Friday, November 19, 2010

How to Break the Ten Commandments, Part 1 of 2

World's Largest Ten Commandments, North Carolina
This week in Cape Coral, Florida the news about the city council focused not on roads, economic development or the homeless in the community.  Instead news organizations reported on a proposal to erect a monument of the Ten Commandments.  Apparently residents urged Mayor John Sullivan to make the suggestion.  The Mayor explained that America’s core values are reflected in the Exodus laws and they need to be replicated in Cape Coral.  Aware of challenges across the country to similar efforts, most council members indicated that they will reject the proposal in a future vote. [1]  But the laws from an ancient Middle-Eastern culture have become icons in the United States.  Judges have defended and rejected monuments based on sources of funding, locations and the nature of accompanying memorials.  Some American churches celebrate the first Sunday in May as Ten Commandments Day.

Americans, as a whole, do not understand the Ten Commandments.  In 1977, Eric Butterworth wrote a book with the controversial title How to Break the Ten Commandments.  The book explores ideas about contemporary living with the commandments as wisdom.  But there are actually three, yes three, sets of Ten Commandments in the Hebrew Scriptures and they are DIFFERENT!  So which laws are to be followed?  What do these different ancient traditional rules mean to us today?  What about all 613 Jewish laws?  Are we to disregard the commandments from Exodus 34 about the feast of the unleavened bread or outlawing covenants with foreigners?  How do we rise above the preventions of Exodus 20, the most popular list in contemporary society, to principles and practices of universal love?


Richard Elliott Friedman, author of Who Wrote the Bible?, describes recent scholarship on biblical texts and authorship.  Today many academic scholars subscribe to the view that four authors wrote the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers.  The authors are distinguished in the text by their styles and points of view.  The J writer (950 BCE) used the word Jahweh or Yahweh for God and lived in the southern Kingdom of Judah.  The writer had little moral sense, but overwhelming loyalty to the tribe.  The E writer (850 BCE) used the word Elohim for God and lived in the Kingdom of Israel in the north.  This writer focused on magical or miraculous stories.  The D or Deuteronomical writer (600 BCE) wrote Deuteronomy and Numbers.  The P or Priestly writer (500 BCE) developed new religious rules.  Some scholars also suggest that this writer redacted, rewrote and arranged the Biblical stories in the order we find them.  The variant Ten Commandments reflect the different perspectives of these writers.
Consider two of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 34: “You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. . .” and “You shall not boil a kid (goat) in its mother’s milk.”  Both are likely from the J writer (950 BCE).  But, the words from seven out of ten laws in Exodus 34 are not found in the now popular version from Exodus 20.  Friedman proposes that Exodus 20 was written by the E writer (850 BCE) and edited by the P or Priestly writer (500 BCE).  This version appears to be more ethical and written from a different consciousness.  The priests further elaborated on these laws in the book of Leviticus.  The Ten Commandments of Exodus 20 are echoed in Deuteronomy 4, with minor differences (600 BCE).

It is said of Jesus that he encouraged people to follow the law as good Jews.  Butterworth suggests that Jesus also encouraged the “dissolving the crystallized form” of the law and moving to spiritual principles.  When challenged by critics to name the most important commandment, Jesus answered: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  This is the greatest and first commandments.  On these two commandment hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:38-40).'" Next, I will write about Butterworth's exploration of the Ten Commandments and their role as solutions for contemporary life.

[1]
http://www.news-press.com/article/20101116/NEWS0101/11160359/1003/ACC/Cape-Coral-council-wary-of-Ten-Commandments-proposal

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