Thoughts On The Ten Commandments

Richard Stratton

The following is a summary of what I understand about the ten commandments after reading from the Jerusalem Bible.

The text that is presented to people by the more conservative Churches today is not the text that was etched into stone tablets by God. The text that is referred to is what God communicated to the people assembled at the foot of the mountain.

According to the Jerusalem Bible this is the priestly version of the commandments which are also found in Dt. Chapter 5.

Because of the fear the people had of god they commissioned Moses to communicate with god for them.

God then instructed Moses in the points of the law the people were to follow. These are more specific instructions called the Book Of The Covenant in which God was more detailed and specific about what God had communicated to the people earlier.

God then instructed Moses to come up to the mountain to receive the stone tablets that God had inscribed for their instruction.

After forty day and forty nights Moses came down from the mountain to find the people violating the instructions of God at which time Moses in a rage smashed the tablets God had provided for him. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates specifically what was written on the tablets.

After much intersession with God concerning the people God again invited Moses to cut two tablets and bring them to the mountain to be inscribed by God. In Chapter 34 of Exodus the bible is very specific about what was inscribed on the second set of tablets.

After a summary of the laws it ends with
“ He (God) inscribed on the tablets the words of the covenant – the Ten Words.”

These are the Ten Commandments that were placed in the Arc and held holy by the people.

There is a significant variance between these commandments and the ten commandments we attribute to the words of God today. What we hold holy today are words written by priests many years after the fact.

I personally feel we should move ahead a least 2,500 year and focus on what Christ had to say about how people should manage their lives. Christ taught us that we have only two rules we need to live by which will negate the need for hard and fast laws.

These rules are ‘Love and respect our creator’ and ‘Love and respect our neighbor’ or as Christ also put it ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

I believe we have the capacity for creativity and compassion imbedded in our soul. If we all allowed that to blossom, this world would be a great place to live for everyone.