Thou shalt not...

Now here's a funny thing - one of my grandchildren asked me for some help with homework involving the Ten Commandments. So I sorted out my old Bible - the authorised version of course - and dipped into Exodus. And guess what? If by the Ten Commandments we mean the mental picture we all have of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with them written on two tablets of stone, then they're not what we think they are! It's not a straightforward story by any means, but essentially Moses went up Mount Sinai to commune with God at least three times. The first time God sent him back down to tell the people about what we now refer to as the Commandments - but they are not called that in the Bible (Exodus 20), and at this point nothing was written down. Later Moses went up again and God gave him two stone tablets but, although it is assumed these contained the same words, the Bible is vague about this. In any event, when Moses came down with these tablets he found the people worshiping the statue of a golden calf, and smashed the tablets on the ground in disgust, so the question is moot. The third time he went up the mountain, God dictated what He wanted Moses to write down on a new set of tablets. And these are the tablets which Moses finally brought down, and are referred to specifically as the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34.28). Problem is that these contained a quite different set of rules, mainly concerned with the proper observance of feasts and ceremonies and so on. Nothing there about not killing, stealing, coveting and all that, let alone honouring your father and mother. How about that then?