04/09/2020

I was thinking the other day about the Ten Commandments.

Like many people - I only "think" about them and don't always follow them 
very well :-)

I heard a comedian once say that his church had six commandments and four 
"do the best you can". Sounds about right :-)

I've mentioned before, the Bible has always been an important element of my 
Christian faith and I even gave serious thought to becoming a Biblical 
scholar at one point in my life.

Never got very far along that line - no formal training.

In life "stuff" happens and leads you along different pathways.

Still I picked up a few things along the way people might find interesting - 
or maybe not.

*****
Every so often you hear about a group wanting to post the Ten Commandments 
on some courthouse steps somewhere, ending up in a legal fight about the 
separation of church and state resulting in some kind of compromise.

One thing I haven't seen anybody mention is that actually there are Eleven 
Commandments in the Biblical text.

Roman Catholics combine the first two and Protestants combine the last two 
to make the number come out to ten.

There are three lists of the Ten Commandments in the Bible, Exodus 20:1-17, 
Deuteronomy 5:6-21 and Exodus 34:11-26.

The first two are what most people think of as the Ten Commandments, the 
third has more religious oriented laws in it.

*****
The first two Commandments are:

1. "I, the Lord am your God, ... You shall not have other gods besides me." 
(monotheism).

2. "You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the 
sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you 
shall not bow down before them or worship them ..." (no graven images).

*****
The second raises the question of religious art in Christianity.

Christian art isn't just to make the churches pretty - before the invention 
of the printing press (1450s) most people were illiterate.

The art was a sort of translation of the Bible into pictorial form. A 
Christian could gaze upon a Crucifix or stain glass window for instruction 
or meditation.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, "icons" (Greek for "images"), are very precisely 
defined. For example, the halo above Jesus' head always has a cross in it. 
The viewer knows immediately which figure is Jesus since no other figure 
ever has that type of halo.

In the eighth century there was a brief movement in the eastern churches to 
destroy all icons, called the iconoclasm ("image breakers"), they thought 
venerating icons violated the Second Commandment, but it died out.

*****
In the 1940s, the Jehovah's Witnesses concluded that the Pledge of 
Allegiance to the American Flag, was a violation of the Second Commandment.

Terms like "desecration of the flag" imply a spiritual power in it and 
pledging "allegiance" to it constituted a sort of worship of it, a sort of 
quasi-religious, state-worship ritual (if it's not that - what is it?).

They wanted their children exempted from the mandatory pledge in school. The 
Supreme Court eventually ruled in their favor, the schools have to allow 
children to leave the room during the Pledge.

*****
Protestants combine the last two Commandments into one.

10. "You shall not covet your neighbors house."

11. "You shall not covet your neighbors wife."

And consider them to be just "You shall not covet".

There is a theological argument one could make for this in that the order of 
the last two Commandments is reversed in the two lists.

The second list has "neighbors wife" first, then "neighbors house".

Since many Christians hold the Bible to be inerrant, this would seem to 
constitute a "mistake" and so they must not be two separate Commandments.

Roman Catholics follow the order of the second list, putting wives before 
houses.

*****
The third list, Ex 34:11-26, is interesting because it is the only one of 
the three lists actually called the "Ten Commandments" by the Bible.

Over half are different and more religiously oriented.

My "favorite" is:

10. "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk."

I think I can honestly say, I've never broken that one.
Well, okay there was that crazy weekend back in 1978 (just kidding :-)

"Kid" refers to a baby goat, so it's not as weird as it might seem.
It refers to a particular Canaanite ritual you should avoid.

*****
Anyway, you can see the courthouse problem - do you use the Catholic list or 
the Protestant one? Now you really are crossing over into 'church and state' 
territory.

Van Orden v. Perry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Orden_v._Perry

You might notice in the picture they cleverly indent the Second Commandment 
and don't number them - perhaps hoping you won't count them. Very clever :-)

*****
I've never understood why Christians want to post the Ten Commandments 
anyway.

Jesus released us from them and all of the 613 commandments listed in the 
Old Testament Law and replaced them with just two - love God and love your 
neighbor.

"Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?", He [Jesus] said to him, 
"What is written in the Law? What is your reading of it?". He replied, " You 
must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with 
all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." 
Jesus said to him "You have answered right, do this and life is yours". Luke 
10:25-28

Christians traditionally eat ham on Easter Sunday to show our Jesus given 
independence from the Jewish dietary laws - Jews don't eat pork.


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