Thou shalt have none other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth:
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,
And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.
Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.
And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.
Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
Neither shalt thou steal.
Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's. Deuteronomy 5:6-21
St. Stephen's College at the University of Alberta is affiliated with the thoroughly apostate United Church of Canada. St. Stephen's College opened in 1927, and evidence that apostasy was present there from its earliest days is indicated by the following article, which appeared in the U of A student newspaper The Gateway, Thursday, October 27, 1927, pp. 1, 6 (bold in original):
TEN COMMANDMENTS INTENDED AS GUIDEDr. A.D. Miller expressed the liberal views that were common among mainline "Christian" scholars at the time, and which are still believed in such circles today. The 1920s was a time when battles were going on in seminaries and denominations between fundamentalists (those who believed the Bible was the word of God, and contended for the Christian faith) and modernists (those who didn't believe the Bible was the word of God, but merely the best word of men about God). The Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen, one of the great contenders for the Christian faith at the time, wrote the book Christianity and Liberalism (1923), in which he argued that Christianity and Liberalism are in fact different religions; the book is well worth reading, and still relevant.
Dr. Miller addresses large crowd on "Whence the Ten Commandments?"
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The first meeting of the Philosophical Society for the term 1927-28 was held Wednesday evening in the Medical Building. Introduced by Prof. E.H. Strickland, President of the Society, Dr. A.D. Miller, of St. Stephen's College, gave an instructive address entitled "Whence the Ten Commandments?"
Dr. Miller opened his address with a few remarks upon the views taken of the Ten Commandments at various times in Jewish history. Originally designed, perhaps, to serve as a monitor for a people too dull to live by spiritual principles, they subsequently became, in the hands of a priestly caste, the nucleus of an extremely holy law most rigidly enforced. Jesus endeavoured to maintain their full value, but with a spiritual background, but Paul's tendency was to take from their laws their commanding place in religion. In modern times the Ten Commandments have often been charged with failing to hold their places in everyday life because of the complexity of modern conditions. But perhaps some simple code, such as the Ten Commandments, set up, not as a rigidly enforced law, but as a desirable example to be emulated and followed, is still greatly to be desired.
Several Sources
Dr. Miller explained that his method of approach to the origin of the Ten Commandments was through literary-historical criticism. Over a century of careful and thorough Biblical research on these lines has established that not only was Moses not their author, but that several sources in different ages contributed to the growth both in form and spirit.
There were four of these sources, as a critical study of the first six books of the bible reveals, and it is of interest that all four documents mention two stone tablets as having been used to convey the message. Archaeological investigations in the Sinai peninsula confirm the great antiquity of Hebrew writing in stone.
But any complete harmony amongst these documents is impossible. In making a claim for divine authorship for her law Israel was merely following the practice of all ancient peoples; pleasing their deity.
There is a serious discrepancy between the Commandments as set forth by the earlier writers, and the Commandments as we know them today, in the form derived from Deuteronomy 5. The ritualistic worship of deity was, in the earlier documents, present almost to the exclusion of moral advice. Numerous examples taken from one of the earliest of these documents show the writer to have been quite incapable of producing a code of laws such as the Ten Commandments in the form of which we know them.
Somewhat later in the history of Israel, about the eighth century B.C., an era of general peace and prosperity resulted in the decline of the middle class so that only the very rich and very poor remained.
In such circumstances arose a line of prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, who were in the sphere of religion verifiable revolutionists, insisting that ceremonial be abolished. They apparently persuaded King Hezekiah to undertake certain reforms in that direction, but in the next reign a return to the old forms completely abolished these, and it seemed that all the teachings of the prophets would be lost.
The Origin
Here, perhaps, is the origin of our modern Ten Commandments. Some disciple of these prophets, wishing to save the fruits of their labours, embodied their teachings in ten short, concise, and clearly understandable phrases of moral and not ceremonial import, which have come down to us with but little change. In this code occurs the mention of the "Sabbath Day." This name is found in no earlier documents, and we may conclude that the decalogue in which it is used did not exist at the time of the earlier documents. This later code occurs in Deuteronomy 5 and its revision by a priest-editor in Exodus 20.
Dr. Miller concluded his talk by returning to the point made in his introduction, that "The Ten Commandments were intended only as a suggestive guide to the person who wishes his life to be motivated by good-will."
In typical modernistic fashion, Dr. Miller--who was affiliated with a church and college that was ostensibly Christian--argues against the legitimacy of the textbook of his own professed religion. His last comment is laughable. As the old saying goes, they're the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions. And it must be a weak deity indeed who only gives suggestions.
The reader will notice that Dr. Miller doesn't ascribe divine authorship or inspiration to the Ten Commandments. In his view, the ancient Hebrews were just like any other ancient people, obeying their [tribal] deity. His method of criticism is that which uses the documentary hypothesis--often also referred to as the JEDP theory--which denies Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in favour of a variety of authors over a long period of time, with a "redactor" (editor) credited wherever the theory breaks down in light of the evidence.
The liberal theories on the origin and authorship of the Bible came from Germany, and this blogger doesn't believe it's a coincidence that the country that came up with liberal methods of biblical "scholarship" ended up slaughtering millions of Jews a few decades later. The latter had its roots in the former; if God didn't inspire the authorship of the Bible and Moses didn't write the books attributed to him, then the logical conclusion is that the Jews are falsely claiming to be God's chosen people.
In contrast to Dr. Miller, the Lord Jesus Christ definitely named Moses as the author of the Pentateuch; see, for example, Matthew 8:4, 19:8; Mark 1:44, 10:3, 12:26; Luke 5:14, 16:29, 31, 20:37, 44; John 5:45-46, 7:19, 22-23. The epistles, similarly, contain numerous references to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. When it comes to the Ten Commandments, the Lord Jesus Christ said the following in Mark 7:10a:
For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother;
I'll take the word of the Lord and the apostles over that of Dr. A.D. Miller any day. I certainly don't believe that the Qur'an is the word of God, but even the Qur'an correctly credits Moses as the author of the books that bear his name. See, for example, Surah 2:53, 87; 3:84; 6:91, 154; 7:144-145; 11:110; 17:2; 23:49; 25:35; 28:43; 32:23; 40:53; 41:45; 53:36; 87:18-19. (To look up these passages in English, go to The Noble Quran.)
For information on the liberal approach to the Bible, see the following entries at the apologetics site Bible Questions Answered:
What is the documentary hypothesis?
What is the JEDP Theory?
What are redaction criticism and higher criticism?
What is source criticism?
What is form criticism?
For further reading (that can be understood by non-scholars) on the documentary hypothesis, form criticism, and the reliability of the Bible, I recommend Evidence That Demands a Verdict (1972, 1979) and, especially, More Evidence That Demands a Verdict (1975, 1981) by Josh McDowell.
To see what St. Stephen's College is up to now, see my post United Church of Canada-affiliated St. Stephen's College offers courses in Wicca, mindfulness, and Jungian psychology (April 3, 2017).
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