[Vision2020] Questions for Doug---Decalogue

[Ralph Nielsen]

> From: Review of Biblical Literature <revbiblit at sbl-site.org>
> Date: October 23, 2006 9:53:31 AM PDT
> To: Ralph Nielsen <nielsen at uidaho.edu>
> Subject: Review of Biblical Literature Newsletter, 23 October 2006
>
> The Review of Biblical Literature is a publication of the Society  
> of Biblical Literature (http://www.sbl-site.org).
>
> HEBREW BIBLE AND ANCIENT NEAR EAST
>
> David H. Aaron
> Etched in Stone: The Emergence of the Decalogue
> London: T&T Clark, 2006. Pp. xv + 352. Paper. $39.95.
> ISBN 0567029719.

> http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5247

> Reviewed by Reinhard Achenbach
> Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
> Munich, Germany

>
> In this volume the author confronts a broad religious movement in  
> the United States that seeks to display monuments containing an  
> English version of the Decalogue (from Exod 20) throughout the  
> country on public grounds as well as on school and church lawns,  
> stating it to be a modern creed of ethics and an image of moral  
> stability. His intention is to shed light on the historical and  
> literary evolution of the original text. His conclusion as  
> summarized on page 1 is: “The Decalogue is a late literary  
> creation, written by a group of postexilic authors (i.e., writers  
> working not before the middle of the sixth century B.C.E. and  
> perhaps as late as the fifth century B.C.E.). The Decalogue  
> passages are based upon earlier attempts to create a covenant scene  
> that would serve to unite the Israelite people at a time of  
> political and social discord.”
>
> Thus for all noncritical readers of the Bible it becomes clear from  
> the beginning of the book: the Decalogue was not written by God,  
> nor was it written by Moses, nor by a single identifiable author,  
> but there existed pre-versions before 587 B.C.E., during the exile  
> (587–539 B.C.E.), and after the exile, with the last version  
> perhaps formulated in the fifth century, between 500 and 450 B.C.E.  
> The “biblical text itself, taken by many contemporary religionists  
> to be a univocal document, is the result of many competing  
> ideologies” (323).
>
[I have made a big snip here. For the full text go to the web site  
above]

> Nevertheless, part of the historical truth is that the authors of  
> the Pentateuch were still aware of the fact that the Decalogue  
> helped Israel to defend ideal rights of freedom and prevail in its  
> struggle to retain its cultural and religious independence and  
> identity against the cultural pressure of foreign claims of  
> political and religious hegemony. Christian belief shares in this  
> tradition. Finally, the author rightly stresses that the motif of  
> the disappearance of the stone tablets may indeed be read as a  
> warning against any attempt of expropriation of the Jewish heritage  
> from the side of present political authorities in the form of  
> monumental representations: “the ephemeral word outlasts the  
> stones” (326).
>