# The First Commandment: What did He say? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 29, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161 "2004-03-29T21:03:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![O\_Desfibrador](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/278dde/32.png) [@O\_Desfibrador](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/O_Desfibrador)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/21 "2004-03-30T22:43:19Z")
Spanish version: > [@](#): > > No tendrás otro Dios que a mí. No te harás esculturas ni imagen alguna de lo que hay en lo alto de los cielos, ni de lo que hay abajo sobre la tierra, ni de lo que hay en las aguas debajo de la tiera. No te postrarás ante ellas y no las servirás porque yo soy Yahvé, tu Dios, un Dios celoso, que castiga en los hijos las iniquidades de los padres hasta la tercera y cuarta generación de los que me odian y hago misericordia hasta mil generaciones de los que me aman y guardan mis mandamientos. Long, but the first sentence says: “You won’t have any other God than me” ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/22 "2004-03-30T22:43:54Z")
EHOC: Could you please clarify for me what a Catholic version or a protestant version or a Jewish version would be? I have heard of KJV, NIV and others, even the Torah, but I am unfamiliar with the versions of which you speak. (Aldie, I hate the fact that you make me agree with Ilsa\_lund on something) ---
**Author:** ![EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilHamsterOnCrack)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/23 "2004-03-30T22:50:10Z")
The protestent version comes from the King James Bible, KJB. The Catholic version is adapted from a Catholic Source I honestly don’t remember. The Jewish Version is what is commonly accepted by most jews as the Jewish interpretation of the Ten Commandments. In this case, it comes from a Bloch Publishing Company version of the torah. (Naturally, not inside the actual text itself, as the text is not divided, but rather either as a footnote or an appendix) ---
**Author:** ![O\_Desfibrador](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/278dde/32.png) [@O\_Desfibrador](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/O_Desfibrador)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/24 "2004-03-30T22:51:02Z")
About polytheism… there are some traces of it in the Genesis. First of all, in Genesis 1:1 _In the berginning God created the heaven and the earth…_ the word translated as God is Elohim, a plural word that would usually be translated as “gods”. Also 3:22 … _Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know Good and Evil…_, (after the first created man disobeys and eats from the forbidden tree) Of course that doesn’t mean anything, God could be using the royal “we”, but at first all beliefs were poytheistic, the notion of an only God was a late one. ---
**Author:** ![EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilHamsterOnCrack)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/25 "2004-03-30T22:57:05Z")
> [@O Desfibrador](#): > > About polytheism… there are some traces of it in the Genesis. First of all, in Genesis 1:1 _In the berginning God created the heaven and the earth…_ the word translated as God is Elohim, a plural word that would usually be translated as “gods”. Also 3:22 … _Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know Good and Evil…_, (after the first created man disobeys and eats from the forbidden tree) > > Of course that doesn’t mean anything, God could be using the royal “we”, but at first all beliefs were poytheistic, the notion of an only God was a late one. All through the Book of Genesis we see Elohim, who are throughout just like the-gods. It is but fair to say, for what it is worth, that the verbs used, for the most part, in the Hebrew texts with this plural elohim are generally in the singular number. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/26 "2004-03-30T22:57:49Z")
EHOC: Thanks, I really was just curious. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/27 "2004-03-30T23:02:03Z")
> [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](#): > > (Naturally, not inside the actual text itself, as the text is not divided, but rather either as a footnote or an appendix) Au contraire. Go to any Torah scroll in the world and open it up to the Ten Commandments. You will see breaks in the text between most of the commandments. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![O\_Desfibrador](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/278dde/32.png) [@O\_Desfibrador](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/O_Desfibrador)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/28 "2004-03-30T23:02:09Z")
> [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](#): > > All through the Book of Genesis we see Elohim, who are throughout just like the-gods. It is but fair to say, for what it is worth, that the verbs used, for the most part, in the Hebrew texts with this plural elohim are generally in the singular number. I don’t know Hebrew, just had this idea I read somewhere. But in my opinion the fact that the verbs are used in its singular form doesn’t change anything. Imagine that the orginal version of the myth was a polytheistic one. This version was later changed, and the plural verbs, etc. converted in their singular forms. However, the word Elohim was already traditional or too well known and used to be changed easily, so they left it as it were. Notice I said “imagine”, meaning this is just an idea, qith no real evidence behind. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/29 "2004-03-30T23:07:39Z")
> [@O Desfibrador](#): > > About polytheism… there are some traces of it in the Genesis. First of all, in Genesis 1:1 _In the berginning God created the heaven and the earth…_ the word translated as God is Elohim, a plural word that would usually be translated as “gods”. Also 3:22 … _Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know Good and Evil…_, (after the first created man disobeys and eats from the forbidden tree) > > Of course that doesn’t mean anything, God could be using the royal “we”, but at first all beliefs were poytheistic, the notion of an only God was a late one. The term doesn’t even always refer to God. In Exodus 21:7 it refers to the court. In Genesis 6:2, it refers to men of power. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/30 "2004-03-30T23:13:46Z")
Sorry. That should be Exodus 21:6. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161/31 "2004-03-31T00:21:41Z")
I really wish I knew Biblical Hebrew. But I don’t, so I have to rely on translations and commentaries. So to me it doesn’t matter what language, other than BH, we are using, the question is the _meaning_ of the commandment. So, what about polytheism? Following quotations taken from the Jewish Publication Society’s \*A New Translation of \ ***THE HOLY SCRIPTURES** _According to the Traditional Hebrew Text_, copyright 1985 _I am the Lord, that is My name;I will not yield My glory to another, nor My reknown to idols_Isaiah 42:8 _O Lord, there is none like You! You are great, and Your name is great in power. Who would not revere You, O King of the nations? For that is Your due._ Jeremiah 10:6, and a little later, verse 10 in the same book _But the Lord is truly God: He is a living God, the everlasting King…_ _Hear , O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone_Deuteronomy 6:4 The above would seem to indicate that God/YHWH/Elohim/El Shaddai may acknowledge, just barely, that there are other beings regarded as gods. According to The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Abingdon Press, 1982 , in it’s commentary on the commandment in question_The existence of other gods is not called into question, but they are to count for nothing with the people of Yahweh. The expression translated “before me” or “besides me” might better be rendered “in opposition to me” Yahweh will tolerate no rivals to his authority._ It would seem to me therefore that God is practically, if not entirely theoretically, monotheistic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-commandment-what-did-he-say/237161.md?page=1)