The Real Ten Commandments: Solon vs. Moses

infidels.org ^ | Richard Carrier

[Imal]

The Moses this guy is talking about is nothing like the Moses I've read about.

Must be a different Moses, and a different set of commandments.

[WOSG]

BC and AD accurately describe the BC / AD divide!

Frankly, BCE annoys.

[WOSG]

Moses' authorship is well known, go read: " 1st Infidels, Chapter 1 verse 5".

[Imal]

The Athenian's Commandments are far more noble and profound, and far more appropriate to a free society. Who would have guessed this of a pagan? Maybe everyone of sense.

More precisely, everyone willing to embrace nihilism as their religion, as the author clearly does.

His ludicrous assumption that the moral foundation of western society is hedonism invalidates his entire thesis, and therefore his article. It also deftly eliminates any doubts that he is incapable of any form of objective, reasoned analysis of this topic.

[R. Scott]

It could also be said that our laws are based on those of Hammurabi (reigned 1795-1750 BC).
His published Code of Law not only covered criminal but tort law as well. While our founders might not have directed accessed it, other societies in the long ago past did – and the tenets have been passed down.

[R. Scott]

The appearance of such non-legal abbreviations betrays the bias of the author.

Non-legal???

[WOSG]

" Now, we can see at once that our society is entirely opposed to the first four, and indeed the last of these ten. "

On further reflection, he is utterly wrong on this point. I know he is trying to tear down the 10 Commandments to build up solon but he overreaches.

First, go with the real text, not his summary.

http://www.prayerlist.com/tencommandments.html

1 is about believing and obeying only the one ("true") God.
3 is having piety towards God, not shaking your fist at him. 2 is about not worshipping false idols and representations. 4 is to "keep the Sabbath holy" (he said "do no work on the seventh day", but that is not the text of Exodus).

A devout orthodox Christian and Orthodox Jew would really do all those things. This does not impose it in any way on rest of society, this is not a command to theocracy just a command to personal belief. So in saying that 'our society' rejects these he is rejecting Jewish and Christian faith as valid for our society. Clearly this is not true most as close to half of American obey #4 and show up at Church on Sunday and most Americans consider themselves believing Christian or Jewish.

As for #10 ('do not cover thy neighbors house, wife, property, servants, etc.'), he is sucked up into modernist thought that no thought is evil. In fact, #10 enjoins the 'mortal sin' of greed/avarice, wanting/desiring what does not belong to you. Again, different ethical view, but I dont think he would reject a rule that said "Dont be greedy for what is not yours". It seems clearer than solon's #8.

[wita]

Bingo! Of course there is more, much much more, but the author of this piece just can't get past Athens. He writes as if man is the end all and be all of humanity. IE, "no controlling legal authority", now where have I heard that before?

[Adder]

"Now, we can see at once that our society is entirely opposed to the first four, and indeed the last of these ten. As a capitalist society, we scoff at the idea of closing our shops on a choice market day. And our very goal in life is to desire--desiring is what drives us toward success and prosperity. The phrase "seeking the American Dream," which lies at the heart of our social world, has at its heart the very idea of coveting the success of our peers, goading us to match it with our own industry, and we owe all our monumental national success to this."

We didn't scoff at that idea until very recently and we were still a capitalist country. He is also warping coveting into a meaning that it doesn't have.

A few of his points have some merit but he is dliberating trying to bash the 10c's. No, they are not THE basis of our laws but they are A basis of them and one that more people knew about in the 1780's than Solon's or Hammurabi's. Simply because we are more aware today of the implications of Solon's laws doesn't mean that the people designing the constitution were at that time.
I have always looked at the 10c's in public buildings as a source of our laws and not a promotion of religion ever since I was young. I am sure most of us have.
Prior to the brouhaha of the last 30 years, who looked upon them as a religious symbol when viewed in a public context?

[WOSG]

Albert the Great prefaced his first catalog of the Laws of England with the Ten Commandments.

He likely never even heard of Hammurabi. And there are dozens of such links in our history between civic law and Judaic laws.

Thus, the Ten Commandments are a far more appropriate historical reference point.

The first law in Western Christendom was the Justinian code. It was of course imbued with the Catholic faith of the Romans of 529 AD:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/535institutes.html#I.%20Justice%20and%20Law

[WOSG]

you are correct on all points.

[SkyPilot]

Thanks for posting those subjective laws. Solon forgot:

11. Always walk back to front

12. Do not stare into the sun

13. Be Excellent to one another!

The Bible is clear that God wrote His law into our hearts....so that we shall have no excuse. Everyone has an innate sense of right vs. wrong programed into their souls. But some have a "seared conscience"--and can not cope with the truth any longer. (If anyone needs evidence of this--have a conversation with a woman who has had multiple abortions explain her "choice.")

The 10 Commandments were a wonderful elaboration and clear set of guidelines written by God in His own handwriting (until Moses lost his temper with the original tablets). They are not "also rans" as this "BCE" atheist states.

[P.O.E.]

Lest we forget the Skipper as Polonius:

"Neither a borrower, nor a lender be
Do not forget, stay out of debt"

A Harold Hecuba Production

[elephantlips]

"Do good things." If we take that phrase alone, the Godlessness of it is enough to make you sick. How, without the standard that God sets, do you know what "good" is? A pedophile "feels good" when they molest children. A thief "feels good" when they get away with their crime. God sets an uncompromising standard for "good" and "truth" and that is how we know what is required of us as set forth in the Ten Commandments.

[Verginius Rufus]

A lot of this is hype. Solon didn't invent democracy, which didn't develop at Athens until a couple of generations after his death.

We don't have adequate information about what Solon actually did to substantiate most of the assertions the author makes. We have some of Solon's poems, which are vague about what he actually did, and we have some of the laws he wrote for the Athenians, but the Athenians would sometimes refer to a much later law as a "law of Solon," so it's hard to know which ones are genuinely his. The main ancient sources for Solon's work are Aristotle (Constitution of Athens) and Plutarch (Life of Solon), both of whom were writing centuries after his death.

Even in Aristotle's time, 250 years later, poor citizens were still legally barred from holding certain offices (although it isn't certain the prohibition was always enforced).

[PatrickHenry]

Interesting article. Not the way I would have written it (nothing ever is), but nevertheless very thought-provoking.

There's also Rome's example: The Law of the Twelve Tables. This isn't what we'd adopt as a legal code today, but they carved it in stone and displayed it in public.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up! However, I put all articles from infidels.org in the same bucket as democratsunderground.com because of their "mission:"

Our adopted mission is to defend and promote Metaphysical Naturalism, a nontheistic worldview which holds that our natural world is all that there is, a closed system in no need of a supernatural explanation and sufficient unto itself. To that end we publish the very best secular books, essays, papers, articles and reviews. We also stand as a bulwark against the forces of superstition, especially the radical religious right, whose proponents would have us fear knowledge rather than embrace it.

If you follow the political activism pages on the website, you'll see that they are among the extreme left-wing activists.

Therefore, I decline to comment on the article.

[balrog666]

Interesting article. Not the way I would have written it (nothing ever is), but nevertheless very thought-provoking.

I am reduced to "ditto".

[Carry_Okie]

Bump to self

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

But are they foundations of OUR law? Such laws are nearly universal among societies.

Well, not exactly. You see one of the interesting things about the Ten Commandments is that they were meant to be applied across the board to everyone. Take "thou shalt not steal." Most places did have this kind of law but it applied only to those inside the tribe.

But it is mentioned several places in the Torah that these laws were meant to apply to every one across the board and to rich and poor alike.

Now it was not always kept that way but still it represented a giant leap forward in the way we look at law and rights.