How convenient.
Of course, I'm one of those disbelievers, and this series is about how I, an agnostic, look at the Bible. I don't believe that it was dictated, or even inspired, by God, or any other permutation of the idea that it's "The Truth". I'm just looking at it like I'd look at any other piece of literature. Viewed in that light, it's confusing.
One of the sources of confusion is the dichotomy between the "Old Testament", aka The Hebrew or Jewish scriptures, and the "New Testament", aka the Gospels and the Epistles. The Old Testament is without question written for the Jewish people. The New Testament is more universal in who it's intended for. The Old Testament describes God in starkly different terms than does most of the New Testament. Most Christians ignore this difference, pretending that it's not there. Although there is a subset of Christian theology called dispensationalism which explains the difference by theorizing that God has different "dispensations", or administrations, where the rules of the game change. It's obvious that the institution of the Law of Moses changed the ground rules that existed before, and that Jesus' life, death and resurrection represented a further change. The Book of Revelation is without question a different milieu than the world as we know it, ending with a still different new Heaven and Earth. Dispensationalists can be thanked (or blamed) for the popular belief in "the rapture". An early Christian movement, founded by Marcion, believed that the differences were so great that the Old Testament God was a different God than the God of Jesus. So it comes down to either explaining away the differences in a pretzel-like manner, or just ignoring them.
Another dichotomy in the New Testament is between the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul. Jesus was primarily concerned with action, while Paul was mainly concerned with belief. Even though each of the four Gospels has a different emphasis, and even contradict each other, Jesus isn't telling people to simply believe, he's always talking about how one should behave oneself. Paul on the other hand, while he does touch on a few things to do and not do, it's all in the head - it's believing in Jesus, believing that he was raised from the dead and so on.
The epistles of Paul are not an instruction manual on how to be a Christian, they're mostly in the form of letters addressing specific problems that various church communities were having. There's not a lot of internal inconsistency within the Pauline letters, but there's no definitive listing of doctrine and practice. The Catholic/Orthodox traditions tell their people to not worry about it, the leaders will tell you how to act and think. The Protestant traditions do that too, while maintaining the illusion that their people can see what the Bible teaches for themselves...as long as it agrees with what the leaders say it means. For any doctrinal position it's typical to jump from section to section and book to book putting together a supposedly coherent position, because you won't find it clearly delineated in any one place.
What about the Ten Commandments? Isn't that a list telling us how to act? Yes and no. Yes, in that it's a list in the Bible. No - for several reasons. If we're taking the dispensationalist position that the Old Testament was for the Jews and not written to The Church, why would we pay it any attention? If we are supposed to heed the "Ten Commandments", why not the other hundreds of commandments? Like the ones involving dietary and grooming rules. Or the ones that allow slavery or that a woman marry her rapist. Quite a quandary. But what most people do not realize that no matter what position you take, there are two contradictory versions of the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words) in the Book of Exodus:
https://contradictionsinthebible.com/2-ten-commandments/
Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17)
1. I am Yahweh your god; you shall not have other gods before my face!
2. You shall not make for yourself a statue or an image.
3. You shall not swear falsely by the name Yahweh, your
god
4. Remember the Sabbath day.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
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 you neighbor’s house.
Ten Commandments (Ex 34:14-26)
1. You shall not bow down to another god; for Yahweh is a jealous god!
2. You shall not make molten gods for yourself.
3. You shall observe the festival of Unleavened bread.
4. You shall redeem every first born of your sons!
5. You shall observe the Sabbath.
6. You shall make a festival of Weeks.
7. Three times a year every male shall appear before
Yahweh, god of Israel.
8. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice on
leavened bread.
9. You shall bring the firstfruits of your land to the
house of Yahweh your god.
10. You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.
So, which version do you want to follow? Or post in your classrooms?
In addition to the fact that there are two distinct and clearly contradictory versions of The Ten Commandments right there in the text of the Bible, the way that the first, more popular version, is interpreted varies depending on the church tradition or denomination, there are eight distinct traditions or versions which divide the seven verses in Exodus differently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
- Septuagint
- Reformed Protestantism
- Ashburnham Pentateuch
- Talmud
- Samaritan Pentateuch
- Augustine
- Roman Catholicism
- Lutherans
Almost all (7 of 8) agree that the first commandment is "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me", one makes it the second, counting the prologue "I am the Lord your God" as the first
Some (4 of 8) count "You Shall Not Have False Idols" or "Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee a Graven Image" as the second commandment, two other combine this with the first and call it the first
The next few have 4 of 8 agreeing, while the other 4 are one step behind:
"You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain" is third/second commandment
"Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy" is the fourth/third commandment
"Honor Thy Father and Mother" is the fifth/fourth commandment
"Thou Shalt Not Kill" is the sixth/fifth, although one version counts it as the eighth commandment
"Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" is the seventh/sixth commandment, although since one source reverses this and the previous command, it is 3 for seventh and 5 for sixth
"Thou Shalt Not Steal" is eighth/seventh commandment
"Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (Lie?) Against Thy Neighbor" is ninth/eighth
"Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House" is 7 for the tenth commandment (some combined with the following) and 1 for the ninth
"Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" 5 of 8 combine it with the previous for tenth commandment and three call it the ninth
"Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Stuff" - all call but one it the tenth combined with either one or two of the previous.
The one exception adds "You Shall Set Up These Stones, Which I Command You Today, on Mount Argarizem" and combines all the "covets" as the ninth commandment
(4 of 8 combine all 3 "covets" into #10, 3 combine 2 of them in various ways)
Even though there are actually fourteen commandments, (if you count every one that at least one tradition considers a separate commandment), the Bible, just before the listing, specifically calls them ten commandments (or words, sayings, or matters), but does not clearly delineate where one "commandment" ends and another begins. Maybe whoever wrote it thought it would be obvious, or that it was unimportant. Here they are separated out and listed in order:
- I am the Lord your God
- You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me
- You Shall Not Have False Idols
- You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain
- Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy
- Honor Thy Father and Mother
- Thou Shalt Not Kill
- Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
- Thou Shalt Not Steal
- Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (Lie?) Against Thy Neighbor
- Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House
- Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife
- Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Stuff
- You Shall Set Up These Stones, Which I Command You Today, on Mount Argarizem
Periodically there are legal disputes about posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses and in government buildings. The rationale being that the commandments are all basic moral/ethical stuff and no one should have any problem with them, even if they did originate in a religious book. There are some problems with that position. Some of them are hard core religious and not just "do unto others..." stuff.
The first three to five, depending on how you're counting, address who you should be worshipping, when you should do it, and how you should talk about the god who is the object of this worship. For anyone who worships a god different from the god of the bible, this is not something that they they would want to do and it certainly shouldn't be displayed in a government setting. If you think that the whole world, or at least the whole country, consists entirely of Christians and Jews (and depending on how you view Allah, Muslims), then you might have no problem with this. But that's not the reality - there's a large number of people who worship or honor different gods (or no gods at all) - in addition there's that pesky First Amendment.
The "covet" prohibitions are also problematic. Most people would agree in theory that these are things that you shouldn't do, but when you get down to it they are prohibitions against thought not actions. So once again, this comes down to strictly religious rules, not anything that could or should be encoded into secular law.
Honoring your parents (unless your parents are evil bastards), no stealing, lying, killing or cheating on your spouse...I'll give you those. The Five Commandments sounds okay.
Start at The Beginning: Part I
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