Which 10 Commandments?

Most Christians believe the Decalogue (10 Commandments) are the basis of all ethics and must be followed at all costs, but I wonder how carefully they’ve examined them. There are two sets. Exodus 20 says the Lord wrote them on two stone tablets:
1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

6. You shall not kill.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet.

However, because the Israelites chose to worship the golden calf, Moses smashed the tablets. (Exodus 32:19). The Lord agreed to write them again so Moses brought two blank tablets to the mountain and the Lord wrote the 10 Commandments again (Exodus 34). This time they read as follows:

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).

2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.

4. All the first-born are mine.

5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.

6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.

8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.

9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.

It would seem that the Lord superceded the first set with the second, so Christians should be following those rather than the first, shouldn’t they?

[Let's stick to the topic rather than telling us why we should or shouldn't believe in god, or that we should or shouldn't.]

Occam

Wow! Occam this post just made my head spin. I haven't read the commandments in a while, but I totally forgot there were two sets.

Now this certainly is a puzzle, which one of the two are people supposed to follow? I've been told all my life that it's the first set, the smashed set, that is the set that counts.

I would be extremely interested to hear from anyone who has a deep knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church how the first one was chosen over the second one. Was it done at the Council of Nicea?

But this is an example of one problem that bothers me about some sects of Christianity: how is it that they can pick and choose what is appropriate and what is not to take from the Bible to live by? Is there a set of rules somewhere about what can be eliminated? There are an awful lot of horrible admonitions and instructions in the book of Deuteronomy.

BTW the commandment that the first-born is god's: Is this a call to sacrifice one's first child on an altar? Give them to the church? Cast them upon the waters? It is very open to interpretation.

[edit on 15-5-2007 by MajorMalfunction]

Well...I have no deep knowledge of this but I am going to research it. That is very interesting.
As far as the first born Abraham was willing to give his first born to God literally. I believe its not sacrificing literally but, figurativly maybe. Like I said im definitly going to research this I like this thread Occam.

God Bless

I'll try to fit in a little research of my own. I'm interested to see what can be come up with on this topic.

There are hundreds of commandments in the Bible. These are not moral guides but literal commands. In one place God commands not to kill, and in another he commands to kill. Stop, go, stop again. In the bible, killing is not "wrong" or "immoral" and you would be hard pressed to find such a Scripture. It is against God's Will and that is how Sin is defined.

And whenever God commands to kill, he commands to kill ALL (genocide) so that the killing is completed and will stop and not start again. Are there any groups of people today calling themselves a group that was commanded to be killed in the Bible? If there were, some group of nuts would be saying, "It's says right thar in Scripture to kill these here folks, so lets kills us sum!"

Interesting. So far I found a site that lists the Ten Commandments, but aside from the two sets of tablets that Occam mentioned, there are three separate lists of modern commandments, those of the Hebrews, the Protestants and the Catholics.

Curiouser and curiouser.

If anyone wants to see the lists they are at:

www.positiveatheism.org...

Don't let the name of the URL throw you off.

Before I go researching, something came to mind are these Commandments or, are these instructions that God is giving Moses?
I mean it sounds as if he made the new stone tablets as the first ones. Then, He told Moses about starting a covenant with Him so they dont take up what the inhabitants of the land partake in. You see where im coming from?

Exodus 34:11-12 " Observe what I command you today. I am going to drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, (or Girga#es) and Jebusites. Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land that you are going to enter; otherwise, they will become a snare among you. "

Do you see what im saying?

God bless

[edit on 16-5-2007 by followerofchrist]

[edit on 16-5-2007 by followerofchrist]

Originally posted by Occam
Most Christians believe the Decalogue (10 Commandments) are the basis of all ethics and must be followed at all costs, but I wonder how carefully they’ve examined them. There are two sets. Exodus 20 says the Lord wrote them on two stone tablets:
1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

6. You shall not kill.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet.

However, because the Israelites chose to worship the golden calf, Moses smashed the tablets. (Exodus 32:19). The Lord agreed to write them again so Moses brought two blank tablets to the mountain and the Lord wrote the 10 Commandments again (Exodus 34). This time they read as follows:

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).

2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.

4. All the first-born are mine.

5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.

6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.

8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.

9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.

It would seem that the Lord superceded the first set with the second, so Christians should be following those rather than the first, shouldn’t they?

[Let's stick to the topic rather than telling us why we should or shouldn't believe in god, or that we should or shouldn't.]

Occam

Ok The first set is whats in the Bible now. So I assume the second set was actually the first set that got smashed.

lol Did you get that?

The second set seems confusing- That set I haven't seen before.

[edit on 5/16/2007 by Leyla]

Yes they were exactly as the first set. I am interested to see what others think on this " highly debatable" topic.

God bless

First, I suggest you go to a copy of the old testament and read the the sections I referenced and the sections immediately before and after them so you don't have to make assumptions without being sure of yourself.

Second, Follorofchrist, as you quoted, "Observe what I command you today." That pretty well says they are Commandments, not just instructions.

Third, no, Leyla, the ones we see published widely are the ones that got smashed. The second set is what god replaced the first set with. My question is, shouldn't we be commanded to follow the second set rather than the first set?

Fourth, MajorMalfunction, you raise a good point. The Catholics, the Jews, and various Protestant sects all have different versions of the Decalogue. Since Moslems also have some connection with the old testament (I don't know how much), it would be interesting to see if they have a version that is also different from the others. Oh, and we should check to see what the Mormon version is.

Occam

Sorry, had to edit to correct a typo in my screen name.


[edit on 16-5-2007 by Occam]

Have ye not read the Word of God where it says that
"You must love the Lord thy God with all thy strength, all thy heart and all thy mind, And you must love your neigbour as Yourself."
"All the commandents rest on these two."
And thats the Word

Could you give the concordance for these statements so we can read them in context?

Occam

OK I'm in researching mode. This is fun!

Here is a bit about the commandments in Islam:

The Qur'an appears to refer to the Decalogue and to urge that they be followed; however it does not contain the actual text:

007.145 "And We ordained laws for him in the tablets in all matters, both commanding and explaining all things, (and said): 'Take and hold these with firmness, and enjoin thy people to hold fast by the best in the precepts'..."

Although it does not contain the Decalogue as a unit, phrases throughout the Qur'an are very similar to the Ten Commandments.

The comparison can be seen at this site.

More factoids: the Hebrew 10 Commandments at the Positive Athiesm site is exactly the same as the commandments in Deuteronomy 5: 6-21.

So there are now THREE sets of Commandments in the Christian Bible.

I'm looking into the Mormon ones. I had a friend who was Mormon and gave me the Book of Mormon one year, but I don't think I have it anymore. I'll check online for it.

Edit: The Mormons appear to use the Exodus ones that other Christians use, though I'm not wading through the online Book of Mormon to find out which of the three Old Testament versions they favor.

The Book of Mormon

[edit on 16-5-2007 by MajorMalfunction]

Like I said, and Yeshua taught, Only Two Commandments.
Honour and Love God
Love thy Neighbour
very simple.

And I'll reiterate my request. Did you just make those statements up, or can you give a specific reference in the bible where they are?

Occam

Originally posted by Occam
And I'll reiterate my request. Did you just make those statements up, or can you give a specific reference in the bible where they are?

Occam

It's in Matthew 22:34-40.

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Was it done at the Council of Nicea?

Personally I don't know, but I'm glad you brought Nicea up. This was the Council of SATAN lolz. Seriously.. like, this is where Catholicism took the certain books out of the Bible, making them Apocryphal, and declaring some Heresy. And they denounced my main man Arius, who's Arianism Sect was very prominent in those days. It still rings true on alot of points. Mainly that Jesus Christ was just a man of flesh and bone and all powers granted to him were done so by the one God, the most high, YHWH. This is Arianism. Not Aryanism, which is the racist ideaology.
Wikipedia's Article on Arianism

But this is an example of one problem that bothers me about some sects of Christianity: how is it that they can pick and choose what is appropriate and what is not to take from the Bible to live by? Is there a set of rules somewhere about what can be eliminated? There are an awful lot of horrible admonitions and instructions in the book of Deuteronomy.

That's what gets me too. How can these Churchs, Sects, Denominations decide that they have the power and authority, on themselves, to take and modify these works? To leave some out, add others, and to sort them in a certain order? And to rewrite them with different interpretations of words? And to change the role of a woman in the Church? All of it, done by man with motive, which was other than Holy. The Book of Deuteronomy is more of an Orthodox Judaism reference because thats what they (Moses' and gang) were basically practicing. The sacrifices, the killing of an animal to God, that was a product of the times and the primitive peoples. At least they didnt sacrifice babies to Baal like the Phoenicians and Babylonians, lol.

Also, Deuteronomy has alot of what I call "Divine Combat" lol, or war made in the name of God. Not Jihad though, this is a biblical thing, only in the Old Testament at that. So I guess its more of a Jewish thing then huh? lol, considering the Old Testament is basically the Torah. Theres alot of parts in the book where they are driving the inhabitants of Canaan out of the land by force, and they do slaughter some women and children, and loot and plunder cities harshly. But again I say, this was a product of the times. Peoples of that era commonly killed all survivors of their enemy after an attack or after a protracted siege on a town. The Jews should've done better I think, but I'm thinking they had a phobia of these people because they worshipped what the Jews thought of as evil deities, or false deities, like Baal. So surely they couldn't keep the women, for they would make bad seed. And surely they cant keep the children, for they WERE bad seed.

BTW the commandment that the first-born is god's: Is this a call to sacrifice one's first child on an altar? Give them to the church? Cast them upon the waters? It is very open to interpretation.

Nah, I do not think so. I think that commandment means that the first-born sibling in each family should be given to the Temple for learning, so that they can do God's work foremost. I could be very much wrong, But there were people, specifically children, that were handed over to the Temple for a certain period of time to study and then do certain duties and religious rites.. I could be wrong on this.

Originally posted by Columbus
There are hundreds of commandments in the Bible. These are not moral guides but literal commands. In one place God commands not to kill, and in another he commands to kill. Stop, go, stop again. In the bible, killing is not "wrong" or "immoral" and you would be hard pressed to find such a Scripture. It is against God's Will and that is how Sin is defined.

Pretty much. But you take it a tiny bit too far. It was specifically the Jews, and it's in their Holy Book of stories, which is coincidentally the same as the Old Testament Bible. Plus I mean ...it was Canaan and all.. the land of milk n honey, the promised land, I mean .. had they not slain and killed everyone there, would they have ever truly made the place their own?

Well that can be debated to this day. Lol..

I'm just saying that the main messed up things in the Bibe, one being that it promotes killing people in Deuteronomy, one of the others being that Polygamy and Incest are promoted in Genesis, and the last main instance, where hundreds of seemingly random yet intricately strange rules are listed in Leviticus. The funny thing is, 99% of anti-bible propaganda goes after something in one of those 3 books, guaranteed. And its funny and tragic @ the same time b/c .. Jesus specifically taught that Leviticus was not to be followed and also broke the rules on the Jewish Sabbath day routinely, a big no no in Leviticus. Leviticus is the book that contains hundreds of seemingly random things to NOT do, like wearing threaded fibers in your clothes, to not eating a land animal wthout hooves (cats, dogs, ne thing else w/out hooves).

Then we have Genesis which is a creation story and yet, we have zero evidence of the original adam OR eve. Not saying they didnt exist, just maybe not in the way depicted.

And Deuteronomy, Moses' book. A book of conflicts and divine warfare with "God on your side!" soto speak. Invoking God's prescense for the purposes of warfare.

These are the 3 big dummbies, and I can't defend them beyond the basics..

:shk:

Originally posted by jimboman

Originally posted by Occam
And I'll reiterate my request. Did you just make those statements up, or can you give a specific reference in the bible where they are?

Occam

It's in Matthew 22:34-40.

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

I never thought your question was directed at me.
I could not believe that someone who was in this discussion actually had never heard what I said or read it in the bible if there talking about the ten commandments...unless your jewish and dont take Yeshua as the messiah...but otherwise WOW