Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Comparisons between the Bible and the Koran

I would argue that the Ten Commandments are not exactly binding today, not all of them. First of all, the way the Bible describes them, it is hard to argue that there are ten of them. They way I see them, it makes more sense to argue that they are eleven. Here's how the Bible describes them:

Let's repeat them, commandment for commandment. This would be number one:

Number two:

Number three:

Number four:

Number five:

Number six:

Number seven:

Number eight:

Number nine:

Number ten:

Number eleven:

Admittedly, it is possible to merge commandment number two, the ban against making graven images and other pictures, and commandment number three, the ban against worshipping the graven images and other pictures. If we merge them, we do get ten commandments rather than eleven.

What Christianity has done, however, is that it has merged commandments one, two and three, and then it has conveniently forgotten commandment number two, the ban against making graven images and other pictures, as well as commandment number three, the ban against worshipping such images. (To come up with ten commandments after this merger, it was necessary to split the last commandment up in two.)

Anyway, we have apparently lost and forgotten one or two entire commandments, the commandments against making pictures and worshipping them.

Who can say that we aren't making pictures?

Uncle Sam poster made up of 700 different pictures

And who can say that Christians have never been worshipping before graven images, like this statue of a man who is seen worshipping (a statue of) Mary? Can we say that no Christians have ever bowed down before statues of Mary and Jesus and prayed and worshipped before these statues?



Why have Christians forgotten the commandments against making images and worshipping before them, even though those commandments are there to read in the Bible, plain as day? There are two answers to that one. First, when Christianity tried to export itself to the Roman Empire, it quickly became clear that the Christians couldn't seriously challenge and ban all the statues and paintings that decorated the heartland of the Empire:



Could the Christians just demand that the Romans simply throw out all their statues and paintings? Sure. Why don't you ask them to spit on their Emperor, too?

The Romans made heroic statues of their Emperors. This is Augustus:



On the relatively few occasions when the Christians were persecuted in Rome, they were usually accused of refusing to bow down before a statue of the Emperor and worship before that statue. Refusing to do so could be seen as treason.

There was just no way that the Christians could make the Romans believe that it was wrong to make statues and paintings. If the Christians wanted to make themselves acceptable to the Romans, they had to stop criticizing Roman art.

And stop criticizing it is what they did, so thoroughly that most Christians today don't know that the commandments actually contain a ban against pictures. I'm very glad that no one in the west tries to uphold that Biblical ban against pictures. But it bothers me that some Christians are so sure that they are obeying the ten commandments, and yet they don't know what the ten commandments are, because they haven't looked for them in the Bible.

Ann