Why not the 10?
By Norman Fleishman
With crime, violence and immorality topping the charts ? not to speak of burgeoning family breakup ? and war ? maybe it”s the perfect time to return to the basics: The Ten Commandments! Let”s see:
No. 1 “Thou shall have no other Gods before me.” This specifically refers to Yahweh, the Hebrew deity, so we”ll have to shelve the First Amendment when it comes to Allah, Buddha, and the rest of them. Penalization? We learn what our God would want in Deut. 13-6-10: death!
No. 2: “No graven images” and all that (art, sculpture, etc): infractions? Punish the children until the fourth generation!
No. 3: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord the God in vain.” For cursing, bellowing sacred names (in the kitchen maybe, or on the football field): just desserts: death!
No. 4″ “No work on the Sabbath day.” No mowing the lawn, vacuuming, doing the dishes: price: death!
No. 5: Honour thy father and mother. Clear enough. Punishment: death!
No. 6: “Thou shalt not kill.” No punishment listed. A lot of it happens in the Bible; in this case evidently we should do as He says, not as He does.
No. 7: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This refers, of course, to anyone who divorces and remarries, or who marries a divorced person. Penalty: death! (need a ton of help, here, to see that enforcement is complete).
No. 8: “Thou shalt not steal.” No banishment here, no death. No stoning or burning; just “give back double the value of the theft.”
No. 9: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” (evidently no punishment. There is a slew of deception in the Bible, and by some of the leading characters).
No. 10: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor”s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor”s.” The Bible isn”t clear on the punishment ? although in Joshua, Achan is burned and stoned because he had “coveted” a garment (let”s see, why not just ban advertising altogether!)
Ten new, updated ones? (I read the other day in the Christian Science Monitor that there are 89 Starbucks in Bangkok; makes you feel that anything is possible!)
Norman Fleishman
Lakeport
