Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I reported a couple weeks ago about the hearings held in the Louisiana state legislature to try and edit the ten commandments to come up with a single set that would satisfy all religions (most people are unaware that there are at least three different versions - one Protestant, one Catholic and one Jewish). The press in the state is now reporting that they've given up on that quest:
The Legislature bowed out of the debate over what version of the Ten Commandments should be used in displays at government buildings.Instead, the proposed law sent to Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Monday removed the specific commandants from the bill and referred instead to the wording "as extracted from the Bible."
The problem now, of course, is that they've given a strong argument to the opponents of such displays. Whatever version of the ten commandments a local government chooses to post, it will of necessity have chosen between competing versions and thus given a tacit endorsement to a sectarian religious doctrine. Of course, all of this is based on the nonsensical notion that the ten commandments, in any version are - to quote the bill itself - "a foundation of our legal system." Given that 7 out of 10 of the ten commandments would be entirely unconstitutional, this is clearly an absurd position.
Comments
Or we could make do with just 2 commandments: http://www.geocities.com/bobmelzer/gc10cx.html
Posted by: mfaerber
| June 21, 2006 10:13 AM
I've always wondered how these people can square in their minds the first commandment and the first amendment.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the the free exercise thereof (religion)" seem to be mutually exclusive.
If the Decalogue, whichever version, is a foundation of our legal system, how can our legal system allow Hindus, Muslims, Daoists, etc, to live in this country?
Posted by: tubi
| June 21, 2006 10:20 AM
Of course everyone knows all these such things are disingenuous exercises in evangelism. I do wonder why they stop with the "ten" commandments. There were lots of laws handed down by god to the israelites. Some are very specific and even include the required punishment, up to and including death. I suppose that means that the bible is the foundation of the death penalty.
Posted by: Mark Paris
| June 21, 2006 10:53 AM
I'd love to see a veto with the note: "Which Bible?" There's some classic buck-passing going on here on top of the rest of the idiocy.
Posted by: ArtK
| June 21, 2006 11:15 AM
Just to point out the obvious, the only way to display the authoritative version of the ten commandments is to do it in the original Hebrew.
Unfortunately, that leaves the audience for the monument mostly Jewish, and like most of us, I don't support this kind of thing anyway.
Oh, and I think there are even multiple Jewish versions (to say nothing of the Christian ones), since the reform and conservative branches now use a 1980's version (NJPS) instead of the more old-fashioned one from the beginning of the century.
Posted by: jfaberuiuc
| June 21, 2006 11:32 AM
If I remember correctly, the 10th commandment in the traditional Jewish version is "Thou shalt not boil a kid [goat] in its mother's milk." Where is the corresponding law in the USC, I wonder?
Posted by: tubi
| June 21, 2006 12:13 PM
jfaberuiuc:
The most recent NJPS is the "authoratative" translation adopted by all branches of Judaism which have adopted any translation. No Orthdox movement has adopted any translation -- as reading Hebrew is considered a basic requirement of the religion.
Posted by: sgent
| June 21, 2006 2:34 PM
Ed, I've read your blog for a while, but I seem to have come into the fray a bit late to hear about which seven commandments would be unconstitutional. Could you point me to that post?
Oh, and as for the 10 commandments, there can certainly be a simple and direct translation from the original Hebrew although some people might find substitutes for "covet". Still, if they just went to the "source", the problem would pretty much go away...
Of course, that would also mean that Christians would have to accept that the subsequent translations are inexact, and that's a tough thing to sell.
Posted by: Jon Krivitzky
| June 22, 2006 12:22 AM
This link goes to an article from American Atheists about the complexity and absurdity of any proposal to hang the "Ten Commandments" anywhere. It is fairly long and goes into some detail, and is pretty snarky, but I found it interesting. It will help clarify the confusion over multiple versions, as well as some of the inherent contradictions in the biblical texts. It is not just a matter of using different translations; there really are different lists, with corollaries.
Posted by: tubi
| June 22, 2006 1:36 AM
http://www.atheists.org/christianity/hangemall.html
Forgot the link.
Posted by: tubi
| June 22, 2006 1:47 AM
Um. You don't remember correctly. You're mixing up the traditional ten commandments with a "second" set of ten commandments, the so-called Ritual Decalogue (as opposed to the Ethical Decalogue).
Posted by: Skemono
| June 22, 2006 4:38 AM
I probably don't have it all right, thanks for the info. The reference I got that from is the link I posted above.
Posted by: tubi
| June 22, 2006 9:46 AM
John Krivitzky wrote:
Here it is.
Posted by: Ed Brayton
| June 22, 2006 11:14 AM
The differences between the 3 versions are not a result of translation, but of where to divide up the commandments. The Catholic version, for instance, lumps together the bit about the 'graven image' as part of the first commandment about having 'no other gods', while the Protestant version has them as two separate commandments. This is because God wasn't thoughtful enough to actually number them in the Bible. One should also note that the Ritual Decalogue mentioned above is the only list that is actually referred to in the Bible as the Ten Commandments.
Posted by: Reid Carson
| June 22, 2006 11:54 AM