Saturday, September 29, 2007
Opinion

Displaying the Ten Commandments

I once evaluated a teacher at a Catholic school who had been teaching for several years, apparently to the satisfaction of his supervisors...

By Bob Zaslavsky

I once evaluated a teacher at a Catholic school who had been teaching for several years, apparently to the satisfaction of his supervisors. The first time I walked into his classroom, I knew that he was not cut out to be a teacher. He had posted above the door a poster titled “Mr. ——’s Commandments,” and beneath that was a list of 40 prohibitions in print so small that I could barely read it—not that I needed, or wanted, to do so.

In our post-class conference, I tried to tell him as gently as possible that if God needed only 10 commandments, no human needed more than that. I discovered that he lacked a sense of humor along with competence as a teacher. I rated him failing—rather, not passing, since failure was not allowed in the education department—but I heard that after I left, the next supervising evaluator passed him.

I thought of this recently when I contemplated writing a column about the so-called Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue. I kept putting it off, because I know that I already have a reputation for pedantry that is not in need of further enhancement. And yet references to and public discussions of the Decalogue continue to crop up, as one did recently in a prominent local newspaper. The time has come, it seems, for me to say my piece.

The proponents of monuments featuring the Ten Commandments are typically as humorless and ignorant as my student teacher was. Their lack of knowledge of the very Biblical text they are seeking to enshrine is astonishing. They are never called to account for that.

Of course, based on the desire of our founders to build a wall of separation between church and state, requests for public monuments of the Decalogue should be denied. The claim that this was founded as a Christian (or Judeo-Christian, however contradictory that is) nation is simply wrong. In the Federalist Papers (1787-1788), Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison chose the Roman name “Publius” as a pseudonym, not “Paul” or “Matthew” or ”Mark” or “Luke” or even “Moses.”

When someone asked Alexander Hamilton why there was no mention of God in the Constitution, he reportedly said, “We forgot.”
Putting aside the issue of church and state, even on the grounds of church alone, iconic public displays of the Decalogue are bizarre. Anyone who is familiar with the text would know that a sculptural monument to the Ten Commandments is itself a violation of the second commandment (Exodus 20:4): “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.”

Furthermore, in the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament), they are not even called commandments. Moses says (Exodus 20:1), “And God spoke all of these words.” The King James translation is exactly correct. The words “spoke” and “words” are the related Hebrew words “dabêr” and “divarim” (literally, “talked” and “talks”). The Vulgate (Latin) Bible is equally precise, using the words “locutus est” and “sermônês” (“has spoken” and “talks”). Similarly, the Septuagint (Greek) Bible uses “elalêsen” and “logous” (“chatted” and “speeches”). Later, God refers to the Decalogue (Exodus 24:12) as “the law [torah] and the command [mitzvah],” but does not specify which are which.

When the Decalogue (literally, “ten-speeches”) is referred to as a group of 10, it is called “the 10 words” (divarim) [Exodus 34:28; Deut. 4:13 & 10:4]. It is only in the Christian Bible (e.g., Luke 10:19) that they are officially called commands (“entolai,” in Greek). They are called this in a negative sense as that which, through the intervention of Christ, humans have transcended. Paul said (Romans 7:4 & 6): “So that ... you all also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ. … So that we should serve in the opportunity of the spirit, and not in the antiquity of the letter [of the law].”
When Paul says “the law,” he means the Jewish Bible.

Therefore, on political and theological grounds alike, such monuments are inappropriate in public places, as is any attempt to proselytize on behalf of
any religion. Contrary to conventional wisdom, not only is ignorance in this area not bliss, but it is fatally dangerous to clear thinking in general. If ever a candidate for president emerges who knows this and has the courage to refrain from ending every speech with “God bless someone or something,” I will be the first in line to vote for her or him. SP

Bob Zaslavsky is a retired teacher of our much-neglected humanities. He may be contacted through his Web site, doczonline.com.