The Ancients - The Ten Commandments

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

Did Moses really receive the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, or is that just ancient legend? Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Dylan Johnson to unpack how the Book of Exodus disagrees with Deuteronomy, what “do not take God’s name in vain” really meant, and how these commands blurred law and morality for ancient peoples.MOREThe Ark of the CovenantListen on AppleListen on SpotifyMoses & The ExodusListen on AppleListen on SpotifyWatch this episode on our NEW YouTube channel: @TheAncientsPodcastPresented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here:https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. Hello, I hope you're doing well. I'm all good here. I'm slightly cold as I walk through my nearby park for my lunch break, but it is near in Christmas, so I cannot complain. Today's episode, we are going back to the Old Testament, and we're exploring the story, the topic of the Ten Commandments. We've all heard of the Ten Commandments, but what exactly are they? One of my favourite parts of this chat was actually going through them one by one with our guest, our returning guest, the wonderful Dr. Dylan Johnson, a lecturer in ancient near eastern history at the University of Cardiff. Dylan, he's been on before to talk through other Old Testament topics like Sodomond Gamora and the Ark of the Covenant. He's a lovely guy and a fantastic speaker. He came into our recording studio in London. We filmed it as well, so it will also be available on our Ancient's YouTube channel. I really do hope you enjoy. Let's go. The Ten Commandments, the Bedrock, the famous stone tablets given to Moses on Mount Sinai.

This instruction set, written on stone to be housed in the legendary Ark of the Covenant, still forms the basis of so much of our own legal and moral code today. We know the biblical story intimately. The golden calf, the shattered stone, the covenant forged in the desert, after the exodus from Egypt. But the question is not about faith. The question today is about history. Do we have any archaeological evidence

of the Ten Commandments? What are the Ten Commandments supposed to be? Are they just traditional prohibitives? Are they a law code? Are they a constitution? To answer these questions and explore the complex history of one of the world's most famous texts, I am joined by historian,

biblical scholar and expert in the ancient near East, Dr. Dylan Johnson. Dylan, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast today. It's very great to be back. Thank you. And to talk about the Ten Commandments, I mean, these are, I don't want to say, laws, but the messages of them are still so important today in the world that we live. Yeah, exactly. I mean, just look across media today about all of these movements to try and have the Ten Commandments

placed in front of political buildings, in schools. they are a symbol, representing something that has to do with identity, but also with an ethical or legalistic code. They exist somewhere in between morality and law. Because morality, it seems to very much shape how we generally view morality today, isn't it? Things like, thou shalt nots killed and the like, and you have those origins of that with these commandments. Exactly. So that's the fundamental debate between law and ethics is law simply an outgrowth. of ethics, is ethics a component of law? I suppose you could say the difference between a law

and an ethical proclamation is, thou shalt not kill is different from, you shall not commit first to be remurder, and here's the punishment for what happens when you do. In regards to the story of the Ten Commandments, we'll go through the biblical narrative first, and then explore a bit more of the various components of it and how it fits into the near-eastern world of the time, because it is an amazing story when you do delve into those details and you explore the relationships between the people who were talking about these laws more than 2,000 years ago and the various civilizations that existed at the time. Yeah, exactly. And I think context is really important and often lost in most debates about the Ten Commandments, because as moral exhortations,

they speak to people today, but it helps us a lot to understand what they are by understanding the culture, societies, and context from which it emerges. Right, Dylan, let's set the scene, the story of the Ten Commandments. What is the biblical narrative? Where are we going in the Old Testament? Well, we can actually go to two places because they appear twice. Almost verbatim, not quite, but they appear in part of Exodus in Chapter 20, and then they appear again in a part of the book of Deuteronomy in Chapter 5. But maybe we'll start with the first narrative encounter, which is in Exodus. That's the second book, isn't it? That's the second book of the Bible. So Genesis, story of creation in the patriarchs, Exodus, Moses's story. So, as you can imagine, since we're in Moses's story, the Ten Commandments are

very closely connected to the figure of Moses, who we've talked about before. In the narrative context of Exodus, then, we are at a stage when the Israelites have left Egypt. So the 12 plagues have occurred. They've made it across the Red Sea and now, parting the Red Sea. They're now in the Desert, where somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula, we believe, or at least that's where the narrative plates as us, and at the foot of a mountain. And this mountain actually has two names in biblical tradition. One is Mount Sinai, hence the name of the desert in which they are in. But in other contexts, it's referred to as Mount Hora, but we assume two names for essentially the same place. And what's important about this mountain is this is the theophanic mountain,

the mountain where God resides. And in no uncertain terms, we're told that Yahweh, the God of Israel is up on this mountain. And we know this because it's surrounded by smoke and cloud and fire. So we don't get a description of an anthropomorphic deity, but whatever form the God of Israel takes is obscured up there by this. But this becomes very important because eventually Moses is going to go up. Is it a bit like the burning bush story earlier where, you know, Moses talks to God through that burning bush idea? Very much. So in the same kind of sense that whatever form this formless God assumes, the narrative is very careful not to describe it in too, too much detail, although we get a little bit of detail about God's body, a little bit

later in Exodus. But specifically here, it's this really theophantic smoke and fire obscures that. Because again, as we'll get into, you're not supposed to know what the image of God look like. It's one of the Ten Commandments. So Moses and his followers are in the desert, and then they reach this mountain. So what's the story of Moses then going up this mountain to meet and talk with God? So Moses is summoned up the mountain, essentially a call. He's a prophet. He is the prophet among prophets, uniquely able to speak to God face to face. So this is very, very important because really no other human being is permitted this direct access to the deity. Even the high priest

doesn't get this kind of access. And in fact, at the end of Deuteronomy, when Moses is about to die, he's remembered for this as the prophet among prophets who spoke to God face to face. And they're referring to this episode, but also the burning bush, where Moses ascends the mountain. And there he encounters the deity, this deity who has elected him or selected him for leadership of the people. And what is told to Moses is these 10 prescriptions or proscriptions, how you want to decide them, define them, based on how the Israelites ought to live their lives in very broad strokes. And what's really critical in this context is this is not only just communicated verbally to Moses, but actually in written form. And these are the only text,

with the exception of some strange, a bodiless hand writing upon the wall. Ah, Beauchessar. But this is the only substantial bit of writing attributed to God himself. And in fact, the text says that God writes the Ten Commandments with his finger on two tablets of stone. And these are what are given to Moses. And so there's a couple things to highlight there. Number one is that even in the narrative context that the Ten Commandments are considered as textual unit, and not only are they special in the fact that they are divine, divinely written parts of Scripture, really the only divinely written parts of scripture, but they're on a very material form of media in the form of these stone tablets. All the rest of the biblical story, which is never really described, is presumed

to have just been transmitted on scrolls, on scroll media. But these are very specific in the materiality of the content. And so the narrative goes, Moses receives these tablets, descends only to find the Israelites basically violating some of the major tenets. It doesn't go well at this time, does it? So whilst he's been away, the Israelites have not been loyal to what he wanted. Yeah, and this is kind of the debate. What exactly are the Israelites doing. So the narrative says that under the guidance of Aaron, who's Moses's brother and suspiciously avoids blame in this scenario, had encouraged them to melt down the gold, which they'd brought with them from Egypt, and create a calf. A representation of some kind

of deity, which we'll get into is one of the things that the Ten Commandments prohibits. And there's been a lot of debate among scholars about, well, what is that calf supposed to depict? Is it a foreign deity? Or is it a depiction of Yahweh himself? And those are two different questions and in fact are covered by two different laws in the Ten Commandments, the exclusive worship of Yahweh being one and the use of idols, icons, and images being another. Do you think that's supposed to be a throwback to their time in ancient Egypt and all the animal gods that you associate with that culture? No, I think it's a throw forward to the ways that they would worship Yahweh in Israel, especially

ways that they would worship Yahweh outside of Jerusalem, in places like Bethel and Dan, places is associated with the Northern Kingdom, because we have very obvious intertextual parallels. When Aaron exclaims, see Israel, here are your gods. The first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, whose name is Jeroboam, says the exact same thing. And so this is a very subtle critique of the way that they worshiped Yahweh in places that weren't Jerusalem, retrojected into the distant past. But does that mean actually there were places later on, as you say that this is trying to point to, where Yahweh, where God was worshipped in an animal form, in an animal statue kind of thing.

Is that the idea? We presume so. There's plenty of biblical passages that talk about Yahweh as the bull. In fact, it's one of the associated images that we get in textual form. And we find cast bovine images all over Israel and Judah and Palestine in these places. And the biblical text tells us that at these major cult centers in the north, that's exactly how Yahweh was worshipped. So again, this kind of episode within a bigger episode is tied to normative religious practices of Israel being rejected in certain respects.

So interesting, because once again, that hints at the historical context as well, and I had no idea that actually there is this evidence of God being worshipped in some communities in the form of a bull, which is fascinating. But let's go back to the story. So Moses descends with these tablets written by Yahweh, by God, and then he sees the golden calf. He's not happy. No. So he's, he's very despondent by what he sees and he smashes the tablets. So this, what we would imagine being very precious items being smashed, I'll fast forward the story a little bit. Don't fret. He goes and gets a second copy, thankfully. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the

Ten Commandments. They would have been smashed. But because of the idolatry, if you wanted to find it as such of the Israelis. He smashes the first copy of the tablets, only to go back up and get a second copy, and the biblical text is very clear to tell us that. And he wrote exactly the same thing on these two tablets. So there's no discrepancy in the manuscript copies of those tablets. And then he brings those down. And so they are inscribed in stone. Is that the idea? Exactly. And what are the commandments that are inscribed on these tablets? Shall we go through them? If you're okay to go through them? Let's go through them one by one. Number one. Number one, that's debated.

So the first one, the way it begins, and we'll circle back to this, the way it begins is, I am Yahweh, your God, he who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Now, for most traditions, that's just the preamble. But for some, such as in rabbinic tradition and in Catholic tradition, that's law number one. That's the first of the Ten Commandments. Recognize that Yahweh is your God. Okay, so that's for some traditions, one, for many traditions. that's just the preamble.

Then we move on to 1-2. We'll just stick with 1 at this stage. And then the next commandment that we encounter is, you shall have no other gods before me in the Hebrew here is Lifnay, which can be read monotheistically and has for the last 2.5,000 years that they will not worship any other deity,

but it doesn't actually say that. Lifnay does that mean before? Before me, I guess, above me in the sense of kind of hierarchy And so it could be read monotheistically, and as I said, for millennia, it has been read monotheistically, but it doesn't have to be. It simply says that if you are polytheists, you're going to give preference to Yahweh. That's a way to read that text. Okay. So that's an important text, however, because it establishes what we call biblical monotry, that if you are an Israelite or a judahite, you worship Yahweh above all other deities.

That's the next one. which flows fairly naturally into the ban on any kind of icon. So this is, you know, following right on the episode where they made an icon. And it makes very, very clear that these are not to be icons of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters that are underneath the earth, which is maybe a bit peculiar to modern interpreters, but to the ancient minds made perfect sense because you had celestial deities, deities who lived in the sky.

sometimes stars, sometimes the sky itself, the sun, the moon. These are deities in the ancient near east. On earth, you have deities that reside on mountains. You have deities that are rivers. So you have many terrestrial deities. And then they believe that there was a subterranean ocean beneath the ground. And you have what we call cathonic deities, deities of the underworld, and deities associated with this water.

And so the prohibition is said, don't worship or don't make images of any of these types of deities. So it's a very all-encompassing prohibition. Is that probably also, I'm just thinking of the Book of the Dead, for instance, from ancient Egypt, and they're on a river, aren't they, onto the afterlife? So once again, you see that parallel through different cultures of this, you know, this river associated with the afterlife slash the underworld. Yeah, it's a river or maybe it's an ocean. In Mesopotamia, we have the Apsu, which is this subterranean sweetwater ocean, probably from encounters with underground springs, but in any case, when the Bible describes the underworld, which isn't very

often, they call it She'ol, and it seems to be at sometimes a wet place, but other times not. So we don't get a very clear image. Not a fiery place, yet. That comes later with Greek and Second Temple Judaism, when they start to think of it as Gehenna, this place of fire, damnation, and punishment. We're not there yet in the history of religion. So that's the one, so you shall not make for yourself, I've got the text to make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. So that's that one. Yeah.

And so what's the next one? So the next one, and you're going to have to help me a little bit here, because I don't have it memorized. Well, it says, you shall not misuse the name of the Lord, your God. Right. For the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Right. It's quite difficult today, I must admit. Exactly.

So if my grandmother were to interpret that biblical text, you would say, don't say, Jesus Christ as an expletive or some kind of shout. Of course, that's not what ancient Israelites were thinking. And in fact, we don't know for sure what that prohibition is saying, because the language is a bit difficult. It says, you shall not raise up my name for, in a Hebrew word, shavah, which means emptiness, idleness, folly, which doesn't really encapsulate how it's typically translated. King James translated, take my name in vain, but not.

No one really knows what that means either. Our best guess is it probably refers to oaths, that the way that you swore owes in the ancient world was either by the name of a God or the name of the king. And so by saying, don't raise up my name in vain, which basically means don't break your oaths, that you swear by me. So that's the best interpretation we have.

Later reception takes us to mean, don't even say the name of God, because God has a proper name. You can call him God or Hashem or Hashem. or other Adonai, the Lord, but the name Yahweh you will not pronounce. So that's an interpretation based on that text and a couple of others. Because nowadays you would link it straight away with blasphemy or just saying the name Jesus or, oh my God, or some of that in a context today.

So it's really interesting to see the difference between now and back in ancient times. And I should clarify, it's distinctively not blasphemy because they have a word to blaspheme and they have other ways of expressing it like cursing the name of God. But that's not what's being said here. What's being said here is don't raise up the name for idleness or emptiness. Don't take it too lightly is what it really says. The next one's also very interesting, and one I think I'm also a bit guilty of. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Like, six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. So don't do any work on the Sunday, I guess. But there you're reading Deuteronomy by saying remember. Ah, okay. Because in Exodus, it says keep or guard. And this is one of the big differences between the Exodus version of the Ten Commandments and the Deuteronomy version.

So Deuteronomy says, remember the Sabbath day, different verb. Whereas Exodus says keep the Sabbath day. So guard it, observe. it. And there might be some significance in that single verb interchange. Now, of course, they're both saying essentially the same thing, which is the seventh day is meant to be kept sacrosanct. You're not supposed to work. And this is one of the few other places where there's fundamental divergence in the two accounts of the decalogue, which I should explain is another way that we talk about the Ten Commandments, Decalog, just meaning ten words. Yeah, Decalogos.

Yeah, which is just a translation of the Hebrew Devereem, Sareem, so ten words. Because in Exodus, why do we keep the Sabbath? And they explain that not only you, but your wives, your children, and your slaves, all should keep the Sabbath because in six days, God created the heavens and the earth, and the seventh he rested. And so in emulation of creation, that's why we keep the Sabbath day, according to Exodus. According to Deuteronomy, we keep the Sabbath day because I, the Lord your God, brought you out of the land of Egypt. So in Deuteronomy, you keep the Sabbath because of the Exodus, not because of creation. Well, if we move on to the next one, I think it's quite a nice one. Honor your father and your mother. Right. Again, what does that mean? So that you may live long in the land the

Lord your God is giving you. Yes. So again, so there's the justification. These are moralistic exhortations. Why should I do this? Because these good things will happen to you. So again, this is why we're kind of on the liminal edge of law and morality. But again, there's been so much debate on what does that exactly mean to honor your mother and your father? Does that just mean listen to them when they tell you not to do something? Sure, but how is that going to prolong your life on the land? And scholars have gone into depth on that, that verb to honor what it might mean. And some think it might actually mean, look after them in old age, and maybe, based on some parallels with Near Eastern texts, observe the ancestral rights that you owe to them

once they're no longer here. And by doing that that way, with their blessings, you'll endure long on the land, even after you're gone too, because hopefully your children will also honor you. It's a bit of a memory thing as well. It's a memory thing. And also, we're in a world where there is no social security.

So to secure yourself in old age, you really are highly dependent on your children, that you're entirely dependent on them. On to the next one, and this is perhaps the shortest one, or one of the shortest one. It's either number six or number seven, depending on how you read it.

You probably know which one it is. It's a classic one, I think. Yeah, thou shalt not kill. Well, yeah, it says thou shalt not murder here. Murder, okay. It's interesting. Like, is there a bit of debate about the wording of that one or? I think for sure.

I mean, there's no shortage of killing words in Hebrew. In fact, they have quite a few. And it's difficult because we're not really in a world where there's a clear criminal justice system. So what's the difference between killing in general and murder? It doesn't say anything about premeditation in this law. So that's a decision based on the translator there. And it's a decision that's well-founded because, of course, you're absolutely allowed to kill in this world. Armies, in fact, not shortly long after this law is given, were told to, you know, put to death soothsayers and diviners.

And there's a whole category of people who are explicitly sentenced to death. so it can't possibly simply say don't kill because there's too many contradictions to that basic tenant so maybe it's a certain type of killing but the evidence doesn't really play out if you go and track down that verb there's legitimate versions of it there's illegitimate versions of it so we're just left grasping at straws as usual with well what is the actual meaning behind it and so you can take that in many different ways in in both translation but also especially if you're an adherent to these texts, what does that actually mean in terms of how you live your life, you know?

These are certainly the more blunt and the shorter commandments on the list, aren't they? Because straight away after this, you have the you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. So that's three more there we have straight away. Yeah, and the formulation is very distinctive from what's surrounding it. What's surrounding it, they're much longer,

and they often have explanations for why you should. These are simply prescribing you don't do it. And what's interesting, they're not even imperatives in the sense of it's not don't kill. It's you will not kill. And that's grammatically interesting and also reflects on, well, what does that mean in terms of how this message is being conveyed? It's not a command. It's maybe expressing a wish, which is very different. And then the others as well, committing adultery, not stealing.

And then the last one, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not cover to your neighbor's wife or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Just stay off what belongs to your neighbor, his property, I guess. Right. And this is even more difficult because all of the other prohibitions prohibit actions. This is something internal. Don't covet.

The verb is Hamad, actually the same route from which the name Muhammad comes from, to covet, to prize something. So how are you actually supposed to follow that? Commandment. Don't wish you have. had the same car as your neighbor, are you violating that commandment by even feeling that emotion? But how are you supposed to not feel emotions and why is that supposed to be prohibited? So this has also generated a whole slew of scholarship, both in theological settings, in ethics, and in a historical critical study. And we don't have an answer to give you a clear indication

of, well, what are they actually trying to prohibit there? But it does seem to be something very internalized in the individual. It's also interesting here in how it's structured. It's very patriarchal and it's, well, in its outlook, isn't it? You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And it's very much like a man-to-man kind of thing and the woman's got no say in this whatsoever. So we should probably highlight that as well.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's the basic supposition of this entire world is that we are in more or less patrimonial patriarchal society. Now, that doesn't mean patriarchy in the sense of strict, almost abusive treatment of women. Women had agency in this world. But the basic supposition about how you describe, let's say the family unit is it's the house of the father.

Within it is a house of the mother. The mother does have agency. And in fact, we have plenty of biblical texts that talk about it. But certainly when we're thinking of the family, it's a patriarchal unit. And the family is a closed system, as a closed social system, is defined by male. lineages. Well, that's the biblical narrative in Exodus, and that's the list of 10 or 11 or how many

you want to define as the commandment. So it's nice to set that out straight away. You did mention how it's also relayed in Deuteronomy, which is, is it the next book after Exodus or a couple after? It's a couple after. Yeah, so we have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and then Deuteronomy. And Deuteronomy is an interesting book, if you've never read it, because Deuteronomies, as in the Greek, Deuteronomos, it's the second law. It's the second time law is being given, this time not at Mount Sinai, but rather on the plains of Moab overlooking the promised land, which Moses will famously not enter. So it's set in a different context. The desert wanderings are just about to end. They're about to cross the Jordan, which is in many

respects kind of a parallel to the Red Sea there. So have they been wandering the desert for four whole books? Is that the idea? Yes, exactly. Yeah. A lot of things happen. But essentially, the Exodus generation has all died off, with the exception of Moses. So this is the generation that never experienced that. Remember, that's important. It's why you remember the Sabbath Day. And so this is a whole new generation. This is the generation that would be the ones who conquer the land from the Canaanites.

And there delivered a second set of laws, which begins with the Ten Commandments, just as the first set had begun. And from, I should qualify, the first set of laws that we encounter in Exodus, which you follow immediately after the Ten Commandments, are what is known as the Covenant Code. So it's framed in terms of this covenant, which is just a way of saying kind of a treaty or a contract between this God, Yahweh, and his people, Israel. So we get a second covenant, which actually repeats quite a few of the laws from the first one. This is the Deuteronomic law. We weren't very creative in naming this one. It also calls itself a covenant. It also begins with the Ten Commandments, in slightly modified form, as we've already mentioned.

But in fact, it actually contradicts some points in Exodus, none more prominent than the fact that they are really promoting cult centralization in Deuteronomy. There's only one place to worship Yahweh. They don't say Jerusalem, but everyone knows. That's what they're intending. So if those are the two areas where we really have the Ten Commandments, but are there any other times, in the Bible, in the Old Testament or new, where the words ten commandments rear their head again? Yes, but I can't remember the citations. I know they do come up. They are mentioned a couple more times, but the specific references escape me. If you have a good concordance, you can go look it up.

So they are remembered. They're old and their foundational texts, absolutely. So this is that layer of biblical writing that we feel pretty confident in terms of where it dates relative to other pieces of the Bible. imagine the apostles or those early Christian followers being taught, you know, the story of the Ten Commandments many, many centuries later, and when they're spreading the word, I mean, this is part of what they're spreading as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And interpreting it, because, as we already outlined, what does it mean to honor your father and your mother? Well, in Second Temple Judaism, they probably had similar

questions, right? So I think that's part of the dynamic of, yeah, evangelizing the word as well. Let me talk about the number 10. I mean, do we have any idea? why they would have chosen 10 for the list of commandments, that round number? It's actually quite strange because we have a lot of sacred numbers in the Bible. The number three is quite sacred. Seven, obviously. I mean, it's days of the week, the Sabbath. Three, you think of the Trinity, don't you as well?

The Trinity, yes, but we're pre-Trinity. So in this context, three is associated often with divine messengers, but seven is really the really sacred number. I mean, it lends itself to a verb, which means to swear an oath. Of course, creation of the world in seven days. And this is not exclusive to ancient Israel either. The sacredness of seven is quite common. Mesopotamia 6 is quite important.

They have a sexagessimal mathematical system. That's why we have 365 days. We have 360 degrees in a circle, why seconds are 60. So the interesting thing is we have all these sacred numbers, and 10 is not usually one of them. obviously we're a decimal-based society, so we think of 10 as an obvious number, but it's less obvious than you would think. There are obvious parallels in Egyptian culture and Mesopotamian culture where there are decads and ten sets of ten deities. But again, if we just start looking for numbers, it kind of becomes a bit of an obsession. We start to see numbers everywhere and everything

adds up to 10. So off the top of my head, no, I can't point to something super specific unless you No, I can't. No, I was just thinking that. I wanted to ask because, you know, it's the number that you always say it's the Ten Commandments. But you mentioned Egyptian there in passing. So actually, let's use that to now talk about the context of when they're writing the stories of Moses' Ten Commandments and then Deuteronomy. So if that's supposed to be set in the second millennium BC, is that the idea around that? When do we think, what are the theories as to when the people are actually writing down? the texts in Exodus and Deuteronomy because it's not a straight line that Genesis is the oldest and then Nexodus and then Deuteronomy follows and so on. Right. So I think it's fairly conventional knowledge among biblical scholars and there's always naysayers, but generally we assume Exodus is the older and that Deuteronomy is based on Exodus and there's pretty good reasons to think that. And based on other associations, we think the core of Deuteronomy, which would include the Ten commandments dates somewhere in the late seventh century. So that's a terminus antiquem. So sometime

before that, we have the composition of the Ten Commandments. So this is just before Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians sack Jerusalem. So it's right as Assyria is on its way out, and Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians are on their way. And that's Deuteronomy. So sometime before that is when we think of these parts of Exodus, not all of Exodus, but these parts of Exodus. Okay. So the then that gives us basically a couple hundred years, maybe 300 years before Hebrew doesn't exist, because our earliest Hebrew text date to about, we say the 9th century, beginning of the 9th century. Before then, we don't even have Hebrew.

Our earliest reference to a god named Yahweh is around 850. So most scholars tend to think, if the 10 commandments are being written, there's somewhere in this sweet spot between, let's be generous here, let's say 950, and that's being very generous, It's 9.50 and 6.50. Somewhere in there would be a logical place to put this composition being written. And that's the date I would also assume somewhere in there. Now, if it were 950, we'd expect some older features, probably. We get this with archaic poetry. We don't get this with the Ten Commandments. It's pretty standard Hebrew. So, I mean, if it was older, there would be more kind of clear evidence of kind of rhyming or poetry. within the writing of the Ten Commandments itself. Is that what you mean?

I mean more in the fact that the Hebrew language evolved. Imagine reading the Canterbury Tales. You know it's old, but you know it's English, right? So it's something like that. And we're not quite as far separated in time, but a couple hundred years is enough, especially in antiquity for the language to have changed substantially. So we can usually tell, at least it's a good hint,

that something's older. Now, that doesn't help us if they're updating the text. But you're not supposed to. It's writing of God. You shouldn't be correcting his grammar, really. So that's our best supposition, somewhere between 9th, 7th centuries when this text is first written, which actually makes sense for a lot of other things, which is, it's at this time that all of these languages start to be written in and around the Levant, not just in Israel and Judah. Is that context really important for then understanding what the Ten Commandments are actually supposed to be? because what is happening in that area of the world

in the early to mid-first millennium BC? Yes, context is absolutely important because this is the time period when we have the proliferation of alphabetic writing, not just in the Levant. We have Aramaic being written alphabetically, Phoenician is being written alphabetically, Hebrew appears on scene, many dialects up north,

and then, of course, at some point, it gets transferred westward when we have our first Greek inscriptions. So literacy is emerging, at this moment. And for various reasons, we actually think it might be tied to something like the Ten Commandments, because right at this moment, between the 9th, 8th, 7th centuries, we have the proliferation of monuments. Really, the only things that are preserved to us from this time period, because everything else is written on perishable materials like papyrus and vellum

and those kinds of materials. So we have monumental inscriptions in languages like Hebrew. That start to tell us, okay, there's some serious levels of literacy going on at this moment. And what's particularly interesting is that some of these inscriptions look a lot like the Ten Commandments, not in the sense that they're ten words prescribing rules, but in the way they begin, which is, I am so-and-so, and here's all the things I expect of you. So does that give us any insight into how far and wide these Ten Commandments were supposed to be followed? Was it the case that this was a legal code or like an actual constitutional? for the people, or more of a list of that you shouldn't do that, don't do this, this is what

you should follow? It's far too short to be anything approaching a constitution. It's just 10 generic rules that barely cover half of the things you probably want to observe if you're even approaching a moral individual. So it can't be that. So it must be trying to achieve something else. And this is where I turn actually to the narrative a little bit and think in terms of the fact that not only are these attributed to God, that these are writings of.

God Himself, the only real writings of God Himself, that they're written on stone tablets. So they're in a sense monumental. They're not written on papyrus. They're not written on scrolls. And if this is the kind of thing that's going on, and I have to attribute this to a scholar named Timothy Hogue, who noticed that right at this time we start to encounter what are called I Am Monuments. So at some level, the text is trying to present itself as a monumental text that's actually embedded in biblical scrolls. And it's very successful because it defines itself materially as set off from what surrounds it.

So the Ten Commandments, paradoxically, we know them only through the narrative. But they exist apart from the narrative. We know because they're on tablets that are placed in the Ark of the Covenant. So they present themselves as something separate, something unique, something, say, discreet from the narrative, unlike everything else.

Everything else occurs in the context of the narrative. So this is really where cutting-edge research on the Ten Commandments is starting to turn that, that they are these things that are separable that are aligned with the types of monumental inscriptions that are being put up all over the Levant at around the 8th century BCE. And we find them in and around Israel. So what examples are these? So we have probably the most famous example from the immediate vicinity is something called the Meshah inscription of the Moa. Yes.

So this inscription begins, much like the Ten Commandments. I am Yahweh your God who brought you to the land to Egypt. It begins. I am Meshah, king of Dibon, who did all these great things, talking about conquests. It doesn't have any specific prescriptions for the people of Moab. But again, that concerns more the content. But it's the framing that the way that it introduces itself is, look, this is a monumental royal inscription.

And the scholar, Timothy Hogue, makes this case in his book. Look, the Ten Commandments are trying to emulate that style to say, this is a monumental text within the narrative. And so there's that inscription, but we actually get well over 90 further north in Levant. And it's pretty clear that this is connected to the spread of alphabetic literacy in the whole region, that these texts are how people encountered writing. And so it sets the decalogue of the Ten Commandments as really important in the biblical imagination. So how would the laws have been passed down through generations at that time? So there's the creation of these stone slabs to be put in the Ark of the Covenant, but

then of course you want to share these, you know, these commandments far and wide to the population. Do we know much about that? Well, again, we're presuming that they want to share these commandments far and wide to the population. This is actually a fundamental debate within among scholars who deal with law and morality, especially written law and written morality in ancient Israel. We don't really know how widely these texts were distributed. Even ones, let's say like the Code of Hamarabi to use a Mesopotamian example, 282 laws inscribed on a stone, in theory accessible. in practice, highly inaccessible. Number one, very difficult to read.

Now, the Ten Commandments you could read, they're quite simple. They're written in alphabetic text. It doesn't take as much training to read an alphabetic text. But again, where are they placed? Are they placed in a temple where you don't have everyday access to?

That's where the Code of Homorabi was. It was very restricted in terms of access. So this gets us to, I think, a level of understanding and knowledge that we may never actually be able to access. So if not that, then the only other option would be orally, that people would pass this down orally. And there are scholars who think that the Ten Commandments are just short enough to be memorized, repeated, and passed down from one generation to the next. So it's entirely possible.

We now know the incredible capability of the human mind to store pretty substantial pieces of information and pass that down orally. So absolutely, that's a possibility. Now, between Exodus and Deuteronomy, they're dealing with texts, 100% that they're reading each other's texts. So all of these potentialities are at play with the decalogue. So do we think, you mentioned in passing there, Hamarabi and his law code, also the Assyrians earlier with the 7th century BC date, or somewhere around there for the Ten Commandments, with the law codes and the great carved stones with writing from Mesopotamian civilizations

and the Hittites, and of course, Egypt as well, do you think there is? an influence from these other Bronze Age societies and early Iron Age societies in the creation of the story of the Ten Commandments? In the story, yes. I'm always hesitant to posit direct contact between specific texts, but in terms of speaking in generalizations, let's start with Mesopotamia and the Code of Hamarabi. So long list-like collections of laws had been a component of Near Eastern scribalism for a millennia by the time we think these texts are being written.

So absolutely. And that doesn't necessarily even have to come from the legal tradition. It could come from what we call the wisdom tradition, long lists of ethical behaviors. We have a book called Proverbs that has really long lists of ethical prohibitions, too. And the decalogue sits somewhere right on that line between law and ethics. So either one could have been the influence. And that, I think that's beyond a doubt that they're tapping into that tradition of creating these long lists what one

Assyriologist called list science really that to help understand the world in which they lived, they really were list makers. So there's that on the one hand. But more specifically, if we look broader into the narrative, that this is really the opening salvo of what is the covenant

between Israel and their God. I think that has more meaningful connections to the east in the form of suzeranity or vassal treaties with the Assyrian Empire. Now, these are old. They up, you know, 9th century, even into the late Bronze Age when we talk about the Hittites. The Hittites also had vassal treaties with territories that were under their control, but still

had kings. And basically, these vassal treaties are contracts between kings. If they're equals, it's a parity treaty. I'll come to your aid. You come to my aid and we'll trade some lumber and gold. Or they're vassal treaties. I won't destroy you if you pay taxes, right? And so within the context where the decalogue is embedded in the Covenant Code and in the book of Deuteronomy,

scholars tend to think that these broader textual units are based on these kinds of treaties. And this is really important considering the materiality of the Ten Commandments, because we know these treaties were written down and transmitted to territories far to the west and far to the east of the Assyrian Empire. Remember, Judah and Israel were both conquered by the Assyrian Empire. and up to a certain point we always thought most of the ties were fairly generic

until scholars found an Isar Haddon, who's an important Assyrian king, vassal treaty in a western territory in a temple in the holy of holies of the temple. Maybe this is starting to ring alarm bells. This is exactly where the Ten Commandments would have been housed, according to

tradition. So maybe they're emulating that treatment of these really important legal texts in sacred precincts. And in fact, some scholars argue that even in the formulation of parts of Deuteronomy, especially curses, we have direct parallels in the vassal treaties of the Assyrian Empire specifically. So it's possible. People have also pushed back pretty hard saying, yes, but we're just over-emphasizing the Assyrian treaties. We also have Aramean treaties

that look just as much like the biblical text. So maybe what we actually have aren't direct connections between Assyria and Judah and Israel, but more treaty language that's showing up in biblical text and everyone is participating in this treaty language. It makes me think of the, you know, you must not break your oath one, right? You know, that's importance in these empires and the client states that they have. You know, you've entered into an agreement. If you break it, you know, we'll come down on you with all the force idea, isn't it? And the one point to emphasize here is that unlike all of these other treaties, which are between kings, this is between a God and his people, which is fundamentally different. And what's most important,

and what I've spent time writing on is that at all levels of the biblical tradition of law and their vision of law, the human king has been written out. There is no place for him. When the covenant, when the contract between Yahweh and Israel

is forged via Moses, who is very explicitly never called a king, he's called almost everything else. He's a war leader, he's a prophet, he's a priest, he's everything. He's essentially a king without being called a king, but I think it's very intense.

that they don't call him the king, because they don't want this intermediary. The relationship between God and the people is direct. And that really sets up the distinction with these other Near Eastern literary traditions. Do you think this is actually also the Ten Commandment story, the people who are writing it, who are creating it, they're also doing it to show that their unique identity in contrast to all these other great powers that there are in the world at that time, which are ruled by kings. In this story, where it's, you know, the, the word of God is past this important figure who, as you say, is clearly labeled not as a king, it shows their unique identity and the specialness, I guess, in what they were thinking of who

they were. I absolutely think they're doing that because in chapter four of Deuteronomy, that's exactly what they say. They say, look at us, we are a wise and understanding people because of our proximity to our God. We are distinct among the nations. And then in places where they actually do talk about the advent of kingship in Israel, it's a bad idea because it makes them like the nations all around. So the distinctiveness of this relationship, which may have started with the Ten Commandments, we don't know. But at some point in time, they decided to make Yahweh the true king of Israel with no place for the human king. Then at that moment, all other legal traditions fell in line. I mean, Deuteronomy, there's no king. Well, there is a king who is supposed to just read the Torah.

under supervision of priests, by the way. So I think this is really critical with the decalogue because at some level there, they're emulating royal inscriptions from the Levant. I am king so-and-so. It's not a king. It's Yahweh. I am Yahweh is assuming a lot of royal prerogatives in this very short text.

I am Ashubanapal, king of the world, king of Assyrian, stuff like that. Big question next, Dylan. Archaeological evidence. I remember asking this one for the Ark of the Covenant as well that we've done in the past. Is there any archaeological evidence for the Ten Commandments? It's the same archaeological evidence as the Ark of the Covenant

because they were in it. So if we find the Ark, then maybe we'll find the tablets. So obviously no, direct evidence of the Ten Commandments, the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. They're not going to be found. But that's the needle in the haystack, the million-dollar find. What we do find is exactly what I've been talking about. examples of text that look like the Ten Commandments, these monumental inscriptions in languages that are

very closely related to Hebrew that begin, I am so-and-so. This is a great insight. It tells us that this text is trying to emulate monumental royal inscriptions. The suzerainity treaties of Isarhadan and various other Asherbanipal and various other Assyrian kings tells us a little bit about, well, why have this legal text in the inner sanctuary of a temple? So all of these indirect comparisons that archaeology tells us actually helps us understand the Ten Commandments a lot better, which in lieu of finding them is pretty

good. Is it also quite interesting that I kind of would have also, I guess that was probably going to be the answer. Otherwise, I feel they'd probably be better known, although it'd be talked about a lot today. But is it also interesting, going back to the wording of the Ten Commandments, that, you know, other words you normally

associate with religions particularly more than 2,000 years ago, sacrifices, priesthood, purity, it doesn't feel like any of those things are really focused on in the Ten Commandments. Is that pretty interesting? Yeah, I think it's a dynamic of religion that is in many ways very different from what we typically find exactly, as you said. The usual descriptions of, and we have plenty of ritual manuals, instructions to ritual specialists, instructions to priests. I mean, the entire book of Leviticus and half of numbers, that's what it is. So we know what we can expect when we see these kinds of religious instructions.

So to find these, they fit into some other genre. It's not just about religion. It's about this specific relationship. And I think it's covenant genre. It's talking about the relationship between Israel and Yahweh, not just in the confines of what's going on in a temple, but on the individual level, right, don't covet your neighbor's wife. That's speaking to an individual. That's not speaking to a religious elite. That's not speaking to the Israelites in general. This is speaking to the individual.

So there is this individualization that's very unique with this text, which I don't know parallels to, perhaps in some wisdom traditions in Egypt or Babylon. Which surely makes you feel that these commandments, must have been spread far and wide when they were created because they do seem to, you know, touch on the everyday person who is living in these societies. I know you say we can't know, but surely that must be, you know, a very plausible idea that's either through oral tradition or maybe there were many tablets of 10 commandments or something like that.

I don't want to say too much. I don't know. But some way that these laws would have been passed to everyday people within these, within the kingdom at that time. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely possible. And we have evidence of biblical texts being preserved on smaller scroll, amulant, and things. So the possibilities are endless, and the text do make it to us. It still leaves us with a question of, well, in what form? And was it all 10? Could it could not have existed as simple aphorisms, all separate and then brought together into one? So you see, why these 10, why in this order, why in this particular format? why do those ones in the middle look so different, you will not kill from the ones that are all around it? Does that maybe imply that, well, maybe those four, five floated as a unit together

because they were very short, very pithy, very memorable, as opposed to clearly the Sabbath rule that's not even remembered the same between Exodus and Deuteronomy. So you see, we get into the slippage there of did they know the Ten Commandments, which version? And I haven't even talked about the fact that we have another manuscript tradition from another important Jewish community and the Samaritans who add another commandment. They add another one. They had another one at the end. And it's talking about setting up stones on Mount Garizim.

No other tradition preserves us. This is because this is the holy mountain recognized by the Samaritan community. So in their Pentateuch, which is, well, we're not exactly sure. We're reliant on medieval manuscripts for the most part, but probably traces back to an ancient manuscript tradition that ran alongside the ones we know today as the Bible, they have a different 10 commandments. They have an entirely different rule. So what if every single community had their own 10 commandments? And what would that formulation look like? So they had the basis of the 10 commandments, but might have added a couple on just for their particular group, I guess. Just as the

Samaritans did. Right. Just as the Samaritans did. So you see where I'm going with this to say the 10 commandments. I think we should be talking about various, formulations in various sets. Because we have the manuscript evidence that there were different formulations of this singular text. The commandments. The commandments, exactly. And so how long is it before we actually do have evidence of these commandments written down that have survived to us today? Yeah. So the oldest is, of course, going to be the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, what's known as Septuagint, which is in the third century BC. In Alexandria. Yeah, exactly. So these are the oldest manuscript tradition. So it's set by that point, which we would have known. We think

these texts are much, much older than that. In Hebrew, the oldest would be the Dead Sea Scrolls, copies of Exodus, copies of Deuteronomy, which again doesn't really tell us much with text this old. So it at least puts our manuscript traditions there, but again, we have references and other texts to the Ten Commandments. So we kind of anticipated to find them more or less the same, which is exactly what we find. I wish I could ask so many more questions, but I'll ask a big encompassing legacy question to end it all off. How important do you think the Ten commandments have been, like their legacy for people down through the centuries? I think incredibly important to return to that point I made earlier. I mean, we're seeing in the United States

debates about placing these monuments as monuments in front of places of worship, in front of places of education, in front of places of law. Because there's symbols of an identity that people are laying claim to sometimes called the Abrahamic, Judeo-Christian identity. Now, oftentimes these identities are for exclusion, but again, it just goes to show how potent the symbol of the decalogue is for staking out a claim, just as it probably was designed in antiquity, to lay out this claim of this unique relationship between you as an Israelite or you as a Yahweh worshipper. So the lasting legacy is amazing And also Hollywood, Herman Melville Charleston Heston Bringing the Ten Commandments down too

So it's a legacy A great legacy Is there a fear That these commandments have been Rewritten time and time again Throughout history To suit Like the context of the world we live in

Yeah I think so Because their meaning is Hard to grasp Because it certainly feels like they're evolving I mean, if you look at the original wording that we talked about earlier, like with your ox and stuff about your possessions and things that, you know, not everyone has an ox today and stuff like that, right? So, like, surely there is the danger of them being translated or as they evolve down problematic paths. Absolutely. Let's take the big one.

You will not kill. That has been used from extreme pacifist movements. That's why certain denominations of religious communities in the United States won't serve in, in military. militaries. It's also been used by anti-abortionist campaigns to kill people. So thou shalt not kill, you will not kill, is just right on that precipice of interpretive malleability to justify or prohibit all range of actions, including killing. So yeah, it's very much in the eye of the beholder, how we use these texts. Dylan, this has been absolutely fascinating. Is there anything else you'd like to mention about the Ten Commandments and your work around

them and their importance that you'd like to highlight before we finish? I think we've covered the main points. Always fun to just go read the text yourselves. Compare and contrast. Look at Deuteronomy and Exodus. They are a bit different. So, yeah, always encouraging reading, I suppose. Dylan, it just goes to me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come back

on the show. It's been great. Thank you. Well, there you go. There was the fantastic Dr. Dylan Johnson returning to the podcast to talk through the story of the Ten Commandments. I hope you enjoyed the episode, an episode that you can also watch on the Ancients YouTube channel, and don't you worry, Dylan will be back for another episode in the new year. Very excited to share that one with you too. But in the meantime, thank you

for listening to this episode of The Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us, and you'll be doing us a big favor. If you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at Historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.