On Displaying/Teaching the 'Ten Commandments' and 'The Bible' in the Schools, Repsectively in Louisiana, and Oklahoma
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
"A Vote for 'ABBB' (Any Body but Biden) is a Vote for Trump and Republo-Fascism" (S. Jonas, March, 2024)
Over the years, there were four Orange. cats in our family, all called Fred. (I, II, III, IV).
(Image by kennethkonica) Details DMCA
Over the years there were four "Orange" cats in our family. They were all named "Fred," I, II, III, IV.
In the Presidential Debate on 6/27/24, President Biden said: "I spent 90 minutes on stage debating a guy with the morals of an alley cat." As a life-long cat-lover, I do not take kindly to this insult --- to cats.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within the past week, the nation has been treated to two very interesting initiatives relating to religious texts. In Louisiana, Gov. Landry signed into law a requirement that "The Ten Commandments" be posted in every public school class-room in the States. And then in Oklahoma the "state superintendent" (presumably of education), "Moves to Require Teaching the Bible in Public Schools." A number of issues have been raised by these two initiatives.
The first that comes to mind for both is of course the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (with which the worthies in both states seem not to be familiar). It states, it would seem quite clearly (but apparently not clearly enough for either the Governor or the Superintendent), that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" So that clause, even though it has been severely ignored in the abortion rights debate (most notably by the supporters of abortion rights) would seem central to this matter as well. We can only hope that those individuals and organizations challenging both initiatives (like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom from Religion Foundation) will bring the First Amendment to bear this time.
But that is another matter. In this column we shall deal with another issue which would seem to be relevant in both cases. That is, exactly which version of either the long document or the short one would one use? Consider first The Ten Commandments. There are at least three versions of them, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish. They do agree on certain matters, such as "Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not steal." But not on certain others, e.g., on which day of the week the Sabbath is kept. And by the way, while we are going through these, one has to wonder just how teaching of any of these three versions relates to Muslims, Hindi, Bahai (which for the latter, especially in Louisiana and Oklahoma who might not be familiar with it, "The Bahai" Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people "). And then, we must mention the Mel Brooks version, for in the "History of the World, Part 1" he told us that there were originally 15 Commandments, as, completing his journey down Mount Sinai he (as Moses) was dropping and cracking up (as was the audience during this segment of the movie) one of the stone tablets on which they were written, reducing the number to Ten.
Further on the matter of what exactly does each Commandment mean, dealing with a sort of amalgamation of the several versions set forth above, back on December 24, 2007, one Ed Brayton posted the following quote from the "oh so genial, oh so nice, oh so down-to-earth" Mike Huckabee. You may remember him. He is the father of the current Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who between phases of his life spent breathing fire and brimstone as a preacher (remember, this man was also a Governor of Arkansas), said this: "The Ten Commandments form the basis of most of our laws and therefore, you know if you look through them does anybody find anything there that would be all that objectionable?".
Quoting from Mr. Brayton on the Governor/Preacher's remarks (with emphasis added):
"Funny, but I thought that the bases of all of laws are the U.S. Constitution and those of the 50 States. He pointed out that most of the Ten Commandments would unconstitutional and the rest really matters of personal morals and principles. But let us say that Gov. Huckabee became President and would somehow be able to put them, let us say, co-equal with the Constitution. Before we could even get to their Constitutionality, there are a series of practical questions that would have to be raised. I share them with you herewith.
"First, one would have to ask exactly which Ten are we talking about? Those in a particular English translation of a particular Latin translation of a particular Greek translation of a particular Hebrew translation of an original Aramaic text, known as the King James Version? There is an extensive set of variations of the Ten, depending upon which language one uses. That question would have to be settled first. But let us say that somehow it would be, let us go on to the particulars, given the translation supplied.
"1. Thou shall have no other Gods before me. Which 'one God' are we talking about? The Jewish version (after all, 'he was the original,' so we are told). Or is it the Catholic version or perhaps one of a variety of Protestant versions, or even the Mormon version? Then, what does the word 'before' mean? Is this one talking about others? Oh my.
"2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. How do we define 'graven'? Sculpture, painting, photo, computer image? Are all prohibited, or only some? What happens from the fifth generation on? And what is meant by 'iniquity?' Apparently, this God is jealous in nature. But I thought that that was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Oh my.
"3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. What name is that, and how is 'in vain' defined?
"4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. What, exactly, does 'keep it holy' mean? Further, right now there are at least two days of the week defined as 'the Sabbath' and a wide variety of approaches to recognizing it, whichever one it is, as special.
"5. Honour thy father and thy mother. How exactly are they to be honored? Gifts, speeches, flowers? And how frequently? What would count and who would do the counting?
"6. Thou shalt not kill. Uh oh! There goes war, self-defense, the death penalty, and, since it doesn't say 'who,' possibly hunting and the use of animals for food.
"7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Given the commonality of the practice, just how would the Gov. propose to control it, much less punish it?
"8. Thou shalt not steal. Just how is 'stealing' to be defined? Does it include theft of elections [note that this inquiry was written in 2007; presumably it related to the Supreme Court's theft of the 2000 election from Al Gore], and stealing by the awarding of no-bid contracts to Presidential/Vice-Presidential cronies, or let's say, tax cuts for the rich that steal from everyone else's future?
"9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Does lying one's nation into war count? And if its intention is not quite that grand, what is the definition of 'neighbour" anyway? Next door, across the street, down the block, around the world in this increasingly so-called 'globalize'" economy?
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. There's that troublesome definition of neighbour again. But before getting into any details, just how is 'covet' to be defined and what are the proposed penalties for any violations?"
"So, a pack of questions. And since we would presume that the Gov. would not be so bold as to propose substituting The Ten for the Constitution en masse (at least not right away), I suppose that it would be up to the Supreme Court to sort things out. As for what, as presently constituted, it might do, we only have to notice that there are currently five seats held by Catholics who, one might presume, have similar ideas about how to answer all those tough questions. Yes indeed, that next election is really important, for more than one real reason."
One could comment on Mr. Brayton 's amazing foresight, but I will refrain from doing that for the moment.
Turning to the Bible, myriad questions arise. For example, it is well known that the Old Testament was written down by a number of different authors over many centuries. And it should also be noted that while Gov. Landry noted that Moses "was the original law-giver," we actually don't even know whether there was an actual figure/person who was named "Moses," or at least fulfilled the role, as an individual, given to "Moses" in one version of the Bible or another. We do know for sure, that Moses or "Moses" was not the original law-giver. Given what we do know about when the Old Testament was originally written down, over a millennium from 1500 or so to 500 or so, B.C.E., it was not the first. There were, for example, the Code of Ur-Nammu, written in 21st century B.C.E., and the Code of Hammurabi, written in the first half of the 18th century B.C.E.
Returning to a consideration of the Old Testament, further questions are: was there more than one One God (writing everything down) or did he (or she) just like taking rests, and then stopped writing altogether (for unknown reasons, of course). Or is the O. T. indeed not divine at all, but rather a collection of some brilliant and not-so-brilliant writings of political pundits and politicians and historians and self-styled "holy people" of the times, and etc. to lay down the rules, justify events, set forth philosophies (the Golden Rule, etc.). Or is it divinely inspired (over the same many centuries after which the divine inspiration stopped)? Ah, questions, questions.
I for one, a Humanist, not a Goddist, think that, for example, the Moses and the Ten Commandments story was just a brilliant early example of marketing. How else could a group of nomads become one the earliest groups of people to write down a set of rules, set them up as laws, and commit themselves to the Rule of Law. Just on the basis of Moses (whoever he was) and his men saying "do it?"
There are of course many more questions raised by these laws and regulations relating to religious texts. The last one that I shall consider here is, in Oklahoma, exactly which English translation of the Bible will they be using?
As I said in a column on the grievous Hobby Lobby Decision:
". . . what the Court has done here is to take one set of religious beliefs, that of the owners of a company incorporated under public law (and gaining the tax benefits of so doing), and placed them above the religious beliefs of their employees, all in the name of religious freedom. In pre-Enlightenment 16th and 17th century Europe, a time that [the late] Justice [Antonin] Scalia pined for in the past, Europeans of various countries slaughtered each other over similar questions of opposing religious doctrines. Back then it wasn't over such matters as contraception (or even abortion . . .). People were burned at the stake for, for example, holding that the wine and the wafer offered at the end of services really were, or were really just symbolic of, the blood and body of Christ. People slaughtered each other over whether it was predestination or 'good works' that determined whether or not one went to heaven."
Turning to the Bible in English, the man who made the first English translation of the Bible, one William Tyndale, in 1536 was burned at the stake, in England, for having the temerity to do so. Under Henry VIII, who invented the "Church of England," the authorities still did not want the "common people" (some of whom mighh be able to read) to be able to interpret the "holy word" for themselves, without the intervention of clergy. In England, officially, it was not until about a century later that the Bible was first rendered into English, as "The King James" version.
The "King James" version, widely used in this country, was, howefer, hardly Divine. It was translated from a variety of Latin and Greek texts and put together by a committee of 52 theologians and academics, at the beginning of the 17th century in England. The purpose was to have one officially sanctioned version of the Bible, in English, to support the installation on the English throne of the former James VI of Scotland as James I of England. And a very Church of England King was he, in comparison with his Catholic mother, Mary Queen of Scots. One need not note (but I will anyway) that the King James version was hardly a document of "divine" origin, that is, of course, unless every one of those 52 committee members were speaking directly with God.
That is, in conclusion, to say nothing of the variety of other Christian Bibles, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, or the Jewish ones. And so, Mr. Superintendent, before you mandate the "teaching of the Bible in the schools," as a first step why don't you tell us, just which version of the Bible the teaching of which is being mandated, and why that one?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post note: Of course we haven't mentioned the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Shinto holy books, and etc. I can't wait to hear just how Superintendent Walters is planning to deal with them.