THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (A.K.A. THE DECALOGUE)

Who wrote them?
Were they original, or were they based on earlier material?

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Who wrote the Decalogues?

As with almost every other belief about the Bible, religious conservatives, liberals, historians, secularists, etc. have very different beliefs about the author(s) of the Pentateuch -- the first five books of the Hebrew Scripture (a.k.a. Old Testament). In particular, they have different beliefs about the source and authorship of the Decalogue.

There are three basic beliefs about the origin of the Decalogue:

Many politicians and religious conservatives regard the Decalogue to be the original source of the legal system of the U.S., Canada and other western countries, subsequently supplemented by Jewish, Roman and British jurisprudence. They may be wrong; the original source may be found in the religious writings of the Hittites or Egyptians -- Pagan groups.

Beliefs of religious conservatives:

Religious conservatives typically believe that God inspired the authors of the Bible to write text that is inerrant -- free of error.

The preambles to the three versions of the Ten Commandments state:

Thus, the Decalogues were first spoken by God. There are almost two dozen verses in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures which state or imply that Moses was the author of Exodus and Deuteronomy. _1,2 Thus, religious conservatives generally believe that God spoke the Ten Commandments to Moses who later recorded them circa 1450 BCE, as part of the Pentateuch -- the first five books of the Bible.

The first version of the Ten Commandments is described as having been engraved on stone by God. Since Moses broke the original set in anger, God had to create a copy, as recorded in Exodus 34. The third set in Deuteronomy is often considered to be a review of the previous two sets.

Beliefs of religious liberals, secularists, etc:

Religious liberals and others who believe neither in the inspiration nor the inerrancy of the Bible generally accept the "Documentary Hypothesis." This asserts that the Pentateuch was written independently by a group of four anonymous authors, (or groups of authors) from various locations in Israel and Judah, over a period of centuries. _3,4 Each wrote with the goal of promoting his/her own group's religious views:

These writings were later shaped and assembled into a unified text by an unknown redactor, referred to as "R." The Redactor did a minimum of editing and deleting; he left intact multiple identical (or near identical) descriptions of the same events by different authors throughout the Pentateuch.

The three versions of the 10 Commandments give major support for the Documentary Hypothesis. If one rejects the inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible, the most logical explanation for multiple versions is that three different authors described a single event: that of God giving the Ten Commandments to the Israelites. Each did it from their own vantage point in history, in order to promote their own and their groups' unique religious beliefs.

Most liberals reject the belief that the second set of the Decalogue was a replacement for the first set that Moses broke. The content of the first set has been preserved in Exodus 20; there would have been no need for a second set. Also, it would seem strange for God to adopt different wording for the second or third sets. All three sets are quite different from each other. This conflicts with one of the classical attributes of God -- that he is unchanging.

According to a consensus reached on the Documentary Hypothesis, the three authors were:

The original source of the Ten Commandments:

Many religious liberals believe that In all three cases, the original source of the Ten Commandments was an ancient document that predated the work of "E," "J," and "D."