Ritual Decalogue

:For a discussion of the Decalogue as traditionally understood, see Ten Commandments.

Discussion in the literature

• "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'."

::—annotation in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, Coogan, ed. 3rd ed. 2001.

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• "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.

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• "The passage that most likely contains the earliest material about the covenant is Exodus 34:10-26. Its core (vv. 17-26) contains some features which indicate that the material may be old."

::The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, Kee, Meyers, Rogerson, Saldarini, eds. 1997.

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• "It is possible that this short code, with the Ten Commandments, may be, or approximate very close to, the original of the Book of the Covenant (24⁷), of which chs. 20-23 are a later expansion."

::Abingdon Bible Commentary, Eiselen et al. eds., 1957.

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• "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). To contrast a so-called 'ethical decalogue' (ch. 20) with a 'ritual decalogue' (ch. 34) completely misses the point. Rather, ch. 32 recounts the breaking of the covenant, ch. 34 relates to its restoration."

::Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, Childs, 1979.

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• "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 gen. ed. Revised edition 1988.

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• " 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."

::Commentary on the Torah, Friedman, 2003.

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• "These 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.

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Ritual Decalogue related Images and Photos (experimental)

Ritual: Feathered Shields	Native Ritual	Morning Ritual	Fantasy Figure Gallery Ritual Resin Statue
Fantasy Figure Gallery Ritual Statue	Dervishes Perform a Ritual Dance	Ritual Combats of Macho Males of the Botocudo People of Brazil	Ritual Murder Committed by the Danites Drawn by David and Engraved by A. Gusmand
Nunhltstistlahl Qagyval' a Ritual of the American Indians 1914	A Sioux Medicine Man Offers a Ritual Prayer to the Buffalo	View of the Door of La Madeleine of Eight Relief Panels of the Decalogue and Old Testament	In a Forest Near Chartres France Druids Collect Mistletoe for Ritual Purposes