Few of us can name all of the Ten Commandments these days, but that certainly does not mean they have lost any popularity. Thanks to Charlton Heston's film, courtcases involving tribute statues on government property [1], and the ministries of people like Ray Comfort, the icon of the Ten Commandments has become a part of pop culture in many ways. For many believers, the Ten Commandments are an example of God's perfect moral law, paralleled by no other religion. To apologists and evangelists, they are a tool for witnessing and a challenge to opposing moral views. With this in mind, let's examine these commandments, asking two important questions. First, what about them may be considered moral or good, and secondly, are there other moral issues omitted from the list that deserved to be included?

I. The Best Top 10?

The Ten Commandments are given to Moses in Exodus 20:1-17 and will be listed and discussed here in order.

i. "You shall have no other gods before me." (Ex. 20:3)

The first commandment shows where God's priorities lie. He is a jealous god, as he says himself in verse five. It is worth noting that if someone were to believe in another god instead of Yahweh, they would most likely feel no compulsion to follow these commands of Yahweh. So why is it said that they should put no other gods before him? Some scholars have argued that early Judaism was actually polytheistic, and interesting finds have been made that link Yahweh with 'Asherah', a mother goddess of the ancient Canaanite religion [2]. Perhaps the first commandment could then be understood as Yahweh telling his followers that he wishes to be given highest priority out of all other gods, not necessarily exclusive worship. If God desired monotheism, it seems like he could have simply said, 'you shall have no other gods'.

ii. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." (Ex. 20:4)

Here we find God denouncing graven images, specifically ones modeled after any created thing. I guess unwritten exceptions were made for the numerous crucifixes and depictions of Jesus that exist throughout the world. Also, if God's people would obey the first commandment, would this one really be necessary?

iii. "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." (Ex. 20:7)

God seems to believe that taking his name in vain is one of the ten worst things a human being can do. Exactly what purpose does this commandment serve? What harm may be done by half-heartedly swearing on God's name? Perhaps these rules are meant to be instruction on how to live the religion more than they are meant to be any sort of flawless moral standard.

iv. "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." (Ex. 20:8)

Just as God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh, he demands that his followers do their work only six days a week and reserve the seventh day for relaxation and worship. These first four commandments pertain exclusively to religious observance, so they can hardly be called universal or agreeable moral laws. If Christians want the Ten Commandments to be part of American government and displayed on public property, will they be willing to face the penalties when they take God's name in vain, are found to have graven images in their possession, or are caught working on Sundays? Many of them may be surprised to learn that punishment for any one of those offenses is death:

v. "Honor your father and your mother" (Ex. 20:12)

Finally we come to a commandment that may be called good and moral. However, I cannot think that a father or mother who abandons their child or abuses them deserves respect or honor. As the philosopher John Locke has said, it is not simply the act of begetting of a child that warrants honor to the parents, but the maintaining and education of the youth. It may not be ideal, but in general, I do think this commandment is reasonable.

vi. "You shall not murder." (Ex. 20:13)

Another good bit of moral instruction, albeit one that is rarely obeyed in the bible, by man or God. In Genesis 19:24-25, God lays waste to all living things in Sodom and Gomorrah, and as I've just shown, God does order his own people to murder each other when they violate his laws.

vii. "You shall not commit adultery." (Ex. 20:14)

This might be considered a good moral teaching, if only for the fact that most couples in our modern world are monogamous. When two individuals have agreed to sleep only with each other, breaking that agreement is obviously immoral, but moreso because trust has been violated than because of the nature of the act itself. Some people define adultery as involving a married person and another person who is not their spouse, while others define it to include extramarital sex. Either way, if polyamory is agreed upon, what harm is done when an individual (married or not) sleeps with someone who is not his/her regular partner? The 'sanctity of marriage' crowd may love this commandment, but it should not be taken as an absolute prohibition.

viii. "You shall not steal." (Ex. 20:15)

Here is another commandment I can almost fully agree with. We can all imagine that if we had to steal food for our families to survive, we would consider such theft to be reasonable, but except for those extreme cases, I do think that it is wrong to deprive a person of their property.

ix. "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." (Ex. 20:16)

This commandment might have served the residents of Salem well, if they had followed it during the infamous witch trials. Yet if the court was hellbent on executing a witch and giving false testimony would help to save an innocent person, I think we all know we would've broken this law. Once again, in most cases, this is a good law, but there are certainly exceptions that demonstrate how it should not be observed as an absolute.

x. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Ex. 20:17)

I can't help thinking that this commandment is unnecessary with there already being one against theft. Criminalizing desire is an establishment of thoughtcrime too, something that should itself be recognized as immoral by any free society.

The Ten Commandments score a 4 out of 10 for the morals expressed in it, and it fails entirely as a perfect or absolute standard of morality. Of the four commandments that are viable instruction for interacting with our fellow humans and the world around us, every single one has foreseeable objections that make them circumstantial morals. They are in no way objective or absolute, and must be open to amendment in light of unique situations. Additionally, several important moral issues are omitted from the ten that certainly deserved to be included, and I'm willing to bet you've already thought of at least one or two of them.

II. The Missing Moral Laws

Why did the Hebrew god decide not to include the denouncement of rape in the Ten Commandments? If God gave the tablets to Moses with the intent of emphasizing basic moral laws he desired for humanity to obey, and God truly and absolutely hates rape (as countless believers claim), why is there no commandment against it? The subject is certainly not ignored or overlooked by the scriptures. In fact, the discussion of rape in the bible may give an interesting insight into why it was not in the ten.

From just these passages alone, it seems crystal clear that rape was not considered enough of a significant offense to be among the Ten Commandments, and Israelites were even allowed to take captive women as wives and 'go to them' after they had time to grieve for their families. The only instance where Yahweh declares rape to be worthy of any serious punishment is in Deut. 22:25-27, where it specifically states that anyone who rapes a woman "pledged to be married" must be killed. Contrast this to the punishment for raping virgins, which is mentioned above. Raping a married woman carries a heavier sentence because the rapist deprives a man of his 'property'.

Why is there no commandment against slavery? To deprive any human being of their right to freedom is surely a heinous offense that should be denounced. Christian apologists like Dinesh D'Souza love to argue that their religion was responsible for ending slavery, but there is no admonition of slavery in the bible, especially not a commandment forbidding it. Instead we find passages like Leviticus 25:44, that show the acceptance and provision for slavery in the 'word of God':

Exodus 21:2-11 instructs that male Hebrew slaves are to be freed after six years of service, while female slaves are not to be freed unless their master fails to provide them with food, clothing, and sex. Even in the New Testament there is no abolitionism, as the apostle Paul says, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ" (Ephesians 6:5). God apparently does not consider slavery immoral, and so there is no place for it among the Ten Commandments.

Why are sexism and racism not on God's top 10 list? Wouldn't the creator of mankind have wanted to spare the world several millennia of intolerance and injustice by letting us know that differences in our circumstances of birth are no good reason to discriminate against others? Perhaps not, considering some of the notorious misogyny and chauvinism in the bible [see my article, How the Bible Views Women]. However, even if other passages did reject and condemn these issues that are today widely agreed to be wrong by most of humanity, it would still cast serious doubt on the priorities at work in the Ten Commandments. To leave out prohibitions on rape, slavery, sexism, and racism - which have done so much damage historically - while including several disputable commandments regarding the respect due to God or the evils of covetousness, just goes to show that the Ten Commandments are hardly an ideal example or standard for morality.

III. To Obey or Not to Obey

Christians today seem generally confused about the Ten Commandments, in many ways. While they argue for the relevance, importance, and application of the laws in our modern world, they miss several conflicts of interest within their own view of the bible. Christians believe that they are no longer obligated to follow the laws of the Old Testament, many of which Christ and Paul reinterpreted or struck down in the New Testament. This is why Christians do not consider some foods unclean and why they don't mind working on the Sabbath; even though those rules are in their bibles, they think that Christ's sacrifice basically declared them null and void. This view is a gross misconception, as I explain in the article on Christianity's Unbiblical Covenant, but there is a more important point to be made here, so we will move on.

How often do you hear preachers state that, 'God called them the Ten Commandments, not the ten suggestions'? A lot of emphasis is placed on observing God's top ten, but Christians don't seem to realize that in doing so, they advocate the relevance of Old Testament law, something that they will fervently deny when asked why they don't follow the lesser known laws in the bible, about stoning disobedient children (Deut. 21:18-21), killing those caught in adultery (Lev. 20:10), or forcing rape victims to marry their rapists (Deut. 22:28-29). The truth is that the Ten Commandments are never given any special status or isolated significance apart from the other Old Testament laws. If Christians want to appeal to them as a standard of moral purity, they should observe them in context along with the rest of the Mosaic Law. If other Christians want to claim they are no longer under the Ten Commandments, they should cease treating them as a perfect, ideal or applicable moral code for today's world.

The Ten Commandments are not the best set of morals we can devise, nor are they even among the most valuable. They are also not the foundation of American government, nor should they be. Many of the laws are of highly questionable nature, and a great number of important issues are missed, which any man-made system of primitive ethics would have omitted at the time. The Ten Commandments are nothing more than extremely antiquated values.

1. Cabell, B. & Mattingly, D. & King, J. (2003) Ten Commandments monument moved. CNN. Retrieved Aug. 1, 2009.
2. Ecker, R. Yahweh And Asherah. Biblioteca Pleyades. Retrieved Aug. 1, 2009.