There were supposed to be 15 commandments, but Moses accidentally dropped and broke a tablet. What are some of the five missing commandments?
And I know we're mostly atheists here, but please keep the theological discussion to a minimum and appreciate the lighthearted hypothetical scenario for what it is.
The 10 commandments divide into two sections. Rules for the relation between people and God and rules for the relation between people and other people. 5 more would probably setup a third section. Like rules for the relation between people and nature or rules for one’s relation to oneself.
Forgive your brother who has wronged you as you would want him to forgive your own transgressions.
Honor creation and take only what you need from the mountains, streams, woodlands, and valleys.
Respect the creatures of the earth as your brothers in creation.
And the Lord said unto Moses: If thou pushest thy change, and the site goeth down, thou shalt roll back thy push. Thou shalt roll back first, even if thou knowest not the root cause. Thus may your days be long and prosperous on the earth.
And if thine rollback causes further blackout, then thou shalt purge the caches. If further still a blackout persists to be, then yay thou shalt send an update to your customers asking thou all to tight holdeth.
And Samuel said to Saul, "The Lord sent me to anoint you to be king over His people, over Israel; and now hearken to the voice of the words of the Lord.
...
Now, go, and you shall smite Amalek, and you shall utterly destroy all that is his, and you shall not have pity on him: and you shall slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
And then Yahweh threw a hissy fit when Saul showed some mercy. Turns out that Yahweh was is a dick, according to his own believers' writings.
So you’re saying the Bible specifically recommends slaying ass?
“Honey, the Bible says I gotta go slay ass! I know I promised those days were behind me,, but God wants me to do it! Completely off topic, how’s your sister? She still single?”
To be fair, Samuel had tried to convince the people of Israel not to do the king thing in the first place. See 1 Samuel 8:10-22.
And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you:
He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. [...] And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.
Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
I spent an evening doing keyword searches in all the major holy texts one night just to gauge how violent they are and was definitely just thoroughly disgusted with all of them. I missed this excerpt, though. I guess I didn't think about searching the word "smite". Anyway... ugh.
Honestly, screw all religion. It's a nice thought to have a belief system of origin but humans are so stupidly violent and manipulative by nature that there's no way to create something useful and wholesome. They all condone the whole "kill those you disagree with" bullshit, amongst other awful isms. So far, Sikhism is the least violent and sexist I can find of any religion.
I'm not sure, but funnily enough I was thinking about them just the other day as I think my daughter would love them. The Steve Jackson/Ian Livingston ones were brilliant back in the day.
Thou shalt not claim intentions to defend thine or someone else's actions.
Thou shalt not convey "I disagree" through feigned lack of understanding.
Bonus: the original version of the 8th was
Thou shalt not claim with certainty things that you do not know for certain.
The current 8th (Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour) is a forgery. Some assumer got called out over and over because of the older 8th, since he really liked to make shit up, so he restricted it into near uselessness. Source: I'm Lucifer, I know it. :^)
Your version of the 8th would literally undo all religion
It would undo the myths, I think. Morality and religious practices might survive depending on how much they rely on said myths.
and a bit of science
It would perhaps demote a lot of theories back to hypotheses, but that's actually good IMO. A good scientist should embrace the doubt and treat it as a respectable enemy, not hide from it like a catfish in the mud.
There literally was another one if Idan Dershowitz's theory that the Shapira Scroll was legit is true.
In that document (the translation is in his book The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book (2021)), there's effectively an 11th commandment of "thou shalt not hate your brother in your heart."
In general, a number of the sayings found across both Deuteronomy and Leviticus would seem like good candidates, such as "love your neighbor as yourself" and "love the foreigner among you as yourself."
A lot of the modern interpretation is that the former refers to your literal personal home neighbors, but it makes more sense for an emergent pastoral community to be in reference to political neighbors like the Canaanites and Philistines.
Which we are now realizing thanks to archeology that the early Israelites cohabitated and were at peace with, in spite of the anachronistic stories in the Bible about it, such as the book of Joshua which is completely at odds with any archeological picture of history. Early Israelite theomorphic names in graveyards were even around 30% 'Baal' based. So the whole "hate and kill your neighbors that are different from you" seems like it was a later addition. To be fair, as likely was the monotheism.
In general, the story of Moses breaking the first set of tablets in response to the golden calf worship is sus as fuck. It mirrors the alleged reforms of Josiah centuries later where he destroyed the golden calves at Bethel and Dan while getting rid of the old laws and instituting new ones. So much more likely that it was a later addition to an earlier folk narrative being shaped to support contemporary major religious reforms.
My personal pick for a good candidate comes from a line in an 8th century BCE bilingual tablet from the group that the lead excavator of Tel Dan now thinks was the lost tribe of Dan up in Adana Turkey, the Denyen sea peoples. Their king, in discussing how he improved his kingdom over the past, used as a measuring stick the fact that women could now walk home alone feeling safe.
So "Thou shalt create and foster a society where women can walk home alone at night feeling safe" seems like it would do a lot of heavy lifting to improve the current set of commandments significantly.
And during my reign, I expanded the borders of Adanawa both westward and eastward,
So that women nowadays wander spindling on the isolated trails, where men in the past feared to go
Thall shalt not allow predators to sell underage girls to celebrities.
This one gives too much room for loopholes.
Thall shalt not sell, trade, or in any way own people.
This one seems better, it would also be better since it would apply not just now but also thousands (or hundreds, I don't know when it happened) of years ago.
IIRC--and its been a long time since I've bothered reading the bible--what happened is that Moses got one set of commandments from god, came down from the mountain, sand saw the Israelites worshiping a gold cow. He got mad, broke the tablets the laws were on, and then disposed of the Israelites that were engaging in idolatry. Then he went back up the mountain and got the rules we call the ten commandments.
That was my understanding too; god gave one set of commandments to Moses at first, because I guess s/he couldn't see what the Israelites were doing while he was talking to Moses? Then he gets pissed when Moses tells him, and gives the dumbed-down version. Supposedly that's where you get Jesus saying that he fulfills the law, e.g., the laws of strict observances in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were because the Jews weren't ready for a 'higher' law that used more personal judgement.
Thou Shalt Not Tolerate Prejudice ( "Satan", oft translated by scholars as "Accuser", which is how everyone can know that it means prejudice: prejudice's WHOLE action is accusing! ) instead of considered-reason.
Thou Shalt Not Tolerate Ideology-Addiction, but will displace it with considered-reason, breaking it from authority.
Thou Shalt Not Forget Silliness, who is the proper antidote to self-importance.
Thou Shalt Not Ever Mistake Propaganda for Journalism, nor tolerate propaganda's establishment.
Thou Shalt Not Tolerate Lobbying/Bribery or any other corruption of governing.
Wow, those really sound like they could have been from the Bible (also bonuses point to you for coming up with a serious suggestion). Here, you win the Nobel prize in Prophetry*! Your basically the new Moses, and we shall follow you!
/s
(it's sarcasm but keep the Nobel prize, you deserve it (*v*)/ []-[]¬ )
* Prophetry is supposed to mean "being a prophet" but I just made that word up