Chapter 15 Chapter 14 Where Do the Ten Commandments Come From?

The many descriptions of injustice in Genesis not only arouse the deepest doubts about the justice and axioms of this world and the afterlife, but also foretell the injustices in the book of Zai, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. " and other future chapters of the Bible, there will be definite laws and regulations appearing. If we look at the story of "Genesis", God's coming to Mount Sinai is not, as some traditional scripture interpreters believe, a watershed that opens up a new situation.For Maimonides, before Mount Sinai, there were no binding laws in the world.However, if "Genesis" describes the story of the development of legal systems such as provisional law, common law, and statutory law, then Mount Sinai is not a dividing point to say goodbye to the past and start a new situation, but the culmination of the entire development process , and this process begins in the Garden of Eden, and continues to include Cain, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Dinah, Tamar, Joseph, and other characters that appear in the open narrative of Genesis .

We must be familiar with these stories before we can understand the more formal laws that God revealed at Mount Sinai as a response to the anarchy in the stories.Many clauses explicitly refer to or allude to the content of biblical stories, and commentators often combine them. Mount Sinai does not represent a new leap forward, but the culmination of a long process of development.In this way, it reflects not only the history of the law, but also the history of its revision.When we look back on history, we often think of those great moments, such as the British "Magna Carta" and the "US Constitution", as leaps and bounds that broke new ground.But after careful study, it will be found that it is actually an unavoidable and predictable culmination after a long period of development.Eager to find milestones, watersheds, historians tend to exaggerate the significance of a single apparent event, while ignoring that it is really just a culmination of development in a long and slow process of formation.For example, the Magna Carta synthesized and codified the common law that had been developed for many years.Once we have the Magna Carta, there is less need to study the previous annals enough to extract the principles that will become the Great Charter.

But that doesn't mean we should take lightly what historians consider to be great moments.We need to understand that these great moments do not happen in a vacuum, and that there has never been a moment in history that can be cut and restarted.We always develop on the existing foundation, and this foundation is established by the predecessors in the process of repeated destruction and construction, and it can even be traced back to the oral history when there was no writing. However, many traditional interpreters disagree with this statement. They believe that the Ten Commandments and other laws and regulations were only given to the Jews in full when God descended on Mount Sinai.Some commentators are reluctant to admit that there is a connection between the early biblical stories and later laws, and they reflect this sentiment in theological dogma.If God's coming to Mount Sinai is an irreplaceable symbol, then the law promulgated on Mount Sinai must be a complete and unprecedented form.If shadows of these laws could be seen in earlier biblical stories (even among them the story of God), it would lessen the weight of the events at Mount Sinai.

Even the most traditional interpreters have to trace certain laws back to the Book of Genesis. For example, Maimonides most vigorously advocated that God’s coming to Mount Sinai has the status of all laws returning to the origin, but he also It must be admitted that the Jewish ban on eating the tendon of the thigh originated from the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel. In the story, the angel touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and made Jacob unable to walk.The story goes like this: "So the children of Israel did not eat the sinew in the hollow of the thigh . , mainly for its symbolic meaning, and has nothing to do with judicial regulations.Other stories, however, relate much more clearly to judicial codes.

Almost all of the substantive and procedural laws mentioned in the subsequent books of the Pentateuch come from the Genesis Ten Commandments. Every commandment in the Ten Commandments goes back at least to a previous story, whether Encouraged or prohibited, substantive or procedural, and those with clearer content can usually find their source in the story.At least they are all rooted in a common problem, but each stated in the form of a narrative or a statute. Judaism and Christians have different calculations for the Ten Commandments.For Judaizers, the first commandment is not a commandment at all (the Hebrew word for "ten commandments" is Diwot, which means "statement." The first statement of the Ten Commandments is a declaration of faith:" I am the Lord and your God." This is followed by the general conclusion of the previous narrative: "...bringing you out of Egypt, out of the shackles of slavery." It could then be followed by: "...by sending the covenant Sir, go to Egypt and let him call his father and brothers, and I will put you there." After all, this is not the first time God has appeared. He has previously made covenants with Jacob, Abraham, and Noah. Therefore the first commandment Fate is a direct development from the preceding narrative.

Christians start counting from the theological commandments - "You shall have no other gods before me", "You shall not carve images for yourself", "You shall not bow down to those images, nor serve them", "You shall not vainly claim The name of the LORD your God" all stem from the story of Abraham, which recounts how idolatry was transformed into a monotheistic faith. There is a passage in Midash that Abraham's father, Terah, accused Abraham of lying.To confirm that the great idol was slandered, Terah said: Don't these gods have souls or powers... aren't they carved in wood and stone?Are these not my own creations?

Abraham replied: Then how can you serve these idols?So Hera took the ax out of the hand of the Great Idol and smashed it to pieces.Terah expressed opposition to false gods, cast images, and idolatry, hence the later commandments against such theological sins. The fourth commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," comes directly from the creation of the world.The commentators made a conclusion that because God created the heaven and earth in six days and then rested on the seventh day, the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it a holy day. " The fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother," derives from the disgrace suffered by the role of parents in Genesis.Jacob tricks his aging father; Simeon and Levi dishonor their father by defrauding and murdering the entire family of Shechem; Joseph coaxes his father into sending his younger brother to Egypt; Rachel steals her father's idol, And hide their crimes; Cain shamed his parents by murdering his siblings; Lot's daughter raped her father after getting drunk; Noah's son saw his father's naked body and called his brothers to see; even Abraham lied Father, used tricks to induce him to give up idolatry.We could even say that Genesis is a collection of stories in which children shame their parents.It is clear that man needs commandments from heaven to resolve conflicts between generations.

The sixth commandment, "You shall not murder," derives from God's command to Noah: "He that sheds another's blood, his blood shall be shed." This commandment was developed from another passage: "For God with him in the image of God and created man.” In Genesis, several murders and attempted murders are described, including Cain, Simeon, Levi, and Abraham.However, despite the prior covenant of Noah, no murderer was sentenced to death.Clearer commandments, therefore, were clearly needed. The seventh commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," is more difficult to trace definitively to a passage.Of course, we find a lot of inappropriate (or nearly committed) sex, Sarah, Rivka, and the king who fancied them; Lot with his daughter; Tamar with her father-in-law; Lufang with her father's mistress ; Potiphar's wife and Joseph, these are enough for the Ten Commandments to expressly prohibit one commandment.

The eighth commandment "Thou shalt not steal" is also derived from it in the Bible. The Midrash traces this commandment back to the Garden of Eden, where God told Adam... "Every tree in the garden may eat, but..." Here God commanded Adam not to steal.However, Adam and Eve violated this command by eating the forbidden fruit.In addition, there are other stories of theft in Genesis, including Rachel stealing her father's idol.Perhaps Rachel thought stealing was acceptable if it was to remove idolatry from idolatry (a civil offense motivated by religion, akin to besieging an abortion clinic) but the commandment forbids it Elasticity exists.

The ninth commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against another," derives directly from Potiphar's wife's perjury against Joseph, who later perjured (albeit in bravado) against his own brother.Judas asked desperately; "How do we prove our innocence?" The answer is this commandment, and the protection mechanism of procedural justice is developed from this commandment.Furthermore, the earliest biblical content supports the opportunity for the defendant to defend himself, or at least the opportunity to defend himself against God.God gave Adam and Eve a chance to defend themselves, and gave Cain the same right; Abraham defended the people of Sodom, and God insisted on going down to earth to see for himself whether Sodom deserved to be destroyed. He didn’t want to hear it. Insist on seeing for yourself.But the people of Shechem had no opportunity to defend themselves against Brother Dinah's vengeance, and neither did the other victims.Obviously, it is necessary to establish a protective mechanism in the judicial process to prevent the occurrence of false accusations.

The last commandment is the sweeping commandment: Do not covet another's house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, donkey, "and everything else that belongs to another." It generally guards against the evil impulses of theft, adultery, murder, and perjury . The book of Genesis is all about these evil impulses and how to use specific rules, laws and precepts to check them.Apparently relying on God alone argued with Abraham and he commanded his descendants and family to follow him in keeping the way of the Lord and doing what is just and right..." Such a general principle is difficult to effectively prevent lawlessness, deceit, and murder from happening again and again.Therefore, it is necessary to formulate norms with clearer provisions and specific penalties. The content of "Genesis" strongly highlights the necessity of the Ten Commandments and subsequent laws. There is a passage in the Midrash that explicitly associates each of the Ten Commandments with the story of Joseph.The way the story is presented is to explain why the Israelites transported Joseph's body with the stele engraved with the Ten Commandments that had just been recovered from Mount Sinai.On the stele it is written: I am Jehovah your God. (Jacob) said, Am I in the land of God? Do not serve other gods. So Joseph said, I fear God. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, nor swear by the name of your God. So Joseph said, Swear on Pharaoh's life instead. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. So Joseph said to the steward of his mansion on Friday, stop all chores, and focus on the Lord, which is the meaning of the Sabbath. Honor your parents. So Joseph said that when his father asked him to go to his elder brother, he obeyed his father's order even though he knew that going there would be bad luck. Do not kill. Potiphar's wife urged him to kill her husband, but he didn't think so. Do not commit adultery. So he denounced Potiphar's wife's request for adultery. Do not steal. So instead of stealing anything from the Pharaoh, he collected all the money in the world and put it in the Pharaoh's treasury. You shall not bear false witness against anyone. So he never mentioned to his father how his brother treated him, although he could have complained to his father. Don't covet everything that others have. Therefore he did not covet Potiphar's wife. Apart from the Ten Commandments, perhaps the most influential of the legal principles related to the Bible is the original "Principle of Homomorphic Revenge": If any harm is done, you will life for life Eye for an Eye tit for tat fight back foot for foot the burner burns wounder hurts Those who flog people will flog them. The principle of tit for tat, or the idea that the harm inflicted must be exactly equal to the punishment inflicted, was initially highly controversial.We can see the purpose of this principle in the world in which the law appeared and arose, that is, in the nature of the world of Genesis.At the beginning of that world, there was no scale for punishment.God was too lenient to Cain, too tyrannical to the victims of the flood or brimstone fire, too unprincipled to Adam and Eve, too severe to the test of Abraham.Human justice and axioms are also similarly inappropriate. For example, the entire family of Hamor was killed because of the fault of Shechem alone. The story of Jacob and Joseph shows that the world is moving towards a sort of symbolic equilibrium, where people "reap what they sow and reap what they sow." Jacob weaves a web of deception to ensnare those around him, and Joseph Ser was to deceive those who deceived him. God later sent the plague to the Egyptians, as if to repay the harm the Egyptians inflicted on the Hebrews (among them, killing the firstborn son of all the Jews was the most cruel) but, although At that time, the law was gradually developing towards the "principle of homomorphic revenge" as the highest judicial principle, and the punishment was usually heavier than the crime. Finally, we saw that the written law clearly stipulated that the two must be equal. Enforcement sets strict boundaries. Before the principle of homomorphic revenge, the principle of disproportionate revenge was the norm around the world: you kill me, I kill you; you blind me, I kill you; you hurt I, I miss you and your family. The law has developed to this stage, the punishment must be commensurate with the crime, and cannot be heavier than the harm caused by the crime. Before the church rabbinic authorities interpreted amputation as losing money in order to reduce the severity of the "homogeneous revenge principle", this principle (although it sounds barbaric to modern people's ears) was already pursuing justice, fairness, and appropriate rewards and punishments A big step on the never-ending road, because it gives a strict limit to the punishment.Although in the ears of the ancients, this principle sounds like "one life can only pay for one life at most, and one eye can only pay for one eye at most", but at least theoretically it draws an end to the repayment of blood debts and retribution of grievances. If you don't move, you will kill the whole family or exterminate the whole family.What Dinah's brother did to the Hamor tribe can no longer be justified by saying, "Should a girl be considered a whore?"After adopting the "principle of homomorphic revenge", the answers to such questions are limited by the judicial principle that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime. If you read the Bible literally, you will find that the Bible conveys quite complex concepts about the execution of the law.The substantive law is a bit rough, and the eye-for-an-eye approach has resulted in many different crimes and crimes being punished with the death penalty, even though some of these crimes are trivial in the eyes of modern people and do not deserve death at all.In terms of procedural law, due to the strict requirements of the Bible for procedural justice, it is difficult to bring those who have committed serious crimes to justice.The result is that the judicial system (at least in theory) rarely convicts people because of procedural law flaws, but when people are convicted, those people are punished disproportionately by the "principle of vengeance".This system has a deterrent effect, and although some people who break the law will get away with it, the punishment after being convicted is severe enough to dissuade people who want to make mistakes.Today's tax code takes a similar approach, prosecuting only a few people, but punishing those convicted with heavy fines serves as a deterrent. Experience tells us that this system may not work every time, because most people who want to break the law do not believe that they will really be caught, so a system with certain and moderate punishment is more effective.The rabbis in the era of oral teaching also understood this truth, so they reduced the actual punishment and replaced the gouging and amputation with money loss; Easier to be judged guilty of.Although the rabbis interpret the "principle of homomorphic revenge" in this way, it still seems to violate the scriptures written in black and white in the Bible. For example, chapter 21, verse 24 clearly states: "A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, whoever burns burns, and whoever wounds, injures , Those who flog others will flog them.” There is no need for people to pay for it.In the same chapter it is expressly stated that certain crimes are settled by paying money. "An eye for an eye is just used as a comparison with monetary compensation. If there is no other harm, you can pay money. But if there is still harm, you must also pay life for life and eye for eye," and so on. The requirements of procedural justice in the Bible are also clear, especially the principle of "non double punishment" that innocent people should not be executed or found innocent. "However, the rabbis came up with a way to avoid the procedural justice clearly recorded in the Bible. If a person kills a person, he is sentenced only because there is only one witness (the Bible requires at least two) If he is not guilty, he cannot be released. Instead, he will be imprisoned and then fed with a special concoction of water and grains, the lethal formula of which will cause the eater's abdomen to burst and die. Modern society has come up with this extrajudicial punishment A specious term is called "vigilante justice". The rabbis believed that such extrajudicial punishment was necessary, otherwise there would be lawlessness.They may be right, but wouldn't that imply that the Bible is wrong!Naturally, the rabbis could not admit that the procedural justice required by the Bible was too strict, so they came up with a set of arguments to explain why their methods were in line with the Bible.However, a judicial system that kills acquitted defendants cannot be justified in any way consistent with the plain biblical command not to execute an innocent person or acquitted person Among the laws and regulations that appeared in the Bible in the future, from the most clear to the most general provisions, it is rare to find a few that do not originate from the Bible, that is to say, almost all of them can be traced back to the chapters before Mount Sinai. The commandment, "Let no obstacle be laid in the path of the blind man," broadly interpreted to treat the blind equally, arose from Jacob's deception of his blind father.The requirement that there must be two witnesses is used to prevent perjury.The laws of the Bible are especially harsh on the crime of perjury because the book of Genesis is full of stories of false accusations, perjury, and the wrongs they caused. "Do not spread rumours; do not join hands with the wicked to testify falsely; do not...in matters of litigation, follow the crowd and bear witness to cause injustice", "Should stay away from falsehood; do not kill the innocent and the upright" The "principle of homomorphic revenge" is clearly applied to those who perjure themselves.He was punished precisely for the harm he inflicted on the victim by perjury. Although many of the laws related to etiquette are derived from Genesis, from circumcision (which God himself commanded Abraham to perform on the males of that entire generation) to what food is unclean and not edible (this is from Noah The law prohibits eating meat with blood at first, and later includes the tendon of the thigh, and is expanded to the code, clearly stipulating what can be eaten and what can't be eaten. Abel's story, followed by Noah and Abraham and their descendants) universal moral requirements, from God's direct command to "do justice" to "Justice and justice, justice and justice, this is what you are after" This grand attempt also stems from the stories in Genesis that describe how lawless the world is. Justice and axioms were born out of the injustices that occurred in Genesis.Although "Genesis" also has stories of justice and axioms being upheld and showing the bright side of human nature, people originally expected to read such content in religious scriptures.The reason why the Bible is great is that it conveys the necessary concepts of justice and axioms through stories of injustice.This collection of stories, handed down from above, tells how lawlessness and wrong have inspired change and improvement, and how laws have developed over generations. To understand the complexity of justice and axioms, whether historical or modern, one must understand the emotions and desires of the characters in the Bible "Genesis".We are constantly trying to use laws and other social control mechanisms to suppress the dark side of humanity that everyone has, and to bring out the light side of humanity that everyone has.And this is what Genesis is about. As long as the generations of Adam and Eve are constantly tempted by the snake, as long as the generations of Cain cannot suppress their jealousy, as long as the generations of Abraham defend justice and justice, as long as the generations of Jacob succeed in cheating, as long as the generations of For generations Tamar has to bear the name of adulterer for men's lust, as long as Joseph is falsely accused for generations, and as long as God fails to uphold justice in the eyes of the world, then the story of "Genesis" will never be End, until the end of mankind.