The Ten Commandments
From the Book "Ten Commandments" by Joseph Lewis An Atheist

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How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, O LORD;
teach me your decrees.

Psalm 119:9-12

The Conflicting Arrangement of the Ten Commandments as
Revealed by a Comparison of the Protestant, Catholic and Hebrew Versions
[Based upon the Exodus version.]
From "The Ten Commandments" by Joseph Lewis

We are told that regardless of other differences that might exist among these three religions, they are in perfect accord on the Ten Commandments!

Although the Protestant, Catholic and Hebrew Bibles vary but slightly and then only textually, the listing to follow reveals a deliberate change made by those responsible for the arrangement of the Commandments.

In the First Commandment, the reader will note that the words "I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," is left out of the Protestant version completely, and partially from the Catholic. It forms the First Commandment according to the Hebrews.

[Rebuttal to the author, Lewis: Those who believe the Bible, without denomination bias, list the First Commandment as:]

In the Catholic and Protestant versions, the reference to being "brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," was left out for very good and sufficient reasons! That part of the Commandment has absolutely nothing whatever to do with Protestants or Catholics.

When the Commandments were written, they were not in existence. They were never in Egypt, and the Lord had no occasion to free them from the yoke of bondage; by this very omission the Ten Commandments are stamped as a purely provincial code, applicable, if at all, only to the Children of Israel. In this respect both the Catholics and the Protestants have judiciously, yet deceitfully, refrained from using it, despite the incontrovertible fact that it is part of the Decalogue, and just as vital as the other parts.

[Rebuttal: Again the bias of this author believes, as do other denominations, that the Ten Commandments belong only to the "Children of Israel"; and "they are not comanded to do anything including honoring the Sabbath"; however, they and the author forget that (1) Christians are Judeao Christians - without 'the children of Israel' there would be no Christianity; and (2) Jesus Christ states in Revelation 12:17, 14:12, 22:14, Matthew 5:17-19 and Isaiah 66:22-23; etc. the importance of the Ten Commandments and that the Sabbath will continue into the New Heaven and the New Earth]

In wording this Commandment, however, the Catholics were cleverer than the Protestants. They used the first five words of the Commandment but left out the succeeding damaging phrase, and have added, though in a corrupted form, the first part of the Second Commandment. The Protestants, unable to use the First Commandment as biblically recorded, have daringly taken the first sentence of the Second Commandment as the first one in the arrangement of the Decalogue!

[**21] Since the language used in the Douay Version of the Bible differs only textually from the King James and Hebrew Versions, we will not concern ourselves with it. This does not in the slightest degree mitigate the mutilation of the Commandments printed in the Catholic Catechism. For a comparison of the complete text, the reader is referred to the Douay Bible.

In addition to the italicized words which differentiate the Protestant and Hebrew versions of the Second Commandment, we find that the Catholics leave out the entire Second Commandment. They omit it because it would interfere with the most lucrative part of their ritual -- the worship and adoration of saints. Catholics not only make "graven images" in direct prohibition and violation of the Second Commandment, but they also worship these images in defiance of an angry and vengeful God. That the Roman Catholic Church has practised this defiance with impunity for centuries indicates either the impotence of the Bible God or the falsity of the Commandments.

Catholic historical records show that the Church has continuously, since the fourth century, published a mutilated set of Commandments and maintained it as the true version by prohibiting anyone from reading the Bible! [**22]

Since the Seventh General Council, 787 A.D., the Second Commandment has either been omitted or falsely explained away. In fact, so cleverly did the Catholic Church perpetrate this fraud that up to and even after the Reformation it was not discovered, and formed the Decalogue as accepted by the Anglican Church as late as 1563. So strongly was this mutilated version of the Commandments intrenched that even Martin Luther did not discover the imposition until several decades after his schism with Rome, [*23] and accounts for the Lutherans accepting the Catholic version of the Decalogue.

I am constrained to refer to the text of the Decalogue in Exodus of the Douay Version of the Bible for additional evidence of the perfidy of the Catholic Church in omitting the Second Commandment. The heading at the beginning of the chapter is "The Ten Commandments." I quote Chapter 20, verses 4, 5 and 6:

4. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in
the waters under the earth.

5. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty,
jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me:

6. And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my
commandments.

In order to omit the Second Commandment from the Decalogue, not only must verses 8, 9 and 10 be eliminated from Chapter 5 of the Book of Deuteronomy, but the above verses 4, 5 and 6 must also be deleted from this chapter as well as from other portions of the Bible.

While the Catholic Catechism omits this Commandment from its arrangement of the Decalogue, the Catholic Encyclopedia admits its validity as part of the Ten Commandments and even its application to the prohibitions of making and worshiping graven images! [*24]

The Catholic Church stands convicted not only by evidence taken from its own records, but by its own authorities. The listing of the Ten Commandments as they appear in the Douay Version of the Bible has additional value to us besides furnishing incontrovertible evidence in indicting the Catholic Church for deliberate deception in omitting the Second Commandment from the Decalogue.

That image worship is a degrading superstition and was condemned by the early Church Fathers in scathing terms, is one of the amazing contradictions of Catholicism. St. Augustine, undoubtedly the foremost of the group, said: "He who worships an image turns the truth of God unto a lie." Even the crucifix, which is worshiped and adored today, is as much an idolatrous instrument as the image of a man or woman. It was introduced as part of the worship of the Church only in the latter part of the sixth century, and finally authorized by the Council of Constantinople, 692 A.D. The crucifix was unknown until the sixth century, and liberal Protestants still abhor its use as being beneath the dignity of an intelligent person. Charles, op. cit., p. 43

The Christians of France, Germany and England condemned the action of the Seventh General Council authorizing the worship of images, and foremost among the opponents was Charlemagne.

It would require too lengthy an analysis to give the complete reason why the Roman Catholic Church violates this Commandment and omits it from its version of the Decalogue. Suffice it to say that when Constantine embraced Christianity, he found that the incurably superstitious would not relinquish their idols, and so the Church, after a feeble and unsuccessful effort, merely incorporated image worship as part of its ritual. The financial returns more than justified the compromise with "God's Word."

In order to make up for the omission of the Second Commandment, the Catholic Church moved up the third and made it the second. It will be interesting, as we continue this comparison, to see for ourselves how they schemingly provided for the "ten."

With the exception of using the first sentence of this Commandment as the first of the Decalogue, the Protestants and the Hebrews differ only slightly in the wording, which is not particularly important in this comparison.

For the first time there is perfect accord between the Protestants and Hebrews on one of the Commandments. The Catholics, however, in order to make up for the omission of the Second Commandment, merely move up the next one, making the fourth the third. There seems to be no justification for the mutilated form in which they express it, nor can I find a reason for its mutilation, except to avoid the embarrassing question of why it is to be observed.