The Catholic Church Changed The Ten Commandments? [Ecumenical]

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[Salvation]

The Catholic Church
Changed The Ten Commandments?

  

 

 

Real Audio Lessons on this Topic

Commandment 1
Commandments 2-3
Commandment 4, 6, & 9
Commandments 5, 7, 8, 10

Some Protestants accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped one of the 10 Commandments. "You're idolators! You worship statues! And because you do, your Church dropped the commandment against graven images!"

The truth, of course, is that the Catholic Church did not and could not change the Ten Commandments. Latin Catholics and Protestants simply list them differently. It is incredible that such a pernicious lie could be so easily spread and believed, especially since the truth could easily be determined by just looking into the matter. But the rumor lives.

Now, below are the ways in which Protestants and Roman Catholics enumerate the Commandments:

Most common Protestant listing:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
Honour thy father and thy mother
Thou shalt not kill
Thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
Thou shalt not covet

Latin Catholic listing:

Thou shalt not have other gods besides Me
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day
Honor thy father and thy mother
Thou shalt not murder
Thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods

So what the heck? What did happen to the commandment about graven images in the Catholic listing? Did the Church just "drop" a commandment?

Um, no. The Old Testament was around long before the time of the Apostles, and the Decalogue, which is found in three different places in the Bible (Exodus 20 and Exodous 34 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21), has not been changed by the Catholic Church. Chapter and verse divisions are a medieval invention, however, and numbering systems of the Ten Words (Commandments), the manner in which they are grouped, and the "short-hand" used for them, vary among various religious groups. Exodus 20 is the version most often referred to when one speaks of the Ten Commandments, so it will be our reference point here. Here's how the relevant portion of Exodus 20 reads:

2	I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3	Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
4	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.
5	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;
6	And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7	Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8	Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9	Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10	But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11	For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12	Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13	Thou shalt not kill. 1
14	Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15	Thou shalt not steal.
16	Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17	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.

So we have 16 verses and Ten Commandments (this we know because of Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 4:13 which speak of the "Ten Words" of God). How to group these verses and Commands? Here's how different groups have handled this:   

	Verses Grouped Together
Counted as Commandment #	Jewish	Latin Catholic, Lutheran	Eastern Catholic, Orthodox, Most Protestant
1	2 (commandment to believe)	3, 4, 5, 6	3
2	3, 4, 5, 6	7	4, 5, 6
3	7	8, 9, 10, 11	7
4	8, 9, 10, 11	12	8, 9, 10, 11
5	12	13	12
6	13	14	13
7	14	15	14
8	15	16	15
9	16	17a (commandment against lust)	16
10	17	17b (commandment against greed)	17

When the Commandments are listed, they are often listed in short-hand form, such that, for ex., verses 8, 9, 10 and 11 concerning the Sabbath become simply "Remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy." Because Latin Catholics group 3, 4, 5 and 6 together as all pertaining to the concept "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," we are accused of having "dropped" the commandment against idols. That Eastern Catholics list the Commandments differently never enters the equation for people who think this way; they are simply against those they probably call the "Romish popers" and that's that (I hope it doesn't bother them that Jews would accuse them of totally forgetting the First Commandment, or that Latin Catholics could accuse some Protestants of skipping lightly over the commandments against lust. And why don't the Protestants who have a problem with our numbering system go after the Lutherans for the same thing, anyway?).

Bottom line:

• chapter and verse numbering in the Bible came about in the Middle Ages
   

• the Catholic Church (which includes Eastern Catholics, too) has two different numbering systems for the Commandments given, one agreeing with the most common Protestant enumeration;
   

• the Latin Church's numbering is the most common in the Catholic Church and is the one referred to by Protestants who, ignoring Eastern Catholic Churches, accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped a Commandment;
   

• no Commandment has been dropped, in any case, but the Latin Church's shorthand for the Commandments looks different than the typical Protestant version because of how the Commandments are grouped;
   

• everyone knows how to find Exodus 20 in the Bible, anyway -- even us stoopid Latin Catholics; and
   

• we don't care how they are grouped together; we only care that they are understood and obeyed -- not because we are under the Old Testament Moral and Ceremonial Law with its legalism and non-salvific ritual (we aren't!), but because we are to obey God as children of the New Covenant, whose moral law includes the Two Great Commandments (to love God and to love our neighbor) which surpass the Decalogue, and whose Sacraments surpass empty ritual, being media of grace.

Footnote:
¹ The Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate (the official Scripture of the Church), and the original Douay-Reims phrase the Fifth Word as "Thou shalt not murder"; later Douay-Reims versions, such as the Challoner, and the King James Bible, etc., phrase it as "Thou shalt not kill." "Thou shalt not murder," however, is the original intent and the meaning of the earliest texts. Catholics, of course, have 2,000 years of Church teaching and the Magisterium to interpret Scripture, and the meaning of the Fifth Commandment is that one is not to take innocent life. It doesn't entail pacifism, ignoring the needs of self-defense and justice, worrying about squashing bugs, etc.

---

Further Reading

The Catechism of the Catholic Church: Section on the Ten Commandments

[netmilsmom]

>>I’m not talking about a picture of your father. I’m talking about a statue of Mary.<<

I’m talking about the picture of my father because I don’t have a statue of Mary that I treat that way.

I do have a picture of my father, which by the standards of this thread, means I adore it. Do you believe that? That I worship my father?

[netmilsmom]

>>I love that analogy is apparently not allowed/not understood by some here.<<

It’s just like the liberal idea of Social Justice.
My flying lib sister says that she can’t understand Christians who don’t want socialized healthcare. We are to give to the least of our brothers.

When I say, that Christianity goes both ways and taking my livelihood without my desire to give is stealing, the conversation shuts down.

There is a difference between “not understand” and “won’t understand”.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

You mean like how you logically cornered the dude in the post above, and so he had to call for mommy rather than answer your question? ;)

[netmilsmom]

>>This was not an ecumenical remark.

It needs to be stuck down. <<

It was a genuine question asking basically whether EVERYTHING that Jesus did in His time, Every word He said, every moment, was recorded in the Bible.

Catholics don’t believe that. Do you?

[Uri’el-2012]

Your remark was POTTY LANGUAGE on an ecumenical thread.

[small voice in the wilderness]

Oh, it's understood. It's just not TRUE.

Is netmilson's father, the headstone that the girl if kneeling in front of, the picture of santa by the baby Jesus, or a vase of flowers:

declare that all blessings come throught them?

called All-Holy

all-powerful

declared as the Assumtion of..

called co-redeemer

had the devotion of John Paul II

called the force behind the Gospel

declared Immaculately conceived

called the Immaculate Heart of

called the Mediatrix of All Grace

called the Mother of God

called the Mother of the Church

called a perpetual virgin

prayed to

called the Queen of Heaven and Earth

declared that salvation only through them

called sinless perfection

venerated

Please do not insult the intelligence by trying to assert that there is NO DIFFERENCE>

[netmilsmom]

Which part?

Do you believe that when the Mod was talking about “Potty Language” he/she was actually speaking of using the privy?

Really? Because maybe that should be clarified. My understanding of a Potty Mouth is the same as the Urban Dictionary.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pottymouth

If we can’t speak about using the bathroom, I’d like to know that.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

I didn’t know the girl kneeling there was saying all that. You can lip read still photos better than anyone I know.

[netmilsmom]

>>Oh, it’s understood. It’s just not TRUE.

Is netmilson’s father, the headstone that the girl if kneeling in front of, the picture of santa by the baby Jesus, or a vase of flowers: <<

Nothing that you use as an example below this quote has anything to do with the pictures originally posted to show Idol Worship.

By my actions with my father’s picture, do you think I worship it?

[Uri’el-2012]

There are two things recently that I have
observed among those in the Roman "church"

1. Attempt to provoke others in an ecumenical thread
2. Call people names and never discuss the issues

Saul Alinsky would be proud.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[Hegewisch Dupa]

Amazing that people who brag on their own powers of observation are completely clueless that when a direct theological question to them is reworded in such a way that they no longer feel the need to whine about it, yet they still have no response to the question. But of course it’s others who “never discuss the issues.”

[markomalley]

All mortal men.

All sinners.

True.

There is no evidence in YHvH's Word where Sabbath is changed from YHvH Commanded Shabbat to Sunday.

That was not the purpose of my response. The purpose of my response was to refute your earlier assertion that the change in the day of worship was moved from Saturday to Sunday as a result of the "anti-semitic" Nicene Council and to refute Lera's concurrence and interjection of the local council of Laodicea.

That is the value of looking at the early Church Fathers. Not so much to define doctrine, but to gain an understanding of how it was practiced in the early Church.

You can choose to believe what you will...none of my business one way or the other. And I note that based on your history, you are pretty good about citing scriptures to back up your point (even though I often do not agree with your interpretations of those scriptures). But if you start bringing up false assertions as a matter of church history, somebody should call you on it.

[netmilsmom]

>>There are two things recently that I have
observed among those in the Roman “church”

1. Attempt to provoke others in an ecumenical thread
2. Call people names and never discuss the issues<<

Would you please point out where I...?

1. Attempted to provoke you
2. Called you a name

Here, In the interest of promoting a “discussion of the issues” let’s change it. Do you think that Jesus ever got dressed in the morning?

[Uri’el-2012]

. But of course it’s others who “never discuss the issues.”

Here is the question:

Where in YHvH's Holy Word did YHvH or Yah'shua
His salvation change the YHvH commanded
Sabbath from Shabbat to the Pagan Sunday ?

Please answer the question.

[Religion Moderator]

Potty language includes profanities and word usage that would be unseemly in polite company, e.g. among children or seniors.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

And by the way - his putting 'church' in quotation marks - oh nooooooo, that wasn't provocative at all.

Some people just plain ain't worth name-calling.

[netmilsmom]

>>Potty language includes profanities and word usage that would be unseemly in polite company, e.g. among children or seniors.<<

So privy isn’t it? Cause I can walk into our VBS, the Lutheran Sunday School that my girls attended or the Senior Center where we have volunteered to hand out meals and no one had a problem with the word “privy”.

In fact, a dear old WWII vet said it and got my kids giggling so hard one dropped a plate!

[T Minus Four]

How do you reconcile the fact that they are kneeling, bowing, kissing, gazing at the statue or image of Mary?

They are certainly not worshipping her, rather they are praying for her intercession and/or showing adoration.

When instead they could be humbling themselves before Jesus (not a statue of Him) and praying directly to Him. We have no need of an intercessor.