Why did the Catholic Church change The Ten Commandments?

[Jolly_Joe]

I think it’s often lost just how late the numbering of the verses came into being. I believe the first Bible printed with complete chapter and verse numberings was the Geneva Bible in the mid 1500’s.

That bible really figures into things pretty heavily in some groups.

If you simply take the verse numberings, that became the numbering of the 10 Commandments for the groups that really leaned on the Geneva. So the Puritans, the Baptists and so on simply took the verse numbering as it was in their bibles. No great conspiracy there.

But the Catholics and the Lutherans did their separation before the verse numbering system. So if you take the thought of no other gods before me and look at the graven images prohibition, it’s really one thought and so fits very well as one Commandment.

One shouldn’t give too much credence to a verse numbering because it was basically done by one man. And it was said he often did it while traveling on horseback. So it doesn’t take too long if you look through the Bible to come up with verse breaks that are in mid thought.

And that was worse under the system the Geneva and KJV used where each verse is started on it’s own line. So it looks like paragraphs when it isn’t. You can see the original Exodus 20 at reactor-core.org/geneva/geneva-0071.html which shows the exact way that those Protestants who followed the Geneva divide the Commandments.

As an aside, it’s probably the Geneva that is ultimately responsible for the Apocrypha being completely left out of most Protestant Bibles since it never contained them. It was the Puritans and Baptists who were so opposed to including them (evidently since they were not in the Geneva) and who ended up getting the Bible Societies to drop them. Plust they pretty well refused to buy any Bible with them so even the KJV became standard without them outside of England.

The sad thing is those who have no knowledge of history who literally make up things about this to accuse Catholic and Lutherans of changing the word of God. It is useful though, when you run into someone making such accusations you know you are dealing with someone who is at best ignorant. If they continue teaching it after they are told and shown the truth, you are dealing with something other than ignorance.

 

[peary]

The Church did NOT change the Ten Commandments. Protestants list them differently than how the Latin Church does. And the answer is simple.

The Old Testament was around long before the time of the Apostles, and the Decalogue, which is found in three different places in the Bible (Exodus 20 and Exodous 34 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21), has not been changed by the Catholic Church. Chapter and verse divisions are a medieval invention, however, and numbering systems of the Ten Words (Commandments), the manner in which they are grouped, and the “short-hand” used for them, vary among various religious groups.

When the Commandments are listed, they are often listed in short-hand form, such that, for ex., verses 8, 9, 10 and 11 concerning the Sabbath become simply “Remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy.” Because Roman Catholics group 3, 4, 5 and 6 together as all pertaining to the concept “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” we are accused of having “dropped” the commandment against idols.

That Eastern Catholics list the Commandments differently never enters the equation for people who think this way; they are simply against those they probably call the “Romish popers” and that’s that.

Bottom line:

1. Chapter and verse numbering in the Bible came about in the Middle Ages
2. The Catholic Church (which includes Eastern Catholics, too) has two different numbering systems for the Commandments given, one agreeing with the most common Protestant enumeration;
3. The Catholic Church’s numbering is the most common in the Catholic Church and is the one referred to by Protestants who, ignoring Eastern Catholic Churches, accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped a Commandment;
   4.No Commandment has been dropped, in any case, but the Latin Church’s shorthand for the Commandments looks different than the typical Protestant version because of how the Commandments are grouped;
4. Everyone knows how to find Exodus 20 in the Bible (I think).
5. We are not concerned how they are grouped together; we only care that they are understood and obeyed because we are to obey God as children of the New Covenant, whose moral law includes the Two Great Commandments (to love God and to love our neighbor) which surpass the Decalogue, and whose Sacraments surpass empty ritual, being media of grace.

 

[KathleenGee]

Thank you for your work. I pointed Christian B to come to this site. He entered a very nice communication I had regarding the recent thread entitled ‘The Sabbath’, …

 

[geometer]

I am not accusing but rather demanding an explanation: how and why did the Catholic Church change The Ten Commandments?

They are trying to hide the first commandment, which is to know god almighty who saves us. All christians are confused about this.

God in the first commandment is our father in heaven, and the ruach kodesh. The actual name of Jesus names the tetragrammaton as our savior.

Be good now…

 

[NotWorthy]

They are trying to hide the first commandment, which is to know god almighty who saves us. All christians are confused about this.

God in the first commandment is our father in heaven, and the ruach kodesh. The actual name of Jesus names the tetragrammaton as our savior.

Be good now…

Huh? You lost me on this one.

 

[Ignatius]

I am not accusing but rather demanding an explanation: how and why did the Catholic Church change The Ten Commandments?

Your error is based on the fallacy of a false premise. First, wikipedia is not a valid reference point. Second, As you can see if you look at both pages, the commandments from both Exodus 1:2-17 and Deuteronomy 4:6-21 are idenical. Wikipedia has an error in listing Exodus 34 as the Ten Commandments, it is not used as the 10 commandments by any Chrisian denomination.

 

[Cristian_B]

Your error is based on the fallacy of a false premise. First, wikipedia is not a valid reference point. Second, As you can see if you look at both pages, the commandments from both Exodus 1:2-17 and Deuteronomy 4:6-21 are idenical. Wikipedia has an error in listing Exodus 34 as the Ten Commandments, it is not used as the 10 commandments by any Chrisian denomination.

Wikipedia is reliable. If people would check the References at the end… they would see where the information was taken from and that it is reliable, not made up.

They are almost identical. In the fourth commandment, in the Exodus, the reason for Sabbath is that God created the world in 6 days, and the 7th He rested; while in Deuteronomy, the Sabbath is a reminder of the fact that God rescued them from the slavery of Egypt. That applies for us too.

 

[rdscheirer]

Numbers Schumbers who can find the needle in the haystack?
Commandments are from God 10? 14? how about from Jesus?
Love God with all you heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Puts to rest all the “number questions” above doesn’t it?

 

[Crumpy]

Putting emphasis on the numbering of the commandments is not Biblical, if you want to get technical about it.

The “ten” commandments is a concept that came about since these commandments were referred to as the “decalogue” which means ten words – probably referrring to the original Hebrew.

The particular numbering that Catholics have has been referred to as a “catechetical” convenience. It is not just the numbering, but the summarizing that has condensed the words of scripture also.

This whole thread “goes away” if you just ignore the numbers and stick to the words. Is there any difference THEN? I think not.

The controversies have simply to do with the Protestant tendency to question and to “protest” everything that is Catholic – which is an un-Christian and even downright intellectually bankrupt as it sounds. They want to say not that Catholics got a few things wrong, but that we got all things wrong. Have a nice life, I’m too old to worry about that lie.

 

[patrick457]

The controversies have simply to do with the Protestant tendency to question and to “protest” everything that is Catholic – which is an un-Christian and even downright intellectually bankrupt as it sounds. They want to say not that Catholics got a few things wrong, but that we got all things wrong. Have a nice life, I’m too old to worry about that lie.

I must also mention the fact that the “Protestant” reckoning itself is not original - the Eastern churches already employed the reckoning long before the ‘Reformers’ even existed. But they tend to ignore this little detail, that the Church has also used this reckoning.

 

[Ignatius]

Your error is based on the fallacy of a false premise. First, wikipedia is not a valid reference point. Second, As you can see if you look at both pages, the commandments from both Exodus 1:2-17 and Deuteronomy 4:6-21 are idenical. Wikipedia has an error in listing Exodus 34 as the Ten Commandments, it is not used as the 10 commandments by any Chrisian denomination.

Hi Cris B. You misunderstand; I was not saying that Exodus and Deuteronomy are the same. I was refering to the pages linked in your OP. There you give the following links: The Ten Commandments and different version. My point is that the Exodus 1:2-17 and Deuteronomy 4:6-21 in both linked pages are idenical.