The state of Texas has legislation pending to require the Ten Commandments to be placed on the wall of every classroom. I have an opinion about that, but I will keep that private. What I want to do here is to indicate that there are various versions of the Ten Commandments, and I wonder whether the Texas legislators are aware of this.
The version I read in the pending bill is similar to the Catholic and Lutheran versions (on my chart below), but I want to offer some background before you look at the chart of which I used some widely used versions and have not done an exhaustive study of each Church group or included every religion that uses the Torah as its base.
The Ten Commandments appear in Hebrew in the Torah and were given by God to the Jews in the wilderness of Sinai. Specifically, it appears in Exodus 20:2-14. It also reappears in Deuteronomy 5:6-18 but with some differences. I do not want to get involved in these differences since they have nothing to do with how the Ten Commandments are written out, but if you care to check this out, I suggest you compare the 4th [or 3rd] Commandment about observing the Sabbath in those two places. Use whatever Bible you are comfortable with. There are many translations, and they are all pretty consistent, so I have no issue with how they are translated or the words used.
The original is in Hebrew, and I do not believe there is any issue with the Hebrew wording by any Church group. However, the Hebrew does not contain any punctuation, and many translators do not agree on the place of things like commas or periods. However, that is also not an issue with me with regard to the Ten Commandments.
And one more point is that the Ten Commandments are not numbered in the Torah. When you see the Ten Commandments written out, the numbering, spacing and punctuation are provided by religious leaders or commentators and not the translators. The translators go back to Greek scholars who provided the first translation in the third century BCE. The Ten Commandments are also not labeled where they are included in the Torah, but they are referred to as such in Exodus 34:28, Deuteronomy 4:13 and 10:4. Also if you read carefully any translation you will see that there are more than 10 with some combined so that they are represented as the Ten Commandments.
My issue is that the Ten Commandments are not agreed to consistently by the different religions, and the choice of the wording in the Texas law reflects the view of a specific religion. If that is what they were intending, that is fine for what they are trying to do. However, if it is not what they were intending, then I would question their thought process and even their scholarship or Biblical knowledge.
The following is a table you could use as a guide, and compare it to the language used in the proposed Texas legislation. Note that I prepared the table and used the translation in a book that had been used weekly in my synagogue, but is no longer used or in print, and I adapted it to a more current style with the purpose of facilitating a comparison. However, do not get caught up in the words I used [I am not a Biblical or authoritative scholar], but look at my division of the Commandments, and compare it to your church’s version.
| Commandment | Jewish | Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox Christians | Catholic, Lutheran |
| I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. |
1 | 1 | 1 |
| Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Thou shalt not make any graven image. | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. |
3 | 3 | 2 |
| Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Honor thy father and thy mother. | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Thou shalt not murder. | 6 | 6 | 5 |
| Thou shalt not commit adultery. | 7 | 7 | 6 |
| Thou shalt not steal. | 8 | 8 | 7 |
| Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. |
9 | 9 | 8 |
| Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, | 10 | 10 | 9 |
| Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house…nor anything that is thy neighbor’s |
10 | 10 | 9/10 |
Takeaways
I chose my words and the church religion categories so you would get the idea that there are different “versions” of the Ten Commandments, even though the same words are used by every church group. I find this comparison interesting from an intellectual and not a religious standpoint.
Use the above as a guide and also as a way to do some Bible study. And you decide which version might be the “right” version.
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