The Real 10 Commandments

The Bible is full of commandments given by its god Yahweh but there is only one group of commandments that he specifically gives the title "The Ten Commandments" to and they are not what most Christians think they are. If you ask almost anyone to list The Ten Commandments they will try to recite a partial list found at Exodus 20:1-17 and repeated at Deuteronomy 5:6-21. However if one reads the Bible those commandments are never referred to as "The Ten Commandments" and according to Exodus they are not even on the stone tablets. They are just select commandments from a collection which Moses recited verbally to the people in Exodus.

In Exodus 24:12 Moses gets stone tablets.

In Exodus 32:19 Moses breaks the stone tablets before anyone else has a chance to read them.

In Exodus 34:1 Yahweh said to Moses, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke."

In Exodus 34:10-26 Yahweh says he is making a covenant with Moses then cites the commandments of the covenant.

In Exodus 34:27-28 Yahweh tells Moses to write down the commandments he just cited. The Bible says Moses wrote on the tablets (even though Yahweh said he was going to write on them) the words of the covenant then calls the covenant "The Ten Commandments."

The name "The Ten Commandments" is only used once in the Bible and it is used for the covenant listed in Exodus 34:10-2 and according to Exodus it is this set of commandments which are on the stone tablets within the Arc of the Covenant. However, the book of Deuteronomy which was written after the book of Exodus tells us that a different list of commandments are written on the stone tablets. Deuteronomy 5:6-21 lists the more commonly known commandments as being written on the stone tablets despite what Exodus clearly tells us.

Both Exodus and Deuteronomy claim a different list of commandments are written on the famous stone tablets. There are two potential reasons for the differences. Since Exodus was written earlier the author of Deuteronomy could have simply recalled the story wrong and accidentally credited the wrong list of commandments as being on the stone tablets. The second possibility is that the author of Deuteronomy intentionally change what commandments were said to be on the tablets because a list of proper eating habits did not sound as appealing. Either way the changing in the story clearly shows that Exodus and Deuteronomy where written by different authors without any divine guidance. These sort of changes are exactly what we expect to see during the retelling of nonfactual stories and legends.

The Ten Commandments (according to the Bible)

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