over_cloxThe 10 Commandments apparently mentions absolutely nothing about protecting children from abuse.
CerebralHawksYou know why? When the Bible was written, crimes against children were considered property crimes against their father. Thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not covet, both indirectly protect kids about as much as they’re intended to. Which isn’t much.
Interesting perspective. But yeah it seems like they danced all around the subject altogether.
Indeed, and really there ought to be a few more commandments, such as:
‘Thou shalt not abuse earthly environmental resources beyond necessity’
Or something like that anyways. Really, if there’s only 10 commandments, they should be simplified and boiled down to only a couple or few commandments or so that encapsulate them all, as the late George Carlin presented…
The 10 Commandments | George Carlin | Complaints and Grievances (2001)
ThePowerOfGeekHere’s another one based on the general conversation here:
Thou shalt not exploit or abuse a vulnerable person or creature.
Open to some interpretation, of course. But concise enough to cover the brush strokes if those who are obsessed with the Ten Commandments were to really follow through on implementing them.
I’d replace ‘a vulnerable’ with simply ‘any’, to be more broad about it, almost nobody deserves abuse.
Well, except serial killers, cannibals, leaders that orchestrate genocide, etc. in the worst of the worst field of evil people. I’m not God, I’ll turn a blind eye to giving them a dose of their own medicine…
Left as CenterThe ten commandments are just part of the whole.
They do talk about animal abuse, along with slave prices, death penalty etc.
See Deuteronomy. Very fun read.
Interesting take, and not entirely wrong either imo. Though, I think the real reason is simply that such a commandment wasn’t necessary, because it was already implied from the very beginning. God gave Adam and Eve the mandate to care for his creation, and in conjunction with the fact that “Love the Lord your God” is the very first commandment (which means to follow his commandments), respecting the people that God created in his image would have absolutely unquestionable in the mind of the ancient Israelites.
The really hard to accept part is how this respect for what God made included the destruction of what is not of him, which included people. It’s a very alien concept to us today in our culture. The important part is that what you read in the Bible (esp. the Old Testament) cannot be taken at face value. Everything is seeped in historical context that often makes things seem at a glance to be the opposite of what they actually are. The translation from Hebrew and Greek compounds this problem.
TL;DR: If you want to take solace in confirmation bias, it’s not hard to do, and to blame you for doing so would be incredibly hypocritical of me. Remaining truly objective is the most grueling exercise in self-awareness and accepting uncomfortable possibilities anyone could ever undertake.
When the Bible was written is a very abstract concept covering a large timeframe