general_koffi

I was always under the impression that the official, genuine Ten Commandments were the ones listed in Exodus 20:2-7. Beginning with, "Worship no god but Me." and ending with, "Do not covert thy neighbor's goods".

This is the version I've always heard propagated by Protestants, Catholics and any other Christians who ever quote them.

However, I read a bit further into the Book of Exodus and I found something damn strange.

After Moses comes dowm from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments on tablets, he finds the Hebrews worshipping an idol and engaging in various unsavoury acts of sin. (Exodus 32: 7-19)

(Skip past Moses' pleas with the evidently enraged and psychotic Yahweh; it's interesting but not relevant to my particular point.)

Anyways, Yahweh eventually tells Moses to get another two stone tablets and to bring them back up the mountain. (Exodus: 34: 1-4)

Yahweh gives Moses another completely different set of commandments to write down on the tablets. They're listed in Exodus 34: 14-26. There are more than ten in my Bible, but I think older ones might only have ten. I have the Good News Bible.

Here's a summarized version of the GNB commandments:

1. Only worship Me
2. Do not sign treaties with any other nation
3. Do not make and worship gods of metal
4. Keep the Festival of the Unleavened Bread
5. Prevent any firstborn sons or animals from being bought by other peoples
6. No one is to appear before Me without an offering
7. Do not work on the Sabbath
8. Keep the Harvest Festival and the Festival of Shelters
9. All your men must come to worship Me three times annually
10. Do not offer Me bread with yeast with an animal sacrifice
11. Do not keep any leftovers of the Passover meal
12. Each year, bring to the house of the Lord the first corn of the harvest
13. (The best by far!): Do not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother's milk.

Aside from the 1st and 7th new commandments, these ones seem completely alien to me.

Is it just me, or is anyone else reacting with, "WTF?!!!"?

These are the "Ten Commandments" that God then proclaims to be the covenant. (Exodus 34:27-28)

These are the Ten Commandments that went into the Covenant Box which went with the Jewish people and ended up in King Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. The original set got destroyed by Moses and never replaced! How can anyone possibly claim that they are the "real" ten commandments?!

Comments, please. Maybe I've got my story back to front...

Rhaedas

It's right there in print, but any Christian will deny it. It doesn't fit in to their world view as well as the previous 10Cs.

It's about as pointless as arguing that there were more secular and real life applicable commandments before the bibilical ones.

John Kesler

This thread already discusses the Exodus 34 version. Perhaps the two threads can be merged?

B.S. Lewis

All Alabama judges should be allowed to choose whether they want to hang the Biblical commandments in their courtroom...but the catch is that they have to hang all twenty-one (would be twenty-three, but it looks like two of them overlap with the originals). That means "Do not cook a goat in its mothers milk" carved right into the wall with the rest of 'em.

Destronicus

This is the apologist explanation I've heard on more than one occasion: The 10C's we know today are the "real" commandments, and the 10C's that mention goat's milk are the "ritual ten commandments". I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean though. Also, if "Old Testament law doesn't apply anymore" as I've heard some Christians say, why follow any commandments at all?

Coragyps

It sounds so much more official if it's "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk." That's the way Moses really wrote it, y'know.

wei.

I think this is my favourite one. It’s funny.

I don’t have a copy of the bible but I do have a bookmarker with the 10 commandments written on it as a gift from a Christian.
I’m generally a bit confused, the 10 commandments seems a little more sensible than what you’ve summarized above.
Is it supposed to be an extension or a revision of the 10 commandments?
Why call it the 10 commandments if there are 13?

Which set are the official ones for the Jewish religion in Israel today?

general_koffi

Good question.

This is what apparently happened to the first set:

"Moses went back down the mountain carrying the two stone tablets with the commandments written on both sides. God Himself had made the tablets and had engraved the commandments on them.
Joshua heard the people shouting and said to Moses, 'I hear the sound of battle in the camp.'
Moses said, 'That doesn't sound like a shout of victory or a cry of defeat; it's the sound of singing.'
When Moses came close enough to the camp to see the bull calf and to see the people dancing, he was furious.
There, at the foot of the mountain, he threw down the tablets he was carrying and broke them." (Exodus 32: 15-19 GNB)

It should be noted that God was all for slaughtering the Hebrew people, but Moses literally managed to "change his mind" by reminding Him of his covenant to Abraham.

After a while, Moses went back up Mt. Sinai and received the second set. This is the set that was put into the Ark of The Covenant and sat in King Solomon's Temple in Jeruslem; apparently until its destruction by the Romans, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, the second set is the only set that ever made it out of the shadow of Mt. Sinai according to Exodus.

Very weird.

It does have a certain ring to it, I must admit. I didn't know Moses could write King James English, though... :Cheeky:

The Colourful Jester

Man, this is why I love coming to this site. You can learn new stuff like this everyday.

Though it now makes me wonder what the hell Cecil B DeMille was going on about in the trailer (9 minutes long) of his remake of The Ten Commandments.

Anat

In many synagogues, whether in Israel or abroad, one can find an artistic representation of tablets bearing the first few words of the Exodus 20 version of the commandments. However, they are not called 'commandments' but 'utterances'. The orthodox view is that God gave the Jews a total of 613 commandments, some of which happen to have been inscribed on tablets, but that does not give them special status with respect to the rest.

They are numbered slightly different from the Christian version: the first is the first half of 20:2 "I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
second - the rest of 20:2 till verse 5 "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. ... and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.

third 20:6 "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain."

fourth 20:7-10 "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.... wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

fifth 20:11 "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."

sixth "Thou shalt not murder."
seventh "Thou shalt not commit adultery. "
eighth "Thou shalt not steal."

nineth "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. "

tenth 20:13 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."