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No one has ever seriously suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain anything like an eleventh commandment

On the annual progression through Exodus this year I decided that the entire concept of "Ten Commandments" is bogus.

The phrase aseret hadvarim is what gets translated to "ten commandments." But it really means "ten words." Aseret hadvarim occurs only once in Exodus, and where it occurs is in no way associated with what most people think of when they think of the ten commandments. ("I am the L-rd, thy G-d," etc.) Instead it occurs when Moses gets a supposed "second set of ten commandments" quite different from the first set (Including things like "Every first issue of the womb is mine," at Ex 34:19). After these new commandments are given the text continues:

YHWH said to Moshe,
write you down these words:
For in accordance with these words
I cut with you a covenant, and with Israel.
Now he was there beside YHWH bread he did not eat
and water he did not drink,
but he wrote down on the tablets the words of the covenant, the fifteen words.

This is mostly the translation of Ex 34:27-28 of Everett Fox who is considered by many to be the most faithful translator of Exodus. I have changed only one word in Fox's translation.

I would assert that plain meaning of these words is that the "covenant" that Moses (Moshe) wrote down was, "For in accordance with these words I cut with you a covenant, and with Israel." Fifteen words!

Of course the word in Fox's translation that I changed was his translation of aseret. Fox said "ten." I say "fifteen," but it is ten words IN HEBREW! (ki al pi hadevarim ha'eleh karati itcha brit ve'et Yisra'el.)

“Covenant” implies some sort of agreement which generally involves words, not commands. These are the words of the covenant, the fifteen words.

ML/NJ