Here's a question. A bunch of religious organizations (and their political representatives) want the Ten Commandments posted in schools, courtrooms. But why the 10 Commandments? I thought faith in Jesus made the law of the Old Testament unnecessary. But more important, Jesus never refers to the 10 Commandments. Why not just post the commandment that Jesus thought was the most important - Love your neighbor as yourself.
I've wondered the same thing. And Christians break the second commandment constantly. Statues of Jesus, crucifixes on the wall, saints in stained glass, all of it is carved images treated as objects of devotion.
There's also the question of which ten. The Bible gives three lists: Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and Exodus 34. The only one it calls "the ten commandments" in so many words is the Exodus 34 set, which orders you not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk. So when a state wants the Ten Commandments up in every classroom, the first question is which set, and none of the people pushing it look eager to hang the one that carries the label.
Sorry Tanner, but the directive ‘not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk,’ is an extremely important commandment and must not be ridiculed, LOL. I can barely type this response, laughing so much.
The most convincing explanation I’ve heard is that the law originally banned cooking a goat that was still nursing. That reading turns a weirdly specific rule into something you can work with, and that’s exactly why it can’t be accepted. Admitting it means conceding that the wording got garbled somewhere between the original author and the copy in your hands, and inerrancy doesn’t survive that concession.
Well, whatever the ritual, whatever the problem with a goat and its offspring, how to cook or not to cook, my reaction was based completely on your ‘way’ of injecting humor into the explanation, usually without warning, and I always just find it irresistibly funny!
I don't think there is any evidence of such a ritual. Is it possible? Sure. But anything is possible if we're allowed to produce evidence out of thin air just to read the Bible as we want. At that point, what the Bible says doesn't really matter anymore.
The best explanation I've come across is that the original rule was about not cooking a goat while it was still nursing. What do you think about that?
For me though, it wasn’t really the issue of the commandment itself, many reasons may be forthcoming, it was my reaction to Tanner and his unique ability, his way of pointing out, or introducing a fact that just cracks me up. He can be totally serious in a statement followed immediately by a humorous comment and I always end up in laughter.
Ariel12, I am unsure why you find this prohibition laughable. There are many explanations for why this became unacceptable, and they are not necessarily funny. But it makes me wonder why there wasn't a rule about killing and eating newborn and still-nursing animals in general.
If a commandment comes with a menu of explanations and you get to pick whichever one sits easiest with you, something has already gone wrong with the commandment. Wouldn't you say?
To clarify, my intention was not to denigrate, criticize, or laugh at the ritual itself. The importance of proper food handling and preparation was crucial in ancient times. After all, they did lack our means of food preservation.
Again, it was Tanner’s way of presenting a fact that I find humorous and that’s what I was laughing about, certainly not the cooking directive. I should have been more clear in expressing my intention.
I cannot say exactly, but I know from experience that some who fervently pushed for the Ten Commandments display either in public buildings (ie courtrooms, classrooms) or as a monument, claimed that it represented the Judeo-Christian foundation as a framework of western law. Of course, these same advocates did not find it as necessary to include other sources (ie Magna Carta) even if a monument on public property was being advocated for.
I have always considered it to be an insidious way of imposing a certain denomination's religious views into the classroom. After the Ten Commandments, you start seeing the inclusion of bible passages in history classes - which was being pushed in Oklahoma and Texas thus far.
The problem is that Christian theology breaks the first two commandments, the two everything else is built on. A man who is also God, and images of him set up to be honored, are about as blasphemous as anything gets in Judaism.
In political terms, it's like an organization on your terror list running a campaign about how much the two of you have in common.
Just spotted this comment … so if Old Testament moral laws, or so they thought them to be, are to be willy-nillly tossed aside by Christians, and no matter on that too, but where oh where do you think Jesus got the idea on how to treat neighbors in the first place? So maybe just toss that too.
I'm new to this conflict. I attended Catholic schools early on, and my public schools would never have even dreamed of including religion during the late 50s-early 60s when I was in school. So now, I wonder how my parents and contemporaries might have reacted. I don't know.
But sometimes my naive self wonders at the objections. The list of behavioral rules seems mostly to describe how we would like, in the ideal world, humans to act. No lying, stealing, murder, jealousy and envy, swearing, adultery (which might be awkward i grade schools); respecting our parents and being kind to others; take a break for your mental health and wellbeing.
What if we didn't label them as The Ten Commandments and just put up a big poster that said, "Rules to Live By for a Happy Life and Secure Community"?
Half the list isn't about behavior at all. No other gods, no carved images, don't misuse the name, keep the Sabbath: that's four of the ten, and every one of them is an instruction about who to worship. The tenth polices what you want rather than what you do, and it files a man's wife between his house and his ox on the list of things his neighbor shouldn't have his eye on. Honoring your parents comes with no exception for parents who beat you. The three that hold up as public ethics (no killing, no stealing, no false witness, and false witness means lying in a legal proceeding rather than fibbing generally) were already written into Babylonian law centuries earlier, and they're on the books today in every country that never heard the story.
Leave all of that aside for a moment. Would you be as comfortable with the idea if the list going up on the wall were Islamic law, trimmed to the parts we could all agree on? Or would you be hunting for the hidden agenda, or at the very least, feeling uncomfortable because this time the religion on the wall doesn't carry the stamp of your religion?
I can remember being led in sectarian prayer (including Jesus) in school in the early 60s. Unfortunately I can't recall what year it stopped, so I don't know if it was before or after the ruling.
Here's a question. A bunch of religious organizations (and their political representatives) want the Ten Commandments posted in schools, courtrooms. But why the 10 Commandments? I thought faith in Jesus made the law of the Old Testament unnecessary. But more important, Jesus never refers to the 10 Commandments. Why not just post the commandment that Jesus thought was the most important - Love your neighbor as yourself.
I've wondered the same thing. And Christians break the second commandment constantly. Statues of Jesus, crucifixes on the wall, saints in stained glass, all of it is carved images treated as objects of devotion.
There's also the question of which ten. The Bible gives three lists: Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and Exodus 34. The only one it calls "the ten commandments" in so many words is the Exodus 34 set, which orders you not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk. So when a state wants the Ten Commandments up in every classroom, the first question is which set, and none of the people pushing it look eager to hang the one that carries the label.
Sorry Tanner, but the directive ‘not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk,’ is an extremely important commandment and must not be ridiculed, LOL. I can barely type this response, laughing so much.
The most convincing explanation I’ve heard is that the law originally banned cooking a goat that was still nursing. That reading turns a weirdly specific rule into something you can work with, and that’s exactly why it can’t be accepted. Admitting it means conceding that the wording got garbled somewhere between the original author and the copy in your hands, and inerrancy doesn’t survive that concession.
Well, whatever the ritual, whatever the problem with a goat and its offspring, how to cook or not to cook, my reaction was based completely on your ‘way’ of injecting humor into the explanation, usually without warning, and I always just find it irresistibly funny!
My first guess is that there was a local ritual that called for it - so it became taboo.
I was taught it demonstrated compassion for the mother goat (which was a bit befuddling since the kid was goung to grt eaten in any case)
And later somehow got converted into the prohibition against eating cheeseburgers
I don't think there is any evidence of such a ritual. Is it possible? Sure. But anything is possible if we're allowed to produce evidence out of thin air just to read the Bible as we want. At that point, what the Bible says doesn't really matter anymore.
The best explanation I've come across is that the original rule was about not cooking a goat while it was still nursing. What do you think about that?
For me though, it wasn’t really the issue of the commandment itself, many reasons may be forthcoming, it was my reaction to Tanner and his unique ability, his way of pointing out, or introducing a fact that just cracks me up. He can be totally serious in a statement followed immediately by a humorous comment and I always end up in laughter.
Ariel12, I am unsure why you find this prohibition laughable. There are many explanations for why this became unacceptable, and they are not necessarily funny. But it makes me wonder why there wasn't a rule about killing and eating newborn and still-nursing animals in general.
If a commandment comes with a menu of explanations and you get to pick whichever one sits easiest with you, something has already gone wrong with the commandment. Wouldn't you say?
To clarify, my intention was not to denigrate, criticize, or laugh at the ritual itself. The importance of proper food handling and preparation was crucial in ancient times. After all, they did lack our means of food preservation.
Again, it was Tanner’s way of presenting a fact that I find humorous and that’s what I was laughing about, certainly not the cooking directive. I should have been more clear in expressing my intention.
I cannot say exactly, but I know from experience that some who fervently pushed for the Ten Commandments display either in public buildings (ie courtrooms, classrooms) or as a monument, claimed that it represented the Judeo-Christian foundation as a framework of western law. Of course, these same advocates did not find it as necessary to include other sources (ie Magna Carta) even if a monument on public property was being advocated for.
I have always considered it to be an insidious way of imposing a certain denomination's religious views into the classroom. After the Ten Commandments, you start seeing the inclusion of bible passages in history classes - which was being pushed in Oklahoma and Texas thus far.
The problem is that Christian theology breaks the first two commandments, the two everything else is built on. A man who is also God, and images of him set up to be honored, are about as blasphemous as anything gets in Judaism.
In political terms, it's like an organization on your terror list running a campaign about how much the two of you have in common.
Just spotted this comment … so if Old Testament moral laws, or so they thought them to be, are to be willy-nillly tossed aside by Christians, and no matter on that too, but where oh where do you think Jesus got the idea on how to treat neighbors in the first place? So maybe just toss that too.
I'm new to this conflict. I attended Catholic schools early on, and my public schools would never have even dreamed of including religion during the late 50s-early 60s when I was in school. So now, I wonder how my parents and contemporaries might have reacted. I don't know.
But sometimes my naive self wonders at the objections. The list of behavioral rules seems mostly to describe how we would like, in the ideal world, humans to act. No lying, stealing, murder, jealousy and envy, swearing, adultery (which might be awkward i grade schools); respecting our parents and being kind to others; take a break for your mental health and wellbeing.
What if we didn't label them as The Ten Commandments and just put up a big poster that said, "Rules to Live By for a Happy Life and Secure Community"?
Half the list isn't about behavior at all. No other gods, no carved images, don't misuse the name, keep the Sabbath: that's four of the ten, and every one of them is an instruction about who to worship. The tenth polices what you want rather than what you do, and it files a man's wife between his house and his ox on the list of things his neighbor shouldn't have his eye on. Honoring your parents comes with no exception for parents who beat you. The three that hold up as public ethics (no killing, no stealing, no false witness, and false witness means lying in a legal proceeding rather than fibbing generally) were already written into Babylonian law centuries earlier, and they're on the books today in every country that never heard the story.
Leave all of that aside for a moment. Would you be as comfortable with the idea if the list going up on the wall were Islamic law, trimmed to the parts we could all agree on? Or would you be hunting for the hidden agenda, or at the very least, feeling uncomfortable because this time the religion on the wall doesn't carry the stamp of your religion?
I can remember being led in sectarian prayer (including Jesus) in school in the early 60s. Unfortunately I can't recall what year it stopped, so I don't know if it was before or after the ruling.