Ten Commandments in every public school classroom
Texas bill nearing law
According to the US Constitution, Amendment 1: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ...” ... and yet, by this coming September, classrooms in every public school in Texas could be required to display the 10 Commandments. While Democrats in the state House argued and voted against it, the Republican majority, this past Saturday, pushed it through handily – 88-49. The bill now moves back to the state Senate, which passed it in March, but now needs to give final approval due to a few minor House emendations. The Governor’s signature seems assured.
The Texas-based classroom version of the Ten Commandments is based on a heavy edit of the King James Version of Exodus 20 in the Bible. The wording they have chosen for the posters is:
1. I AM the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
The signs are mandated to be no smaller than 16" x 20", and no other words may be used, added, or substituted for the above. Aside from it being unconstitutional, and despite a federal court ruling in 2024 against a similar bill offered by the Louisiana legislature, and despite a Supreme Court ruling against a similar Kentucky law of 45 years ago, the Texas legislature has pushed this tribute to their version of the “10 shalt and shalt nots” right along.
Proponents of Christian fundamentalism ought to be charged a special fee for having our federal court system have to deal time and again with the welter of law suits brought before them to deny certain state legislatures the right to foist their form of religion upon atheists, agnostics, and non-Christians. I would not be offended by seeing a set of values to live by that did not have a religious bent to them. Adages and sayings that feature value such as kindness, goodness, honesty, decency, dignity, respect, integrity, courage, honor, truth, generosity, humility, etc., would be okay with me. Faith and belief are issues of conscience and subjects for houses of worship, not for classrooms of public education.
BESIDES, what I see on the Texas and the Louisiana and the Kentucky (and the Revised Standard Version and the Catholic and the Lutheran) and actually every Christian version of the Ten Commandments is a heavy editing of the original, authentic Ten. For example, the first commandment in this above revision makes absolutely no sense.
“I AM the LORD thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Who, for instance, is the “I” in I am the Lord thy God? Without knowing the subject, how is one to differentiate that unknown from other gods? Therefore, it is somewhat meaningless to advise children to have no other gods besides what god? The real, that is the official first Commandment – the one that appears in the Torah, the unrevised version, the Moses & God produced original and, therefore, the authentic Hebrew version of these commandments clearly defines the deity that is God.
1. Anochi יהוה -Adonai Elohehcha asher hotzayti may’eretz mitzraim me’bayt avadeem: "
I יהוה am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides Me."
Thus, in the unamended text, God is defined as the redeemer of the Hebrew people, those who celebrate the Passover – a freedom from a forced labor. This God has a name; it is four Hebrew letters (יהוה) that together are ineffable, unpronounceable, unspeakable by all but the High Priest of Israel – the holiest person in ancient Israel. God’s name was spoken aloud only by him just once a year on Yom Kippur – the holiest day, as he stood inside the Holy of Holies next to the Ark of the Covenant – the holiest place, in the Temple in Jerusalem. That is the God before whom thou shalt have none other. If you’re going to force children to see the Ten Commandments every time they walk into a public school classroom, then don’t give them a bastardized version of them.
The revised, Christian version of the second Commandment also make no sense.
“Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.”
Yet, what is a statue of Mary, or a Pieta, or a cross with a human form, or a picture of a saint to whom homage is paid, if not a graven image? What about all the religious icons and paintings of Byzantine artists, of the Spaniard El Greco, or of Reubens, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Caravaggio, Raphael, Rembrandt, even Dali, and countless others? Clearly putting this commandment on a list of things not to do bespeaks a sort of hypocrisy that is illogical.
The original Hebrew second Commandment says:
2. “You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image (pesel), or any picture/likeness (temunah) of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I יהוה your God am an impassioned/jealous God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Ask just anyone what the third commandment means:
“Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
Most likely they’ll think it means don’t use swear words or don’t curse using God’s name. Don’t say g-damn. Really? That’s the most horrible thing one can say? At a time when the f... word is interjected in just about every sentence in movies, on TV, in the streets, we want our school children to concern themselves with the word damn? Besides that, very few know what taking a name in vain actually means.
3. Lo tisa et shame Adonai l’shav. Do not swear by God’s Name יהוה in a false manner."
That is to say, don’t make a promise, an oath, a commitment, a contract you do not intend to honor using God’s name as your guarantor, e.g., I swear by my God that I .... The equivalent is you can trust me, because I believe in Jesus; I'm a good Christian.
Fourth commandment is also complicated.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
What is the Sabbath day? To those who were given the commandments, in the Torah, it is the seventh day, Saturday. Every secular calendar except that used in Russia has Saturday as the end of the week, i.e., the seventh day. To the early church Sabbath was Saturday. As a way of appeasing pagans in Europe so as to bring them to the church, Emperor Constantine in 321 CE, declared that Sunday be a day of rest for non-agricultural workers. The Council of Laodicea in 365 declared that Christians must not be Judaizers and, therefore, must not keep the Sabbath but must keep the Sunday as a day of celebration, as the Lord’s Day. So, Saturday is still considered the Sabbath, but is superseded by Sunday not as the Sabbath, but as the Lord’s Day – Domingo.
So, what about the Texas version of 'Keep the Sabbath' makes sense? As long as they are revising why not change this fourth commandment to “Remember the Lord’s Day.” But then how to keep it holy? By closing liquor stores? Watching football on TV? Will a Church service do it? Is a family dinner holy? What is a school child supposed to learn in secular school about the holy, holiness, or keeping something holy? Separation of church and state? Clearly, this verse is in violation of that principle.
The fifth commandment is also a bit iffy.
“Honor thy father and thy mother.”
Seems straightforward enough, except to a youngster what does it meant to honor? Make your bed, clear the table, pull weeds, vacuum, help with chores, celebrate Mother’s and Father’s Days? How does one honor an abusive parent, a drug user, an alcoholic, a thief, a mobster, a person who breaks any or all of the next five commandments? And what if I don’t care about my parents just as they don’t seem to care about me or about my sister and brother, or they care less about me than they do about my siblings? And what exactly does this have to do with algebra?
The English translation for this fifth commandment is the same, but the Hebrew provides a bit of clarity along with a reason for keeping it.
“Kabade et avicha v’et imehcha. Honor your father and your mother.”
Kabade has several meanings. It means heavy. It means liver (the heaviest organ). It means honor, which can be a heavy thing to do. Honor parents since because of them you exist. You owe your parents gratitude for your birth. How you express that gratitude depends on you and them. You owe them every opportunity to warrant your continuous gratitude through your self discipline, your acceptance of responsibilities, the quality of your responsiveness to and interaction with them. You owe them your respectful demeanor. Yes, honor is a heavy task. Both parents and children have to work at it, and if they achieve mutual respect, kindness, generosity of spirit in their relationship then Torah continues the commandment with the words: “(Honor your father and your mother) that you may long endure on the land (Israel) that יהוה your God is assigning to you.” Strong families assure a strong nation. The Texas version of the fifth commandment doesn't tell kids that.
6-9 Don’t murder, commit adultery, or steal seem pretty simple to understand. So does don’t bear false witness.
It’s just that one wonders how some of those politicians can post these don’ts when in fact many did and many still do.
The tenth commandment:
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.”
What about his tractor or car, her watch, his education, her hair, their jobs, his new cell phone, and so forth. The English translation of the Hebrew Scriptures version would have been difficult to put on a wall because it would evoke a lot of giggles.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house: you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female worker, or ox or ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The ancient world’s ox and ass are today’s tractor and car, but we have so many more things to be envious of now than ever before. Covet doesn’t mean don’t want what someone has; it means don’t envy to the point of being ready to murder or steal or lie or swear falsely in order to take it from them.
In summary, the Ten Commandments as they are proposed to be posted in public school classrooms throughout Texas are either frivolous, meaningless, hypocritical, cross the boundary of church-state separation, or have no relevance in a secular environment. Simple value statements without a fussy thy or thou would be far more salient for a modern student’s life. More salient that is, unless the Texas politicos think that everyone will suddenly become a god-fearing Christian by having to read a bunch of meaningless sentences on a school wall while being told a bold faced lie that these are God's words.
Aspen Academy, a private school in Colorado, had these words posted in every classroom: Be Kind - Work Hard - Do Good. It worked for them; it works for me, too.