those rules given by Jehova atop Mount Sinai. When I read the Commandments, I found a very peculiar list of rules. But before you read my comments, you had better refresh your own memory of the Commandments.
The Ten Commandments are listed in two books of the Christian Bible. They can be found in Exodus 20:1-17 and again, in not quite identical words, in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. (Here is a link to the King James Version of Exodus at the Blue Letter Bible, at The Bible Gateway, or in case they aren't up, here it is from The Bible Browser.)
When the early Christians were assembling their holy texts, they translated the Hebrew scriptures into the language that most of them spoke, Greek. In Greek, the Ten Commandments were referred to as the Decalogue, ten sayings. Some Christian writers continue to use that term today, especially those from a Catholic background. The reason that most Americans say "Ten Commandments" is because America was settled mainly by Protestants, and the Protestant tradition, established by Martin Luther, is to translate everything into common speech.
According to the story in Exodus, the Israelites, having fled across the Red Sea out of Egypt, wandered and starved in the desert until God deigned to put in a personal appearance.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak to thee, and believe thee for ever.
First, the people had to purify themselves. (One way of doing so was by "coming not at their wives" for three days. That should tell you who the old scribes had in mind when they wrote "the people.") Then, according to Exodus 19,
...there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
And Moses brought for the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the Mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. ... And God spake all these words, saying,...
This is the source of the authority of these Ten commandments: they are the only rules believed to have been delivered directly from the mouth of God to the ears of his people, without intermediation by a prophet or interpreter.
Here's what God said from out of the cloud, as given in Exodus in the King James translation:
| I | Polytheism | I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. |
| II | Idolatry | Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. |
| III | Profanity | Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. |
| IV | Sabbath | Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. |
| V | Parental Respect | Honour they father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. |
| VI | Murder | Thou shalt not kill. (It is generally agreed this should read "murder," not "kill," and newer Bible translations say that.) |
| VII | Adultery | Thou shalt not commit adultery. |
| VIII | Larceny | Thou shalt not steal. |
| IX | Perjury | Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. |
| X | Covetousness | Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's. |
In the verses that follow these, Moses goes up into the mountain and receives quite a few additional directions from God. These many rules include details on building altars and other ritual items, intermixed with socio-legalisms such as:
If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
...And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.
Got that? You can own slaves, and you can beat them bloody as long as you don't kill them, because they are your assets to dispose of as you like. If they are fellow-countrymen, they become free agents after seven years of servitude. A slave who is not a Hebrew, you can keep indefinitely. There are other commands in Exodus and Deuteronomy that cast equally fascinating lights into the society of the Israelites two millenia before the modern era. By all means, read them yourself.
The remaining instructions in Exodus and Deuteronomy, which differ only in that they were received by Moses privately and announced by his human voice, are still binding on Jews. Christians largely ignore those, on the basis that Jesus brought a "new dispensation" of law. In fact, what Jesus is quoted as saying about the Mosaic law is,
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:18 ff)
As of that writing, then, Jesus sanctioned every verse of Deuteronomy and Exodus,
including the above quotes about slavery. However, according to one Gospel, Jesus's
dying words on the cross were "It is finished" (or "accomplished").
Perhaps this was put in to say that the Mosaic law was modifiable as of then, and
even though heaven and earth had not yet disappeared, it was no longer necessary
to take the Pharisee's strict view of the Law.
In the congressional debate on whether it should be legal to display the Ten Commandments
in courts of law and schools, Rep. Nadler, speaking in opposition, asked whether
it was really commonly accepted in this Christian nation that sins are "visited
on" the second and third generation; and noted that the Hebrew commandments
clearly mandate Saturday as the day of rest, while Christians (other than Seventh
Day Adventists) changed to Sunday. In other words, besides quietly ignoring the rest
of the Law, Christians don't even honor the letter of the Decalogue.
However edited and reinterpreted, the Ten retain their special symbolic and emotional significance for Christians because they are the only behavioral guidance (until the Sermon on the Mount) given directly by God.
I do not see how anyone who actually reads and thinks about the Ten Commandments can claim that, taken at face value, they come anywhere near to defining a complete ethical framework.
Understand, a believer cannot ask this question. The believer's task is not to second-guess the Deity, but to make the best of what the Deity provided. Yet even a reader who believes these are literally words from God must confess to some slight disappointment that in this, His sole direct speech to His people, Jehova did not choose to deliver a message with a bit more scope ó a broader foundation for an ethical life.
The Unbeliever, meanwhile, is free to be astounded at the narrow, explicit agenda. The first four of the Ten are liturgical. In the remainder, how many well-known sins are not covered? Suicide, battery, gluttony, intoxication, treachery, torture, rape, arson, promiscuity (among unmarried people), vandalism, laziness, deceit of every sort other than "false witness" ó the list is long.
Eight of the Ten are prohibitions (only the Sabbath and Parental Respect rules
are not). What positive requirements might God have urged on his people to
make their lives better?
For five hundred years, Buddhists had been teaching the value of "metta,"
loving-kindness, across India. A few hundred miles away the Greeks were compiling
the Iliad, in part a hymn to honor, steadfastness, friendship, loyalty, and oathkeeping.
Such positive virtues were apparently not a concern. Heck, if God had only thought
to say, "boil any cloth you use for bandages," he could have saved tens
of thousands of the Chosen from dying in agony from infected wounds over the next
two millenia. Ah well, so it goes.
Here's how the Decalogue stacks up on the four criteria:
| Prescriptive | Yes, fully prescriptive rules for behavior. |
| Authority | Scriptural authority binding on Jews and Christians. |
| Compact | Yes, easily written on a pocket reference card or billboard. |
| Coverage | Very spotty, many types of evil not proscribed and no positive guides. |
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