On Dec 8, 2004, at 11:54 PM, Doug Pensinger wrote:
Dave Land wrote:
"Which Ten Commandments?" From Positive Atheism:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.htm
Dave
How interesting that Catholisism has deleted the graven image commandment altogether. I wonder what the history behind that is?
Well, first off none of the commandments that exist as given on that PDF really exist in the Bible. ALL faiths have done some editing.
Looking at several translations of Exodus 20: 1-18 at <http://unbound.biola.edu/> I see some interesting and surprising divergences from what might be expected. The Basic English translation says this [all texts are verses 2-3]:
"You are to have no other gods but me. You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth..."
This is similar to what Jolly Old Gay King James handed down to us in 1611. The English is updated, that's all.
Young's Literal has a *very* interesting subtlety:
"Thou hast no other Gods before Me. Thou dost not make to thyself a graven image, or any likeness which [is] in the heavens above, or which [is] in the earth beneath, or which [is] in the waters under the earth..."
The above is all in present tense. It's not commandment so much as declaration of fact.
The (liturgical Latin) vulgate version is more or less what the RC church is using today in English:
"non habebis deos alienos coram me -- non facies tibi sculptile neque omnem similitudinem quae est in caelo desuper et quae in terra deorsum nec eorum quae sunt in aquis sub terra..."
The first phrase is very similar to the RC construction: non habebis deos alienos coram me, or, in essence, you shall not have alien (foreign) deities other than me ... but "coram" can *also* mean "in the presence of".
Unfortunately I can't read Hebrew. But there's a translation of the Torah at <http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm> that claims to follow the Hebrew text. Here's Ex. again from there:
"I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth..."
( <http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0220.htm> )
Why this is interesting is that it seems pretty clear that the RC leadership, in developing their version of the commandments, did in fact drop the "graven image" bit -- though it could be argued they did it because the idea of making no likeness of *anything* was a bit silly. And since, in RC practice, saints are *not* considered gods, they really aren't in violation of the "jealous god" idea either.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
