Comments on: Rethinking the Ten Commandments https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/reviews/rethinking-the-ten-commandments/ Wed, 26 Feb 2025 21:45:38 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: Ken https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/reviews/rethinking-the-ten-commandments/#comment-2000467141 Wed, 26 Feb 2025 21:45:38 +0000 https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/?p=89713#comment-2000467141 All of this fails to address the central question: “Did God (YHWH) deliver these commandments to Moses at a mountain in the Sinai peninsula at some time roughly between 1400 BC and 1200 BC?” The similarity to, or dissimilarity from, other things that might have been written during the broader 2000-600 BC time frame is ultimately, in view of the answer to the first question, irrelevant. If he did, all else is irrelevant because these are the commandments of the Lord, our God. If he did not, then the whole thing is reduced to antiquarian quibbling over things that are today meaningless to us. The latter answer invalidates both Judaism and Christianity, since all of Judaism is founded on the Law given to Moses, and Christianity assumes the validity of that Law before asserting that Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of that Law, the child to whom a virgin gave birth, who unto us is born and a Son is given, on whom the sins of us all were laid and by whose stripes we are healed.

So the question to the author of the article is, “Do you believe that YHWH gave Moses the Law at some time between 1400 and 1200 BC?” Not to answer that question is to reduce your article to what I called before antiquarian quibbling. There was a time when BAR was not that. Where do you stand? Where does BAR stand? I truly want answers from both the author and from BAR. Whether I continue my subscription is at stake. At one time, BAR took Scripture as definitively true. I’m beginning to question whether that is still true.

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