Bible two sets of Ten Commandments = Exodus 20 (Deuteronomy 5:16 repeats it) & Exodus 34 (different)

The Bible has two sets of Ten Commandments. Or you could say it has three since the first set in Exodus is soon duplicated after Moses does a smash-up (same wording, two different stone tablets) and another set (about rituals) appears in Exodus 34.

Or you could say there are four sets. When Jesus recites the commandments to keep, he omits the one about observing the Sabbath. It makes sense that Jesus omits this one since too many Jews wernt too far in observing the Sabbath, forgetting that our real mission is to love and serve others.

Anyway, discussing the Ten Commandments is complicated. Which ten? The phrase “Ten Commandments” is used just twice in the entire Bible, and neither time is the text referring to the well-known Ten Commandments (what is sometimes called the Ethical Decalogue).

Exodus 20 is the list that we know (the Ethical Decalogue), and Deuteronomy 5:16 repeats it, but Exodus 34 is different from what we know.

The commandments in Exodus 34 are sometimes called the Ritual Decalogue (as opposed to the Ethical Decalogue that most people are familiar with--again, from Exodus 20).

The Ritual Decalogue is mostly concerned with sacrifices and ceremonies. You could say the Ritual Decalogue has only nine Commandments.

In Exodus 20, Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with a set of stone tablets, gets mad, smashes them, and goes back up for another set. God says, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke” (Exodus 34:1).

Both versions here refer to the Ethical Decalogue.

Moses doesn't break the first tablet of the commandments in Exodus 20. It happens in Exodus 32. Actually Moses break the tablet that was written in Exodus 31.

Here is Exodus 34:1: The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.”

Exodus 20 has God speaking the Ethical Decalogue from Mount Sinai to the Hebrews, but it makes no mention of anything being written down and does not refer to them as the Ten Commandments.

In Exodus 24, Moses writes lengthy laws. Then God calls him up the mount to for more laws, giving several chapters about rituals and about technical specifications for the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle.

At the end of this, he gives stone tablets written "with the finger of God" in Exodus 31.

In Deuteronomy 5, Moses gives the Ethical Decalogue to the Hebrews, saying God wrote it on two stone tablets. Moses does not mention the Ten Commandments by name.

In Deuteronomy 10, the story is repeated with variations. Moses is again told to carve two new tablets "like the first," and God will write the same words on what Moses brings. This is referred to as the Ten Commandments, but it is not stated which Commandments are being referred to.

The Ritual Decalogue comes midway through a section describing the giving of the Ten Commandments, and the text immediately after the Ritual Decalogue reads: "And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments."

It seems that the Ritual Decalogue is the Ten Commandments although with some confusion over what is carved in stone and by whom.

Bible two sets of Ten Commandments = Exodus 20 (Deuteronomy 5:16 repeats it) & Exodus 34 (different)

[ketsune]

The Bible has no two sets of Ten Commandments. It has only one. It is Exodus 34. There is no such thing as ethical and ritualistic decalogues as many teach. There is no mentioning in Exodus 20 that they are the 10 commandments contrary in Exodus 34 that says they are the 10 commandments. The 10 commandments are a summary of the contract made between YHWH and Israel, it has no moral purposes.

[Joseph-cnd]

This is completely false I am looking at it right now