questions about the 10 commandments

[reborn_pagan]

1. thou shall not kill… does this mean thou shall not murder, cause what if you get into a fight and accidently kill someone?
   2.you shall not make wrongful use of the name of your god … then why do so many people do it?

3.thou shall not steal … havn’t lands been stolen in during the crusades?

4.you shall not bear false witness … can someone dumb this down for me?

and this one is not a comandment but it says “love your neighbor as yourself”… why do so many people hate pagans,homosexuals, and even jewish people when it doens’t say make them an acception to these people?

 

[FightingFat]

1. thou shall not kill… does this mean thou shall not murder, cause what if you get into a fight and accidently kill someone?

A better translation is “Thou shalt not murder the innocent”

2.you shall not make wrongful use of the name of your god … then why do so many people do it?

Ignorance?

3.thou shall not steal … havn’t lands been stolen in during the crusades?

How so? The Crusades were in defence of the Holy Land which was Christian and invaded by the Muslims.

4.you shall not bear false witness … can someone dumb this down for me?

Don’t say stuff about people that isn’t true.

and this one is not a comandment but it says “love your neighbor as yourself”… why do so many people hate pagans,homosexuals, and even jewish people when it doens’t say make them an acception to these people?

Great point, but people would prolly say hate the sin, love the sinner. I think people should think more carefully about what you said there though!

 

[reborn_pagan]

A better translation is “Thou shalt not murder the innocent”

Ignorance?

How so? The Crusades were in defence of the Holy Land which was Christian and invaded by the Muslims.

Don’t say stuff about people that isn’t true.

Great point, but people would prolly say hate the sin, love the sinner. I think people should think more carefully about what you said there though!

thank you, and i dont mean to bash your faith in any way i was just wondering about this kind of thing

 

[FightingFat]

thank you, and i dont mean to bash your faith in any way i was just wondering about this kind of thing

You’re welcome, and I haven’t seen you do any bashing so far!

 

[Tantum_ergo]

1. The original word was indeed understood as “murder” or **deliberate ** killing. If indeed you read your Bible further you’ll notice later on that accidental killing is dealt with. Just as we hold in our laws today, ‘manslaughter’ or accidental, unpremeditated death is not punished to the degree of murder.
2. Yes, many people break the commandment. All of us are sinners. But the commandment is there for a good reason–to remind us of the sacred and our Creator. Just because people may break a ‘rule’ doesn’t mean it isn’t a **good ** rule and should not be followed though. Plenty of people run stop signs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there for a reason.
3. Any ‘stolen land’ (what have you been reading/watching?) was taken by the Muslims. Places like Turkey were Christian from the first century AD and were overrun by Muslims from the late 7th century onward because their religious beliefs demanded conquest and submission in the name of Allah. All the revisionist history about the humane and advanced Muslims living an oh-so-ducky, egalitarian life with ‘tolerated people of the book’ is pretty much bunkum. In actual fact, any given Muslim at any given time had pretty much life-or-death power over a Jew or Christian, and quite frequently these ‘peaceful’ Muslims would simply slaughter and torture Jews and Christians, either because they were called on to convert (and wouldn’t), or because the Muslims wanted land/goods/property. As I have said before, today you can go to Jerusalem and see the places which are sacred to you. Nobody is denied the chance to go there, to live there freely. Well, that was not allowed by the Muslims. They were offered goods, recognition, etc. if they would permit pilgrims to come freely. And they refused, and slaughtered people. They had already proved (8th century Spain) that their ultimate goal was to spread their religion by force. Well I ask you, considering the time, the precedent, and the current situation of having innocent people slaughtered and despoiled, if you were a Christian facing the strong likelihood that your family would be killed and any survivors forced to abjure their freely chosen Christian faith to be Muslims, or to** die**, what would you have done? We are not ever told that we must choose death rather than to fight for what is right, you know.
4. Bear false witness: (wow, you must be going for the KJV): IN a lot of earlier societies, in order to ‘prove’ something did or didn’t occur, you usually had to have ‘two witnesses’. So, if your friend asked you to say you had seen something you hadn’t, and you did that, you’d be ‘bearing false witness’. It’s basically lying, distorting, or injuring somebody else through false report: gossip, slander, libel, calumny.

Finally, as I said before, just because people ‘hate others’ when the commandment is ‘love your neighbor as yourself’, well we are all sinners. I think you, that you would find that most people’s bark is worse than their bite. IOW, if they were faced suddenly with someone who in theory they said they hated or disliked, but that person was injured, hungry, or in distress, they would help that person without even thinking of their dislike. There are stories of this in virtually every historic conflict; like an English couple who lost their son in World War II feeding and treating German P.O.W.s People find it a lot easier to think they hate a group but a lot harder to hate a given person.

 

[chosen_people]

1. thou shall not kill… does this mean thou shall not murder, cause what if you get into a fight and accidently kill someone?
   2.you shall not make wrongful use of the name of your god … then why do so many people do it?

3.thou shall not steal … havn’t lands been stolen in during the crusades?

4.you shall not bear false witness … can someone dumb this down for me?

and this one is not a comandment but it says “love your neighbor as yourself”… why do so many people hate pagans,homosexuals, and even jewish people when it doens’t say make them an acception to these people?

Hate is indeed not part of the ten commandments which G-d gave to the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai. The Jewish concept of love your neighbour as yourself is paralelled by the Christian golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That being said both in Christianity and in Judaism paganism and homosexuality is an anathema.

The question you asked about interpreting the word to “kill” is one that arises in all legal systems. We differentiate between someone who does a seemingly innocent act which caused death (for instance giving a friendly pat on the back which precipitates a heart attack),as opposed to causing death due to negligence or to causing death by recklessness or intentionally causing the death of another. Legal systems speak of murder in the first degree or murder in the second degree, manslaughter, criminal negligence, blameless inadvertence etc. to differentiate between the various situations, all of which caused death. The difference between these examples is in the intent of the person. It is clear that in the example of a pat on the back the person is blameless. Just as it is clear as to the prohibition of committing murder. In a legal system the objective or subjective intent of the perpetrator to cause death defines the seriousness of the crime and the punishment set forth in law. From a religious and social sense such intent defines the sinfulness of the act and its immorality. Specificaly as to getting into a fight, a person could forsee that as a result of the fight someone could be injured or even killed.

As to why so many people take the name of G-d in vain, the amount of trangressors doesn’t make it less sinful from a religious sense just as wide spread gambling and prostitution don’t make those acts legal. Why people do things they shouldn’t is perhaps one of the reasons for religion.

Your example for stealing as well as your question about causing death raises social and moral issues that legal systems and religions try to deal with. A soldier during war who kills many of the enemy is not only not censured but praised and rewarded. The Crusades are indeed an excellent example of the moral conundrum These good Christians soldiers on their glorious mission for Jesus massacred tens of thousands of Jews on their way through Europe. Having “liberated” Jerusalem for the religion of Love they systematicaly massacred all the Jewish and Moslem inhabitants.

Bearing false witness is accusing someone falsely, for instance, stealing something and then trying to pin the blame on another or accusing someone of adultry when you know the claim is not true. Its been rumored that some politicians have a problem with this commandment during closely contested elections.

 

[PaulDupre]

2.you shall not make wrongful use of the name of your god … then why do so many people do it?

I think this commandment is almost universally misunderstood by Christians - it has nothing to do with cussing (that’s a different sin). Dennis Prager, in an article he wrote for Townhall.com, explains it this way:
Dennis Prager at Townhall.com:

The Commandment widely translated as “Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” is imprecisely translated. The original Hebrew literally reads, “Do not carry the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

And, the Commandment continues, “for God will not hold guiltless (literally, “will not cleanse”) whoever carries His name in vain.”

As a strong believer that God has at least as much common sense as I do, it seems inconceivable that God can “cleanse” (implying “forgive”) a murderer but not someone who said God’s name when he shouldn’t have. Therefore, the Commandment about the misuse (“misuse” is the translation of the New International Version of the Bible, my favorite translation) of God’s name must be about far more than merely using God’s name “in vain.”

I admit that I come to this conclusion as a result of my Jewish education. Every yeshiva student learns early in life that the greatest sin is khillul Hashem, public desecration of the Name (of God), and conversely, the greatest mitzvah (commandment, good deed) is kiddush Hashem, public sanctification of the Name. I well remember, for example, one of my rabbis in yeshiva telling us not to go to what were then called “dirty” movies, but if we did go, to take off our yarmulkes first – to enter a dirty movie theater announcing that we were religious Jews would desecrate God’s name.

Imagine, then, how bad committing atrocities in God’s name must be.

 

[KarenNC]

Good questions.

See if this link to Jewish understandings of the Ten Commandments are of any assistance
jewfaq.org/10.htm

The point about the crusades is, I think, even better made by looking at the conquests in the Hebrew Scriptures that were commanded by God. There is no previous claim by Jews to these lands. They conquered and took them from people who were already living there. A few:

Deut. 2:24-25
24 “Set out now and cross the Arnon Gorge. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his country. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle. 25 This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

Joshua 10:40-42
40 So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded. 41 Joshua subdued them from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the whole region of Goshen to Gibeon. 42 All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.

Joshua 12 (the entire chapter is a list of lands and kings conquered by the Jews)
1 These are the kings of the land whom the Israelites had defeated and whose territory they took over east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge to Mount Hermon, including all the eastern side of the Arabah: 2 Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon. He ruled from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge—from the middle of the gorge—to the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites. This included half of Gilead. 3 He also ruled over the eastern Arabah from the Sea of Kinnereth [a] to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea ** ), to Beth Jeshimoth, and then southward below the slopes of Pisgah. 4 And the territory of Og king of Bashan, one of the last of the Rephaites, who reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei. 5 He ruled over Mount Hermon, Salecah, all of Bashan to the border of the people of Geshur and Maacah, and half of Gilead to the border of Sihon king of Heshbon. 6 Moses, the servant of the LORD, and the Israelites conquered them. And Moses the servant of the LORD gave their land to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to be their possession." etc

Joshua 23
1 After a long time had passed and the LORD had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then old and well advanced in years, 2 summoned all Israel—their elders, leaders, judges and officials—and said to them: "I am old and well advanced in years. 3 You yourselves have seen everything the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the LORD your God who fought for you. 4 Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain—the nations I conquered—between the Jordan and the Great Sea [a] in the west. 5 The LORD your God himself will drive them out of your way. He will push them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the LORD your God promised you.

2 Samuel 5
6 The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.” They thought, “David cannot get in here.” 7 Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion, the City of David.

1 Chronicles 11: 4
4 David and all the Israelites marched to Jerusalem (that is, Jebus). The Jebusites who lived there

to name a few.

BTW, reborn, if you want to look up or check Biblical references easily and in a variety of translations, I would recommend www.biblegateway.com. It’s good for anything not included in the Apocrypha (I trust some of the Catholics here might be able to recommend another site that would include that).**

 

[chosen_people]

Good questions.

See if this link to Jewish understandings of the Ten Commandments are of any assistance
jewfaq.org/10.htm

The point about the crusades is, I think, even better made by looking at the conquests in the Hebrew Scriptures that were commanded by God. There is no previous claim by Jews to these lands. They conquered and took them from people who were already living there. A few:

Deut. 2:24-25
24 “Set out now and cross the Arnon Gorge. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his country. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle. 25 This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

Joshua 10:40-42
40 So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded. 41 Joshua subdued them from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the whole region of Goshen to Gibeon. 42 All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.

Joshua 12 (the entire chapter is a list of lands and kings conquered by the Jews)
1 These are the kings of the land whom the Israelites had defeated and whose territory they took over east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge to Mount Hermon, including all the eastern side of the Arabah: 2 Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon. He ruled from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge—from the middle of the gorge—to the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites. This included half of Gilead. 3 He also ruled over the eastern Arabah from the Sea of Kinnereth [a] to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea ** ), to Beth Jeshimoth, and then southward below the slopes of Pisgah. 4 And the territory of Og king of Bashan, one of the last of the Rephaites, who reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei. 5 He ruled over Mount Hermon, Salecah, all of Bashan to the border of the people of Geshur and Maacah, and half of Gilead to the border of Sihon king of Heshbon. 6 Moses, the servant of the LORD, and the Israelites conquered them. And Moses the servant of the LORD gave their land to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to be their possession." etc

Joshua 23
1 After a long time had passed and the LORD had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them, Joshua, by then old and well advanced in years, 2 summoned all Israel—their elders, leaders, judges and officials—and said to them: "I am old and well advanced in years. 3 You yourselves have seen everything the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the LORD your God who fought for you. 4 Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain—the nations I conquered—between the Jordan and the Great Sea [a] in the west. 5 The LORD your God himself will drive them out of your way. He will push them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the LORD your God promised you.

2 Samuel 5
6 The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.” They thought, “David cannot get in here.” 7 Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion, the City of David.

1 Chronicles 11: 4
4 David and all the Israelites marched to Jerusalem (that is, Jebus). The Jebusites who lived there

to name a few.

BTW, reborn, if you want to look up or check Biblical references easily and in a variety of translations, I would recommend www.biblegateway.com**. It’s good for anything not included in the Apocrypha (I trust some of the Catholics here might be able to recommend another site that would include that).

The simplistic answer is that it was G-d’s will (and who are we to understand or to question). The immorality would have been in not carrying out G-d’s commandments. Had the Jews disobeyed G-d they would have been punished by
G-d as a people.

We have G-d’s destruction of the world by flood or His destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah (Abraham’s debate with G-d to spare the cities if ten righteous men could be found).An example you missed is the destruction of Pharoh’s army by drowning in the Red (Reed) Sea. Pharoh chases after Moses and the Jews with his army after G-d has hardened his heart.

The talmud debates these moral issues. It is propositioned that G-d demanded the total destruction of the Cananites because had the Jews not done so and tried to form an alliance, the Cannanites would have later turned against the Jews and destroyed them.