Louisiana mandate stirs debate about the 10 Commandments and their purpose

A statue of Moses smashing the tablets of the 10 Commandments is on display in the atrium of Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. The 17-foot-tall sculpture is on loan from the Skirball Cultural Center.

The tablets represent the 10 Commandments. For some, what the Commandments are seems straightforward. But those who study and teach the text say context and nuance are everything.Garroway explains that for Jews, the 10 Commandments — listed in both the biblical books of Exodus and Deuteronomy — are just the beginning.

“It is a very important part of a covenantal relationship,” says Professor Kyong-Jin Lee, who teaches the Bible at Fuller Seminary, an evangelical school in Pasadena, California. “God has delivered you from slavery in Egypt and he has walked with you all this time,” she explains. “You are going to become a nation. You're going to have an identity.”

Those who pushed for the Louisiana law say the 10 Commandments were and continue to be an important, foundational, and influential document in American history. For example, in Judaism “I am the Lord Your God” is the First Commandment. But in the Roman Catholic tradition, that sentence isof the First Commandment, which includes what Judaism lists as the second commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

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