Moses received the Ten Commandments
(Exodus 20)
When it comes to the Ten Commandments, the bible is remarkably unclear.
In Exodus 20, the Lord Himself speaks out ten of them to the Israelites. But in Exodus 34, we find Moses returning from Mount Sinai with a different set of commandments. This time, there are eight commandments, or twelve – scholars don’t agree over this.
And later on, in Deuteronomy 5, we find the ‘original’ Ten Commandments again, but slightly differently formulated.
And then, there’s the ancient version of Deuteronomy that surfaced in the 19th century. This ‘Codex Shapirius’, as it was called, contained commandments that were so totally different that scholars at first thought that the Codex was a forgery.
The traditional commandments were differently worded, and there was an additional, eleventh commandment: ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart’. Nowadays, most scholars believe the Codex Shapirius may have been real after all (because it resembles other ancient texts that have been found since). But sadly, the Codex is lost – probably it’s burnt.
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Exodus 20 |
10 |
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Exodus 34 |
8 or 12 |
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Deuteronomy 5 |
10 |
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Codex Shapirius |
11 |
The reason for all this weirdness is that the bible wasn’t written overnight by one person. Theologists agree that it was written over the course of many centuries, by at least three authors. Each of these authors put slightly different religious rules into the bible.
Next, Moses smashes up the stone tablets, goes back up with Yahweh and – huh? – returns with a different set of commandments (Ex 34).
And Ten Commandments isn't the only instructive bit of writing Moses receives from the Lord. Inbetween, God also proclaims two huge lists of more detailed instructions about everything and nothing (Ex 21-23; 35-39).
Some of these instructions would have sounded like absolute nonsense to Moses and the Israelites because they are about money – something that was invented only many hundreds of years later.
The truth is, of course, that Moses never would have talked about money. Scholars agree that the most ancient version of the story is simple: Moses went up the mountain, received the Ten Commandments from Genesis 20, and that was it. The rest has been added later.
Still, even the original Ten Commandments aren’t really that ‘original’. Historians and theologists have pointed out that they are to a great extent copies from older writings from other civilizations.
They closely resemble the rules that the Hittite kings proclaimed on their people in the 13th and 14th century BC. Also, the prohibitions on theft, murder, abandonment of parents, false witness, adultery and lying are an almost exact copy from Egypt’s ‘Book of the Dead’. This can hardly be a coincidence.
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Exodus 20: the traditional Ten Commandments |
1. You shall have no other gods before me. |
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Exodus 34: the Eight (or Twelve) Commandments |
“Obey what I command you today.” (Ex 34:12) 1. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going (…). Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones (…), do not worship any other god… Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." (…) And he [Moses] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments. (Ex 34:27-28) |
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Deuteronomy 5:6-21: The Ten Commandments, revisited |
Exactly the same as in Exodus 20, but with one exception: |
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The Codex Shapirius: The Eleven Commandments |
1. You shall have no other gods before me. |
Jews and Christians still agree over the first Commandment. To the jews, the first Commandment is what Yahweh says first: “"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Ex 20:2). This would bring the total number of Ten Commandments to eleven. The Christian Ten Commandments begin at Exodus 20:3: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
