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1 - The Decalogue

An Icon of Ethical Discourse

from Part I - Legal Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2021

By
Dominik Markl
Edited by
C. L. Crouch
C. L. Crouch
Affiliation:
Fuller Theological Seminary, California
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Summary

Thus speaks Moses at the culmination of Thomas Mann’s The Tables of the Law, written in 1943. Mann’s use of the Ten Commandments in his “antifascist manifesto” is a token of the Decalogue’s symbolic role in discourses on ethical foundations in cultures that have been influenced by Judaism and Christianity. While the quest for the origin and redactional development of the Decalogue’s two versions in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 has been the focus of much exegetical work, these genetic questions are of limited relevance for understanding the Ten Commandments’ ethical significance. I shall, therefore, concentrate here on some fundamental literary features of this text in its canonical contexts and its vast history of reception. Against this background, I shall consider the Decalogue as an icon of ethical discourse, which poses significant questions for contemporary ethical reflection.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics , pp. 9 - 22
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Barton, J. Ethics in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bossy, J. “Moral Arithmetic: Seven Sins into Ten Commandments.” Pages 214–43 in Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe. Edited by Leites, E.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Brague, R. The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea. Trans. Cochrane, L. G.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Buber, M. Moses: The Revelation and the Covenant. New York: Harper & Row, 1958.Google Scholar
Kuntz, P. G. The Ten Commandments in History: Mosaic Paradigms for a Well-Ordered Society. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004.Google Scholar
Markl, D. “The Decalogue in History. A Preliminary Survey of the Fields and Genres of Its Reception.” ZAR 18 (2012) 279–93.Google Scholar
Markl, D. “The Ten Words Revealed and Revised: The Origins of Law and Legal Hermeneutics in the Pentateuch.” Pages 13–27 in The Decalogue and its Cultural Influence. Edited by Markl, D.. HBM 58. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2017.Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, A. “Removing the Decalogue from the Shema and Phylacteries: The Historical Implications.” Pages 97–105 in The Decalogue in Jewish and Christian Tradition. Edited by Hoffman, Y. and Reventlow, H. Graf. LHBOTS 509. New York: T&T Clark, 2011.Google Scholar
Otto, E. “The Study of Law and Ethics in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.” Pages 594–621 in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Edited by Sæbø, M.. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015.Google Scholar
Sarfatti, G. B. “The Tablets of the Law as a Symbol of Judaism.” Pages 383–418 in The Ten Commandments in History and Tradition. Edited by Segal, B.-Z. and Levi, G.. Publications of the Perry Foundation for Biblical Research. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990.Google Scholar
Ska, J. L. “Biblical Law and the Origins of Democracy.” Pages 146–58 in The Ten Commandments: The Reciprocity of Faithfulness. Edited by Brown, W. P.. Louisville: John Knox, 2004.Google Scholar
Smith, L. The Ten Commandments: Interpreting the Bible in the Medieval World. Leiden: Brill, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voegelin, E. Israel and Revelation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Willis, J. The Reformation of the Decalogue: Religious Identity and the Ten Commandments in England, c. 1485–1625. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2017.Google Scholar

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  • The Decalogue
  • Edited by C. L. Crouch, Fuller Theological Seminary, California
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics
  • Online publication: 05 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108562072.003
Available formats
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  • The Decalogue
  • Edited by C. L. Crouch, Fuller Theological Seminary, California
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics
  • Online publication: 05 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108562072.003
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Decalogue
  • Edited by C. L. Crouch, Fuller Theological Seminary, California
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics
  • Online publication: 05 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108562072.003
Available formats
×