Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, is a list of religious and moral imperatives which, according to the Bible, was spoken by YHWH to Moses on Mount Sinai and engraved on two stone tablets. They feature prominently in Judaism and Christianity. In Biblical Hebrew they are termed Aseret ha-Dvarîm עשרת הדברים, and in Rabbinical Hebrew Aseret ha-Dibrot עשרת הדברות both translatable as "The Ten Utterances". The name decalogue is derived from the Greek name δέκα λόγοι or dekalogoi ("Ten Speeches") found in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name.

Further reading

• Friedman, Richard E. Who Wrote The Bible?, Harper and Row, NY, USA, 1987.
• Kaufmann, Yehezkel, Greenberg, Moishe (translator) The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, University of Chicago Press, 1960.
• Mendenhall, George E. The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.
• Mendenhall, George E. Ancient Israel's Faith and History: An Introduction to the Bible in Context, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.