Lessons from Atheists

[The Baptist]

I recently had an encounter with an Atheist where he thought he was really schooling me. Destroying my world view! Well, it didn't turn out that way, but it was interesting. I had always thought, despite the fact that I thought I read Exodus carefully, that the typical Decalogue of Exodus chapter 20 were the commands written on the stone tablets. I mean, I guess I was a victim of film and culture, I see these stone tablet thingies in a lot of places and so I assumed those were the ten commandments. But... the commandments that were on the stone tablets in fact come from Exodus 34. Now this gentleman really thought he had me! "Christian, you don't know your Bible!! Gotcha." But it was an interesting moment, I started pondering Christ's conversation with the rich young man, where he says, "you know the commandments, do no murder etc." Either Christ was ignorant of the old testament, (har) or he was showing which commandments must be lived and written on our hearts first and foremost. I started thinking about how it is important for the Jewish nation to follow what was on the tablets, but for us the "commandments" Christ mentions are those that are more primary, to show our love. Anyway, thought I'd throw that out there and see what you all might have to say or to add. I thought it was strange that I didn't know this. Peace.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Deut. 10:1-5

At that time the LORD said to me, "Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like he first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark."

So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain. And he wrote on the tables according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the LORD had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. Then I turned and came down the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, ust as the LORD commanded me.

According to this explanatory text, the 10C of Ex.20, and Ex.34 are identical.

Jesus summarizes the Moral Law in two sentences, two "great" commandments, which take up (or on which all the Law and prophets depend, or are suspended, etc.) all of God's will, see Mt.22:34-40; cf. Dt.6:5 and Lev.19:18. As the first portion of the set (of 10C) deals with our relation to God, so the second portion deals with our relation to fellow men.

Paul summarizes even further when he writes, "Love is the fulfillment of the law, " Rom.13:10.

So if we ask, "What does genuine love for God look like?" we look at what is in the law, or better yet at Christ who alone did his Father's will perfectly (and alone is acceptable thereby).

Do we love Jesus? Jesus said, "Why do you call yourselves my disciples, and do not the things which I say? If you love me, keep my commandments."

 

[The Baptist]

Exodus 34 1-28

34 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3 No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. 5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands,[a] forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”


10 And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

17 “You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.

18 “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed.

21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end. 23 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.

25 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.”

27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.[c]

I guess the question is, what was on the first tablets, if not what is quoted here? The Deuteronomy section you quote, I admit starts the same way, but seems less explicit. In Deuteronomy it seems to segue to the Exodus 20 list, where as in Exodus 34 it explicitly states that the previous list of 10 statutes are the ten commandments that were written with the finger of God on the tablets.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

There are several issues of interpretation here.

1) Deut. is not less explicit; it's more explicit. That's its intent: explanation; pointing to key facts, vital elements that might get lost in a long narrative. Deut. is a series of Moses' sermons, exegetical treatment of the law and the nation's formative experiences. We are obligated to see Deut. as the first, authoritative exposition of previous revelation, which as also being revelation is rendered a pattern of interpretation and subsequent preaching by later generations.

2) Ex.24:12, 31:18, and 32:15 tell us that God gave Moses the first tablets, calls them the Testimony, but does not define explicitly what that witness is. There are clues: Ex.20:1-17 contains the 10C, and immediately afterward pauses to say that the people beg Moses that God not speak anymore to them: they cannot bear it, v19. Then, in Dt.5, in the second statement of the law (Moses simply rehearsing the first experience in a sermon), Moses says that God spoke "these words" out of the fire, cloud and thick darkness, with a loud voice, and added no more. "And he wrote them on two tablets of stone," Deut. 5:22.

This should make obvious what might have been gleaned from Ex. by slow and careful exegesis. Moses' later teaching makes it absolutely certain.

Dt.10 contains Moses' rehearsal of Ex.34 (as ch.9 contained rehearsal of Ex.32-33, and later Num.11). And it states plainly that the Tablets made the second time are identical with the first.

3) Ex.34:10-26 condenses all the material, from Ex. chs.20-23. Why? Because Israel had broken the covenant they swore, Ex.19:8 & 24:3, "All the words which the LORD has said we will do." The covenant had been shattered almost as soon (within 40 days, Ex.24:18) as it had been promised, as much as the Tablets themselves were smashed to pieces. Ex.34:10-28 is explaining how in MERCY, God is not wiping out the rebels, but according to the mediation of Moses, Ex.34:1-9, he spares them, forgives them, and restores the covenant as though the people had not broken it.

 

[The Baptist]

I'll have to study this further. Thank you. What of the explicit 10 commandments statement in 34?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Martin,
The explicit reference to the 10C in Ex.34:28 is most reasonably understood in parallel to the other references, Dt.4:13 & 10:4. In both those places--first in connection with the spoken law in the ears of the people from God himself; second as the events of Ex.34 are repeated, where the second writing is said to be the same as the first--one obvious reference stands out: Ex.20:1-17, and Dt.5:6-21. There is but one alteration of any significance between those two passages, namely in regard to the 4th commandment (in Ex.20, the rationale for remembering the Sabbath is Creation; in Dt.5, the rationale for the same command is Redemption; both rationales complement each other).

Which is to say: that where the Bible itself repeats the 10C explicitly, it does so in accord with Ex.20, and not with reference (terminologically) with Ex.34. If it was the latter that was in view, how is it that after 40yrs (the Deut. setting, on the plains of Moab) repetition is not made of Ex.34 in those exact terms? The fact is, that Ex.34 does not lend itself to any such 10C division (how might it be divided? how many proposals are there? who supports them and why?). Dt.5 falls right in between the two Deut. references. It is logically the single object of the two.

Jewish support for the same 10C we are familiar with is ancient. Furthermore, as J.Currid (et al) has shown in his commentary on Deut., the bulk of that book may be divided into ten sermons, each dealing with one of the (familiar) 10C. In other words, it is the OT itself--without contradiction, controversy, or alternative--that points consistently to the traditional listing of the 10C. And Christ's words (and apostles') only serve to confirm that read.

Ex.34:28 is referring to the same 10C as are delivered in Ex.20. The reference is not properly to any 10 segments of ch.34 that come immediately prior. The point of v28 is to say that God sent Moses back down the mountain after the covenant is renewed with the renewed covenant, the same Testimony. It isn't a DIFFERENT covenant, but the SAME. The same promises to Abraham are invoked, the same people are restored (Ex.32:9-14; 34:9). The fundamental basis for all the rest of God's commands to Israel in the law (there are 613 mitzvoh) is none other than the 10C, the Testimony. That's why these are laid up in the ark of the covenant.

Most significantly, one can find all the commands of Ex.34:10-26 previously stipulated, from Ex.20-23, four chs. worth. I invite you to pursue an examination of the parallels on your own. The WHOLE covenant is renewed. It is simply not spelled out in another 4chs-worth as it could have been, but is condensed for convenience and space. Four chs. aren't reduced to 17vv, hence made "shorter" and (supposedly?) easier to keep. Enough is presented there to show that the words previously sworn to are re-presented to the people.

The golden-calf incident virtually ended the creation of God's people the instant it began (more or less in parallel to Gen.1-3). But God once again shows his grace to the undeserving. He puts them right back into a state of fellowship with him, on the basis of Moses' mediation and the invocation of his own promises. He treats Israel as if they had not sinned, and smashed his covenant to smithereens, symbolized by Moses' demolition of the Testimony (Ex.32:15-19).

Blessings on your study.

 

[The Baptist]

I really appreciate all this clarification, thanks for taking the time Bruce! I'm reading and rereading. ha.