Ten Commandments: Religious Issues, Religious Debates
Because the Ten Commandments establish a covenant between the Jews and their god, it must be approached first and foremost as a religious document. Because Judaism is an important basis for both Christianity and Islam, the Ten Commandments have religious implications for all three religions. Each religion treats them slightly differently, each religion draws different conclusions from them, and each even has its own versions.
Quite a few politicians and citizens want the government to display the Ten Commandments on public grounds and in various government buildings, like schools. In such a situation, it becomes reasonable to ask: What exactly are these 'Ten Commandments'? What many don’t realize is that there aren’t really 'the' Ten Commandments; instead, there are multiple versions...
Protestants (which here refers to members of the Greek, Anglican, and Reformed traditions - Lutherans follow the 'Catholic' Ten Commandments) usually use the form which appears in the first Exodus version from chapter 20. Scholars have identified both Exodus versions as having probably been written in the tenth century BCE.
It has been suggested by some scholars that the Ten Commandments is best understood by comparing it to some of the treaties written during the same time period. Rather than a list of laws, the commandments are in this view actually an agreement between God and his chosen people, the Hebrews.
There is a popular perception that the Ten Commandments are 'the commandments' of Jewish religious tradition, but this is mistaken. The Hebrew scriptures contain 613 commandments in addition to these ten. This does not mean, however, that all commandments are equal. Jewish scholars have generally treated the Ten Commandments as basic or ideological foundations to the all the rest.
Islam does not accept the absolute authority of the Bible, teaching that it has become corrupted over the years, and therefore it does not accept the authority of the listing of the Ten Commandments that appears in the Bible. Islam does, however, accept the status of both Moses and Jesus as prophets, which means that the commandments are not completely ignored, either.
Because of the multiplicity of Christian denominations, it is inevitable that the Christian views of the Ten Commandments would be both confusing and contradictory. There is no one authoritative way for Christians to understand the commandments and as a consequence, many of the interpretations conflict with each other. Even the lists that Christians use aren’t all the same.
