Divvying up the Ten Commandments

[Flopfoot]

These are listed in Exodus 20:1-17

Most of us agree on the middle seven -

• Don’t use God’s name in vain
• Keep holy the Sabbath
• Honor your father and mother
• Don’t kill
• Don’t commit adultery
• Don’t steal
• Don’t bear false witness

At the start, Catholics tend to combine “have no other gods” and “don’t worship idols” while Protestants divide these into two separate commandments. At the end, Protestants combine “don’t covet your neighbour’s wife” with “don’t covet any of your neighbour’s stuff” while Catholics separate these.

Both of those combinations make sense and it seems like we could do with just nine commandments but then it wouldn’t be a nice round number.

The annoying thing about having different numberings is you can’t say to someone “it’s cause of the 5th commandment” and know whether they are thinking of the same commandment as you.

Is there any theological reason for divvying them up one way or the other? (Ignoring the Protestant conspiracy theory that Catholics are deliberately trying to hide the commandment against idols?)

Exodus 20:17 begins by saying not to covet your neighbour’s house - it doesn’t mention their wife until the middle of the verse. So that does seem like a point against the Catholic numbering.

The CCC does have a section on coveting your neighbour’s wife (paragraphs 2514 to 2533) but if we were to adopt the Protestant numbering then those verses could just be put into the section on adultery instead, since that section starts by quoting Matt 5:28 anyway.

 

[ahs]

One reason, in support of the historic Catholic numeration, is that our neighbor’s wife is not the same as our neighbor’s donkey or house. A distinction is made by the Church between a person and an object. And coveting is not always synonymous with adultery.

I have read somewhere that the Eastern Orthodox numerate the same way most Protestant communities do. But, interestingly enough, Calvin (who initially changed the numeration) did not do so in order to step in line with the Orthodox; rather, he did so in an effort to decry icons (for which the Eastern churches are well known).

 

[Shakuhachi]

Good. Ol’ Wiki summary:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[BartholomewB]

There have been quite a few threads dealing with this question, over the years. Here are just two of them:

Linking Catholicism and Judaism Non-Catholic Religions

Hi! I’ve watched videos from a conservative outlet known as PragerU, and they discuss religion as well as politics. One of the religious topics they discuss is the Ten Commandments. The presenter of the Ten Commandments is the founder, Dennis Prager. Before explaining the first of the Ten Commandments, he comments that Jews and Christians give different answers. For instance… The First Commandment (Statement, as he refers to it) for Jews says, “I am the Lord your God who took you out of the la…

Did The Catholic Church change the 10 Commandments? Apologetics

Hi members! It is said that Bishop Augustine of Hippo in order to allow use of images & statues in worship services, he deleted the Second Commandment, divided the Tenth into two Commandments and then re-numbered his revised list of 10. This is a constant attack on we Catholics. Can somebody explain to me what was the motive behind those changes? Warm regards, Addoe.