the Ten Commandments in the Classroom

The Louisiana Law

Louisiana House Bill No. 711 requires the following text to be posted in all “public elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools”:

“The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”

The Commandments are centered in the Bill, but it says ambiguously only that “The text shall read as follows,” and not “appear.” There are 12 sentences on separate lines, but the Commandments are not numbered. Perhaps to avoid arguments about “The Twelve Commandments.”

Historical and Legal Significance

The bill justifies teaching the Ten Commandments due to its “historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system,” citing the U.S. Supreme Court in American Legion v. American Humanists Association, 588 U.S. 29, 53 (2019).

It also refers to the Mayflower Compact of 1620 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to show the historical “link between civil society and God.”

This is ironic because the Massachusetts Bay General Court expelled Roger Williams from the Colony for “sedition and heresy” and spreading “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions” in 1635.2 The Pilgrims had come to America for freedom of religion, which for them meant establishing their Puritanism as the Colony’s only religion.

This taught the Founding Fathers an important lesson on established religions, those given a special status by law. Williams was a strong advocate for separation of church and state. He spoke of the “oceans of blood” that had been shed trying to enforce religious conformity, and observed that well-ordered and just governments had existed without Christianity. Williams’ writings were a key influence on the Founding Fathers.3 Thomas Paine wrote:

“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law.”4

Thomas Paine, 1791
Versions of the Commandments

The original source of the Ten Commandments is the Old Testament, in Exodus 20:2-17, Exodus 34:1-28, and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. So there are three accounts of the Commandments in the Hebrew Torah, which has been translated hundreds of times into dozens of other languages. But the Louisiana legislators actually took their version not from the Torah or one of the 64 official Christian Biblical translations available, but from a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case: Van Orden v. Perry.

“That case argued the constitutionality of displaying a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds. The stone monument in question was donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1961, and it’s not readily apparent which translation they used.”5

James Hudnut-Beumler, a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University, said “The Ten Commandments always look universal until you put a shortened list up on the wall and discover that there’s room for dispute.” Mostly about the First Commandment, whose gods are excluded, and whether any god is required at all.6

Secular or Religious?

On the day the Bill was signed into law, civil rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and organizations such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation announced their intentions to file lawsuits challenging it.7

“Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text that they adhere to can differ by religious denomination or tradition. The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate,” the groups said.8

Similar bills requiring a Ten Commandments display in classrooms have been proposed in Texas, Oklahoma, and Utah. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The Court said then that Kentucky’s law had no secular purpose, but only a plainly religious one.9

“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses” who got the commandments from God, said Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry.10

The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi predated any historical Moses by about 300 years. Archaeologist Alfred Hoerth says,

“The Old Testament law code is religiously oriented, while others are civil. The Mesopotamians believed the god Shamash gave Hammurabi his law code so people could get along with one another. In the Bible, the law code was given primarily so people could get along with God.”11

A Collection of Ten Commandments
Exodus 20:2-17 (King James Version)12

2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

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

7 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

13 Thou shalt not kill.

14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

15 Thou shalt not steal.

16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Exodus 20:2-17 (King James Version)
Deuteronomy 5:6-21 (King James Version)13

6 I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

7 Thou shalt have none other gods before me.

8 Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth:

9 Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,

10 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

11 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

12 Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.

13 Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work:

14 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.

15 And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.

16 Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

17 Thou shalt not kill.

18 Neither shalt thou commit adultery.

19 Neither shalt thou steal.

20 Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.

21 Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Deuteronomy 5:6-21 (King James Version)
Baltimore Catechism No. 1 (For First Communion Classes), 1885.

Taught in Catholic schools in America from 1885 to the late 1960s14

  1. I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.
  2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
  3. Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day.
  4. Honor thy father and thy mother.
  5. Thou shalt not kill.
  6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
  7. Thou shalt not steal.
  8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
  9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
  10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.
Baltimore Catechism No. 1 (For First Communion Classes), 1885
Footnotes
  1. “Requires the display of the Ten Commandments in schools,” Louisiana House Bill 71, LegiScan, retrieved 6/21/24 ↩︎
  2. “Roger Williams,” Wikipedia, accessed 31 July 2023 ↩︎
  3. “Roger Williams,” Wikipedia, accessed 31 July 2023 ↩︎
  4. The Life and Works of Thomas Paine, William M. Van der Weyde, ed., Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925  ↩︎
  5. “I’m a Louisiana Jew. The Ten Commandments get lost in translation in the new law,”  Lara Crigger, The Forward, June 21, 2024 ↩︎
  6. “New Louisiana law requiring classrooms to display Ten Commandments churns old political conflicts,” Kevin Mcgill And Sara Cline, Associated Press, June 20, 2024 ↩︎
  7. “Louisiana will require the 10 Commandments displayed in every public school classroom,” NPR and The Associated Press, June 19, 2024 ↩︎
  8. “Louisiana will require the 10 Commandments displayed in every public school classroom,” NPR and The Associated Press, June 19, 2024 ↩︎
  9. “Louisiana will require the 10 Commandments displayed in every public school classroom,” NPR and The Associated Press, June 19, 2024 ↩︎
  10. “New law requires all Louisiana public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments,” Sara Cline, Associated Press, June 20, 2024 ↩︎
  11. “Did Moses copy the Law from the Code of Hammurabi?” Got Questions Ministries, January 4, 2022 ↩︎
  12. Exodus 20:2-17 (King James Version), Bible Gateway, retrieved 6/21/24 ↩︎
  13. Deuteronomy 5:6-21 (King James Version), Bible Gateway, retrieved 6/21/24 ↩︎
  14. Lesson Twenty-Fifth on the Commandments of God, Question 313, A Catechism of Christian Doctrine No. 1, Baltimore, April 6, 1885, Project Gutenberg, December 19, 2020 ↩︎

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Kevin Walsh

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