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Can someone explain to me why some versions list it as "murder" and others list it as "kill"? There is an enormous difference in the meanings of both words...the "kill" version being at odds with much of the OT.
If you got to Confession, yes. The priests tell me those aren't sins.
Great thread!
Here's another site I found some time back with interesting comparisons:
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/denominations/comparison_charts.htm
Sample:
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/charts/catholic_protestant.htm
Catholic Protestant
Authority Scripture and tradition Sola Scriptura - Scripture alone
Bible Includes apocrypha Excludes apocrypha
Purgatory Affirmed Denied
Prayer to saints Accepted Rejected
Interesting. I didn't know that there were two different versions.
A few thoughts on all of this "commandments" business.
The Jews think there are 613 Commandments, not 10. The "ten words" is a nice summary, but it isn't "the highest law", the Torah is, and that's all 613 commandments.
Traditional Jews also think that statuary is a graven image. Period. Not statues of Jesus or Mary. Statues. The statue of David is a graven image. Some variants of traditional Judaism have gone as far as the strict Muslims have who refuse to allow pictures of animals, etc., in their art. To a pure Jewish traditionalist, the lions outside of the New York Public Library are bad things: graven images. There were exceptions to this, sanctioned by God. The Seraphim on the Ark of the Covenant and stitched into the fabric of the temple, and Moses' bronze serpent - but these had special dispensation. If one is going to be a hard-core Old Testament literalist, you have to reject not just the statuary in the Catholic Church, but the statues in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, indeed, ALL depictions of animals, plants, humans, etc. The "graven images" prescription is in no way limited to houses of worship. It literally means you cannot have paintings, photographs, statues or any other artifical depictions of living creatures AT ALL. Most Jews don't go that far, and I don't know ANY Christians who reject SECULAR art. But worrying about Catholic statues while having paintings or animal statues in your house is not being a literalist about the Bible. It's picking and choosing.
The most glaring case of "picking and choosing" indulged in by ALL Christians (except the 7th Day Adventists) is ignoring the Sabbath. The commandment says honor the SABBATH. It doesn't say honor the "Lord's day" - that's a Christian gloss. God established the Saturday Sabbath, and nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus ever END the Saturday Sabbath (the way he ends the kashrut food laws, calling all things pure). The Acts say that Christians met on the Lord's day of resurrection, which is well, but that does not constitute a divine authorization to break one of the Ten Commandments and STOP honoring the Sabbath Day and keeping it holy.
The Sabbath Day is Saturday, and has been for about four millennia. Christians and Jews say God established it. Christians say God established the Bible. Noplace in the Bible did God ever DIS-establish any of the Ten Commandments, and nowhere did God authorize changing the Sabbath Day from Saturday to Sunday. Sunday is not the Sabbath, Saturday is, since God rested on the Seventh Day (not the first). So, Catholics AND Protestants AND Orthodox, while they may not have CHANGED the Ten Commandments, actually obey at best only NINE of them. They blow off the Commandment about honoring Saturday and keeping it holy, preferring in their traditions to exchange Sunday for Saturday, and to call Sunday the Sabbath.
Is there any AUTHORITY for doing THAT?
Well, yes. In the Christian Bible, Jesus (whom the Christians say is God) gives to Peter and the apostles the "power of the keys", "to loose and to bind", and tells them that whatever they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
So, based on that, there is (Christian) Biblical authority for the Christians to do as they have: God said in the Ten Commandments to honor the Sabbath Day, Saturday. Peter and the early Catholics used their power of the keys to alter God's commandment, so that Saturday meant Sunday. If you're a Christian and accept the Christian New Testament as authoritative, and Jesus as God, then Peter and the Church could do that - change one of the Ten Commandments - because Jesus gave Peter the power of the keys to do that sort of thing: change the divine law on earth, and bind God by the decision. Jesus didn't change the sabbath day God established from Saturday to Sunday. Peter and the apostles didn't do it formally in the Biblical record either. But they clearly did it, because the records show Christians celebrating on Sunday, and leaving behind the Saturday Sabbath, from the earliest generations.
So, there you have it. AS WRITTEN, in the Bible, the Christians don't keep the Ten Commandments: they do not honor the Saturday Sabbath. But as written, Peter and the Apostles had the power given to them by Jesus to change around the law of God as they thought necessary, and they did so regarding the Saturday sabbath, changing it to Sunday. They didn't explicitly do this in the Bible, but the fact that the Christians always have celebrated the Sunday "Lord's Day" tells us that the tradition of ignoring the Sabbath and honoring Sunday goes back to the earliest traditions of the Christian Church.
Does that Christian tradition override the written Ten Commandments? If Jesus was really God, then he did give Peter the power to bind God by his decisions, so if Peter or the Apostles (or perhaps their heirs...that part is murkier) substituted Sunday for the Sabbath...then God is bound to respect that tradition of the Church and not hold Christians to the commandment to honor the Sabbath Day.
If Jesus was NOT God, then Christians aren't bound to the Ten Commandments anyway. They're Gentiles, and the Ten Commandments were given to the Jews. Christians, as Gentiles, would only be bound by the Seven Noachide Laws, and wouldn't have anything further to do with the Torah or Jewish law.
So paradoxically you end up for Christians with one of two situations: Either Jesus was who Christians say he was, in which case Christians are bound to whatever Peter and the Apostles said, because they had the power of the keys. Or Jesus was just an unfortunate man who was killed in Roman Palestine, in which case Jewish Christians are bound by the Torah, and Gentile Christians are only bound by the 7 Noachide laws, and can stop reading the Bible once they get to the end of the story of Noah. They're mostly descendants of Japheth, and all the Jewish Scriptures tell us about them is that they're blessed. The rest of the stuff from Abraham on down applies to Semites only, and the Ten Commandments don't apply to Christians. Christians can have meaningless statues. They need to dig out the Seven Noachide Laws and learn those. They have 7, not 10, Commandments. (If Jesus WAS God, then Christians have 9, not 10, Commandments and can blow off the Sabbath business and follow their Sunday tradition, because Peter said so and he was given the power by Jesus God to do it.)
I suppose that there's one last possibility, and that's that Jesus wasn't God, and there isn't really a Yahweh out there either burning bushes or handing out commandments. If that's the case, the whole Bible is a set of ancient myths and nobody's bound by any of it other than by respect for tradition and the desire not to offend mom.
Each must decide for himself.
The logic of the Latin listing:
[In the ancient scriptural traditions, the number "four" was not permitted to be used represent the Divine, as "four" is an imperfect number. "One" and "Three" are perfect numbers.]
Three Commandments (1-3) pertain to God.
Three Commandments (5-7) pertain to our neighbor: no murder, adultery, or theft.
One Commandment (4) pertains to the bridge which brings us from God to our neighbor: our parents whom we must honor.
Three Commandments (8-10) mirror 5-7. Don't kill your neighbor's reputation, don't even think about adultery, and don't even think about stealing.
And if one is to consider the first commandment to include both "have no other gods before me" and "make no image" as part of it, then quote the whole commandment that includes it. Otherwise, why not the latter part instead of the former.
The biggest problem the Jews had in the Land of Israel was with idolatry --- making images of things and worshipping them. They too kept forgetting about the "making image" part of the Decalogue.
Perhaps, instead of numbering them, Deuteronomy 20:1-17 should just be quoted verbatim and let those who read it put their own numbers to them.