h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Other Ten Commandments - A30188612
Author: Giford - U187177

A very good article on the Ten Commandments has just made it through PR. What it doesn't mention is that there's another Ten Commandments in the Bible...

Gif

There's an extra 'and' in the first sentence. Oh and you can't link to God - only the Pope is allowed to do that.

Otherwise an interesting Entry with just a little work needed

Imagine the laws of most "Christian" countries were based on those ten commandments rather than the ethical one There would be a lot more sacrificing going on...

You need to capitalise the 8th Commandment, though. And maybe a footnote to explain that the 10th is the basis for differentiating between meat, milk, and pareve in Kashrut? (Unless I've got that wrong )

Good follow-up on the other entry you mentioned!

You kind of left out the points I made in the thread about the first Ten Commandments.

F8712124?thread=4788854&post=55888152#p55888152

There - three arguments against them being THE Ten Commandments.

And, if that's too difficult:
>>These laws cannot possibly be the ones Moses wrote down as ordered in 34:27 for the following three reasons:
1. There is a gap between the laws and the writing. The chapters were added by Christians for ease of reading. As written on the parchment, the Torah has small gaps between verses, large gaps between "topics" and larger gaps between chapters (chapters here being much larger segments than the Christian chapters; there were only around 12 per book.) There is a topical gap between the "ritual commandments" and the "go write" command to Moses.
If you'd like to see this for yourself, pick up any Hebrew Bible and check it out. The gaps are symbolized with the letter "Peh" - with one peh being a topical gap and three being the gap between chapters.
I don't see how anyone reading this in the original Hebrew could possibly make the mistake of thinking the two verses are connected.

2. The command given regarding making the tablets uses the words "Pesah licha" which means "carve out". The command given in 20:27 is "ksav licha" which means "write". Thus, these cannot be going into stone. Again, you need to be in the original Hebrew to understand this one.

3. If none of those were good, flip to Deuteronomy 10:4 where it describes what commandments were written on the tablets. Specifically, it mentions that the writing on the tablets was the stuff said amid pyrotechnics on the mount. And there is only one set of Commandments said amid pyrotechnics on the mount.
This does not require any knowledge of Hebrew, only some familiarity with the Bible.

Hi, I just gave this a quick read and have printed it out for a more careful one.

At first read, I find this extremely interesting and, not being a bible scholar in any sense of the word, I find it quite informative.

I see that Leo has made some good points, and I notice that you also conclude that "It is unlikely that we will ever find the exact truth of the origin of this scripture". Consequently, you may want to reconsider including the statement "Indeed, your mates in the boozer may need persuading that the Ritual Decalogue is the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Sinai" since this it seems that this is and will likely remain putative.

Where you have presented these as the Ritual Decalogue vs the Ethical Decalogue rather than The Commandments vs The Other Commandments you seem on solid ground.

In reading through the 'Scholarly Opinions', I'm reminded of why any business found in the bible is so pre-eminently suitable for endless discussion - it's always circular, never conclusive, and generally thought provoking.

Hi Leo,

Sorry, I wasn't ignoring your comments, I thought I'd covered them by saying that some people think the phrase 'Ten Commandments' doesn't refer to the immediately preceeding text. I have slightly expanded this to mention that there is a break in the orginal text here. The difference between God carving and Moses writing I've already covered, and ditto the reference to Deut. 10:4.

I didn't include too much on your objection for the simple reason that I can't find any other source (Christian or Jewish) that raises it. Might the break have been inserted because the Commandments finish at this point and the narrative resumes?

Certainly, Biblical scholars seem pretty much unanimous that the RD was an earlier set of Ten Commandments, so that is the (tentative) conclusion I have tried to reflect in the article, without presenting this as a certain fact.

Hi Pailaway,

I've rephrased that to tone down the certainty in the sentence.

Hi Alex,

Made the changes you suggested also.

Gif

>>I didn't include too much on your objection for the simple reason that I can't find any other source (Christian or Jewish) that raises it.<<
- I would guess this dearth is caused by the nature of Bible Criticism. I think your average Christian or Jewish scholar wouldn't have a clue what it's about, and therefore wouldn't have much to say on the matter.

Anyway, I think Pailaway said what I meant much better: just don't push the replacement theory too hard, because it makes about as much sense as it doesn't make, and therefore is fun to talk about, but not to claim as fact.

Hi Leo,

The tone I've aimed for in the article is:

- There definitely appear to be 2 different sets of 10 Commandments in the Bible
- This requires an explanation
- There is no single, certain explanation - many have been proposed, including yours (that one is not, in fact, a set of 10 Commandments)
- The most widely accepted explanation among Biblical experts is the Documentary Hypothesis, i.e. that the RD is earlier and the ED later

I've also tried to do it in a light and readable way. If you think the article reads differently, or the above is factually wrong, let me know.

Gif

It looks like you've hit the mark on items 1, 2 and 4

On Item 3, the text seems to me to read just a little differently from "There is no single, certain explanation - many have been proposed, including yours (that one is not, in fact, a set of 10 Commandments)"
That is to say, one has to get to the scholarly opinions before realizing that the preceding was not actually going to go anywhere, but was only intended to present some common misconceptions and/or difficulties.

I wonder if only changing the header from 'The Ethical Decalogue vs the Ritual Decalogue' to something like 'Popular Views on the Ethical Decalogue vs the Ritual Decalogue'.

I think that the entire text is fine as it is and, for me, it only comes down to introducing that one section a little differently.

'Popular Views' to contrast with the next section, 'Scholarly Views'.

Good idea - done.

Gif

I'm just getting confused about the necessity of having ten commandments at all.
The point is that there were supposed to be ten commandments given on the mount and ten written on the tablets, and they might be different ones? Or that it was actually the RD and not the ED given on the mount? Because position two seems, quite frankly, untenable, whereas position one is merely precarious.

>>For several reasons, it is believed that the first five books of the Old Testament reached their current form in the years surrounding the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem and the Exile of the Hebrews in Babylon (c. 586 - 537 BC). Thus, it is likely that the Babylonians were an influence on Jewish scripture at this time via the Priestly and Deuteronomic sources.<<

There's a teeny tiny problem with this line too: the Code of Hammurabi was written by the king of the first Babylonian empire, hundreds of years before the exile by the second Babylonian empire. The two empires were not in the least connected, except that the king of the second was hoping people would associate him with the greatness of the first. So while an early writer could be influenced by Hammurabi (supposed to be a contemporary of Abraham), the final compiler would not have gotten any influence worth noting from the second empire.

Hi Leo,

Paragraphs 2 & 3 of the 'Popular views' section show where they Bible claims that both the RD and the ED were carved in stone. If you can see a way I could make that clearer, let me know.

Meantime, I've rewritten the Babylonians section to reflect a slightly more detailed view of the various Mesopotamian/Babylonian empires. I'm a little wary of getting sidetracked into a lengthy discourse on the Documentary Hypothesis, though - although I obviously need to explain what it is to readers who may not have come across it before, that's not what this article is supposed to be about.

Gif

Managed to get the little dash over the 'e' of 'passe'. A personal triumph there.

You're gonna tell me it's the wrong way round now, aren't you?

Gif

I liked this. I think it carries a nice balance between popular biblical understanding (and its corresponding love of symmetry and parallelism) and reasonable scholarly perspective.

I read it all in one hit and didn't struggle in any way (OK I skipped the actual commandments and only really read the ones I was told to).

Ta PT.

Gif

I mildly object to your lumping "biblical experts" with "bible critics." I would imagine they're related to each other very much the way literary experts are related to literary critics: they share some grounds, but one is more about knowing facts while the other is more about asking questions and dreaming up answers. Therefore, just as I wouldn't call someone who never read the Iliad in original Greek an "expert on Greek literature", I wouldn't call someone who never read the Bible in the original Hebrew a "Biblical expert." A critic, yes. An expert, no.

Anyway, I did some more research and reading around:

>>Others have tried to claim that the phrase refering [sic] to the Ten Commandments does not refer to the immediately preceeding [sic] list of laws when it follows the Ritual Decalogue, as it is separated by a break in the Hebrew text. It is difficult to see what else the text could be referring to; the Ritual Decalogue begins by describing itself as a covenant, and the same word is used to describe the words carved in stone.<<

1. The break is a very definite break, and I do wish you wouldn't minimize it like that. Importantly, there is only a break *after* the Decalogue, not *before*. This suggests continuity leading up to it, but a specific break in continuity afterward. So what happens *before* the Decalogue?

Moses takes tablets and goes up the mount. He says to God: these are a rotten stubborn lot, and they're never gonna be angels. Can't you find it in your heart to forgive them? God replies that he's going to take them into Canaan and do all the stuff he previously promised...

And here is where the Decalogue comes in...

...but there are 10 rules they absolutely cannot break once they get in.

Decalogue appears.

Topical break appears.

Moses writes down the Ten Commandments. These must be the Ethical, since he says in Deuteronomy that he himself carved the Ten Commandments from the mount into the tablets. This is another point you minimize, but open the book and check it out. He says "I carved" and he says the ones given on the mount.

Anyway, according to the above, the Ritual Decalogue isn't the Ten Commandments given on the mount or carved into the tablets. It is just a Decalogue for behavior - the ten most essential points for keeping God happy. (Obviously the Ethical Decalogue can't be the top ten, because imagine if everyone was to be struck down the minute they coveted a neighbor's possession.)
Source: Nachmanides (Biblical Expert).

Hi Leo,

Biblical criticism is not the same as English criticism; it is the study of the Biblical texts to try to determine how they came to be written - see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_criticism. I've tried to avoid using the phrase specifically because it might cause this kind of confusion - have I inadvertently included it somewhere?

Not sure how I've minimised the break; can you be more specific? You said there are three levels of break, and this is the second. As I said, I can't find any modern source for this, so I'm trying to reflect that this is a mid-level break. I can't find anywhere in Deut where Moses mentions carving anything himself - both decalogues are given on mountains, so I don't follow how your logic on why Moses must have carved the ED.

I've fixed the spelling errors you pointed out.

I've also heavily rewritten the middle section of the article to include a run-through of when and how the Bible mentions the Ten Commandments, Ethical Decalogue, Ritual Decalogue and who wrote what on stone tablets. Contrary to what Nachmonides seems to claim, Ex 34 explictly states that Moses carves the Ten Commandments on the tablets. This is either a contradiction with the claim that God carved the ED, or it means that the RD is the Ten Commandments (or something more complex, e.g. the Documentary Hypothesis).

I've also highlighted each of the various theories in bold, and included mention of your source by name with a slightly expanded explanation of his theory. I have added a bit near the end to make clear that there are many variations on the Documentary Hypothesis. And finally, I've been told (on an article on K-9, of all things) that the names of Biblical books should be in itallics, but 'Bible' 'OT' and 'NT' shouldn't, so I've amended accordingly.

Gif

I was afraid "on the mount" was ambiguous, but I mean at the actual fire and thunder display business. I'm referring to here:
>>Deuteronomy 10:4 where it describes what commandments were written on the tablets. Specifically, it mentions that the writing on the tablets was the stuff said amid pyrotechnics on the mount. And there is only one set of Commandments said amid pyrotechnics on the mount.<<
I should add that Moses describes himself doing the carving of the commandments given amid the pyrotechnics.

I think that is the most compelling argument, quite frankly.


The phrasing of the paragraph does the minimizing. I know you haven't got a "source", but if you open the book, the symbols are there, and they're there for a reason. I did a search for "pei samach break" and found them mentioned in passing on two pages. If you'd like URLs I can provide.


Nachmanides isn't disagreeing that Moses carved the second tablets. That's pretty much a given. He's saying that the Ritual Decalogue was a separate deal, having to do with forgiving the nation and their entry to the Land of Canaan, and though the carving happened afterwards, it's a separate event.
Apologies - I thought that was pretty clear.