Ten Commandments Questions

I have a few queries on the ten commandments :
1) What language were they written in?
2) Why if it says "thou shalt not kill" did Moses break that rule and kill 3000 of his own people?
3) How did the table of destiny end up in the ark if moses broke it.
4) Why did god tell Moses to construct only an alter of earth or unhewn stone( as tools would taint it ) then go on and order this lavish ark and tabernacle made of gold silver jewels etc.

Anyone able to enlighten??


G

i'll take a stab...don't know if it's right or not, so feel free to correct:

1)hebrew, originally
2)in hebrew it doesn't say thou shalt not kill - that's a christian adaptation i think. In hebrew i think it says thou shall not murder. you can argue the difference between murder and kill.
3)moses broke the bible that god wrote, but then he rewrote it by hand himself.
4)not sure on this.

again, i think this is somewhat correct...but maybe not at all. anyone else?

I'm not a biblical scholar so most will be just completely off the top of my head:

I concur with dreamer01 on 1-3, as that is what I have come to discover over time; but I will look into it. On 4) Not sure exactly why; but maybe God told him to build the ark and the tabernacle that way as they are not an alter. Through the studying that I have done the tabernacle can be a picture of Christ. Since it was to illustrate Christ, materials that would last over time would have had to be used like gold and silver. I could be wrong; but that is what I have come to understand. Does anyonelse have an interpretation?

Originally posted by sinta_ilfirin
I concur with dreamer01 on 1-3, as that is what I have come to discover over time; but I will look into it.

I figure why not post some backup to 2 of the claims

2)Kill vs Murder:
The Jewish Publication Society translates Exodus 20:13 as:
20:13 Thou shalt not murder.

The King James Version translates as:
20:13 Thou shalt not kill.

3)Broken Tablets:
Exodus:
34:1 And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou didst break.

34:27 And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.'

34:28 And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten words.


Just an aside, a great site to look at is www.sacred-texts.com... They have the bible in hebrew, the english translation, i think latin and greek translations. That's hardly a drop in the ocean of what they have. I mean, they have folklore, wiccan texts, shinto-ism texts. It's really amazing if you haven't checked it out yet. Ok, sorry, i sound like an infomercial.

Originally posted by shihulud
I have a few queries on the ten commandments :
1) What language were they written in?

Interseting question, considering that the hebrews claimed to be from the levant and held as slaves in egypt, so they'd've spoken a non-egyptian language, but moses was raised amoung the egyptian elite and wouldn't of spoken whatever the hebrews were speaking. So either they couldn't read it or he couldn't read it.

2) Why if it says "thou shalt not kill" did Moses break that rule and kill 3000 of his own people?

?

The commandments aren't like the other 'laws' in the bible, there are no punishments. I tend to that that what is trying to be conveyed is that these are the way that the All-powerful supreme creator of the universe and everything in it says life is supposed to be, and by breaking these commandments, you are in discord with that supreme creator power and that in itself is punishment enough. So thta might explain why peopel break the commandment, but there is no biblical punishment.

3) How did the table of destiny end up in the ark if moses broke it.

The peices are in it. Where is it called 'table of destiny'?

4) Why did god tell Moses to construct only an alter of earth or unhewn stone( as tools would taint it ) then go on and order this lavish ark and tabernacle made of gold silver jewels etc.

Probably the stories are from seperate eras. One era produces the story of a holy man who goes upon a mountain and receives wisdom, maybe even another has a story about it being made from raw earth and stone, not dirtied by tools and man, and then another has a tradition about a super-strong god-designed chest that has magic powers, but em together and you get the current story.

Cant have been Hebrew for 1) as the earliest form of hebrew didn't exist until about 800 BCE well after Moses
2) murder is still killing and Moses killed/ murdered 3000 of his own people
3) Must be thinking of something else (an emerald stone comes to mind) but your right no tablet of destiny
4) The bible states that inside the tabernacle 1 And thou shalt make an altar of #tim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad;. In other words a created altar formed using tools

G

Originally posted by shihulud
Cant have been Hebrew for 1) as the earliest form of hebrew didn't exist until about 800 BCE well after Moses
2) murder is still killing and Moses killed/ murdered 3000 of his own people
G

1)You're probably write on the Hebrew thing...maybe some other semetic language? Any linguists out there?

2)Just to play the devil's advocate, if you will, according to dictionary.com (using just the 1st definitions):

mur·der ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mûrdr)
n.
The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

kill1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kl)
v. killed, kill·ing, kills
v. tr.

To put to death.
To deprive of life: The Black Death was a disease that killed millions.


I'm not sure which specific context of Moses ending peoples' lives you're referring to, so I'm going to make assumption, so please let me know if my assumption is wrong (I won't be mad)

P1. God's word is law(given)
P2. If God's word is law then whatever God commands is a lawfull act. (inference)
C1: P1, therefore whatever God commands is a lawfull act. (inference and conclusion)

P3. Murder is the act of unlawful killing (definition)
P3. God tells Moses to kill people (assumption!)
C2: Since C1 and P3, therefore Moses' act of killing is not unlawfull.
C3. Since Moses' act of killing is not unlawfull, Moses does not commit murder.

C4. Moses does not commit murder, therefore Moses does not break the Jewish commandment "thou shall not murder".

Maybe someone who has taken a logics/philosophy class more recently than I have, and remembers how to create a valid and sound argument, can tell me if my line of thinking is correct.

You are infact correct. The original text says MURDER. There was only one word for murder/kill, and due to english translation, murder ended up Kill. Original text was Thou Shalt Not MURDER.

Your definitions and reasoning are exactly correct. Murder would be unlawful as commanded by God, but if God commands you to kill (through war or other efforts) such as he commanded Moses to kill, this is a lawful (by Gods commandment) act.

Yes it is possible but the wording in Exodus states
"9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. " and "34 Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them. 35 And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made."
What this says to me is "Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them" that it is God and not Moses to give out the punishment and Gods punishment "And the LORD plagued the people". This is after Moses decides to kill 3000 so therefore God decides to punish them twice or either that doesn't know that moses in his anger decides to punish them himself, either way Moses wasn't asked or told to kill.
Also why did the "people" after everything they had seen i.e parting seas, 7 plague things, walls of fire and God descending the mountain do they still not believe and want a gold calf to worship. These people cant be that stupid.

Another strange quote (among others) in this chapter is "20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it". Forgive me if Im wrong but burning gold melts into liquid gold not powder, might this be white powder gold? If so then that shines a whole new light on things.

on the thou salt not kill thing, does it say in the bible( its better to kill one that wil many) I am almost postive it says it somewhere.

I think your thinking of Star Trek "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" . I done a search through the bible for "kill many" and "kill one" but with no luck. Seems a kind of biblical saying though.
Might be wrong, anyone know??


G

Most of the laws in Leviticus are dirived from request (if you can call them that) from the jewish people. Such as the laws on marrage, and the placeing of a king. In exodus the instructions for the "tent" are given as a place of acoknowledgment of the holy items including the ark. It becomes nessary to have a central place of gathering for the people to come to. If only for the reasoning of bringing every one together, for the purpose of worship. I would imagine that the reason for the building of a temple not only fufills these needs, but includes the things that the jewish people had become accustomed to by living in Egypt for so long. When you get used to having something (like a king, of central place to worship) you kind of get used to having it. Even to the point of feeling lost without it. Just a guess.

I am almost postive it's in the bible, but it might be a mormon things I am thinking of. It was about a war in some country. A prophet I believe was told to go into the country where God judgement was about to happen. The man of God saw the king out the palance, and God told him to kill him. But the Man of God, said to God ( did you not say thou salt not kill??) God told him (its better to kill one that will kill many). \

I am almost postive its in the bible, but it could be a mormon thing, which I was taught when I was younger.

Even if that was the case "kill one better than kill many" Moses and the Levites killed 3000 thats not 1 but many.


G