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

...and I'll give it another read-through later.

A30188612 - The Other Ten Commandments

pass
passé

TRiG.

Hi Leo,

This article is certainly much more comprehensive now!

'the actual fire and thunder display business'

OK, I've added in another paragraph about this. There seems to be a problem in that Deut 10 mentions fire, but Ex 20 doesn't say that God gave the ED from fire - it describes smoke and lightning. Ex 34 gives a similar description of the RD being given from a 'cloud'. The description of fire is from Ex 19 when Moses is face-to-face with God. He then descends the mountain before Ex 20, where the ED is given to all the Hebrews, not just Moses.

"Pei samach break" brings up no hits on Google if you include the quotes, and nothing that looks relevant if you don't ('pei' and 'samach' are both Hebrew words in their own right, as I'm sure you realise). URLs would therefore help.

'Nachmanides isn't disagreeing that Moses carved the second tablets. That's pretty much a given.'

No, Deut 10:2-4 says that God carved the second set of tablets: 'And I will write on the tablets the words that were in the first tablets which you broke', followed by a description of Him doing just that.

Gif

Fiddled with this a bit more. I've split the synopsis of the Bible story into bullet points.

What started out as a short, light article intended as a footnote to another entry is rapidly becoming a lengthy analysis of Biblical exegesis, and considerably more comprehensive than the original entry on the 10 Commandments. How do you think the Eds would feel if I made three whole sections into a single footnote?

Gif

I have re-read it.

It is still good but I think that the entry has become side tracked into fiddly accuracy at the expense of clarity. The middle section no longer feels like a 'popular' set of readings, but more like a survey of the outer reaches of esoteric (and wrong) Christian exegesis. Given that the question this article posits is 'pub-quizish', I much preferred the previous middle section.

I don't think this needs to match university levels of accuracy and completeness. The benefit to anybody reading this, will be to have been alerted to a wonderful bit of biblical trivia.

So I liked the previous version. I am interested to hear what others think.

Heyy Man
I Just Started
Will Somee One Help Me Plz?

Hi Grandtheshiz,

I see PT has posted on your Personal Space. Feel free to post on mine too (my name at the top of this post links to it).

Plus an Assistant Community Editor (ACE) should give you a welcome in the next hour or two.

Welcome to H2G2!

Gif

Hi PT,

I agree with you, but at the same time it's nice to have all that info if it's needed - not leastly because a sizeable percentage of people reading it are likely to have many of the same quesions/opinions as Leo. I'm wondering if there's some way I can split this into two Entries or something.

Lemme think about it for a while. Something like 'The Other Ten Commandments', which would simply note 'there is controversy, but Biblical experts largely believe X' and 'The Ritual Decalogue/Ethical Decalogue Controversy', which would contain most of the three headered sections.

Actually, I quite like that idea - any comments from anyone else?

Gif

How about a series of more expansive "footnotes", individual entries linked to the first in which you can go into more detail about certain points?

Oops. Didn't mean to give you a headache, Gif.

Pei and Samach are letters in the Hebrew alphabet. You have to do some scrolling down to find them, so I'm pasting the cache link.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:Xa0CkkB3W8QJ:www.ou.org/torah/tt/5768/vayeitzei68/specialfeatures.htm+%22pei%22+%22samach%22+%22torah%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:atE3yXQ_DmkJ:www.ou.org/torah/tt/5765/vayigash65/print.htm+%22pei%22+%22samach%22+%22break%22+%22torah%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a


It's looking quite good.

>>it is explicit that the words of God are unchanged, and are the same on both sets of tablets.<<

- provide source for explicitness?



>>the Ritual Decalogue begins by describing itself as a covenant, and the same word is used to describe the words carved in stone.<<

- Aw c'mon, that's not proof. There are covenants scattered all over the Bible. It could be a new one, a la Nachmanides.

- This is the gist of Nachmanides, not what you have him saying. He says a second set of rules was given as a covenant for ritual behavior. See elucidation below.




>>Furthermore, it is explicitly stated in Exodus that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments - if Moses wrote the Ritual Decalogue, then it follows that the Ten Commandments are the Ritual Decalogue.<<

- Moses is supposed to have written the five books of the Pentateuch. So he would have written the Ritual Decalogue *anyway*.



>>This follows a line of reasoning dating back to the 13th Century Jewish scholar Nachmanides.

- Er, no, that's not his version. His version is that God made a new covenant there in the presence of the unwritten-upon second tablets, delineating the 10 Most Important Rituals to Keep, after which Moses sat down and wrote the Ethical Decalogue into the tablets.

- the "claim" (as you derogatorily put it) is simply an observation that follows a "natural reading" of the text. Let's face it - whatever you say about the smoke and fire accompanying the Ethical Decalogue, there is *absolutely* no smoke nor fire accompanying the Ritual Decalogue.



>>Naturally, it is not quite so simple, and most commentators find this to raise more problems than it solves. Exodus 19 mentions God speaking to Moses from fire, but Moses then descends the mountain and God gives the Ethical Decalogue to the Hebrews as a whole in the form of a thunderous cloud, closely matching the smoke in Exodus 34.

- Most? Who are these people?

- Smoke in Exodus 34? I see only mention of a cloud (Heb: anan), the same one generally used to represent the presence of God throughout the Pentateuch.

Whereas verse 18 in chapter 19 uses the word ashan, which means smoke. And you know the saying: Where there's smoke, there's fire.

More about smoke and fire: I'm in Exodus 20:15
word 'lapidim' - means flames, usually large, like on torches
In 20:18
word 'arafel' - means thick smoke

In 34:5
word 'anan' - means cloud

In Deuteronomy 8:19
word eish - means fire
word anan - means cloud
word - arafel - means thick smoke
also mentions 'kol gadol' (great/strong sound) while Exodus 20 mentions 'kolos' (sounds).

Notably, only 'anan' (cloud) appears in the description of Moses' trip for the second tablets. And 'anan' appears everywhere. In fact, the pillar of clouds that traveled ahead of the Israelites is referred to as 'amud anan' (lit: cloud pillar). 'Anan' rested on the Tabernacles to symbolize the presence of God. That's it's basic purpose - showing that God is around.

PS: I'm sitting here and noting the pei and samach symbols all over. There's a pei between each of the commandments of the ED, for example, so you know where they begin and end. If you'd like I can scan a page for you.

It looks like a split into at least two Entries is in order here, Giford.

TRiG.

Wouldn't it be a lark to start a campaign to have the 'Other' ten displayed in US courthouses?

I see you've performed the operation, and now have two very readable entries. When are you putting the other into PR?

TRiG.

Alright, alright, give me half a mo!

Honestly, first you take away my personal triumph in getting the little dash over the e of passe, now you're hassling me to type faster, mumblegrumblemumble.



Although the operation has been a success, further cosmetic surgery is required to remove some of the scarring!

Gif

Hi All,

As TRiG has spotted, I've split the Entry - the longer half (if you see what I mean) is at A30188577. I'm very happy with this as a solution, as it allows a brief, snappy Entry on the RD and also allows for a full and lengthy discussion of the two Decalogues.

Since the discussion is almost entirely about the other chunk, I'll see you on the discussion thread there!

Gif

Your solution for passé worked fine, but mine was technologically neater.

TRiG.

RD vs. ED: F48874?thread=4987299.

And now to cap it all you're nicking my smiley!

Gif

Oh, I've had my eyes on the geek smiley for quite some time!

TRiG.