The God Squad: Obey the Ten Commandments — all nine of them

Q: Why are there different “versions” of the 10 Commandments? Is there an “authentic” version? — P., via cyberspace

A: There’s only one version of the Ten Commandments and it’s in the Bible in two places (Exodus 20:1-14 and Deuteronomy 5:6-18). However, there are two different traditions of how to count the big 10, and I don’t agree with either of them. There’s a Jewish, a Christian and a Gellman way of counting, and I’ll let you guess which one I prefer.

The difference in counting arises because of a difference of opinion about what constitutes the first commandment. The Jewish tradition counts, “I am the Lord your God...” as commandment No. 1 and “You shall not have other gods...” as commandment No. 2. The Christian counting combines these two into one commandment and counts them as the first commandment.

There are some slight differences between, on the one side, Reformed, Anglican and Greek Orthodox Christianity, which count the commandments the same as in Judaism from No. 4 on. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic and Lutheran traditions are one commandment short in their counting until the 10th commandment, which they divide in two in order to get to 10.

Without getting to deep into the arcana of counting the Ten Commandments, all Christian traditions reject “I am the Lord your God...” as the first commandment. My opinion is they’re right on this because, “I am the Lord your God...” is clearly not a commandment at all but merely a prefatory statement leading up to the list.

However, the Christian counting created a problem for Catholics and Lutherans of how to get to a total of 10 commandments if the first two have been combined into one. To do this, as I’ve indicated, they divided the last commandment prohibiting coveting into two separate commandments prohibiting different kinds of coveting (wanting what you don’t have).

On this issue, I believe the Jews are right. Coveting is obviously just one commandment with several instances included of types of coveting for illustrative purposes.

When you condense the writing for the sake of simplicity, the Jewish counting goes like this:

1. I am the lord your god.

2. Don’t worship other gods.

3. Don’t take god’s name in vain.

4. Keep the sabbath.

5 Honor your parents.

6. Don’t murder.

7. Don’t be an adulterer.

8. Don’t steal.

9. Don’t commit perjury.

10. Don’t covet.

And the Christian counting looks like this:

1. I am the lord your god, so don’t worship other gods.

2. Don’t take god’s name in vain.

3. Keep the sabbath.

4. Honor your parents.

5. Don’t murder.

6. Don’t be an adulterer.

7. Don’t steal.

8. Don’t commit perjury.

9. Don’t covet your neighbor’s house.

10. Don’t covet anything else of your neighbor’s.

And finally, there’s the obvious solution: the Gellman counting of the commandments, which I declare to be by far the best way to count the nine commandments:

Do the following because I am the lord your god:

1. Don’t worship other gods.

2. Don’t take god’s name in vain.

3. Keep the sabbath.

4. Honor your parents.

5. Don’t murder.

6. Don’t be an adulterer.

7. Don’t steal.

8. Don’t commit perjury.

9. Don’t covet.

Yes, in my view, there are really only nine commandments. The fact is that in most instances, the Bible doesn’t refer to the commandments as being 10, and the biblical text does not number them.

I must admit that there are three biblical passages that refer to the “Ten Words” (in Hebrew: aseret ha-dvarim). This is a problem for the Gellman Nine Commandments Theory, for which I don’t as yet have a satisfactory solution.

In any event, there are only nine commandments, and I’m waiting for the world of biblical exegetes to catch up with me. I may have to wait a very long time.

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Children’s Version

As an extra bonus feature, I’m including a version of the 10/9/whatever commandments suitable for teaching children:

1. There’s just one god!

2. Don’t even think of having another god!

3. Don’t curse with god’s name!

4. Rest one day out of seven!

5. Do what Mom and Dad tell you to do, and do it right away — unless what they tell you to do is really bad!

6. Don’t kill anyone who isn’t trying to kill you!

7. Make love only to the person you marry!

8. Don’t take stuff that isn’t yours!

9. Tell the truth (almost always)!

10. Don’t want what other people have just because they have it.

However we count the commandments, the most important thing we can all agree on is that we should obey them.

(Send QUESTIONS ONLY to The God Squad via email at [email protected].)