The Ten Commandments — Thou Shall Not Think!
"The lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen...," breaking sounds..., "uh, ten, ten commandments!"
Exodus, chapter 20.
As anyone familiar with the continuing battle over the separation of church and state knows, there is one thing from the Old Testament that Christians consider absolutely fundamental to today’s lawful society, the Ten Commandments. This set of divine restrictions is considered by many of the sects to be the heart of all law in the western world. Without them, the world would spiral out of control and doom the very essence of civilization itself. At any courthouse or government building in the world, the lack of these strictures simply begs people to commit atrocities. If humanity would ever dare to forgo the guiding hand of these ten immutable laws, the world would descend into the blackened abyss, and abominations would soon follow, brother killing brother, husband oppressing wife, rape and war, floods and famine, dogs and cat living together, Holy shit, Batman, we’re screwed. In other words, complete chaos. We’d better not risk it people. There’s little sense in playing with fire of this magnitude. For a lack-of-Christ-sake, just look what’s at stake! Damn you!
Yeah… Hmm… Hey wait just a goddamned minute. Let’s think about this. As an even casual reader of history knows, time and time again humanity plunged into these degeneracies often holding the banner of God’s word high as they rode down all those uncounted multitudes. Exactly what symbol were they carrying as they mangled their way through the Aztecs and Inca empires? What legal statutes did they hold supreme as they enslaved and conquered vast stretches of Africa, the Americas, and Australia? When brother fought brother in the American or English civil wars, what ten principles were they heeding as they bayoneted and shot each other a with such vicious abandon? Thou shall not kill???
My ass!
Simply using history, one could argue the poor efficacy of this “vital’ document in controlling our baser instincts. Come on people! Have you ever genuinely read this Decalogue of human restriction? I mean really read it? The entire first four are all for the glory of a jealous God. Well, you may think that he gets four, but at least we get the other six. Not quite, for it’s a bit deeper than that. Are you aware that those first four cover 34 lines of my translation, 34 lines telling us to put God above all else or he will crush both you and you descendants. Moses made damn sure that he and his “God” were well represented, here. In contrast, the succeeding six Commandments use up only 13 lines. 13??? A baker’s dozen lines of poor prose are the entire basis for all western law? Honestly? C’mon people! They’re mere afterthoughts rather than anything serious. Thou shall not covet thy neighbors donkey? Are you frakking kidding? This ranks above slavery and child molestation, wife beating and rape, torture and oppression? What kind of frakked up world do we live in if these are the ten most important commands?
Distinguished against their predecessors, Hammurabi’s codes written a millennium before, the Ten Commandments come out as a rather pathetic imitation. Though, it is true, there are more rules and restrictions throughout the rest of the book and perhaps these need to be taken as a whole, these are the ones they al want in every classroom. A lack-of-God-knows that every six year old in kindergarden is in serious danger of coveting his neighbors wife. When we finally reach the end of Exodus, ( Is it just me or is it taking a really long time to get through this?) I think it may behoove us to do a rough comparison between the two more complete sets of laws Hammurabi’s and Moses’. We’ll see who comes out lacking.
Furthermore, most people aren’t aware of this, but there isn’t even an agreement on which ten are the actual commandments. Some groups combine certain commandments to make their ten, while other groups combine different ones. Here, look at this table from Wikipedia.
There are many disagreements even as to the numbering, and you all know what the Young Earth Creationists taught us about any disagreements among the experts when they were arguing against evolution — disagreement means the entire theory is invalid. Right? Hmm… They just may be on to something there.
At any rate, we are going to go into these in some depth over the next two posts. First, we’ll cover the God Commandments, the first four according to the fundies. After that we’ll get into the purely human restrictions against ass-coveting and others. This, my fine friends, is going to be a ball.
Just don’t be looking covetously at my ass, I mean, donkey!
Ah, hell! I’ve changed my mind. Go right ahead.
And don’t forget that it was a whole different list of rules which were officially called the ten commandments, including the one about not cooking a kid in its mother’s milk.
Hey KK, nice ass!
Danu said: “Hey KK, nice ass!”
Ow! I fell off my chair!:))
I have always been a bit confused about the way christians will say the laws and commandments of the OT no longer apply but the ten here. I know some of them do still hold to a few of the others but those are only when it seems to be to their advantage or will gain them some kind of power over others. I would really like to better understand their reasoning on this pick and chose style.
It’s quite simple.
Anything that sounds nice, warm and fuzzy is fine.
Anything nasty, mean-sounding, or kinda ‘yukky’ is quite obviously being taken totally out of context.
Thank you for enjoying this FREE SAMPLE Divinity lesson. For further information on courses, or to receive your PhD by return of post, please send cheques or money-orders to: Daz’s School Of Divinity, Goshwhatta College, UK.
Do we send S.A.S.E. for that? And is overnight delivery available?:)) (Daz, you funny guy!)
Note how the sixth commandment was changed from “thou shall not kill” to “thou shall not murder”.
I had a discussion with a believer about morality and I raised the subject of the sixth commandment. He quickly and firmly state that the commandment is “thou shall not murder”, not “thou shall not kill”. (Implying it is ok to kill with biblical sanctions)
So I asked him if he would kill me and rape my wife and daughters if the good lord asks him to. He smiled and said it would not come to that. The word “yet” seems to hang in the air.
So the rampage through the americas and the civil wars all have good biblical justifications.
A Jehovah’s Witness friend explained to me once (in all seriousness) that the tenth commandment–you know, the one about not coveting your your neighbor’s slave nor wife nor ox nor ass–was the commandment that *proved* that the commandments were written by Jehovah God.
I was all–”Really? Why is that?”
“Because how could any person know whether you’re coveting or not?”…came the reply. “Nobody can! Only someone who can see inside your heart could know that!”
I forebore pointing out that cardiologists and neurologists do just that.
“So only Jehovah can see what’s in your heart–and only Jehovah can judge if you’re coveting or not! So, it must have been written by Jehovah!” she wound up triumphantly.
Well… it’s not *quite* and “if she weighs the same as a duck..” type of argument, but it’s not far off.
Since I usually prefer to keep my own counsel, I just nodded and said, “Hmmmm.,” as though deep in contemplation of this evidential bombshell. At that point, I hadn’t read Hitchen’s book. If I had, I’d have pulled out his counterargument (if the foregoing can be said to *be* an argument) that this is also the commandment which clearly condones slavery. No coveting somebody’s manservant, no, nor maidservant either, and wives in with the rest of the chattel. Does anybody else think that this would have been a convenient place for Yahweh to *forbid* slavery?
And nevermind that the Jehovah’s Witnesses–along with the rest of christendom–trumpet to the skies the 10 Commandments as the giddy height of moral reasoning…only to ignore *completely* the prescribed punishments for breaking those commandments listed on the Very. Next. Page.
Thangs that make ya go Hmmmmm….
I don’t remember seeing any “thou”s in my NASB. Did you revert to the KJV again, or are we still using the Zondervan one you discussed previously?
Oh! Mr. Hubbo, I hope all is going well for you–I read on your blog that you’d had a *terrible* week, with awful back pain and your car broken into. I’m was so sorry to hear about that. And you have a little one, too:( How is your back? Did you ever find out what caused the pain?
(You guys! Poor Mr. Hubbo had back pain so bad he was throwing up, he said on his blog. And he has a little one under a year old! Send him some sympathy, please!:))
I think KK is probably using KJV for the 10 commandments , since it’s the version everyone knows the best. (or?)
Thanks for the well wishes, guys. I actually had another bout with the back pain that was bad enough for a midnight trip to the ER about 2 weeks ago. No idea what caused the pain; the doctor diagnosed it as dehydration (of course I was dehydrated; I vomited up any liquid in my stomach).
As to the KJV, I would caution against using that one as your primary source of study, as it is partially a translation of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, which has several errors in it. For instance, Jerome’s version says that Moses had horns, because he mistranslated the Hebrew word.
KK’s move the NASB is a good one, because it is more reliable since the creators of this translation went back to the earliest manuscripts in each of the original languages for the most accurate translation possible. That’s where the differences in words like “kill” and “murder” become that much more important. So I hope the NASB is what is used for the next two posts. I will look on with interest, to be sure.
Best to all.
Mr. Hubbo. I assure you, I have not returned to the King James. I just see it as the most poetic and beautiful translation and one that is so inpregnated into our literary culture and western society in general. While I stick with the NASB fully, my heart is drawn into yesterday’s world of the KJV, the sheer history it has influenced. I understand that the NASB is more accurate by far, but it has not the beauty of the King James. It simply cannot compete. I feel we have given up a vast sense of artist appreciation for accuracy. And since I’m an atheist and have no belief in this as anything other than a work of art, this is like continually retouching the Mona Lisa to make her more photorealistic. We can do it, but at what cost! Sigh.
Just wondering, as a layman so to speak, how huge are the differences between the various versions? Are we talking radically changed passages, or just the odd word here & there? Over-all I mean, not just in the decalogue.
KK, I agree with you on some level. You are right that the artistic and poetic form of the KJV far exceeds any translation in this way (except perhaps the Message, which as a Christian I can tell you is dangerous to use as your sole translation, as guys like Joel Osteen do).
The reason I hope you continue to use the NASB is of its accuracy, as well as its relatability to readers who have not heard the words before, particularly a younger audience. They might at least understand your perspectives better if they’re not held up on the “thou shalt” and “thy bosom” parts of the text.
Daz, as a whole the translations are not particularly different. I noted a couple above here in my response to Amy. However, some of the wordings in translations like the NASB, NIV, NLT and HCSB are more precise, because like any language a word can translate into multiple words in different languages. That becomes important when you understand the difference between “kill” and “murder” in English, so it’s important to be as true to the original text as possible. The translations I listed above all went back to the earliest manuscripts available, whereas the KJV was partially taken from Jerome; this gives the other translations more validity, though at the cost of the beautiful language.
Let me offer one more example, if I may. I saw your blog on the amount of water needed to cover the earth, and your reference to Genesis 7:20 of the KJV: “Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.” This makes it seem as though the water rose 15 cubits from the ground, so as you took it this way, it’s not surprising or necessarily wrong of you to do so. However, if we look at the more accurate NIV, we get this: “The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.” It doesn’t change your calculations at all, but it does change your perspective on the accuracy of the text.
So it’s these kinds of things that I think are important to look at. A legitimate Bible student really never uses only one translation, because as we can see, one translation can be misleading. The NASB is better than most, but it would still be worth it to reference some of the other translations, or even an Inter-Linear Bible if you can get your hands on one. Good question!
Mr. Hubbo. The entire point to using the NASB is to take the same literalist view as the fundamentalists and poke what holes in the world view as I may. This is likely one of the best versions for a literal translation as to what the Hebrews really meant, or at least, at to what the modern fundamentalists think they meant. More accurate or not, the KJV’s influence on history and culture far outweighs any other version’s. To put it bluntly, our culture is built layer by layer around this document as an art form much the way the ancient Greek culture was built layer by layer over the works of Homer. No matter where they went, he was always at their core.
The KJV lies at the heart of our culture the same way, and beautiful it can be. My problem with any literal interpretation is that it strips the beauty from the artwork and demands that the hard and unyielding skeleton be our culture’s heart now. I must reject the very idea. The stories can be wonderful… as stories. As reality unfortunately, they become squalid and cruel.
I do use several translations. I have several in my house but YouVersion.com gives so many more in a parallel format that it’s hard to beat. I’ll look at the others.
Thanks Mr Hubbo. I’d never claim to be a student, let alone a serious one, of the book but I did once work my way through an old KJV inherited from my grandfather. (Now gone — it was falling apart when I got it, and it didn’t survive the reading process.) These days I tend to use biblegateway.com and click through several versions if I need to look up a passage. They have a nice simple drop-down menu to allow this without the user having to trawl through lots of navigation, plus clear footnotes showing ambiguities. I recommend it.
I read a decent book on the subject, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed The Bible And Why, by Bart D. Ehrman, a while back, but details tend to elude me on first reading, so it’s awaiting its second go around sometime in the next few months.
I use Bible Gateway all the time as well. Very conducive to sifting through various translations.
Might I also recommend biblestudytools.com? There you can also go through the various translations, but it also has Strong’s Concordance so you can look up a word and find the original Hebrew or Greek word and its definition, as well as where it is in other parts of the Bible.
For instance, since the word “murder” is likely to be a hot topic of discussion in the next couple of posts. I looked up that word and went to the Strong’s Concordance link to the original Hebrew of that word. It also tells me that the same Hebrew word is used 40 times in the Old Testament and where those are. I clicked on one instance at random (Hosea 6:9), and here’s what I got: “And as raiders wait for a man, So a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem ; Surely they have committed crime.” So it helps provide context for the word by showing how it is used throughout the Bible. This is the beginning of what I meant in previous posts when I talked about objective hermeneutics.
So if you ever have any interest in studying in-depth what some of these words and passages mean, this is also a good tool. I’m sure I’ll be referencing it from time to time here as well.
Mr Hubbo, looks like you’ve had a bad time. Please accept my sympathies. You didn’t mention in your blog that you’d seen a doctor, and the wording seemed to indicate that you did your best to ignore it, rather than do so. (If you did see a doc, please ignore…) Any pain that’s bad enough to cause you to vomit is a serious thing. I really urge you to seek medical advice.
Amy, of course S.A.S.E. I have your doctorate ready to print btw, apart from the subject. What discipline did you say you wanted it in? Physics is going cheap at the moment, or there’s a BOGOF on media studies, holistic homoeopathy, comparative basket-weaving and intelligent design.
Oh–the BOGOF:)) Does that include Early Astrology, too:)
KK–go for the Code of Hammurabi vs. 10 Commandments! Do you have time for that?
O.M.G.–I can’t believe I *just now* noticed that the header photo is Mel Brooks–love that movie!
Sorry, we used our quota of Early Astrology. I can offer Comparative Astrology; it’s exactly the same, but includes a few hastily-added chapters on non-Afro/European nutters.
Ah, yes, Mel Brookes. Where he drops the other commandments. That would explain the confusion over just what the actual 10 are!
Another interesting thing, KK, is that we keep getting told they’re the basis of all modern law-systems. If you actually look at them only murder and theft are, under criminal law, and adultery (originally defined as a woman having ‘relations’ with a man other than her husband, btw) is the basis for divorce, which is a civil matter. There goes another oft-repeated fallacy…
@Mr. Hubbo– *mercy!* Mr. Hubbo, please please tell me you have been evaluated by your regular doctor and not just that ER doc who was clearly clueless. If the pain comes back, promise you’ll go to your regular doctor if you haven’t been already!
Yep. Doctor said that these sort of things “just happen from time to time.” I think it’s bunk, but oh well. If it comes back, I’ll make ‘em give me more morphine. That stuff makes you feel all warm inside.
Mr Hubbo. Dehydration??? What Amy said, and doubled!
Amy, I forgot to tell you about the Bryson book.At Home: A Short History of Private Life. I’m only 150 or so pages in, but already We’ve he’s covered subjects ranging from the development of agriculture to the whale-oil boom and the treatment of servants. And did you know (I didn’t) that the reason you see so many aspidistras in the background of Victorian photos is that it was just about the only indoor plant that could survive the fumes from gas-lights? It’s great stuff.
*sigh* want, want want…
Hey I’ve seen your reading list. How d’you think I feel? The worst part was waiting for my sister to get through with it. Though to be fair, I had her copy of Unseen Academicals for just as long.
In the meantime, I can report that I’m now half way through and if anything it’s getting even better…
*ducks and runs*
It’s time us humans dropped the holier-than-thou pretense that we’re moral beings, whether it be because of some commandments written by a non-existent deity or because of our well-developed sense of right and wrong. Sure, we have a soft spot for babies and puppies and sometimes even members of our immediate family and one or two close friends. The thing that really keeps us from theft, murder, and general mayhem, though, is the threat of being thrown in the slammer with its promise of abuse and deprivation.
The fact that we’ve set up institutions to make that threat says something about better us as a species. But how many police officers are there per capita in even the most highly policed countries? Not many, yet we still choose to obey those laws. If we all decided not to, there’s not a thing they could do, yet we don’t. Enlightened Self Interest, my friend. It’s in my interest not to promote disorder because I know it breeds more disorder, which will backfire on me. In fact it’s in my interest to do good deeds and fit in, for the most part, because that increases my chances of finding a breeding partner. You should read Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene.
You have to remember that living in groups larger than a tribe or extended family is a new thing, a few thousand years. Give it long enough and I suspect we’ll evolve a behavioural pattern for larger groups.
about better???
I’m sure you know what I meant.
A fellow blogger here, found your site via Fork, and I have a piece of advice: write more.
Honestly, it looks as if you depended on the clip to make
your point. You definitely understand what you’re talking about, so why waste your intelligence merely putting up videos to your blog when you could be providing us with something insightful to read?