The RE Podcast
The RE Podcast
S3 E10: The One About The Ten Commandments
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In this weeks episode I delve deep into the Ten Commandments, where did they come from, what do they mean, are they relevant to the 21st Century. In this episode I give a brief history of the Israelites, and take each commandment in commandment in turn and analyse it. I even sing and attempt to speak Hebrew. I also have some interesting facts from my lovely followers from Twitter.
I refer to an article and a video - links below;
https://wehavekids.com/family-relationships/When-Honoring-Your-Father-and-Mother-Is-Challenging
https://www.videoman.gr/en/140297
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/42-ancient-egyptian-laws-that-might-have-inspired-the-ten-commandments
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Season 3 Episode 10: The One About The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments are arguably some of the most famous laws in history, but where did they come from, what do they mean, are they still relevant in the 21st Century?
I wonder how many of them you can remember. I mean most know two or three, but pause this episode and count how many you can remember….
So, how many was it - I bet you got the Do not Kill one, the do not lie and the do not steal, maybe even the do not commit adultery and honour your parents, but what about the one that says Do not worship idols or do not covet what your neighbour has. I wonder how many of you have used the word ‘thy’ as you try to remember them. It’s strange isn’t it, the word ‘thy’ hasn’t been used in about 500 years but for some reason we feel the need to use it when quoting the ten commandments, as though somehow, God is a 17th Century lord and he won’t understand us if we use modern language. But of course, the BIble wasn’t written in English. The Old testament was written in hebrew… and that leads us nicely onto where the Ten Commandments started.
Right - first things first, the Bible is NOT A BOOK. I repeat, it is NOT A BOOK. It is a library of books - biblios means books - if you speak German or french then you’ll know bibliotek or bibliotheque are their words for library. The BIble is in two parts. The Old Testament and the New Testament - Testament means account - it is where we get our word ‘testimony’ from. The Old Testament is from the creation of the world up until a few hundred years before Jesus, the new testament is from the Birth of Jesus all the way until the end of the world. Now remember I said that the Bible wasn’t a book, it was a library, well there are 66 books altogether, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament.
The Bible opens with the book of Genesis - a word that means ‘beginning’ which is apt as the book of Genesis explains the beginning or creation of the world. As we know, it was perfect, God created humans, humans sinned - we got punished - painful childbirth, hard work, enemies with nature, different languages etc But sin had entered the world. Eventually, things got so bad that God had to destroy the world with a big flood, what Eddie Izzard calls ‘the etcha sketch end of the world, except for Noah and his family, and the whole thing started all over again. I don’t want to get side tracked but most religions have some sort of flood story - it’s almost as if there might have been one in our history, you know when the ice from the ice age melted, but that’s a whole different episode. But still people continued to disobey God
A few hundred years later, a man called Abraham was born. Now Abraham is known as the first MONOTHEIST. This is important. And God speaks to him. God makes a promise, or covenant, with Abraham to make his descendants into a great nation and to give them a great land. This special covenant with God passes on to Abraham’s son, Isaac, and to his grandson, Jacob. Together, they represent the patriarchs, or fathers, of the Israelite people. Jacob’s twelve sons move to Egypt after the youngest brother, Joseph, miraculously becomes a high official in Egypt (you’ve all seen Joseph and his amazing technicolour dream coat right? I closed my eyes, drew back the curtains…. Did they have curtains then?)
Anyway, Jacob changed his name to Israel, so his sons became the 12 tribes of Israel - the israelites...tada.
In the Book of Exodus, the descendants of Jacob’s children have become a vast people, but the Pharaoh of Egypt holds them in slavery. Now, you might know of a man called Moses. There’s no hard evidence he existed outside the Old Testament, but the events I am about to recall have some basis in events of 13th century BCE
God chooses one man, Moses, to rescue the Israelites. The Pharaoh was not best pleased with this idea so Moses had to convince him. With the help of God, ten plagues are sent to Egypt, water into blood, frogs, lice, flies, sick cattle, boils, fire & hail, locusts and hail. But it was the final plague -the death of the first born plus some magic tricks) that finally convinced Pharaoh (partly because he lost his own first born son - his heir). So Moses leads Israelites slaves out of Egypt, across the Reed Sea (not the red sea) into Mount Sinai.
So this is where it becomes relevant to this programme. We’ve essentially got thousands of ex slaves wandering the desert for years with no plan, little food and water, and they start to get a bit angsty - they even start pining after the slave life as they had a purpose and regular food. So God provided some food and water first and then took Moses up a mountain to give him some guidelines. These became the ten commandments and these have formed the basis of our law 2000 years later! Before we dive into them, I have to say that one of my favourite parts of the Bible is in this story. When Moses went up the mountain to listen to God, you have to remember he didn’t have a pen and paper so all these rules God gave him he had to etch into stone. And I don’t know if you’ve ever tried carving into stone...not easy. It took him so long and he was up the mountain for so long that the freed slaves thought he had died so melted down all their gold and made a statue that they started worshipping. When Moses saw this he got the rage and smashed the stone tablets on the floor . Not kidding, so had to go back up the mountain to ask god for them again. I can just picture the scene, er God, excuse me, but erm, you know those really important rules you just gave me, what were they again, I seemed to have mislaid them (surreptitiously tries to brush away the broken stones with his foot). Anyway after etching them back into stone again, he then relayed them to the israelites.
Now let’s first check out the Title - the Ten Commandments. In the original Hebrew it is aseret ha-dibrot, which are translatable as "the ten words", "the ten sayings", or "the ten matters". Commandments weren’t used until the 16th century. Also, there are also actually 14 - but some have been combined. They are part of the 613 commandments set out in the Torah, but these are the ones that are timeless and universal. It starts by God introducing himself as Yahweh - this was the personal name for God that Moses uses. Later on they refer to God as Elohim - a more universal name for God, also used for other gods at the time. In continues by remindig Moses this this is the God that had bought the israelites out of slavery.
Now the first commandment is to not have any other Gods before Yahweh. Now this is interesting. It does not claim that there is only one god, it actually assumes there are other Gods, but that you have to put this god first. And there were other gods at the time, as I mentioned before. I mean the Egyptians are known to have ten, you might know of RA the sun god which is part of the word Pharaoh! I am going to introduce the word henotheist here. Henotheism means you believe in one particular god out of several, especially by a family, tribe, or other group. Technically, the Israelites were henothiests rather than monotheists who claim there is only one god. This first commandment says you can’t make images of God, or worship any other gods. This would have been an important commandment for the Israelites because they had been surrounded by the Egyptian religion and culture. However, it’s an interesting commandment for people in the 21st century because we all have ‘gods’ - whether it is money, power, gaming, exercise, our friends, phones, food. Whatever it is that you put first in your life, that is your god. It is what brings your life meaning, purpose, what you put effort into, what you get joy from. So this has universal application. I think it is right to consider critically what your god is and whether it is deserving of that position and whether it does you more good than harm. I personally think anyone who puts money first in their life is going to find it much harder to make the morally right decision. However, I think this commandment brings with it so many problems - mainly because it is misunderstood by people. People mistakenly think it states there is only one god. It doesn’t. This misunderstanding has led to a dogmatic monotheism. But I think some people have a problem with a God that commands you to worship him. We live in a pluralist world - what I mean by that is there is more than one belief option - plural options. You can choose to believe in God, or not, or not be sure, or worship more than one. So to be commanded to only worship one does get our tolerant back up. But let’s consider this for a moment. What would happen if everyone worshipped the same god… I mean it might make the world a little more peaceful...except it wouldn’t really would it? - Catholics and Protestants worship the same god but have a tricky relationship, Sunni and Shias worship the same one god and still have the odd tiff. And I can’t help bringing to mind the crusades where, excuse my reductive summary, Muslims were given a choice of worshipping the god of the old testament or dying. That’s a pretty horrific choice. Imagine if your choice was marrying someone you didn’t like or dying….Now I know that some people think that if you worship the wrong God, it will have eternal consequences, so I understand people’s passion in instilling this rule into us, but so I am not sure whether this is the best commandment to bring into the 21st century.
The second commandment says they were not to take the Lord's name in vain. I think this is another one that is totally misunderstood. As a child, I was told that saying things like ‘Oh my God’ was breaking the second commandment. It was called ‘blasphemy’. It was also believed that it meant stating God did not exist, or questioning God. Throughout the Bible there are people who question God, or get angry with him. If we look at the original hebrew, the meaning is much more specific than this. It’s about using God’s name for falsehood. Let’s look at examples of this. When George Bush Jr was president of the United states, he claimed that God told him to go to war with Iraq. Now, if the Bible says ‘Do Not Kill’ then it is probably unlikely he told Bush to go and kill a load of people. What about priests who use their position in the church to abuse boys, or preachers who get people to donate money to them so they can buy private jets, or people that say God hates fags? This is what the second commandment means. Don’t use God’s name to give authority to things that are false. And I am with this one.
The third commandment says to remember one day per week and keep it holy. This has been interpreted in many different ways, like you can’t turn on lights, you can’t watch TV, you have to worship God all day. All these things are valid, but let’s consider a more universal meaning. What impact would it have on our mental, emotional and physical health if we had one complete day off every week. All the way though my GCSEs, A-levels, degree and teaching career I have always had one complete day off. On this day I see friends, go for walks, watch movies. I totally recommend this. Work life balance people! This second part to this verse I think is trying to be a little humorous. It mentions that even God had a day of rest after creating the world. I mean even God, in his power and majesty had to put his feet up and have a brew! But let’s take it one step further - this suggests ‘keeping it holy’ what if this meant focus on the divine - focus on something greater than yourself - maybe this is worship in a church, or meditation, or charity work or self love, it means don’t work, don’t be selfish, do something for the greater good. What a better world it would be. So yes, I am with this one too.
Ok - so honouring your mother and your father. I find this a tricky one for many reasons. If your parents are abusive then I’m not sure what it means to honour them ,or if your parents are racist or homophobic or bigots, then do we have to honour them? I am reminded of the only story in the Bible about Jesus and his parents - and he ran off for three days and they lost him. Man, must have been the worst three days of their life. Jesus also said that he had come to set children against their parents. I read an interesting article about this commandment which I will put a link to in the show notes.
The original Hebrew word kābēd used for the word for honor has many meanings including to "be heavy.” or “give weight to” or seriously consider a relationship. It does not suggest being subordinate or obedient to parents who harm us. It suggests in the second half of the verse that we will live a better life if we do this. So what does it mean to honour a relationship - be honest, forgive, set boundaries, respect boundaries, communicate, weigh up the best way to manage that relationship effectively, be thankful for the things they did right. This feels like a healthy way to be regardless of what your parents are like.
You will not murder. I think most of us instinctively agree with this one without question. I think that is naive. I teach a lesson which starts with the phrase ‘It is ok to kill’. I look at all the situations where this is perfectly acceptable - abortion, euthanasia, war, capital punishment. The children then say that it is wrong to murder. I ask them why. They say that it is against the law. I mentioned that at times, homosexuality was against the law, and slavery and racism were legal, so the law is not a great reason to accept or reject a behaviour. They say that you wouldn’t like to be murdered so you should do it to others. I point out the flaw in this which is 1) There are lots of things I wouldn’t like people to do to me, like tickling me, but that doesn’t make it wrong. I also point out that they would have no problem murdering hitler or a peadophile, or defending someone they love, or getting revenge. They say at this point that it is not right to kill innocent people. I point out that innocent people don’t really exist - everyone has done something wrong. THey suggest that murder causes pain so we should cause pain - I mention injections or homework which cause pain but aren’t wrong. At this point the children start to get a bit restless. I do put them out of their misery in the end. Murder is wrong beause it simply can’t be right. If it was right then anyone could kill anyone for any reason. So if it can’t be right, it has to be wrong. And this is the point isn’t it. We could probably all find justifiable reasons to kill someone, but that doesn’t make it right. It has to be wrong because the alternative would end the human race. When it comes down to it we are animals who try to protect our own survival. Murder is the opposite of survival. If we base our society on this principle - do not murder, then the world is a much better place.
You will not commit adultery. Seriously people, just don’t. Nobody wins, there are no gains. It may be understandable, that doesn’t make it right. I literally cannot think of a single reason to justify a belief that you should commit adultery. If I am missing something glaringly obvious please tweet me. There are so many other options available to you - stay single, separate, have an open relationship, get counselling, don’t get drunk.
You will not steal. I mean duh! But hang on… what about the robin hood predicament- should you steal from the rich to feed the poor? Well yes, but there are ways of doing this that doesn’t involve stealing. What about buying fair trade instead of free trade products, what about paying your fair share of tax (or closing tax loopholes), what about buying from independent stores rather than large international companies. We live in a world where the taxpayer paid five hundred billion pounds bail to banks after a global economic crisis. And what caused this crisis - a culture of banks committing illegal fraud for personal financial gain. And do you know how many of these criminals went to prison - none of them. Not a single one. In a complicated set up with hedge funds and sub mortgages, lots of rich people illegally became much richer at the expense of the poor, and then when it all went wrong, us taxpayers bailed them out. Do you know who did go to prison - the people who rioted because of this bail out. Ask Jeff Bezos how much tax he pays and then think about this commandment. I think there are other things we can steal like people’s time, people’s happiness, people’s self esteem.
OK, so you will not bare false witness against anyone. This is not as simple as do not lie. There are stories in the Bible where people lie - read the story of rahab. Throughout Nazi occupation, many Jewish lives were saved because people hid them - Anne Frank being the most well known example. It is sometimes hard to know when it is ok to lie. Our tendency is to lie to protect ourselves, but we are so judgemental about others doing this (you know, when governments lie about other countries having weapons of mass destruction, or politicians lie about having affairs. It is difficult to know when it is morally justified to lie. But actually, this commandment is about bearing false witness. I.E accusing someone of something they haven’t done, or not being truthful about someone’s character. I don't mind admitting to you that I find it one of the hardest things to cope with if people give false truths to others about me. It is not as simple as Do not lie as a general statement. When organising a surprise party, one has to lie. I guess we have to look at the motivation and consequences. If you are lying to stop justice happening then it is not ok. If you are lying to ensure justice has happens, then maybe it's ok. If you are lying to protect yourself then it is not ok. If you are lying to give someone a wonderful surprise then knock yourself out.
So the last one- this is considered (in the words of Stephen Fry - link in the show notes) one of the silly ones. But I don't agree. It is basically a list of things you shouldn't crave. Now, if you listened to my episode on Buddhism, you may remember that they also point out the problem with craving. Craving leads to suffering. I don't know about you but do you compare yourself to others and come off worse for it - I wish I had hair like them, a body like them, their style, their house, their eyes, their personality. If you want what other people have then that means you are not content with what you have. And if you are not content with what you have, then you are not content. The secret to happiness is being content with what you have and who you are. I have a painting in my house to remind me that ‘I am enough.’ It’s transformed my mental health. So what things does the Bible suggest we shouldn’t crave, people’s houses, people’s partners, people’s servants, people’s mode of transport or anything that belongs to anyone else. We live in a world of show offs. Just look at social media. Photoshopped pictures, happy family and relationship pics, perfect holidays and days out, ideal homes. It’s not real people.
So, it seems as though, on the whole, these are not too bad as a set of commandments. However, we have to consider what they don’t mention - this is something that Stephen Fry mentions - there is a link to his debate on this in the show notes. There are probably five main things that don’t seem to have made the top ten. And that is surprising to me. Rape, child abuse, violence, discrimination and slavery (and the Isrealites kept slaves, as ahve Christians thoughout history - even right now as you listen to this). I think if we needed a top ten then these should make it, and I would probably move some of the ones we have discussed down a few.
What I think is interesting is that Jesus was questioned on these ten commandments. He was actually asked which one was the most important. He summarised them into two commandments. Love God and love your neighbour as yourself. And this is where I want to end. Love something greater than yourself, love yourself, love others.
I would love to know your thoughts so please email me louisajanesmith@therepodcast.co.uk, or follow me on twitter @therepodast1 DM your thoughts on the podcast, and on this episode - do you agree with what I have said, is there anything else you think the ten commandments have missed out, did you learn anything
https://wehavekids.com/family-relationships/When-Honoring-Your-Father-and-Mother-Is-Challenging
https://www.videoman.gr/en/140297