Did You Know? (Ten Commandments)

Does anyone else think AI art is the future?

I have a point to this post, but man, first I have to talk about today’s featured image. I asked the AI to create art of Moses and two tablets, while people watched in fear with lightning and thunder in the sky. I didn’t take into account what a tablet means to a LLM in 2025. Also, I feel like Moses looks a bit like Obi-Wan. The rest of the people? Strangely on point? No, wait… skin tones.

It’s all a bit nonsensical, right? Like, the AI that generated this art might not have a ton of context about the topic of Moses…and instead, it’s just making an image based on the input its training models have fed it.

I’ll bring it back to that.

Today I was informed that Georgia lawmakers are attempting to force all public elementary and secondary schools to display the “Ten Commandments” in multiple (3) locations across their campus. Their bill HB 313, hasn’t been taken up yet by the state general assembly, but it will eventually be voted on and either rejected or accepted. If Georgia manages to pass HB313, it will be the second state in the United States of America to enforce this requirement by law.

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What are the Ten Commandments?

Here’s a fun fact.

Most Christians have a pretty clear image in their mind when they think of the Ten Commandments. Generally, they think of Moses holding two stone tablets. These tablets have the commandments clearly etched into the stone by the hand of Yahweh. It’s so widespread, that if I just type “ten commandments” into a search engine, I’m provided with an ample number of stone carvings.

In fact, when Louisiana unveiled examples of acceptable posters that could be used by their state’s public schools, the posters used artful depictions of the Ten Commandments carved into the stone tablets given to Moses by Yahweh.

Of course, that is interesting because the bible does not necessarily depict the Ten Commandments in this way… well… it does, but not the Ten Commandments that most realize.

When we think of our Ten Commandments, that is to say, when we think of the rules legally forced to be displayed at schools in Georgia, we are referencing a conversation between Moses and Yahweh on the top of Mount Sanai (or Mount Horeb, depending on the chapter). This conversation takes place in Exodus 20 when Yahweh speaks to Moses.

However, this isn’t what the bible considers to be the Ten Commandments, but rather a summary of the full covenant — a cliff-notes version.

We get a much better account of the Ten Commandments given to Moses in Exodus 34.

These include the following:

1. Worship no other god.
2. Don’t make molten gods.
3. Keep the feast of unleavened bread.
4. All firstborns belong to me*.
5. Six days of work. Rest on Sabbath.
6. Keep the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
7. Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.
8. Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; Do not leave passover feast unto the morning.
9. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. Do not boil a baby goat in his mother’s milk.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid in church, I never heard these depicted as the Ten Commandments, and yet they are.

²⁸ 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 tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

It’s safe to say, then, that these commandments are as important to Moses and his people as the dialogue shared between Yahweh and Moses in Exodus 20. I think it’s also safe to say we don’t follow most of these commandments with any regularity.

What do the scholars think?

I’ll save you some time.

They’re mixed.

Most biblical scholars refer to the Exodus 34 set of commandments as the “Ritual Decalogue” and the Exodus 20 (and Deuteronomy 5) accounts as the “Ethical Decalogue.”

Some scholars think the narrative of the bible, being linear, means that Exodus 20 was inscribed on the first set of tablets, and Exodus 34 was inscribed upon the second set.

Other discussion around the ritual decalogue revolves around the idea that much of Exodus 20-23 started as a text before inclusion in the Torah, and that the scripture of Exodus 34 is a summarized version of the entirely of Exodus 20-23, rather than just the ten commandments.

Others hold that the commandments began as a more ritualistic emphasis and focused more on cultural identity for the ancient people. This included how they would celebrate their festivals, how to prepare their food, and most importantly, how to make Yahweh happy. The broader “Ethical Decalogue” is more about how the ancient people would live their lives in general and could have evolved in parallel or later as the culture of the ancient world changed, potentially becoming the norm, and eventually being reinforced as the “right” commandments in Deuteronomy.

It sounds a bit all over

It’s a bit all over.

It’s a bit… like AI art.

See! I told you I’d bring this back around.

If I ask you “What are the ten commandments?” A well-studied bible reader is going to say. “That answer is more than ten words.”

That’s not the answer we get, though, is it?

We get Charleston Heston in a Moses costume. We get Obi-Wan holding ruggedized laptops.

We get stone tablets that say, “Don’t kill” plastered in school hallways. A location, mind you, that is almost constantly in the news because people can’t stop breaking that commandment there.

Look, don’t take my word for it.

Christians and Jewish scholars, pastors, rabbi, theologians, critical scholars, and everyone else in between has terrific information that pertains to these decalogues; how they differ, how they are the same, and most importantly, how they apply to the ancient world in which they were aimed, and how a modern audience must view these laws in the modern setting.

I don’t know how many people have boiled a baby goat in its mother’s milk, but knowing that’s an affront to Yahweh is a pretty big deal.

Isn’t this about schools?

Right.

Here’s the schtick.

The founding fathers, or at least many of them, were highly religious individuals. They likely knew the scripture of Exodus 20 and Exodus 34 better than I do, and I promise you I would love to sit with George Washington and ask him how he viewed the two sets and how they impacted his views.

I don’t think George would be offended if we teach kids that he believed in the Christian God and held the Ten Commandments in high regard. Still, you better believe President Washington of the United States would be greatly offended to know that state-operated facilities are forcing children to view religious material in an attempt to force Christianity upon the populous (in one state so far).

Let’s not mince words.

This isn’t Christianity. This is religious dogma. This is what the founding fathers fought against.

To mask these maneuvers behind the founding fathers, of all people, is sickening… not just for a Christian… but for an American.

There’s no kindness behind this. There’s no “maybe this will get God back in our schools.” This is another step in forcing our religious views on others and holding them to our standards without regard for their freedoms.

The founding fathers would spit on this bill. Christians, freedom-loving Christians, should fight this bill.

No one wins from this. I guarantee it.