Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Thou shalt, uh, shalt not...

On the way home from work I heard another news item about Roy Moore refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building. (Still sore/numb, so I'm not gonna paste in a hundred links for each element. The story I heard on the radio is here.)

I remembered the scene in the Mel Brooks movie where he (as Moses) presents the "Fifteen..." *crash* "...Ten Commandments!"

Anyway, it got me thinking...what are the ten commandments? I mean, can I come up with all ten?

Thou shalt not kill. That one is easy to remember. (Doesn't Alabama have the death penalty? Although someone who understands the Bible much better than I do did tell me that the word in the original Hebrew, or Aramaic, or whatever, translates more to murder, and wouldn't specifically mean a "just" killing. I have no idea if this is theologically sound.)

Ok, lemme think. No adultery. No coveting thy neighbor's ox.

Soldiers can't be quartered in your home...wait, that's the Bill of Rights.

Was stealing one, or is that part of ox-coveting? And was it all one coveting prohibition, or was neighbor's wife separate from his ox? Or was coveting his wife a euphamism for adultery?

Oh, honor your parents. Boy, I bet mine would not be surprised to know that one didn't leap immediately to my mind.

There are some more religious ones, I think...otherwise having the Ten Commandments would be as secular as the city code. Keep holy the sabbath? I keep thinking there is something about "love thy God," but then I think that was Jesus' two-part summary that came later...love God, love neighbor as yourself.

No false idols? I'm reaching here, I admit it.

I grew up Catholic, by the way. Not a lot of Bible-reading.

I have six or seven, depending on the stealing/coveting thing. Oh, lying. Thou shalt not bear false witness, I think it says.

I admit defeat. Let's see what Google has to say. And just in case there is a difference, like there is in the Lord's Prayer, I'm searching for the Catholic version.

(Hum to yourself while I check out some more Google links, because that first one is kinda wordy. I need a list.)

Interesting...there are different versions.

Looks like (going by the Catholic short list) that the one I totally forgot was taking the Lord's name in vain. (I was gonna do that, then, for comic effect, but I have noticed that to religious people, a muttered "name in vain" is more offensive that shouting the f-bomb. And I'm not trying to mock people or be offensive.)

Anyway, now I'm up to speed on the ten commandments. I guess they aren't bad ideas, although if you have no religious beliefs, or if you believe in multiple gods, the first three or four are rather useless.

And I suspect that the people who believe in them and give damn probably don't need to look them up on the Internet to know what they are. Which means that they don't need to read them on a 5,300-pound rock in the courthouse lobby, and for those who don't believe and don't care, the rock is probably in the way.

Posted by Nic at August 22, 2003 02:47 PM