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Real?

I know a lot of people are going to object that these aren't the real Ten Commandments, but please bear in mind that they are identified as one version of the Ten Commandments by no less than the annotated New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Also, if anyone has any information on the fate of this version, why it was replaced in popular understanding with the Deuternonomy 5 version, please expand the article. I no longer have access to the refs that said the switch was due to the destruction of the Temple, and in any case there may well be other ideas out there. —kwami 04:00, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

I have a theory about why these have been replaced in popular understanding by Deut 5. Its that these seems so irrelevent and silly to the modern reader. No one want to beleive that their religon is irrelevent or silly, so they read what they want, and read into it what they want it to say. Just my POV. You asked. SAK

Links to biblical excerpts are ugly, defective, malformed. Anybody know how to fix it? I'm too stupid. Great article though, I have to say it's very scholarly and sensible. I didn't have to wade through a lot of smut (like I do for the articles of *cough* some religions which I won't name) in order to find out the actual history of the thing I really wanted to read about. 10/10. 125.236.211.165 (talk) 22:51, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. But sadly, the site the template links to seems to be broken. At least it is pretty now. Notified apparent author of template of problem. WurmWoodeT 06:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Biblical Context

The biblical context section is somewhat confusing. I am editing it to remove some ambiguity and overly wordy-ness. 65.79.30.55 14:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

While it is shorter, I'm not crazy about your edits in this section. I think its a little less precise. I don't think the subject is what it 'is the ten commandments', thats a bit subject to religous interp and POV, I think the subject should be what the canon id's as written on the second set of stone, and what the canon calls the ten commandant. So I'm concidering reverting, if you don't object. Also, the would "actually" (when ref to 'so scholars believe') I believe is predjidicial, imply shock. Steve kap 19:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I admit it still needs work. I hope that the problems that are left are at least mostly because too little was changed, not because the changes were off track. (For instance, the use of the word "actually." I was trying to create a more straight-forward reading. Where do you feel it has lost precision? The old version, in my mind, unnecessarily included the phrase "(Which is the set placed whole in the ark of the covenant)" It also didn't make sense to say, Moses "destroyed the two tablets of stone which held the original ten commandments (that is, the Ritual Decalogue)," and then continue by assuming that the original commandments were the ethical commandments. (By saying that: "Christianity and Judaism consider the second set of tablets to contain the same commandments as the first," in disagreement with scholars.) I am not sure when this was introduced into the paragraph. As far as I can tell, the lost data is limited to the placement of the tablets in the ark, and possibly that Christianity/Judaism believe the ethical Decalogue was on the original tablets. I tried to contain the original information in a more clear way.

Perhaps the sentence "While Christianity... biblical text" can be clarified somewhat? removal of "actually," and expanded/altered to say "written on the tablets." The text quoted is, I believe, used by scholars to show both that the ritual Decalogue was written on the tablets and that it was referred to as the "ten words." 65.79.30.55 20:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, after reading thru the history, I see where you are coming from. Yes, I think that 'actually' maybe should go. I think the lack of percition come from the differents between what IS the ten commandment, and what the canon IDS as the 10C. Exudus can ID the RTC as THE 10C (which I believe it does),and scholars can state that (which I think some do), and still people have a right to think of the ATC as "the Ten commandment". I don't think the issue is what IS the 10C, just what exudus clearly ID's as the 10C. I might be splitting hairs. Steve kap 23:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't think I understand the change you are looking for. The text currently says that the "Torah actually identifies the Ritual decalogue as the Ten Commandments." I think that makes the point you are going for. Is there another line where you think the distinction should be made more clear? 65.79.30.55 01:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Boiling a kid

The following comment on You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk has been deleted a couple times:

While some people find it puzzling that this would warrant a commandment, such cooking taboos are common in East Africa and the Mid East, where it is often believed that using an animal's milk to cook her own young will cause her to go dry or even kill her. In herding societies that depend on their livestock this could be a disaster, and some scholars have speculated that this could be the origin of this commandment.

I am no longer in the city where I found this in the library, and am not about to track it down. But this is rudimentary anthropology, and not in itself a controversial statement. (It may be controversial to apply anthropology to Biblical analysis, but then Biblical analysis is inherently controversial.) If I find my notes (which were packed up for the move) I'll restore it with its source. kwami 18:45, 2005 July 25 (UTC)

I'm guessing that the statement was probably an attempt to explain the Biblical prohibition, not based on factual evidence, but on conjecture. I've often heard that the reason for the choq is "kid boiled in its mother's milk was regarded as a delicacy in Egypt, which is why it's prohibited in the Bible", although there is no evidence whatsoever to support such a statement. My guess is that the statement you're talking about is just another "wild guess", otherwise knowledge of that take on it would be widespread, rather than something you have to track down in an obscure source. Tomer TALK 05:28, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
It was speculation, yes, but I said that explicitly, and it's no more speculative than many of the ideas in the Ten Commandments article. As for how obscure it is, I'm not likely to find more than a couple sources at my local library that go into any kind of depth for the ritual commandments in the first place, let alone ones that make the same point. The point, although circumstantial, was reasonable: many pastoralist peoples throughout the Mideast and East Africa have cooking taboos against mixing meat and milk; in many of them this is rooted in a belief in sympathetic magic, that using an animal for the destruction of its calf/kid will harm the parent animal as well. If you then come across another pastoralist people in the same region that also has such a taboo, like the Hebrews, it's reasonable to suggest that their beliefs may be related. kwami 07:11, 2005 July 28 (UTC)

Well, it might be reasonable to suggest that when you're having a casual conversation in a bar, but in Wikipedia that counts as original research, unless it can be cited from an encyclopedic source. Jayjg (talk) 17:02, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

What a silly thing to say. It's on this page because I don't recall the source, not because I made it up. Unless you're suggesting that documenting things in a library counts as original research? Besides, we shouldn't be citing other encyclopedias. They're generally a poor source of information. kwami 20:06, 2005 July 28 (UTC)

People's memories are notoriously poor; that's why it needs to be sourced. Oh, and "encyclopedic" does not mean "comes from an encyclopedia", but rather "is worthy of an encyclopedia".Jayjg (talk) 22:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I agree with you entirely. That's why I'm not fighting to keep this in the article. I'm not sure it's worth my time, but if I ever find the source, we can then debate whether it warrants inclusion. The wording of your comment was such that you seemed to be saying that speculation, even with a good source backing it up, counted as original research and was only worth mentioning in idle chitchat. That's what I thought was silly. kwami 23:03, 2005 July 28 (UTC)

other deletions

Hi Jayjg,

You've removed some other material, calling it 'bizzarre' or 'POV'. Bizzarre it may be, but it can all be found in the refs. In fact, the absence of the word Sabbath and the Biblical names of the festivals is one of the reasons that many scholars consider this to be older than the ethical commandments. This can probably be expanded. kwami 19:09, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

BTW, calling Yahweh 'God' is POV; many people would disagree with you. The Covenant is between a particular deity and Israel, not with whoever one may conceive of as God.

Yahweh leads to Tetragrammaton, which discusses the 4 letter name, not the deity itself. God discusses the deity, and God is the English name for the deity of the Bible. The other material was not referenced in any clear way in the article. Jayjg (talk) 21:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
God discusses many deities, or at least many conceptions of the deity, besides Jehovah. We could keep the link but disambiguate the name. The English name 'God' is ambiguous in the extreme; the name 'Yahweh' (or 'Jehovah' if you prefer) is not. kwami 21:58, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

The article you have linked to (Yahweh) simply does not deal with the deity, but rather deals with the word itself. God deals with the God of the Bible. Jayjg (talk) 22:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I am Jewish, and I will say that G-d is absolutely not called "Yahweh". Ask any Jewish person if Yahweh is G-d's name, and they will say NO.


My friend, just because are Jewish doesn't make you an expert on Judaism. I'm Jewish myself, and can tell you that the Tetragrammaton IS G-d's personal name to Jews. However, when encountered in a siddur or biblical text its read as "Adonai" because the Divine Name is too holy to utter. -Blake —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.90.2.42 (talk) 05:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Original source

Someone must have been the first to state that there is such a thing as a Ritual Decalogue. Who was that? Which "Scholars" are we talking about? Kwami, do something. Tell us which scholar it is, because I may end up VFDing the page for original research. JFW | T@lk 21:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

What am I, the OED? I have absolutely no idea who the first person to use the term was. If you have the entire cannon of biblical scholarship in your library, and a couple years to spend looking through it, knock yourself out. I don't have such resources. But it doesn't matter: the three sources I provided are enough to demonstrate that this term is used in biblical scholarship, especially when one is the annotated New Revised Standard Version of the Bible itself! kwami 21:58, 2005 August 4 (UTC)
It does appear to be a mass of original research. Jayjg (talk) 21:11, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
If you consider quoting the annotated NRSV, and quoting or paraphrasing standard biblical commentaries, to be 'original research', then you've set an impossibly high standard, and all the biblical articles could be condemned the same way.
Everyone quotes sources when doing original research; it's how they put it together that makes it original. Jayjg (talk) 22:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Meanwhile, please stop deleting information you dislike or find "bizarre". I don't object to deleting the goat in milk comment, because I cannot produce the source for that. And I asked above for help locating the ref for the reasons the ritual version was abandoned; I'm sure there's a lot of more detailed information out there, but I'll track down my rather minimal source again if need be. But the other stuff is right there in the sources I provided. If you want to confirm it, great. That's what references are for. But don't delete things you haven't bothered to check. kwami 21:58, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

I'm deleting bizarre material that doesn't appear to be sourced. If you want it kept, provide sources. Jayjg (talk) 22:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll state it again: which religious scholar was the first to come up with the concept of a "Ritual Decalogue"? Will you please provide this, instead of piling up secondary references. JFW | T@lk 22:23, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

And I'll state it again: I don't know. And it isn't important. In no other article in Wikipedia is it required to find the first historical mention of a term. It would be of historical interest, of course, and I wish I did know, but it isn't essential for the purposes of this article. Nowhere in the Ten Commandments article, for example, does it say who first used the phrase 'Ten Commandments' (which means something rather different than the Hebrew and Greek 'ten words/phrases'). I don't know why you're so hung up on this. It doesn't matter who first used the term, what matters is that it is a term used widely in biblical scholarship.
Plug 'Ritual Decalogue' into Google and you gets plenty of hits, some of them quite respectable. For instance there's Prof Bandstra in the Department of Religion at Hope College; he provides an online html copy of the Bible and article on 'Reading the Old Testament' that uses the term at [1]. There are plenty of additional refs about the Book of Exodus in the bibliography. I'm not about to spend $5 a piece to get them all through interlibary loan in the hopes that one will note who invented the term 'ritual decalogue', but you're welcome to try. kwami 23:03, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

The article definitely looks like original research in the sense of presenting a new analysis / perspective on a primary source that is only marginally based on what has been said in published commentary. Kuratowski's Ghost 22:57, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Could you specify which sections you feel are unjustified? kwami 23:03, 2005 August 4 (UTC)
Well, all of them. If you just read this you will see it was Wellhausen, possibly inspired by Goethe. I can't be bothered to insert the citation, so here's some work for Kwami.
By the way, the overexposure has now caused this page to come first in google:Ritual decalogue. JFW | T@lk 22:46, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the source. Some good stuff there. But while "The claim that Ex 34,11–26 represents an ancient ritual Decalogue goes back to Julius Wellhausen" is suggestive, I would of course have to read Wellhausen to know if he actually used that terminology, or if he merely started a current that later took that name. Since I don't read German, and am not likely to have access to his writings in any case, that's not something that I can easily verify. And of course it wouldn't answer the question: It could easily be the case that the phrase 'ritual decalogue' was already current in Wellhausen's time, and that he was merely the first to combine it with Goethe's claim that it was older than the TC. So the best I'd be able say was that the term can be traced back at least to W. kwami 07:53, 2005 August 7 (UTC)

I wouldn't neglect the Goethe reference! JFW | T@lk 14:13, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't planning to! Anyway, here's what's I've found on Wellhausen:
Childs, 1979. Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture
p. 165. ... after Kuenen's criticism Wellhausen agreed that the Book fo the Covenant did not belong to J. That decision cleared the way for him to distinguish between E's 'ethical decalogue' (ch. 20) and J's 'cultic decalogue' (ch. 34).
Not exactly the same words (but then we are translating from the German), and not specifically attributed to him. But evidently at least in use by his time if he didn't invent the term. Presumably Goethe didn't use it (evidence from omission), but this will take some follow up to get to the bottom of. kwami 02:38, 2005 August 11 (UTC)

Vote for Deletion

This article is nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Ritual Decalogue. Thank you. IZAK 09:29, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Now that the vote for deletion is over, perhaps now is a good time to look back on this debate, to see what could be learned from it. Someone made the comment that the voters for deletion did so for idealogical reasons, and of course this is so. But why? Why would people with strong Christian or Jewish backgrounds (see their home pages) want to delete an article about the THEIR BIBLE? I think that answer is obvious to us all. Its the elephant in the room. Steve kap 15:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

additional refs

An additional reputable source if anyone's interested (Bible Review wrote "A remarkable work..Friedman is to be congratulated", for what that's worth.)

  • 34:28. the Ten Commandments. The second set of the commandments appears here in vv. 14-26. Three of them are similar to the commandments that appear in Exodus 20: the commandment against bowing to other gods (34:14-16), the commandment against molten gods (v. 17), and the commandment to cease work on the seventh day (v. 21). The other seven are different from the Ten Commandments that God speaks aloud over Sinai. In critical biblical scholarship we understand these two versions of the Decalogue to come from two different ancient sources. But how are we to understand them in the final form of the Torah? The answer may lie in a second contradiction: In the first verse of this chapter God tells Moses that "I'll write on the tablets the words that were in the first tablets." But now God tells Moses, "Write these words for yourself" (34:27). Perhaps we should understand this to mean that God writes the words on one side of the tablets, and Moses writes the words of the second set of commandments on the other side. As is commonly noted, the majority of the first set are ethical commandments, involving relations between humans and other humans: don't murder, don't steal, ... The second set are mainly ritual commandments: Observe the holidays, redeem the first born, don't sacrifice with leaven, ... The two sets are thus complementary, involving the two essential kinds of commandments: relations between humans and humans, and relations between humans and God.
Friedman, 2003. Commentary on the Torah.

Okay, here's another, much older, but with more detail.

Encyclopædia biblica: a critical dictionary of the literary political and religious history, the archæology geography and natural history of the Bible
Edited by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D.
Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford
and formerly Fellow of Balliol College
Canon of Rochester
and
J. Sutherland Black, M.A., L.L.D.
formerly assistant editor of the Encyclopædia britannica

Volume I, 1899

  • Entry for Decalogue
5. Second and older Decalogue.
The reasons against a date very much earlier are clinched by the modern discovery that there was another decalogue older in character. True, we cannot say for certain how each particular precept of this older decalogue ran. We do known, however, that reference is made to it by the Yahwist in Ex. 34:28, and further, that the decalogue itself is imbedded in 10-26, and there is, therefore, no doubt about its general character. Wellhausen's reconstruction is as follows:
[...]
The Yahwistic legend which encloses this decalogue is simpler and more natural, for here it is Moses, not Yahwè, who hews the tables and writes the words. The decalogue represents that ritual of outward worship which was essential to the early stages of national religion, but was subordinated to ethical monotheism by Amos and his successors. Yet even this decalogue must be put long after the time of Moses. The feasts mentioned imply an agricultural life, and must have been adopted by the Israelites after their settlement.

Volume II, 1901.

  • Entry for "Exodus (book)"
4. Laws in JE.
i. Ceremonial Decalogue. —Ex. 34:10-28 contains, as we have seen, the legislation of J. Its injunctions are exclusively religious : it forbids the worship of any other deity and the making of molten idols; commands the observance of the three annual feasts and of the Sabbath, the sacrifice of firstlings and the offering of first fruits; and prohibits certain rites which were probably associated with other cults. These laws are set forth as the terms of the covenant which Yahwe [sic] makes with Moses as the representative of Israel, and as such they are committed to writing by Moses (1027 f.). Ch. 34:10-26 thus presents itself as a counterpart to the 'Book of the Covenant' (247) which is contained in 21-23. In 34:28, however, we read that Moses remained forty days with Yahwè on the mountain, and he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the 'ten words.' From this it would seem that the commandments in 14-26 constituted J's decalogue, an older counterpart to the Ten Commandments in Ex. 20:1-17 Dt. 5:6-21* (see Decalogue). Upon this theory, 34:1 ff. containsJ's account of the origin of the two tables of the law; 16, and the words 'like the first' in 1a and 4a, which represent these tables as designed to take the place of the tables which Moses had broken (32:19), are harmonistic additions by the redactor who introduced 34 in this place. Kuenen, on the other hand, contends that 14:28b had orginally nothing to do with 10-27; they formed part of E's narrative, and the ten words are no other than E's decalogue (20:1-17). Whatever view be taken of the relation of 28 to 27, the phrase 'the ten words,' which collides with the preceding 'the words of the covenant,' seems to be a gloss, introduced under the influence of the deuteronomistic theory that the covenant was made upon the Decalogue alone (cp esp. Dt 4:13). If this be the case, there is no direct evidence that the laws in 34:10-26 were originally just ten in number. It may be suspected that the words 'upon the tables' which connect 28 with 1-4 are also secondary, and that the original sequel of 27 was closely similar to 24:4a 7 f., if, indeed, it be not contained in those verses (Valeton). On the other hand, 34:46, 'talking in his hand two tables of stone' ([Hebrew phrase here], indefinite), seems to be original; and it is perhaps on the whole more probable that the commandments of J also were inscribed on stone. Whether this is the oldest representation, and whether in the oldest Judæan tradition the commandments were given at Sinai or at some other place—perhaps at Kadesh&mdahs;are questions to which no certain answer can be given.
* This seems to have been first observed by Goethe, in 1773.
ii. Character and origin.—The laws in Ex. 34:10-28 are certainly older than the setting which represents them as the terms of a covenant made by Yahwè with Moses at Sinai; and are the earliest attempt with which we are acquainted to embody in a series of brief injunctions formulated as divine commands the essential observances of the religion of Yahwè. We may safely assume that this collection of sacred laws was made at a Judæan sanctuary, and that it represents the ancient usage of the region. The age of the collection can only be inferred from its contents.
The three annual feasts which occupy the central place in the cultus are agricultural festivals, and presume a people which had passed over to a settled life, to whom tillage is a chief concern. On the other hand, the idea of religion to which such laws as those that forbid the seething of a kid in its mother's milk, or the keeping of part of a sacrifice till the next morning, appear fundamental, is very primitive.** A still stronger indication of the antiquity of this legislation is the fact that the demands of Yahwè all have reference to the way in which he is to be worshipped. Religion seems to be as yet untouched by the prophetic movement whose burden was that what God demands is not worship but righteousness.
** It must be remembered, however, that such survivals of primitive religion, regarded as positive divine commands, are often carried along into much more advanced stages of development, as Judaism itself best illustrates.
In the strongest contrast to the fundamental revelation of Yahwè's will in J is the decalogue of Ex. 20:1-17. On the Deuteronomistic elements in this document and on its relation to Ex. 34:10 ff., see Decalogue, ss. 2. The narrative in Ex. 32 (golden calf) is inseparable from it, and is aimed at the religion of the kingdom of Israel; the repudiation of its idolatrous cult which we find in Hosea is carried back to Horeb. This narrative, therefore, also belongs to the prophetic edition of E (E2). The Decalogue seems to have supplanted the law given at Horeb in E. We may safely assume that this law was similar in character to that of J in 34:10 ff. ; and it is not improbable that fragments of it are preserved in 23:14 ff. Whether it constituted a decalogue must remain uncertain.

That is, Goethe is credited with recognizing the Ritual Decalogue as older than the Ethical Decalogue, but the actual term Ritual Decalogue is not used. Instead we find ceremonial decalogue. Of course, ceremonial, cultic, and ritual are the same concept. Note also that the Encyclopedia biblica speaks of "a decalogue" in Whether it constituted a decalogue must remain uncertain; in other words, there are at least two decalogues in the Bible, and perhaps there had been a third. —kwami 22:10, 2005 August 15 (UTC)

Terminology is not really a factor. Things often start off with different names. I think Goethe deserves the credit. JFW | T@lk 22:20, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
He may deserve credit for recognizing the ritual decalogue as older than the ethical decalogue, but there is no indication he deserves credit for recognizing the ritual decalogue as a distinct decalogue. That presumably happened much earlier (perhaps for as long as the two texts existed), and that is the point of this article. If I understand correctly, the Oral Law makes a special point of explaining how the phrase TC in Ex. 34 actually refers to Ex. 20; this would suggest that when the Mishna was being written, students were raising this very question. kwami 23:17, 2005 August 15 (UTC)

Confused

I don't think there's a single Jewish and Christian source that actually identifies this set of ordinances as "the ten commandments" or "a ten commandments." I think all there are are non-Jewish, non-Christian people asserting that the text of the Bible itself makes this designation. This is one possible POV interpretation. Insisting that the text of the Bible at this point actually designates these laws as "the ten commandments" is POV, inasmuch as I content that probably every Jewish and Christian scholar for centuries (millenia) have read it as the beginning of a completely new section of laws.

Can anyone prove me wrong with a source? And, again, simply saying, "But the Bible says it is the ten commandments" does not address my point. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 20:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

This theory apparently originated with J.W. Goethe and has been a darling of the Bible criticism movement. All evidence is circumstantial (but that applies to "scholary" Bible criticism as a whole) and the whole matter is fancy conjencture. I believe I quoted the Goethe source above.
"circumstantial" also applies to claims of "accuracy" for the bible. So please lets avoid the "quotation marks" around scholarly. --User talk:FDuffy 23:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
This article has been the darling of Kwamikagami and the departed user FDuffy, the latter of whom was well known for this compositions that were difficult to WP:V. I would not object to a drastic rewrite and/or shortening, but I do also believe that if the man from Weimar came up with this, it is potentially notable. JFW | T@lk 21:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Its easy to verify my compositions. Just read the relevant Jewish Encyclopedia articles, Finkelstein (e.g. "The Bible Unearthed") and Friedmann (e.g. "who wrote the bible"). --User talk:FDuffy 23:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
You're right, these are not considered the TC in any traditional interpretation I'm aware of. That doesn't mean that the scholars discussing the RD aren't Jewish or Christian, however: Some clearly are. The first crude draught of this article quoted several Jewish and Christian sources (including a gloss in the NRSV) to address just such criticisms, but that didn't make for a very good article. kwami 21:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
What is unclear is the development of the concept. I would recommend a rewrite of the article with sections about which scholars developed the idea, its potential significance for Jewish and Christian theology, and reactions from the more traditional scholars. JFW | T@lk 22:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
That would be nice. It seems from the defence of the traditional view in the mishna that this idea is far older than Goethe — Goethe might just be the one to first propose that the RD is older than the ED (thus its importance to biblical criticism). There are rather elaborate explanations as to how "wrote these words" refers to a passage 20 verses back rather than the passage it is apparently embedded in, but I'm not the one to cover this. kwami 22:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
There is some discussion of how the "ritual decalogue" began to be proposed in the Jewish Encyclopedia, but it is really tied up in general terms with the development of the documentary hypothesis as a whole. To put it simply, only P has the Ethical decalogue, while E only has the Covenant Code, and J this "ritual decalogue", the fact that they all appear in the same point in the narrative makes them look as if versions of each other, particularly as the ritual decalogue and covenant code are quite similar. In J it basically lists the commands of the ritual decalogue immediately followed by the line "...he wrote these words, the ten commandments", without any other set of commandments being mentioned anywhere in the moses narrative of J, i.e. "the ten commandments" in J must refer to the ritual decalogue.
Of course, opponents of the documentary hypothesis dispute the partitioning into J, E, and P, and so dispute the validity of producing a narrative in which the words "the ten commandments" solely appears with the content of the ritual decalogue, but its existance follows logically if you assume the documentary hypothesis is valid, and a good argument can be made from the narrative that a ritual decalogue exists regardless of the documentary hypothesis, as this is the only point prior to deuteronomy in which "the ten commandments" are named as such. --User talk:FDuffy 23:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I see the article's survived an AFD, and I agree that the concept definitely needs to be covered. It's a very significant charge right now. But it needs NPOV work. It needs to not imply anywhere that the Bible definitely, beyond question actually refers to the "ritual decalogue" as the "ten commandments." This view needs to be reported and properly contextualized. Portions of the article seem to do this well; other portions do not.
Would I be justified in placing an {{pov}} here? Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 03:46, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I think that should be reserved for when an entire article is slanted. If you feel that it is balanced in parts but not consistantly so, then we can probably work out the rough spots. Otherwise no one's going to know which aspects you're objecting to, and which are okay. kwami 04:45, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It does help if you point out what it is that you think is pov, otherwise it is difficult for us to do anything to alleviate that impression? --User talk:FDuffy 23:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Exudus 34.28 ref to this text as "The Ten Commandments". Is THE BIBLE a Christian/Jewish enough source for you? BTW, this is the only text called by the bible "the ten comandments", ritual or otherwise. SAK

Couple more point "the idea begain with Goethe in 17xx", isn't that a lot like say Columbus discover America, in 1492, when there were people there when he "discovered" it. In other words, the people that first wrote and read Ex 34.27, dodn't you think they, though of ex 34 as "the ten commandents", afterall, they wrote that they did. SAK

"It needs to not imply anywhere that the Bible definitely, beyond question actually refers to the "ritual decalogue" as the "ten commandments." ", Is this what NPOV requires? What about "cite published relibable sources"? How can you ref to Ex 34.27, which says that the 10C in Ex34 ARE the ten commandments, without stating that they are the ten commandments. Does NPOV require ignoring published, reliable sources? Is everything a matter of POV? SAK..

Ex 34:28

Eliyah, we are obviosly disagreeing about this. My point is that Ex 34:28 says "these, the 10 commandments" (also translated as "10 statements"), and, because 34:28 comes after 34:27, 26,25 etc (which ARE the RD), that "these", by definition, ref to the RD. I don't think its a matter of POV, I think its a matter of definition. If you want to add a "but some people disagree with this because xxx" or some such thing, that might make sences, if its verifiable. Also, I feel that since you made the change, the onuis is on you to get agreement for the change. I'd be happy to hear what you have to say. Steve kap 20:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Exodus 34:28 does not say, "these, the 10 commandments." Read it again. It says "He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten statements." In Exodus 34:27 God does, in fact, tell Moses to "write these statements." However, He does not say to write them on the tablets, but just to write them. (Since they are a covenant, this instruction makes good sense.)
When verse 28 says that "he" wrote the ten statements on the tablets, this is referring to God. This is clearly so because in 34:1, God says that He will write them. He also says that they will be the same ten which were on the first set (not new ones which He is about to dictate).
Also, we can assume that when God tells Moses to write His statements, Moses does so immediately. However, it is only after 40 days that the "ten statements" are written on the tablets (34:28).
Outside of Exodus 34, it is not hard to find a source that the 10 commandments on the tablets were the ones spoken to all Israel. They are explicitly identified in Deuteronomy 4:13, 5:18, 9:9. Also, in Deuteronomy 10:4, the second set of commandments are explicitly identified as being those same 10.
In order to even have the possibility of understanding the "ten commandments" of 34:28 as referring to the ritual decalogue, one must ignore a) the 4 verses from Deuteronomy and b) verse 34:1, from the chapter of the RD itself. Therefore it is POV to categorically state that 34:28 is referring to the RD. --Eliyak T·C 07:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, thats not what I call getting agreement before making a change.

As to your points: My mistake, yes, Ex 34:27 is the one that says “write these words”, its Ex 34:28 that calls these words “the ten commandment”.

The normal, grammatically correct I'd say, way of read a text is one sentence referring to the previous one. Your implication that Ex 34:28 ref to text written in Ex 20 and NOT Ex 34:27 is taking things out of context. If we are allowed to rearrange the sentence of a work in any order, we'd have chaos.

As to your “in order to understand...one must ignore” comment, you are assuming an internal consistency in the bible, a consistency which can't really be found. One needs to read no further than Genesis 1 and 2, the two very different creation stories to bear this out.

I 'd go so far as to put in the word “appears”(in the text in question) to allow for those that see it otherwise. But to leave it out completely, well, that's censorship, that's allowing those with a religious POV to play spin doctor, to decide which parts of the bible can be referred to and which cannot. I won't go that far. Steve kap 16:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be satisfied with adding the word "appears." Some other points I'd like to make, however:
  • Ignoring Deuteronomy, while not a problem according to Documentary Theory, goes against the complete Bible as it presents itself to the reader (as does ignoring Exodus 34:1). While the Bible contains some contradictions, in this case we have a clear statement (Deuteronomy 10:4) vs. an ambiguity.
  • Biblical criticism is not the last word on the Bible. It must also be described as it is understood by the religions to which it is integral. To make categorical assertions which are against the opinion of those religions, even if they are not backed up by the text, is POV. When the text itself is ambiguous, all the more so.
  • In this case, not only does the assertion require that one take the opinion of Documentary Theory that Deuteronomy is a separate text, but also that Exodus 34:1 (ostensibly J) is separate from Exodus 34:28 (also apparently J). The idea that the "ten commandments" of 34:28 are the RD is interesting, but is by no means the clear meaning of the text, even according to Documentary Theory.
I hope you can see that a factual assertion here would be POV. --Eliyak T·C 00:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I used "seems" instead of "appear," because that word is also in the previous clause. --Eliyak T·C 00:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the changes you made, thanks for reasoning with me. I'd like to respond to some of your points, just for the sake of discussion:

I disagree with your assurtion that religous text can only be interpreted by "the religons to which it is integral". Think of it, what other field is there that disallows examination from the outside? I think, at the least, historians should have a go at such text, also linguists, mathmatitions, social scientist etc. By leaving off such viewpoint, you create a bubble, and inside that bubble anything can pass for the truth. The emperor has new clothes effect. You might, being a memeber of a religon, very well have an interpretation, and you might content that it is "correct" according to your religous tradition. But thats just one POV. There is a historical interpretation, a lignuistic interpretation, etc.

As to Deuteronomy, my understanding is that its of dubious origin. It was "found" in a section of the temple that was being renovated. And it contained language that was favorable to those that "found" it. And that it was written in the style of the era that it was "found", not of the era from which it was preported to be.

Many see condratictions in the bible as a shadow of former conflicts, dissagrements, compromises (much like wiki, I think). While this may or may not be true, I don't think its helpful to gloss over the condradictions, to take the explainations of the faithful as historical fact. If we want to really know that nature of our "sacred" text, we should examin them head on. Steve kap 00:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I think perhaps you've misunderstood me on one point, and we are not so much in disagreement. Religious texts need not be discussed only according to the religions which pertain to it, but to assert the Point Of View that those religions are incorrect (especially when they have a 2,000-year history of textual analysis!) is plainly wrong. It would also be wrong for a Wikipedia article to present religious doctrine as unquestionable fact. --Eliyak T·C

10:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, and it sounds reasonable, but it can leed to problems. Consider, from Genesis: 

"...the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children.."

Now there are religous people that I've talk to that say that this line doesn't say that god had sons (or, not more than one, anyway), and that the sons of god didn't cross breed with humans. Even after reading this line, they make that claim, and some even (remarkably) that this line DOESN'T say.. well.. what it unambigously does.

So, using your rule, how would we ref to this passage in wiki? Would it be "it appears to some reader that sons of god...". Just because there are those that are willing to do some mental and logical gymnastics, does that me that we have to use weasel word, even to only report what the text says?Steve kap 14:21, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It also says, in Exodus 21:6, "Then his master shall bring him unto the judges." (KJV) Here the same word is used - Elohim, but there is relative consensus that this means "the powers that be," (i.e judges) not "God." I would say something like, "The word Elohim has been interpreted in different ways. Some believe this indicates that God in fact had sons, while others see "Elohim" as referring to the noble class."
By the way, it seems that Genesis 6:2 would be J, not E. --Eliyak T·C 21:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

??? I didn't claim that Gensis 6:2 was J or E. Sorry, I'm totally missing your point Steve kap 23:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

My point is just that it would be uncharacteristic for "Elohim" to be used in a J text, which is a minor point in favor of saying that it does not mean "God." --Eliyak T·C 04:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Good Work

Some good work as been done on the Academic Interpratation section. I think that in general, this article has become quite scholarly, getting into the history of the subject, giving acamenic interpretations of many types.

Compare with the article on "The Ten Commandments", which focuses mostly on, say, the religous tradition of the origin, with very little actual history.

And to think, THIS article was listed for deletion, for reason anyone can resmise for themselves. What a loss that would have been. Steve kap 14:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad it's gotten to where it is, and appears stable. When I created it (in what I admit was a not very encyclopedic article), you could hardly find anything about the RD on the net, and I was afraid I would face a constant battle to delete or bowdlerize it. kwami 16:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


Just a thought

Doesn't it ever occur to anyone that an all-knowing, all-powerful God would have been able to make this all so clear that we wouldn't have any controversy at all? Just askin'.Kjdamrau 17:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)kjdamrau

Why Considered Minor

As to: "As they concern points of ritual, rather than ethics, they are in general viewed as having minor significance compared to the Ethical Decalogue." I'm not sure that this can be verified. I personally think that the RD is seen as minor compared to the ED because the RD is just so silly, and embarassing for the religous. Now, I can't verify that. But maybe there is some school of thought that does tell us why one if preffered over the other. Lacking this, lacking a verfiable explination, I suggest we give NO explanation, and simply state that the RD is generally considered of minor importance. Steve kap (talk) 00:59, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You're right. The reason appears to be that the Jews moved on to other conceptions of God's commandments, but that early versions remained in the scripture and were mostly ignored. But that gets into Biblical criticism, which people get really touchy about. kwami (talk) 02:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Done. kwami (talk) 02:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This article is a mess

I find it very confusing. It would help to know who first proposed this reading of Exodus. Also, how widley is it shared? I know of no major scholar who writes, in any detail at least, about a ritual decalogue. This does not mean there are none - i have not read them all -- but one just cannot tell from this article It is impossibly vague!

This strikes me as a key section:

The commandments in the Ritual Decalogue are expanded upon in the Covenant Code, which occurs prior to it in the Torah, and thus have the impression of being a summary of the important points in the Code. The Covenant Code is believed by most scholars of biblical criticism as having originally been a separate text to the Torah, and thus there is much debate as to the relationship between the Ritual Decalogue and Covenant Code. There are essentially two positions, neither of which is decisively supported, either by evidence, or by number of scholars:
Either the commandments of the Ritual Decalogue were originally indistinct commandments in the body of a much larger work, such as the Covenant Code, and were selected as being the most important by some process, whether gradual filtering or by an individual,

Or the Covenant Code represents a later expansion of the Ritual Decalogue, with additional commandments added on, again either by gradual aggregation, or by an individual. The documentary hypothesis identifies the Ritual Decalogue as the work of the Jahwist, from the Kingdom of Judah, and the Covenant Code as that of the Elohist, from the Kingdom of Israel, both writing independently. It does not however answer the question of how these texts were related, merely that the Ritual Decalogue circulated in Judah, and the Covenant Code in Israel. What the documentary hypothesis does partly explain is the relationship of the Ritual Decalogue to the Ethical Decalogue, and why, instead of the Ethical Decalogue, it is the Ritual Decalogue which is written on the two tablets when Moses ascends the mountain to have the Ethical Decalogue inscribed for a second time.

Again, it is vague and perhaps violates NPOV by not clearly identifying the views, and not providing any context. For almost every sentence, I want to know, according to whom? Who first proposed this argument? How was it received? What notable scholars accept it? What notable scholars reject it?

I assume the editors who wrote this worked from sources that have this information. I beg you, please put it in. Let's be clear about who and when, let's get a sense of what the context was in which someone proposed such an unusual reading of the Bible and what their evidence was. The result would be a far more educational article. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:47, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

That has been completely reworked from what I wrote, so I don't have those sources. The editor who wrote most of it, FDuffy, hasn't been here since 2007. — kwami (talk) 00:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I went back to your 2006 version, and your sources were an annotated Bible and a couple of Bible dictionaries. That was four years ago. haven't you had any time in those four years to do real research? You know, an annotated Bible and a Bible dictionary wouldn't cut the mustard for a college research paper; surely Wikipedia (which has authority that college term papers do not0 should be held to a higher standard, don't you? You seem to care about the topic, haven't you read the actual books? I do not think your version and Duffy's are so different as to be the issue; if just the material you originally wrote to create the article were properly sourced i.e. to the books in which these arguments were first presented to a wider scholarly community, with some context about who they were arguing against, what larger points they were making, and so on, we would have the beginnings of an actual encyclopedia article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:37, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

No, for some of that time I've been overseas (without electricity, running water, a post office, or a phone, let alone internet or a library) and otherwise working on things that are important in real life. I am not a theologian or a critic of religion, and don't have the background I would like for this; also, my local library probably has less than what I can find in Google Books. My hope was that by putting something online, others would improve on it. (There was practically nothing online on this topic at all at the time I started this; even Google Books was barely up at that point.) The main problem had been fighting people who wanted to delete it because it didn't accord with their beliefs. I've been protective of it, not because I point to it as a proud accomplishment, but to prevent it from being censored, just as I am protective of other articles I've contributed little to that are routinely attacked by nationalists and the like.
As for not making a proper article from the start, I didn't have those kinds of resources. If I had, I would have used them. — kwami (talk) 23:24, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to redirect

I propose that Ritual decalogue be redirected to Covenant code. I would suggest a merge, but this article is so problematic (for reasons I describe in the preceeding section; also note that there has been a lack of sources and citations template for two years at the top of the article itself) that little in it is worth merging. I have done some research on Exodus 34 (Wellhausen, Kaufmann, Noth, and Hyde's textbook on the Old Testament) and I have found no discussion at all of a ritual decalogue. What I did find was a hypothesis that has two parts: first, that Exodus 20 (the ten Commandments) was written by a different author at a different time than Exodus 21-23 (the so-called covenant code); second, that Exodus 34 recapitulates this, with Exodus 34:1-9 and 34:29 to the end recapitulating Exodus 20, and Exodus 34:10-28 recapitulating the Covenant Code. Apparently, some scholar used the term "ritual decalogue" to refer to the latter form of the Covenant Code. It is not clear who. I do not see any need for two articles on this; neither article really stands alone, and I couldn't make any sense of this article without referring to the article on the Covenant Code. Since the idea of a "ritual decalogue" is part of the covenant code hypothesis, it seems to me that it bears mentioning in that article. But we need only one article and I suggst we just redirect this to Covenant code and then work on improving that article. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. Both articles are pretty bad, but at first glance Covenant code is worse: it has no references at all, so I see no reason for the redirect. -- Radagast3 (talk) 22:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. "Ritual Decalogue" is just a label; what is of interest is that it is called the "Ten Commandments" in the Bible (at least, that is the surface reading, which many scholars accept), and numerous commentators discuss the difference between the two lists so labeled. The reason that it's here is that editors have objected to it being included at Ten Commandments. If you don't like the use of the phrase RD, or don't think it's justified, I suppose we could move it to Ten Commandments (Exodus 34), which would not elevate any particular scholar. — kwami (talk) 02:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The thing is, the phrase "ritual decalogue" is just Goethe's name for what scholars now call the covenant code. Why have two articles? Slrubenstein | Talk 10:36, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
If you don't like there being two articles, a merge proposal would have been the best course of action. At present it seems you're trying to get rid of the better of the two articles (the one with at least some referencing). -- Radagast3 (talk) 10:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
And on reading the two articles more closely, it does seem that we have two different but related topics here, so two articles are probably appropriate. -- Radagast3 (talk) 11:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not opposed to a merge, except I do not see how these are about two different things. This article is about 34:10-28. Goethe called this a "ritual decalogue," but Bible scholars (including historians doing Higher Criticism) all call this "the book of the covenant" or "the covenant code." They are the same thing. This article is just about Goethe's name for it, and the other article is uses what historians and other Bible scholars call it. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Covenant Code is about Exodus 20:19-23:33, while this article is about Exodus 34:10-28. Different passages, one following the other, so I would oppose a merge as well. And the fact that the article survived an AfD several years back is a very good reason not to replace it with a redirect. Also "ritual decalogue" seems to be a fairly standard term: hundreds of books use it. -- Radagast3 (talk) 14:15, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
You misunderstand the argument made by scholars. According to Higher Critics, Exodus 21-23 is the covenant code written by J, and Exodus 34:10-28 is E's version of the covenant code. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:20, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

'Oppose: Ritual Decalogue and Ethical Decalogue are two different sets of suggestions that have different aims and obligations. This article ( Ritual Decalogue) needs a rewrite, not a redirect. Not a merge. What might make sense is to have four articles: Ethical Decalogue; Ritual Decalogue; Other Decalogues; and Ten Commandments The first three cover just their respective decalogues, giving the history and development of them. The fourth article, The Ten Commandments, covers the popular concept, and how the various decalogues rose and fell in relation to each other, and society. (I'll grant that Other Decalogues will probably violate WP:Undue and/or WP:Fringe.)jonathon (talk) 15:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

What scholars call Exodus 34:10-28 the "ritual decalogue?" The article doesn't name any, and its total of three sources are themselves entirely vague. As far as I can tell, this is a turn of phrase coined by Goethe. But what major scholars use it? Not Wellhausen. Not Noth. Not Von Rad. Not Kaufman. Not Alter. Is this just a fringe view? Who actually espouses this theory today? In what context? The article does not provide any of these answers - can you? As far as I can tell, this is just Goethe's idea, which historians rejected in favor of drawing a comparison between the covenant code by J in Exodus 21-23, and the coventnat code by E, in Exodus 34. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:06, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't know who you would accept as a "scholar", or what you mean by "call" (primary appellation? disambiguation only? report of common usage in the lit?). Here are some who have referred to Ex34 as the RD:
Pfeiffer, "The Transmission of the Book of the Covenant", The Harvard Theological Review, 1931.
RBY Scott, "Priesthood, Prophecy, Wisdom, and the Knowledge of God", Journal of Biblical Literature, 1961.
Nielsen, "Moses and the Law", Vetus Testamentum, 1982.
Kennett, Deuteronomy and the Decalogue, 2009.
Are these "scholars"? Is this "calling"? There is, of course, variation in the terminology, just as some scholars call Ex20/Dt5 the "Decalogue", and others the "Ten Commandments". This does not invalidate our article on the TCs! Besides "Ritual Decalogue", there is "ritual Ten Commandments", "Cultic Decalogue", "cultic Ten Commandments", "the older Decalogue", "the Decalogue of J", vs. not only "Ethical Decalogue" but "ethical Ten Commandments", "Moral Decalogue", "Decalogue of E", and perhaps other wording. What we call it (or how we translate it) has nothing to do with whether it is a fringe view; what is relevant is how it's received, whatever the name. — kwami (talk) 23:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I do not think Pfeiffer or Scott really serves your case well, do you? Slrubenstein | Talk 02:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The question was whether people use the term. They've both used the term. Whether they agree with any particular conception of Ex34 is irrelvant: I don't deny that Ex34 being called the TCs means that it is the TCs is a minority viewpoint; I merely maintain that the fact (taken for granted by many scholars) that it is called the TCs in Ex34:28 has been and continues to be of interest. — kwami (talk) 03:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I count 1,520 books on Google Books using the term. -- Radagast3 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I have never questioned that some people call it a Ritual Decalogue. My question has always been who and why. Even if we agree that it is a minority view, that is not the point - we need to know who and why in order to explain the viewpoint clearly. What bothers me most about this and the Covenant Code article is not that they include the view that certain verses have been called a "ritual decalogue," but that they do not clearly explain what it means to call it this. Is it a Jewish Christian thing? Maybe not. But it is definitely not simply a religious versus critical scholar thing. Perhaps this view was once the mainstream view among critical scholars, and has become a minority or even fringe view. This is how it seems to me. If - yes, if - I am right, why was it so appealing a hundred years ago, and so much less appealing now? The purpose of this question is not to justify excluding the view from articles. The purpose of this question is: the answer to this question will provide valuable information to our readers and help us know how to organize the articles. So far, neither article answers any of these questions, and both just raise more questions. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the article could be greatly expanded. I simply don't have the expertise to do it. I don't get the impression that the idea, that there are 3 rather than 2 versions of the TCs, ever had mainstream acceptance that was somehow lost; rather, over the years numerous people have noticed that there are two passages called the TCs, and that one of these is not the TCs of popular conception, creating (for them, at least) a major problem in reading the OT. THAT for me is the point of this article. The various hypotheses as to why the RD is called the TCs are just that, and I'm not interested in pushing any particular one of them. E.g., the idea that the RD is an early prototype of the ED; the idea that it was a 2nd set of TCs written by Moses on the reverse side of the tablets; the idea that it is a condensed version of the CC, or the prototype of the CC, erroneously labeled as the TCs by a later redactor, perhaps the same redactor who added Ex20 by copying Dt5. Regardless of whether any of those hypotheses are true, there remains what many see as the fact that Ex34 is called the TCs by the Bible itself. That's my point. — kwami (talk) 20:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I never thought you were pushing any particular hypothsis as "true." I did think you were combining many sources that actually made different claims, as if they were making the same claim. Also, I was concerned that you were not providing enough context for these sources, so we could underswtand how the different views are related. If you do not have the expertise (and I do not either) I hope we can find someone who does. But I believe that no content should be placed in an article unless someone with the appropriate amount of expertise (which can in fact vary) is sure that the views are presented accurately and in context. Alternatives are to work on sections on the talk page, or to create a sandbox page, until someone can do enough research. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
You're setting a higher standard for this article than for WP as a whole. The normal WP way of handling such things is to tag dubious passages as dubious, cit. needed, expansion needed, OR, nNPOV, etc. Having the article up online attracts new editors; having it in a sandbox merely hides it from view. It's been linked from the lede of the TCs for a couple years now (or had been, until you insisted on deleted the link), and still we haven't had an expert editor visit it. If we hide it away, it will never improve.
(Also, I haven't provided or not provided context for any of this. What I wrote was little more than a selection of quotations, not really an article at all. The article was fleshed out by other, more knowledgeable, people.) — kwami (talk) 20:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, kwami, that is the WP way, and in general it works pretty well. -- Radagast3 (talk) 22:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Maybe what you say is true for many articles, and this is why university lecturers have to tell students not to use Wikipedia as a source. But this is not how "the WP way" and I am definitely not setting a higher standard for this article than for others. I am setting the same standard we have for the articles on Evolution and Theory of Relativity and Louis Pasteur and Feminism. I am asking that you comply with our policies as they are written rther than some caricature form. The bottom line is, I am asking that we write reliable encyclopedia articles, and your repeated whining that I have a high standard tells me that you either do not want Wikipedia to be a reliable encylopedia, or you for some reason what to be able to say you helped write an encyclopedia article, while being too lazy to do serious research. No job is better than a half-assed job. That is true in motorcycle maintenance, house-painting, and riting encyclopedia articles. Look, I could unerstand you whining if I were pushing a POV or saying we should have low standards. But what kind of person complains about high standards? Even during their lean years, the Red Sox tried to win! Slrubenstein | Talk 09:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but no. If we can get this article up to GA or FA status, wonderful. But meanwhile it stays in main article space: what you're proposing is censorship. Again, if it doesn't meet your quality expectations, there are numerous tags to indicate that. We don't go around deleting every article that we think needs improvement but don't want to improve ourselves.
I didn't mind what Radagast thought was a personal attack below, because I didn't think you meant it that way. But now you paint me as either a saboteur, or lazy and vain. What have I to be vain about? I've told you numerous times I did not write the article as it now stands. Almost none of my contributions remain, and I don't mind that, because as far as I can tell, the changes have been improvements. I have put significant research into other articles, and claim credit for them, but not this one. I only want to save it from saboteurs, and encourage its improvement. You have previously demonstrated flaws in your own personality, but I haven't tried to make an argument out of them, as you're trying to do with me. In this case, it would seem you've run out of cogent arguments, and so feel you have to stoop to lower standards to get your way. How about you apply the high standards you want for the article to your own conduct? — kwami (talk) 11:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
That is fair. I do apply my high standards to my own conduct. I just added several paragraphs of content to the article on the Ten Commandments. It was based on my spending considerable time reading through five or six books using the index and table of contents to find the chapters I needed to read closely. I believe that I have presented multiple significant views from verifiable sources and presented them in context. I do not claim that i have presented all significant views, but I believe I wrote my contribution in a way that would make it easy for another editor to add more content. And yes, I would hold that editor to the same standards, explaining the content clearly, providing clear attribution, and enough context so make the account sensible. But as I said these are the very standards I aspire to in my editing. I aspire to do this with all of my content edits. If you think I have fallen short of these "high standards" in any of my content edits I would be glad for you to show me where. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Article Rewrite

It seems to me that what both Kwami and Slrubenstein are wanting, is for this article, and possibly Ethical Decalogue to be rewritten. Perhaps to the point of throwing all of the existing content out. I don't have the resources to write that article. (It helps to have a seminary library nearby. The seminaries near my current abode have fewer resources than are available for the no longer distributed Bible Study Software that is on my PDA.). What I can do, is go through Google Books. The issue there is that one is, for the most part, looking at material that is in the public domain, and thus fairly old.jonathon (talk) 19:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I could be wrong about this, but from what I have read it may make more sense to have both articles redirect to one article on both: "Ethical versus Ritual Decalogue?" "Ethical and Ritual Decalogues?" "Ethical Decalogue and Ritual Decalogue?" Yes, a mouthful, but from what i have read, anyone who believes that x = ethical decalogue also believes that y = ritual decalogue; to provide an account of one view one must also provide an account of the other; in fact, an account of one view would be part of an account of the other.
I too do not have the time to work on this but I have a suggestion: anyone with access to a library should be able to look at the Anchor bible. Each book is edited by a different person. Each person is one of the top scholars in the field. To my knowledge, the Anchor bible series is among the most highly respected critical commentaries on the Bible, something comparable to the OED. In addition to detailed and thorough comments on each verse that draw on virtually all other commentaries, books and articles by other critical scholars (and usually identifying each view and providing complete citations), each volume has a detailed introduction that provides a thorough and lucid account of the history of critical scholarship on that book of the Bible. Aside from whatever the editor of the Exodus volume of the AB thinks, he is sure to provide a detailed and reliable account of the different proponents of and opponents to this view of the passages in question, and an explanation of why this debate was significant, when it was significant, and to what degree it is still significant. Anyone with access to a library could use the Anchor Bible Exodus to write a good solid article laying out the significant views in their context.
I know this is not ideal - ideally, other people could then come by and one by one track down books by individual scholars who wrote on the issue, to flesh out the article's account of their views. Yes, this would be laborious and would require a spectacular library.
But in the meantime I am sure we can rely on the Anchor Bible volume of Exodus for all the basics for a solid start. I have not read this particular volume but I have used other volumes in my research and have always found them to be quite rigorous, presenting a full range of views of the most active and notable scholars. Like I said I do not have time to do this, but thanks to the Anchor Bible it should not be that hard for one person to revise this article or write a new one along the lines I proposed that really explains the idea behind thse words, what the point was, and their current standing among scholars, and be able to identify and attribute the major views. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
The primary problem I have with Ethical Decalogue and Ritual Decalogue in the same article is that to keep it within wikipedia article length guidelines, it is more apt to confuse, than clarify. Keep Ethical Decalogue more or less as is, rewrite this article, and create a new article Ethical Decalogue and Ritual Decalogue that discusses them together.jonathon (talk) 20:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
SL has a good point, that the phrase 'ED' is not used except in contrast to 'RD'. So they do go together. I'm not sure how there would be a length problem; what of ED that isn't pertinent to this article belongs at TCs, doesn't it?
Also, there are narrower and broader approaches to the RD. The RD proper is Goethe's take that this is the precursor of the ED. However, do we really want to cover just the phrase 'RD', rather than the reason for the interest in it? There are many other takes on why this passage should be called the Ten Commandments, and that broader consideration is what IMO this article should cover. If we stick to a narrow Goethean ED-vs-RD focus, then we need to cover elsewhere the problems associated with the phrase 'TCs' appearing in Ex34 rather than in Ex20, where most people today would expect it to appear. That, however, could be included in the TCs article, in a section on 'Ex34 glossed the TCs' or s.t.; if it is, I wouldn't object to a narrow focus here. — kwami (talk) 23:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
While I am glad kwame confirms my view, I did not mean to make a firm proposal. I think we need someone who can do more research on this topic/these topics before deciding. If I am right, an article called "Ethical and Ritual Decalogues" would not be twice the size of this article, it would be about the same size or just slightly larger, because most of the material in an article on RD would be repeated in an article on ED.
I thought I was clear that my own view is to cover all the debates over the concept of RD/ED, and putting them in their context. Doesn't this include discussing people's reasons for interest in it, to whatever extent this is documented in reliable sources? However, if I was not clear, I should make clear now: I do not believe RD and ED "are" specific verses in Exodus. RD and ED are a part of a set of hypotheses about the history of Israelite religion. In presenting these hypotheses scholars refer to certain verses in Exodus as evidence. But that does not mean that certain verses "are" the ED. This is precisely why it is important to put in more context. If someone does not understand what Higher Criticism is, or what makes the approach that Spinoza and Goethe and then later Graff and Wellhausen were taking to the Bible fundamentally different from how others view the Bible, then they will not be able to understand what these scholars are doing - their interests, their motives, their meanings - when they use phrases like "ethical decalogue" or "ritual decalogue;" at best they will end up with a diastorted understanding.
WP has a template for stubs. I think it is great that kwame wants there to be more articles on topics in higher criticism. I still contend that how much we write has to be in relation to how well we know the scholarly literature on a topic. A stub can be a relatively short article that lays out a very simple (but verifiable) claim e.g. some scholars distinguish between an Ethical Decalogue and a Ritual Decalogue. The stub template explicitly lets readers know that this is not a real article but someone's laudable first step, and an invitation for others to contribute.
For a variety of reasons google scholar is a pretty bad tool for scholarly research (which is why most professional scholars do not use it or use it in a very circumspect way). It is hard for someone who does not have access to a real library to contribute a lot to Wikipedia (but then again, the hope is that people will contribute on matters in which they have expertise, and some topics will have to wait until someone with the right expertise comes along). Between 1883 and 1929 Andrew Carnegie made it his business to see that virtually every town in America had a decent library. Clearly one of the great barriers between the first and third worlds today is the lack of universal libraries - I wish Bill Gates or someone else made it their project to ensure that every town in the Caribbean, or Latin America, or Africa, has a good library. But most WP editors are in the US and UK, and most of them should be able to get their hands on the Anchor Bible's volume on Exodus. I think the main problem now is that most people do not watch this page. If people who do could try to recruit someone else to put some time into this, I am still convinced that someone with the Anchor Bible Exodus and a couple of days could take kwame's stub and turn it into something really fine. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Alternate Proposal

Some editors have been claiming that Exodus 34:10-26 is called the ritual decalogue, and that this is the view of Higher Critics. This is definitely not the view of Higher Critics. Higher Critics call these verses "the Small Covenant Code" which they claim is a different author's version of J's Covenant Code in Exodus 21-23.

  • Julius Morgenstern 1927 The Oldest Document of the Hexateuch HUAC volume IV
  • Yehezkel Kaufmann 1960 The Religion of Israel: from its beginnings to the Babylonian Exile translated and abridged by Moshe Greenberg. New York: Shocken Press. 166

However, I have been doing more research and it now appears to me that there are a number of Christian Bible scholars who distinguish between an Ethical and a Ritual Decalogue. I do not think that the term "ritual decalogue" makes any sense except in relation to the "ethical decalogue," and that this must be identified as a Christian POV. So I now propose handling this mess in two ways. First, use the current article Covenant Code to discuss debates among Higher Critics concerning the large covenant code (Exodus 21-23) and the small covenant code (Exodus 34:10-26). Second, redirect this article to a new article The ethical and ritual decalogues and cover discussions among Christian Bible scholars concerning this distinction. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Friedman, who if I remember correctly is a Jew, says, "In critical biblical scholarship we understand these two versions of the Decalogue to come from two different ancient sources". It's hardly just a Christian thing.
I think The Ethical and Ritual Decalogues (normally capitalized) would be a good way to go. — kwami (talk) 23:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I think we're better off keeping the articles names as they are, and simply improving them. An article on The Ethical and Ritual Decalogues would be a third topic, focussed on comparing the subject of this article with the subject of Ten Commandments. -- Radagast3 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I think the proposal was to move and rewrite this article, not to create a third. — kwami (talk) 00:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I know, and I was disagreeing. This article has a clear topic -- the list of ten whatever-they-are in Exodus 34:10-28 -- and, in my view, should stick to that topic. -- Radagast3 (talk) 01:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I am glad we agree on this much. I think it is important to present this as one view 9even if it is not exclusively Christian). We also have to acknowledge that many critical scholars do not identify Exodus 34:10-24 as a ritual decalogue, but identify it as another version of the covenant code. Look, this is obviously very complicated stuff. I just want to bring clarity to these articles. I am not trying to exclude any view - I just do not want different views getting mixed up. In addition to the traditional view that the Ten Commandments are in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, modern scholars have at least two very diferent views: that there are two decalogues in Exodus, and that there are two covenant codes in Exodus. This article AND the article on the covenant code just make a big mess of this, and I just want to sort it out.

But kwami, we will never sort it out if you keep relying on snips of quotes you cherry-pick from Google scholar or Amazon.com. You only confuse things further when you take quotes out of context. You have to find the whole books you wish to quote from, and if you cannot find the whole book online you have to take it out of a library. This is NOT an unfair standard. People who contribute to the articles on evolution and the theory of relativity actually get articles and books from libraries to make sure they are representing the range of views among scientists accurately. If one source quotes another source, don't just life that quote - find the second source, make sure it means what you think it means. Wikipedia has to have standards. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Please, guys, WP:NPA. -- Radagast3 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
SL, "modern scholars have at least two very diferent views: that there are two decalogues in Exodus, and that there are two covenant codes in Exodus". Yes, it is of course necessary for us to cover this. I have never opposed that.
"if you cannot find the whole book online you have to take it out of a library". Are you referring to the footnote that I couldn't locate? That was a book that was mostly available online, but the footnotes section was missing. For sourcing the article, I agree with you, and that is what I did a few years ago, and why I do not currently have access to some of these sources. However, I disagree that that level of scholarship is required for talk pages. Every time s.o. says that they've never heard of s.t., I shouldn't have to run to the library to demonstrate it exists, when in can be documented online with enough context to be clear. (I have not been considering snippet views on Google without such context.) — kwami (talk) 00:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

kwami, I am not going to quibble over sources on talk pages - we both agree that it is the article itself that counts. That is what I mean. I am glad we largely agree, and do hope you did not take my comments as personal attacks. I did not mean to attack you and apologize if that is how you took it. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

This article should be deleted

The subject is not notable, and the article itself has one reference in addition to the other 98% of the article, which is pure WP:OR. Unless someone has a good reason why not, I'm going to start an AfD on this article. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 15:20, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, from whats been presented, I gather that most scholors see the RD as a version of the Ten Commandments. Now, I don't need to argue that the 10C are notable. So, if scholars see the RD as a version of same, wouldn't you see that as notable. Mind you, you don't have to agree that its so for it to be notable. As to the AfD, how you send your time is your business. Steve kap (talk) 19:28, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Very few scholars see the so-called RD as a version of the 10C. The problem is that most of them don't even mention the odd idea, so finding sources which do mention it and reject it is kind of difficult. I think that sources not mentioning it is sufficient to mean that they don't accept it.
Let's have a list of scholars who do accept it. Surely that shouldn't be difficult for you if it's indeed a widespread notion. But of course, that doesn't change the fact that the article is almost entirely original research. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 20:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, here are a coulple that I have handy:
R.N. Whybray, Introduction to the Pentateuch (Eerdmans 1995), p. 116 "The arrangement of laws in groups of ten... is not entirely unusual in the Penteteuch... Another series is to be found in Exodus 34:14-26, sometimes referred to as the "Ritual Decalogue" in distinction from the "Ethical Decalogue"; it is called the "ten commandments" in v.28 and was inscribed by Moses at God's dictation on the second set of tablets that replaced the broken ones. The collection in Exodus 34 has some laws in common with the "Ethical Decalogue", but focusses more on cultic matters."
first sentence of page 1 of David H. Aaron (professor of Bible at H.U.C.), Etched in Stone: The Emergence of the Decalogue (Continuum, 2006): "What is the purpose of the Decalogue, commonly called the Ten Commandments, and why does the Penteteuch contain three versions (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and Exodus 34)?"
Also, if you go to the "10C" disussin page, there are several more.
Now, if you think the article needs to be sited better, by all means, add the citation that you find, or tag "citation need". I think the applicable wiki policy is that your supposed to build things up, not tear them down. If something is imcomplete, add to it, don't delete it. Steve kap (talk) 00:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Lisa seems to be of the opinion that since she believes it to be nonsense, it doesn't belong on WP. Sorry, Lisa, but that's not how things work around here. There is obviously a long tradition of seeing the phrase TCs in Ex34 as referring to the TCs, as we've demonstrated multiple times, regardless of whether that conflicts with your personal views. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a notable list of ten somethings in the Hebrew Bible. It would pass AfD easily. -- Radagast3 (talk) 09:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, ofcourse (if you me by "pass AFD" to mean not be deleted). I think its notable that, those who have here and elsewhere tried to deleted or supress the text of the article are all, with no exception that I can see, strongly self identified with an Abrahamic religion. The reasons are always different. The reasoning is often tortous. Be the the result is always the same: NO RD! I think we need to be weary of this. The religous can be allowed to rewrite text and history to suit themselve. Steve kap (talk) 06:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Russ Kick in the book 50 Things You Are Not Supposed to Know says "01 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS WE ALWAYS SEE AREN'T THE TEN COMMANDMENTS" he pretty much shows this debate between the ritual and ethical. THuis could be metioned in the article - but seeing the amount of time wasted by people debating what is original research and not I leave it to one of you heros to add it etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.231.178.239 (talk) 16:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't strike me as a very reliable ref for anything. At best, it might lead us to some good refs, but we'd want to use them directly. — kwami (talk) 17:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

"disambiguating term for one of three lists identified as the Ten Commandments in the Bible"

Is the Ritual Decalogue a "disambiguating term for one of three lists identified as the Ten Commandments in the Bible"? No, of course not. It's actually "a term used by some proponents of Biblical criticism for Exodus 34: 11-26." Please write lede sentences so that they actually explain what the topic is, rather than making arguments which violate WP:NPOV using obscure terminology. Wikipedia doesn't take sides in Biblical criticism debates. Jayjg (talk) 16:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

kwami, rather than just continually reverting, with inappropriate and unclear edit summaries like "*sigh*", could you possibly explain here why you want to revert to that poorly-written, NPOV-violating text? Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 20:03, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
The one thing I find objectionable, and unfounded, of the Jayjg version are the words "a term used by some proponents of Biblical criticism for Exoedus 34: 11-26." The statement is undfounded, because term is not only used by "some proponents of higher Biblical crtisms" but rather more broadly. The purpose of these words seem to be to marginalize the use of the term. But its a term thats widely used, simplely to ref to the text of Ex 34 11-27, without any intention to advocate anything. As to tone, it apears civility is a rule only for others to follow. Steve kap (talk) 20:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I understand your point, but who else besides proponents of Biblical criticism uses the term? Jayjg (talk) 20:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure I don't know, but unless you can support the proposition that its used exclusively by that group, you shouldn't make that qualification. Its your claim, you have to support it. Thanks for engaging on the issue BTW.Steve kap (talk) 00:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Steve, I'm afraid you have it backwards. You'll need to bring sources that show it being used by anyone else. I mean, I can easily find examples of it being used by bible critics, but if you're maintaining that the use is broader, you're going to need to support that. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 22:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Lisa, I hear your point, but I disagree. Clearly the term is in use. The google hits, the mention in dictionaries, in encyclopedias, religous and others, show the term has currently. Given that, to say its use is restricted to one group, a certain group of bible critics, is a posivtive claim, and requires evidence. Steve kap (talk) 04:07, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
The term isn't the issue. Who uses which term is relevant for what we name the article. The article isn't about the term, but about the subject the term refers to. In any case, that phrasing has now been removed, which is an improvement. — kwami (talk) 06:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
WP articles are, generally at least, not about the words in their titles, but about the subject those words refer to. Our MOS specifically advises against starting a article with "X is the name/word for Y", but to use "X is Y" instead. I've therefore deleted the phrase "a disambiguating term". Who uses the term (AFAIK anyone who notes that Ex34 is called the "ten commandements") is largely irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 22:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm pleased you were able to actually come to the talk page here both comment for the first time and concede that, after only three blind reverts. Now, if certain terminology is not common, but used by specialized groups, why would mentioning that be irrelevant? As an example, the lede of Tanakh currently states "The Tanakh (Hebrew: תַּנַ"ךְ‎, pronounced [taˈnaχ] or [təˈnax]; also Tenakh, Tenak, Tanach) is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible." Jayjg (talk) 23:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I see Slrubenstein continues to edit war despite me removing the offending phrase. (Which in any case is a straw man, since RD is clearly a disambiguating term.) He says it's something about not using jargon, but he's not cleaning up jargon, he appears to be censoring WP to conform to his religious views. — kwami (talk) 23:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

You just violated WP:3RR, so your complaints that others "edit war" ring hollow. Regarding the rest, Comment on content, not on the contributor. Now, care to try again? What specifically about SLR's changes do you disagree with? Jayjg (talk) 23:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
You all ought to know better than to editwar and break 3rr over a simple phrasing. Using BOLD to cover this does not work - since this is complicated by the fact that two persons like the new version and only one the old - and also since the most important part of BRD is D. I think it is pretty obvious that SLR and Jayjg's wording is best - "disambiguating term" is at best awkward and at worst its really bad prose. Also it is not very good form to revert a whole bunch of sourced additions just in order to change back one word. You were all editwarring, you should all know better. Now discuss which wording to choose here, achieve consensus, then edit. ·Maunus·ƛ· 23:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Kwame, you actualy wrote at the Ten Commandments talk page, in reference to just this matter, that WP articles should be written so that everyone could understand them, and not use jargon. "disambiguation" is WP jargon, it has a specific meaning at WP, and it is not a common word. I thought you would have been supportive of the edits I made here, given the position you took a couple of days ago when this issue first came up. "Ritual Decalogue" was, according to the first source cited in this article, a term coined by Goethe in order to disparage Judaism in favor of Christianity. Now, I do not think that any Wikipedian's religious views should be an issue - to call RD a "disambiguation term" is jargon which you said you oppose. Now all of the sudden you support it, and moreover you are claiming that RD is simply a dab term, when according to our own reliable source it is not. It was not coined in order to help people distinguish between two passages in Exodus, it was an argument proposed concerning the relationship between two religions. if we are going to cite the source in the bibliography, don't you think it only makes sense that we tell our readers what the source actually says, in the article? How is this censorship? It seems like you are the one who wants to remove a significant view from a reliable soruce from the article. Why? And by the way, since you brought up my religious views, would you mind telling us what exactly my religious views are? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
At the Ten Commandments talk page I wrote "It would be beter to avoid the word "disaambiguation" which has such a specific meaning for WP editors" and then kawme wrote "Our articles are supposed to be written in normal English, not in WP jargon. — kwami (talk) 00:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)" So it seems that at that time he was agreeing that the use of the word in this article was obscure and misleading. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
And yet, when I remove the word "disambiguation", you revert me anyway, so you're being false in your argument.
What I was saying there is that we should not avoid the word "disambiguation" just because it has a specialized meaning to WP editors, which was your point. Our readers don't care about our jargon; twisting normal English to avoid the connotations of WP-internal jargon is makes it jargon. The word is familiar to anyone who is literate; we should just avoid the specialised WP meanings you were referring to.
This is the first I am hearing about Goethe coining the term to "disparage Judaism in favor of Christianity". Supposing that's true, that's hardly how it's been used in our other sources (the OUP annotators of the NRSV evidently didn't have problem with it), where it simply is a dab term: there are two passages called the "TCs", and to disambiguate them, we call them the "Ritual TCs" and the "Ethical TCs". That's an obvious case of disambiguation, though irrelevant since I've agreed the word should be removed.
I don't know what your religious views are, but you have long fought to purge WP of the simple fact that the RD is called the Ten Commandments, twisting rationality almost beyond recognition to justify it.
What do I object to: just about everything you changed. "a term used by some proponents of Biblical criticism for Exodus 34: 11-26." True, but misleading. It's a bit like saying TC's is "a term used by some Baptists for Deut. 5": also true but misleading.
"argue that it was composed at a later date": No, some argue it was later, some earlier, some parallel: the wording that you deleted covered our sources. Your source for this is from the 19th century. People have thought about it since then.
"is a term": is this article about the RD, or about the term RD? It should be the former unless we have clear reason for the latter, which we don't.
Deleted: "one of three lists identified as the Ten Commandments in the Bible" Here's your censorship. The reason it's called the Ritual Decalogue or Ritual Ten Commandments is because it's one of two lists (three texts) called the Ten Commandments. This is what you have repeatedly tried to purge, and why I called this censorship. — kwami (talk) 14:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
I did not just delete, I edited. The reason I changed the wording is that this sentence uses the passive voice, which is poor style in general and in these case entirely obscures POV. I changed the wroding in order to make it compliant with our NPOV policy, by making the views clear. Someone reading this sentence might just think that there are three sets of "ten commaondments" as if they had some objective existence. No, these are different ways of interpreting the Bible, a highly interpreted text. That there is a Ritual Decalogue is only one view. NPOV demands that we present views, and I edited to make it clear that RD is a view. You write ""is a term": is this article about the RD, or about the term RD? It should be the former unless we have clear reason for the latter, which we don't." What do you mean when you say it is about the RD and not about the term RD? When you say that it is about the RD, are you suggesting that the RD just exists, for all to see, a real object, like baseball or the sun? You say it should be about the former unless we have a clear reason for the latter, and you are right - but they you say which we don't and you are very , very wrong. We do have a reason, a very good reason, for addressing RD as a concept: because RD is a point of view. Not all who read the Bible read a "ritual decalogue," for them it does not even exist. The words of Exodus 34 are the same, but like so many words, people read them differently. if we do not make this clear, we are violating NPOV. 15:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't care about you "correcting" the passive voice, even though saying the passive voice "is poor style in general" is as ignorant as saying we shouldn't end clauses with a preposition. The problem is your changes of substance. Your arguments are belied by the fact that you don't apply them to the main Ten Commandments article. Using weasel wording for things you don't agree with and straightforward statements for things you do is pathetically non-NPOV.
In the lede of the main TCs article, we say, "The text of the Ten Commandments appears in the Bible as two similar passages of length 14-15 verses, in Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. These passages are referred to elsewhere in the Bible as the ten devarim (statements), which is the basis for dividing them into ten parts." You have argued against stating that the "elsewhere" is the RD, and we do not say that it's only a "point of view" that it applies to Ex20 & Dt5. Now, if you are willing to accept saying in the lede of that article that "The Ten Commandments is a term used by some proponents of Biblical traditionalism for Exodus 20 and Deut 5", then I have no problem with your edits here, but as long as we say the TCs are Ex20 and Deut5, then it's only balanced to say that the RD is Ex34. — kwami (talk) 16:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
I do not know of any source that says that Ex 20 and D 5 are not two versions of the same thing. Do you? Does it pass our general notability standards? If so, please, add it to the article. And if it is not a fringe view, change the introduction of the article to make it clear that it is only the view of some (Jews, Christians, and most critical Bible historians, as far as I know) that they are two versions of the "Ten Commandments." You seem to want to make this into some sort of pissing match. Provide a source and make the change. Have you been holding back out of some fear I would revert you on the spot? Honestly!
The reason I make it clear that RD is a view is because I have provided three sources that hold a different view, and a source I discovered because it is prominent in this article says explicitly that the view that this part of Ex. 34 is the RD is a view originally argued by Goethe etc. Why does it rub you the wrong way, that I am following a source that was already being used in this article (i.e. I did not put it in)? You wrote elsewhere that you were ignorant of the argument that Goethe proposed RD as part of an argument that Christianity is more evolved than Judaism - well, fine, you didn't know. Most people read enecyclopedia articles because they don't know things. But don't hold your own ignorance against me!
You write, "Now, if you are willing to accept saying .... then I have no problem with your edits here" and I really have to say, kwame, screw you. Editing Wikipedia is not a contest, and it is not about negotiating what I will accept in one article for what you will accept in another. Our standards should be our policies. If you really think my edits here violate policy, well for goodness sake, don't give in to me! Keep arguing, but just argue based on policy, or on your research on the topic! Do you really think I will accept your saying something in another article because you will then accept my edit here? Well again, I say, screw you! If you make an edit to another article and it reflects good resear ch and is compliant with policy, I will accept it. if I think it is poorly researched or violated policy, I will object. You are insulting me to suggest otherwise.
You have decided to make this personal. You brought up my religious views, although when I asked you, earlier today "would you mind telling us what exactly my religious views are?" you refused to answer. Frankly, I do not care. You don't know me, or anything about me, and that's as it should be. I do not know you from Adam, and if you think I am editing these articles because of some kind of personal beef with you, all I can say is you are sorely mistaken.
None of these edits have been personal for me. I have read books and articles, and I have tried to present the views of those authors, in context, and in a way that complies with our policies. If someone tells me I misread one of the books or articles, I won't have a hissy-fit, and if someone tells me I am violating policy, I will just ask how and seek to find a policy-compliant way of improving the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
In other words, you don't know what you're talking about, and you haven't bothered to read my responses. There's no point in trying to have an intelligent debate when you either ignore it or twist it to mean the opposite of what I say. If you don't know what you're doing, don't know the sources, and either don't follow or don't care about this discussion, then just keep out of the article. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Or what? You will call your religious policement against me? When you have read the major scholarly sources on the subjct, let us know. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
kwami, you state that we should write "The Ten Commandments is a term used by some proponents of Biblical traditionalism for Exodus 20 and Deut 5" in parallel to the lede of this article, but that argument doesn't really hold. "Ten Commandments" is extremely common terminology, used by pretty much everyone on the planet, of every religious persuasion (or lack thereof). There's a reason it gets 5 million google hits. On the other hand, "ritual decalogue" is specialized terminology used in biblical criticism; there's a reason it only gets 9,200 google hits. Wikipedia article ledes must reflect the reality of a topic; they're not pawns in some sort of tit for tat game. Jayjg (talk) 04:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
I was being sarcastic, to illustrate how silly the wording is. When annotated Bibles mention this, we're not talking narrowly about biblical criticism anymore. It's also not about Goethe; maybe we can mention him in the lede, but he's a historical detail. The subject is not the phrase "RD", or whatever we call it, but that Ex34 is called the TC's in the Bible. Who first noticed this (I doubt we can ever know) and which disambiguating terms were used when are relatively minor issues. — kwami (talk) 07:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
"Ex34 is called the TC's in the Bible" You mean the whole chapter is called "the ten commandments?" No, it is not. Or do you mean that what some people refer to as the "ritual covenant" is refered to as the "ten commandments" in the Bible? No, it is not, either. This is an interpretation. The Bible does not say this. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Don't play stupid. I'm obviously speaking of the TCs within Ex32, just as when I (or you) say Ex20 or Dt5 we don't mean the whole thing.
There's the rub: it quite obviously says this. You simply refuse to admit it. We have multiple RSs that attest to that. The interpretation is in applying the phrase in Ex34 to Ex20 or Dt5. That may be the common interpretation, but then no-one here disputes that.
  • "Ex34.1-35: God renews the covenant by writing the commands again. The narrator here inserts a different version of the Ten Commandments (see v. 28), since the first version (20.2-17) has already been recorded. Scholars call this version (vv. 11-26) the 'Ritual Decalogue'."
The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, Coogan, ed. 3rd ed. 2001.
That is, this *is* another version of the TCs; "RD" is a "scholars'" name, which we only need to use because you refuse to allow this in the article on the TCs. Now, we could reword the lede to say that Ex34 is a version of the TCs, and note that only some people call it the RD, or (following general WP practice) we could give other names in the lede (SCC, whatever). But that's a dispute over nomenclature, while you're arguing over substance.
  • "There is another and, acc. to many OT critics, older version of the 'Ten Words' preserved in Exod. 34:11-28, where much more emphasis is laid on ritual prescriptions."
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Cross & Livingstone, eds. 3rd ed. 1997.
That is, biblical criticism maintains that these are the older TC's. That's Goethe's position. That's Ex34 in biblical criticism. But more broadly these are just another copy of the TCs. That's what the text itself says.
  • "34:1-28 The Proclamation of the Covenant: [...] the covenant stipulations are not the same as those in chaps. 20-23. This is surprising, because it is the clear implication of v. 1 that the new tablets are to have the same thing on them that the broken tablets had, and v. 28 states flatly that Moses writes 'the ten utterances' on the tablets."
HarperCollins Bible Commentary, Mays gen. ed. Revised edition 1988.
Again, "v. 28 states flatly that Moses writes 'the ten utterances' on the tablets". Not that biblical criticism interprets the phrase as referring to the laws in Ex34. — kwami (talk) 16:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I do not question that. I question whether there is unanimity as to what the ten words are that Moses or God wrote down. God says a lot of things, and the text says that Moses was up there for 40 days, and when he comes down and proclaims "these are the words (things)" (35:1) Moses says even more things. You have demonstrated that there are reliable sources for the view that the ten things refered to are what it says in verses 11-26. But I have never questioned that there are reliable sources for this view. You write "HarperCollins Bible Commentary, Mays gen. ed. Revised edition 1988. ... Again, 'v. 28 states flatly that Moses writes 'the ten utterances' on the tablets'. Not that biblical criticism interprets the phrase as referring to the laws in Ex34" but I am not entirely sure what your point is. I accept this as a reliable source for the view that these are the ten utterances, but it is still a view. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Everything put in words is a "view", but we don't use that wording in the main article.
My point with the HarperCollins quote is that this isn't just a view of 'some proponents of biblical criticism'. What it's called will vary from school to school, but that isn't the point of the article. Biblical criticism may hold that it's older, or that Ex20 is a later addition to Exodus but that Deut5 is just as old as Ex34, or any of several other things, and yes, any claim that the RD is the "original" TCs does of course need to be described as the view of 'some proponents of biblical criticism', but, as HC puts it, 'v. 28 states flatly that Moses writes "the ten utterances" on the tablets'. Not that 'some proponents of biblical criticism' interpret it to mean that. Or, as Cross et al. put it, 'There is another and, acc. to many OT critics, older version of the "Ten Words" preserved in Exod. 34'. That is, there is another version of the TCs in Ex34, which 'many OT critics' believe to be older than Ex20. Or, as the Annotated NRSV puts it, 'God renews the covenant by writing the commands again. [...] Scholars call this version (vv. 11-26) the "Ritual Decalogue".' Again, the Bible calls Ex34 the TC's, 'scholars' call it the RD. All of these sources make a distinction between what the Bible says and how scholars interpret it. What I object to is obscuring that distinction. — kwami (talk) 18:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Come now, kwami, we've been through this before; verse 28 does state Moses wrote "the ten utterances" on the tablets, but it's still an interpretation of Biblical critics that the statement is referring to Exodus 34:11-26. Clearly the traditional and common understanding is that it refers to different verses. And you've also been told many times that continuing to assert that "the Bible calls Ex34 the TC's" is needlessly provocative, not to mention a violation of WP:NOTAFORUM. We're not interested in your religious beliefs, and every time you do this going forward we'll have to reset the discussion, which will only end up wasting everyone's time. Also, let's not have any more "rv. to stable version" inventions either; it didn't work at the Ten Commandments page, and it won't work here. The only way this will be solved will be through discussion, not by you asserting your personal Biblical beliefs as fact, and not by you attempting to edit-war in your version. Now, what wording would you like to change, to what, and why? Let's go a sentence at a time. Jayjg (talk) 02:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Please provide sources (reviews etc) that The New Oxford Annotated Bible is a work of "biblical criticism". Or The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Or HarperCollins Bible Commentary. If you can do that, I will accept that identifying Ex34 as the TCs is a conclusion of biblical criticism. (I'm not talking about identifying them as the product of a different time or author, but simply of making the connection that the obvious reading is what it means.) Otherwise I will continue to insist that we have mainstream RSs making that connection. This isn't a matter of religious belief for me, but simply what the text says, and what numerous RSs confirm it says.
Why not work with stable version? That's what makes working with you so disgusting sometimes: Changes require no discussion, but reverting them does. Unless, of course, you like the stable version. Then changes requires discussion, but reverting them does not. In other words, you're a hypocrite.
So, starting with the version that's been stable for nearly a year, what specifically do you want to change, and why? (I concede that we should remove "is a disambiguating term for".) — kwami (talk) 02:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Kwami, do you think that "critical historical scholarship" is not mainstream? That's interesting! Well, be that as it may, you tell us how your Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church" identifies its iews .... presumably "Christian." but that is too broad. Narrow it down, please, can we can sthen clearly identify which view it is that is being expressed here. In any event, per NPOV policy, al we have is multiple views. Nothing wrong with that. But please, stop with the personal attacks. If you are going to keep making this personal when it need not be, then why would anyone work with you? There is nothing disgusting of hypocritical about Jayjg's comments (or is this another one of your religion's views?) 08:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Uh, yeah. Taking offense at hypocrisy is a religious value. The non-religious don't mind it a bit. And this is a text-book case of hypocrisy: your requirements were the opposite at the TC's article.
Okay, 'mainstream' wasn't a good choice of words. The contexts I see the phrase 'biblical criticism' used in are debates over who redacted what and when, the pre-biblical sources for texts, etc. Noting that Ex34:28 quite transparently refers to Ex34 is not in that vein, even if it's a minority view. As for what you'd call it when you take words to mean what they say, I have no idea. Sounds like the definition of fundamentalism, but I'm not aware of any fundamentalist denomination that would accept Ex34 as the TCs.
Sure, identifying POVs is fine. The problem comes in with specifying it as narrowly as possibly when you disagree with s.t., but leaving it unsaid when you agree with it. It's a matter of framing. A bit of consistency would be nice. — kwami (talk) 10:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
You were not taking offense, you were being offensive. You are insulting people and pretty much shouting out that you assume bad faith when people who do not think like you edit. Wikipedia is a collaborative process. If you have a good idea about how to dientify a view (broadly or narrowly) by all means suggest it. But don't insult aother editors for identifying a view when they are able to identify it because they have read more scholarly work. Even if you feel there is a better way to identify the view, or that there are multiple views intersecting, there are courteous and collaborative ways to says so, and it hardly takes more effort than it does to insult and belittle. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
What I take offense at is the the hypocrisy: if I challenge you, I need a source. But if you challenge me, I need a source. Don't you get it? — kwami (talk) 22:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Kwami, please strike the personal insults in your previous comments. Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 03:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Why? They're accurate. You're still being a hypocrite: people you disagree with need consensus before making changes, but you can make changes they disagree with unilaterally. — kwami (talk) 06:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Kwami, you've blindly reverted all the copyedits to this article, and still have not struck your personal insults. There can be no further progress in this discussion until you do. Jayjg (talk) 06:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't care about the copy edits, I just wasn't going to put them back in by hand. If you find it offensive when I point out that you're being a hypocrite, I don't much care: Your behaviour is the impediment to this discussion. You delete things you claim are not true, along with the sources that support them; you add wording that you know is false, because our sources contradict it, but hey, what does that have to do with writing an encyclopedia? Truth is more important than verifiability. Lisa and I seem to have worked out a consensus between us, but that doesn't matter, your wisdom is greater. — kwami (talk) 07:07, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Contacted Wikiprojects

I left the same message at the three Wikiprojects monitoring this page in the hope that some fresh eyes can help here - [2], [3], [4]. I hope you all agree that these messages were neutrally worded. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

refs for stable pre-edit-war version

Some of the refs that have been ignored, deleted, or that support the contested wording of the lede.

That the phrase 'TCs' in Ex34;28 refers to Ex34
  • 4:28. the Ten Commandments. The second set of the commandments appears here in vv. 14-26. Three of them are similar to the commandments that appear in Exodus 20: the commandment against bowing to other gods (34:14-16), the commandment against molten gods (v. 17), and the commandment to cease work on the seventh day (v. 21). The other seven are different from the Ten Commandments that God speaks aloud over Sinai. In critical biblical scholarship we understand these two versions of the Decalogue to come from two different ancient sources. But how are we to understand them in the final form of the Torah? The answer may lie in a second contradiction: In the first verse of this chapter God tells Moses that "I'll write on the tablets the words that were in the first tablets." But now God tells Moses, "Write these words for yourself" (34:27). Perhaps we should understand this to mean that God writes the words on one side of the tablets, and Moses writes the words of the second set of commandments on the other side. As is commonly noted, the majority of the first set are ethical commandments, involving relations between humans and other humans: don't murder, don't steal, ... The second set are mainly ritual commandments: Observe the holidays, redeem the first born, don't sacrifice with leaven, ... The two sets are thus complementary, involving the two essential kinds of commandments: relations between humans and humans, and relations between humans and God.
Commentary on the Torah, Friedman, 2003.

That is, critical biblical scholarship explains this as coming from a different source. But taking Ex34:14–26 to be the 2nd TCs does not depend on this.

  • "Ex34.1-35: God renews the covenant by writing the commands again. The narrator here inserts a different version of the Ten Commandments (see v. 28), since the first version (20.2-17) has already been recorded. Scholars call this version (vv. 11-26) the 'Ritual Decalogue'."
The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, Coogan, ed. 3rd ed. 2001.

Again, scholars call it the RD, but the identification of Ex34 with the 2nd TCs does not depend on this.

  • "There is another and, acc. to many OT critics, older version of the 'Ten Words' preserved in Exod. 34:11-28, where much more emphasis is laid on ritual prescriptions."
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Corss & Livingstone, eds. 3rd ed. 1997.

Again, Ex34 is a 2nd version of the TCs; the input of OT critics is the idea that it's older than the ED.

  • "34:1-28 The Proclamation of the Covenant: [...] the covenant stipulations are not the same as those in chaps. 20-23. This is surprising, because it is the clear implication of v. 1 that the new tablets are to have the same thing on them that the broken tablets had, and v. 28 states flatly that Moses writes 'the ten utterances' on the tablets. In the text of the chapter, however, there is a different list of apodictic laws (vv. 17-24) in place of the Decalogue. These difficulties have led scholars to the conclusion that chap. 34 preserves a part of the account of the making of the first covenant in the original J narrative, a parallel to the E and P account in chap. 20, even though it now stands as an account of the making of a second covenant, or rather a renewal of the first. The commandments in vv. 17-24 are sometimes called the Ritual Decalogue to distinguish them from the Ethical Decalogue that occupies the same position in the account of the broken covenant (20:3-17)."
HarperCollins Bible Commentary, Mays & Petersen, Revised edition 1988.

In other words, it's the Bible that says these are the TCs, not scholars. The terms 'RD' and 'ED' are scholarly terms for disambiguating the two passages called the TCs.

  • "Another series is to be found in Exodus 34:14-26, sometimes referred to as the "Ritual Decalogue" in distinction from the "Ethical Decalogue"; it is called the "ten commandments" in v.28 and was inscribed by Moses at God's dictation on the second set of tablets that replaced the broken ones. The collection in Exodus 34 has some laws in common with the "Ethical Decalogue", but focuses more on cultic matters."
Introduction to the Pentateuch R. N. Whybray, 1995:116

In other words, again, it's the Bible that says these are the TCs, and the terms 'RD' and 'ED' are "sometimes" used to disambiguate the two.

  • "There are two lists of pithy prohibitions in Exod. 20:1-17 (paralleled in Deut. 5:6-21) and in Exod. 34:11-26 that occupy pivotal points in the theophany and covenant texts. The lists of Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 5 are called "ten commandments" in the biblical text (cf. Exod 34:27 and Deut. 4:13; 10:4), and that title, or the equivalent Latin term Decalogue, has traditionally been applied to the list of Exodus 20/Deuteronomy 5. Biblical scholars often distinguish the Exodus 20/Deuteronomy 5 list from the Exodus 34 list on the basis of content by referring to the former as the Ethical Decalogue and the latter as the Ritual Decalogue." ::The Hebrew Bible: A Brief Socio-Literary Introduction. Norman Gottwald, 2008:118

Again, the Bible calls Ex34 and Deut5 the TCs; biblical scholars distinguish them by calling them the RD and the ED.

  • "These [Ex34] then, at least according to the Bible, are the true Ten Commandments, and they differ radically from the commandments verbally announced in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. From here on, I will refer to this new set of commandments as the ritual Ten Commandments. [...]
    "The Bible presents four different legal codes, each with a claim that it was the original version of God's covenant with Israel. The only version specifically and clearly identified in the Bible as the Ten Commandments is the ritual version."
101 Myths of the Bible, Greenberg, 2000.

I believe Greenberg is an atheist.

  • "The Ten Commandments occur in three versions. Two are almost identical with each other (Ex 20:1-17; Deut 5:1-21), but the third, which apparently replaced the tablets that were broken, is quite different and may include as many as twelve "words" (Ex 34:10-28). The relationship of this third version to the other two is problematical" (p 501)
    "The Decalogue ... is more commonly known as the Ten Commandments. This material is first encountered in Exodus 20, but the number ten and the familiar two-tablet description initially occur in Exodus 34. ... The Decalogue in Exodus appears to be given a second time in chapter 34. ... Though Exodus 34:28 says that God "wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments," the commands given in Exodus 34 are clearly different from the ones recorded in Exodus 20. ... The Decalogue occurs yet another time in Deuteronomy 5, where its form and content are comparable to the material in Exodus 20." (p 171–172)
T. Desmond Alexander, David Weston Baker, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch. 2003:501

This is from InterVarsity Press. InterVarsity Press is an evangelical Christian publishing house, not the kind of place I'd expect liberal interpretations of the Bible from.

  • "What is the purpose of the Decalogue, commonly called the Ten Commandments, and why does the Penteteuch contain three versions (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and Exodus 34)?"
Etched in Stone: The Emergence of the Decalogue, David H. Aaron, 2006:1

So, we have a liberal Jew, a Presbyterian minister, an evangelical Christian, and an atheist, among others, all in agreement that the phrase "Ten Commandments" in Ex34:28 refers to the commandments in Ex34; that biblical scholars/critics have various ideas as two why there are two version of the TCs in Exodus, but that it's not their invention that there are two versions. How then do we justify the claim that the Bible does not call them the "Ten Commandments"? — kwami (talk) 09:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

That the RD is thought to be older than the ED

Jay also insists on saying that critical biblical scholarship claims the RD is older than the ED, and supports it with a ref on Goethe. But there have been plenty of other takes since then; it's quite common to claim that Ex20 is more recent than Ex34, but only as a later copy of Deut5, and that Deut5 may be just as old. (Do I really need to gather them up again?) So, Jay, why do you insist that one POV within the academic community is the only one worth mentioning?

Aaron, for example, believes the RD is more recent than the ED:

"[My theory of composition] involved seeing the versions of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20 as radical anti-religious renditions of older religious covenantal literatures. ... none of these schools [who wrote the Pentateuch] would ever have imagined that the texts in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and a third, counter-revolutionary text now lodged in Exodus 34 would all end up in the same book.
"No one ever displays the content of Exodus 34 as the Decalogue, despite the fact that its authors were quite intent on having their version dominate religious history. Indeed, Exodus 34 is an intensely religious document written as an alternative to the decidely secular covenant documents of Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20." (ibid, intro)

BTW, I'd be fine with moving this article to "Exodus-34 Decalogue" (Aaron's phrasing throughout his book), if "Ritual Decalogue" is too narrow or contentious a name. — kwami (talk) 09:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Making the lede about the term RD rather than about the subject of the article.

This violates the MOS. Do I need to quote passages, or are we familiar enough with how WP works to know this already? Are some of us so hung up on the name that it's become difficult to discuss the subject itself? Would moving the article to Aaron's phrase help us focus on the subject of the article? — kwami (talk) 09:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Again, no one has ever contested that there are reliable sources documenting that there are a group of scholars who view this section of Ex. 34 as a ritual decalogue. The attempt to date portions of the Hexateuch based on internal evidence was the overriding mission of higher critics in the late 19th - early 20th century, and during that period most identified the RD as older than the ED. But in the post war period, most critical historians of the Bible shifted away from this project, because of the realization that internal evidence was inadequate and the growing knowledge of ancient Near Eastern literature, providing comparative perspectives, produced other interpretations. What I have just related is not unsourced; I have provided sources. My sources show this is a view. Your sources show another view. Great. Just what NPOV asks us to do: provide all significant views from reliable sources. Why kwami is on this crusade for one truth is beyond me. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
What they shifted away from was the idea that the RD was necessarily older than the ED. Yet Jay insists that this be the only view we present in the lede. Don't you see a contradiction in that?
Also, this isn't "a group of scholars", as you keep characterizing it. They are Christian and Jew, liberal and fundamentalist. They aren't collaborators or ideologically aligned. The wording is clear: the Bible states that Ex34 is the TCs. That isn't Biblical criticism. Over and over in these sources, they discuss how biblical criticism addresses why Ex34 is called the TCs. Not if it's called the TCs; that's a given, but why is it called the TCs when it isn't what we think of as the TCs? But Jay has purged this simple and well referenced fact, and insists on keeping it out in some crusade for one truth that is beyond me.
And the biblical scholars don't say that there's "a ritual decalogue" in Ex34, as if it were some other kind of animal, some random list that happens to be ten commands long, they say that there's a divergent version of the TCs in Ex34, which some of them call the RD as a convenient label. — kwami (talk) 11:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The deleted phrase 'ritual Ten Commandments' is also used in Friedman (1998) The hidden book in the Bible, but I don't have a page number. I'm guessing somewhere around p 315. 'Cultic Decalogue' has 40% as many hits on GBooks as 'Ritual Decalogue', 30% after 2000, and so is actually comparatively common. — kwami (talk) 15:41, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

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