It’s Time to LET GO of the Defective, Deficient Ten Commandments

They could not have been inspired by a good, caring, wise god

I was a teenager in 1956 when the film, The Ten Commandments, was released. I saw it at the cinema in my small town in rural Indiana. I was stunned to see the fiery finger of god—looking a lot like lightning—blast the words of the laws onto the stone tablets. “Yes, that’s the way it must have happened.” Many years later, when I was engaged in serious Bible study, my naivete and gullibility had vanished. I realized that these famous ten commandments don’t set the high standard we had supposed.
 
 
There is far too much that is missing  
 
For example, these seven commandments would have been good guides for human well-being and progress:
 
1.     Thou shall not go to war, tribe against tribe, nation against nation. War is an abomination to the Lord Your God.
 
2.     Thou shall not own slaves. Slavery is an abomination to the Lord Your God. (What an embarrassment, by the way, that the last commandment forbids coveting someone else’s slaves.]
 
3.     Thou shall not discriminate against women: they must be treated as the equals of men, always being accorded full dignity and respect. 
 
4.     Thou shalt not despise or abuse other human beings because of the color of their skin. Racism is an abomination to the Lord Your God.
 
5.     The clergy must not molest, rape, or abuse children—and the clergy hierarchy must not cover up such crimes. Abuse of children is an abomination to the Lord Your God.
  
6.     Some men love men, some women love women. That’s the way they were created. Get over it: don’t hate, despise, or mistreat them. To do so in an abomination to the Lord Your God. 
 
7.     Thou shalt not practice human sacrifice. It is an abomination to the Lord Your God. 
 
Devout believers may strenuously object to some or all of these prohibitions, but secular ethicists have figured out that humanity would be in a better place if these seven items (at the very least) were not missing from this famous law code.  
 
The first three commandments are unnecessary
 
The commandments at the top of the list are a waste of space. They are about the divine ego: this god is boasting, “Look how great I am.” They do nothing to improve the human condition. It is commonly assumed that the first commandment is based on the belief that other gods don’t exist (“You shall have no other gods before/beside me”), but that was not at all the assumption at the time. Francesca Stavrakopoulou has pointed out, in her book, God: An Anatomy, 
 
“As one of many deities in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Levant, Yahweh was originally a god rooted within a polytheistic world—and remained comfortably so for much of his early career. This was a world in which the gods were imagined as a sprawling heavenly household, broadly reflecting the family bonds and social structures of their human worshippers.” (pp. 18-19, Kindle)

Moreover, there is unjustified bragging here. This god claims to be the one “…who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” But in Genesis 15:13, this god broke some grim news to Abraham: “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years…” What kind of good, caring god would allow his chosen people to be held in slavery for four centuries? 
 

The second commandment forbids the making of idols or graven images, because these amounted to competitor gods; they were worshipped as real deities—and Yahweh couldn’t  tolerate that. It’s a common assumption in Christian belief that god is invisible, but even the devout want to see visual evidence for their god. Hence the popularity of stained glass, statuary, relics (surviving fragments of saints), and bread and wine that miraculously turn into the real flesh

and blood of Jesus. For Catholics, that is; for Protestants, communion is symbolic. Catholics also claim that the Virgin Mary has made countless appearances to the faithful—and they have created larger-than-life idols of her to make her seem very real. The Trinity isn't good enough for Catholics: they have god-in-four persons, which includes their Queen of Heaven. 

Such devices are used to help make god seem real, but they are ways of circumventing the prohibition of idols and graven images. By the way, in public displays of the Ten Commandments, they are usually abbreviated; that is, the long version does not appear. Thus god’s vindictiveness stated in the second commandment goes unnoticed; Yahweh claims that he will punish “the children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me.” Which is truly nasty.
 
The third commandment also reflects this god’s fragile ego: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Yahweh your God, for the Yahweh will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.” How many devout believers today even know what their god’s name was—well, aside from members of the Jehovah’s Witness cult? Add different vowels and you get Yahweh. Magical thinking is so obviously present here: god’s name had magical powers, and you’re risking a lot to misuse these powers. 
 
The Commandments get better…sort of
 
The fourth commandment has something of value. Was this the beginning of the concept of the weekend? This god ordered people to rest one day a week, based on the story that god had wrapped up creation in six days, and had to take it easy on the seventh. But a loving god is missing here. In Numbers 15 we find the story of a man caught picking up sticks on the sabbath, and the verdict was harsh: “Then Yahweh said to Moses, ‘The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.’ So, as Yahweh commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died.” (Numbers 15:35-36)
 
Of course, this commandment is undermined by its fantasy thinking about creation. Aggressive and arrogant ignorance are firmly in place when devout champions of the Ten Commandments ignore what we now know about how our planet, solar system, and galaxy were formed. A six-day creation is the most naïve mythology imaginable.  
 
It’s a good thing that two days off work per week has become a standard. But millions of people who believe in a Sabbath—whether it’s Saturday or Sunday—go to work on those days, e.g., people who keep trains, planes, busses and subways running; police and firefighters, hospital and restaurant employees. We have moved beyond the ancient superstition that they should be stoned to death.  

 
The fifth commandment needs major revision: “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.” There are many people who have abusive, neglectful parents; hence they shrug off this commandment; it is viewed as an insult. So this commandment should have a different beginning: “Parents: love, nurture, encourage, care infinitely for your children. Surround them with everything they need to become good adults.” And then: “Children: Honor your father and your mother.” The nationalistic motivation can also be dropped, i.e., “…so that your days may be long in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.” No: be good parents worthy of honor because it’s the right thing to do. 

The next four commandments appear in other ancient law codes; that is, it wasn’t hard for societies to figure out that there’s more peace and stability when these standards of conduct are in place:
 
·      You shall not murder [or kill].
·      You shall not commit adultery. 
·      You shall not steal.
·      You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
 
Of course, it’s all too common that these prohibitions are ignored. But it’s good to have them as reminders of ideal behavior. However, beware of cult fanatics who can ruin even good commandments. The author who created Jesus-script in the Sermon on the Mount imagined that Jesus disapproved of sexual arousal: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) Why is such stridency necessary or helpful? 
 
The last commandment is not a bad one either: 
 
·      You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. 
 
Major demerits—as I mentioned earlier—for accepting slavery as normative. Envying your neighbor’s possessions is not good if it leads to theft or resentment. But we have to concede that coveting is the very foundation of the modern consumer economy: we see stuff and we want it. I don’t watch TV very much—and when I do, I have the mute button ready to silence the commercials. These encourage viewers to covet cars, appliances—and hundreds of other gadgets and experiences. Rarely do folks tune in to the fact that coveting is presented as an ideal behavior in a consumer-driven economy. The tenth commandment does not apply! 
 

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There is renewed buzz about the Ten Commandments since Louisiana recently mandated posting them in school classrooms. There has been outrage, e.g., this is a violation of the separation of church and state, and humor as well, e.g., the claim that adultery among 10-year-olds has suddenly dropped.  
 
It would certainly be welcome if politicians ceased to play for public attention. Before advocating the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, it would be appropriate to make a careful study of this ancient law code. Is it really smart to champion a code that is so obviously defective and deficient? You’re not doing your religion—or the students—any favors.
 
That final recommended new commandment, by the way, “Thou shalt not practice human sacrifice. It is an abomination to the Lord Your God” —might have spared the world of Christian superstition that a god required the killing of his son to enable forgiveness of sins. Yes, we can certainly have gotten along without that.  
 
 
 
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes, the first of which is Guessing About God (2023) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also now available. 
 
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
 
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.