The Ten Commandments: A Short History of an Ancient Text by Michael Coogan

The Ten Commandments: A Short History of an Ancient Text

Michael Coogan

New Haven, CN: Yale, 2014. 176 pp. $25.00

This book has an outer shell and an inner nut. The outer shell that wraps around the argument deals with the public display of the Ten Commandments in American governmental spaces. Michael Coogan, director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum and lecturer on Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Harvard, sets the stage for an informative, if at times controversial, introductory overview of the origin, meaning, and contemporary relevance of the Decalogue. He draws the reader into his often engaging work by highlighting the idolatrous and hegemonic efforts by ultra-conservative Protestants over the past half century to install and defend public displays of this ancient Hebrew legal code in courts and municipal buildings. In the conclusion of this pithy primer, Coogan returns to the presenting issue and argues forcefully that public displays of the Commandments are both “un-American” and “contrary to the underlying values of the Bible” (133).

The inner nut of the book offers a lucid and insightful treatment of the multiple biblical traditions concerning the Ten Commandments. Coogan argues for three related but somewhat different Decalogue traditions: Exodus 34 (10th century bce, the oldest tradition); Exodus 20 (9th–8th centuries bce); and Deuteronomy 5 (7th–6th centuries bce). He holds that the earliest version arose during the period of the Tribal Confederacy, but with roots that could go back as far as a historical Moses. Notably, Coogan claims that the three overlapping but non-identical traditions “show that the Ten Commandments could not have been divinely given” (131). Moreover, the Bible never fully harmonized these traditions and allowed them to exist side by side. Coogan’s claim to the irreducible plurality of Decalogue traditions in Hebrew and Christian Bibles alike further underscores his critique of the attempts by some conservative American Protestants to impose their own reductive and highly tendentious interpretations of the Commandments onto the rest of us.

Coogan devotes half of the book to exegesis and hermeneutics of the Commandments themselves. In the chapter devoted to the meaning of individual commandments in their original cultural context, one finds insights about the function of the first four commandments in an originally henotheistic (as opposed to a radically monotheistic) environment and the startling fact that, unlike ancient Israel’s neighbors, the center of the temple in Jerusalem was devoid of an image for the deity. He also points out that, while common to legal codes in the ancient Near East, the substance of the human-oriented six commandments always and necessarily has a sacred character.

I found a few oddities in Coogan’s interpretation of the meaning of the Commandments. For the eighth commandment, he maintains that the word “kidnap” should be used in place of the more commonly used “steal.” He thinks this makes more sense in the logical flow of the last six commandments. (Why, he asks, would a prohibition against stealing things from one’s neighbor be repeated in the 8th and the 10th commandments?) His argument for the use of “kidnap” failed to convince me. Similarly, he argues that the wording of the tenth commandment ought to use the word “scheme” instead of the more traditional “covet” because it more aptly captures the sense of intense desire for the possessions of one’s neighbor. Again, I remain unconvinced; nonetheless, this proposed substitution seemed a bit more plausible.

With respect to contemporary interpretation of the Decalogue, Coogan argues that the fairly loose and creative interpretations by Christian communities from the New Testament to the present day licenses us “to reformulate, to interpret, even to ignore and to reject” parts of the Commandments. Surely he is correct in this claim in relation to the role of women, of slavery, and the proper day for Sabbath observance. Yet, I wonder if Coogan’s advocacy for interpretive freedom leaves readers only a step or two away from tendentious reformulations like Ted Turner’s “Ten Voluntary Initiatives.” Moreover, his gratuitous criticisms of the Christian doctrines of the divinity of Christ and of the Trinity on the grounds of polytheism left me wondering if he has left behind his Roman Catholicism for some sort of watered down interfaith-friendly unitarianism.

I have a mixed assessment of this book. On the one hand, I learned a fair amount about the development of traditions associated with the Decalogue in the Bible. I appreciated many of his contextual interpretations, and I support his values related to liberation, egalitarianism, and the separation of church and state in the USA—including his arguments for removing the graven images of the Ten Commandments found in public spaces. At the same time, I found several of his arguments flimsy or overreaching. He seems to have some sensitivity to the speculative character of at least a few of his claims when saying things like “piling conjecture upon conjecture, I would further suggest that …” (48). I wrote the term “speculative claim” at least a half a dozen times in the margins of this book. I found his theories interesting and thought-provoking, but not always convincing. Because this is the case, I have wrestled with the question about the usefulness of this book for teaching. All things considered, I would use this book as a “recommended book” in a course on the ethics of the Ten Commandments in a theological school. I might use it in an adult education course in a church setting, but I am not completely sold on the idea.