WTF's with the Ten Commandments?
Everybody knows the Ten CommandmentsTM, my dog knows the Ten CommandmentsTM . They're Christianity 101.
Just ask Judge Roy “Fuck-the-Law” Moore. He'll tell you all Ten of the Commands he thinks our laws are from, put up a 3 ton granite slab, and show you them right there in the Bible: Exodus 20:2-17.
Just ask Judge Roy “Fuck-the-Law” Moore. He'll tell you all Ten of the Commands he thinks our laws are from, put up a 3 ton granite slab, and show you them right there in the Bible: Exodus 20:2-17.
Trouble is, those aren't the Ten Commandments.
The only “Ten Commandments” in the Bible are in Exodus 34:12-26.
Now, I'm reading Matthew, and I find out there's a third version.
1 do not murder
2 do not adulter
3 do not steal
4 do not lie
5 honor your parents
6 love your neighbor as yourself
7 sell your possessions and give to the poor
???
Why isn't there even one fundamentalist church out there that goes by Mathew's Seven Commandments? They could swear, work on Sunday and covet. Where's the downside?
With all these different versions floating around, I'd expect headlines like
Church of Exodus 34 burned by rioting mob of Exodus Twentiers
----or----
Couple Killed for Blasphemous Kid-Seething
Instead, 38,000 sects of Christians (plus Jewish, Moslem, and Weirdo ones) all agree on the same random, unsupported interpretation of this one thing. How is that possible? Are aliens out there, beaming down invisible Dogma-rays?
- The Bible says X, but somehow everybody just KNOWS that the bible says Y.
- The Bible says Exodus 34 is the Ten Commandments, but somehow everybody just KNOWS that Exodus 20 is.
- There's all these different versions, but somehow everybody just KNOWS which one is right. How?
When people don't agree on what it says, that makes sense, cuz really, fortune cookies are less vague. This is way stranger though, because here everybody does agree, and they agree that it says something that it doesn't say!
What “everybody knows” about the Ten Commandments doesn't come from the Bible, so where does it come from?
Something very strange is going on here.
Something very strange is going on here.
3 comments:
I think God is supposed to have done a rewrite in Exodus. Moses came down and saw everybody orgying out around an idol, and got so pissed off he broke the first tablets. Then he had to go back up the mountain and get them again.
There's a decalogue in Deuteronomy 5, too.
What drives me crazy is what "everybody knows" what the words "mean", and they "mean" something different than what they actually say. (Hand me that hookah, will you?) "Adultery" for example, does not mean breaking your marriage vows; it means "sex outside of marriage" - sex between unmarried people, sex between people who are not allowed to marry (gay, incest), sex with little kids... Notice the complete lack of meaningful distinction between ethical and unethical sexual conduct.
Another great example. I looked up 'adultery' in the dictionary, and in the original hebrew, got two different answers, neither one was the fundy one you cite.
So then I consulted the gods and learned the real meaning: "refuse to go down on your partner"
Oh, that's an excellent definition, and definitely belongs in any list of commandments.
But I'm dying to know what it is in Hebrew.
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