The Ten Commandments: A Short History of an Ancient Text
ISBN: 9780300207002
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Yale University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Ten commandments -- Criticism interpretation etc.;

Few people question what is meant in The Ten Commandments. Displays of the tablets in courtrooms and on religious structures promote a vision of two tablets, written by the finger of God, eternal and unchangeable. But Coogan (A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament), a Hebrew Bible specialist and director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum, begs to differ. In this brief but potent treatise, the author explains how religious and secular scholarship has served to challenge a simplistic understanding of the Decalogue, causing us to rethink popular presuppositions. Talmudic scholars have contended for centuries over the meaning of the commandments. Coogan juxtaposes the various traditionally understood readings (three interpretations in all) and shows how, even in Scripture, Israel's understanding of the commandments morphed and matured. In fact, Coogan insists that they weren't written by God at all, but rather developed as Israel's covenant with Yahweh evolved. The author insists that public posting of the commandments does an injustice to the dynamic nature of this fundamental set of moral laws, enshrining them in stone rather than letting them breathe new life to every generation. A thoughtful, challenging study. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Michael Coogan is director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum, lecturer on Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Harvard Divinity School, editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible , and author of God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says . He lives in Concord, MA.

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