For some reason, the Algorithm decided I needed to see Steve Wohlberg clearly bear false witness against over a billion of his neighbours!
And bearing false witness against your neighbour is in every version of the 10 Commandments.
Steve Wohlberg was introduced to the Hope Channel International show as a Jewish Christian who has written over 40 books, appeared on over 500 radio and television shows, been featured in three History Channel documentaries, and one National Geographic documentary. Sounded impressive!
In the clip Steve announces that Roman Catholicism has changed the commandments by removing, says Steve, the second, the one “forbidding having idols and bowing down to statues”. And then Steve continues that Roman Catholicism fills in the gap, that removing that one leaves, by splitting the last commandment into two.
This all, of course, is all absolutely and totally false!
By all means have respectful disagreement – between Christians also.
But here Steve combines wilful ignorance with blatant anti-Catholic prejudice. And those present at the filming, involved in the production, and promotion of this online and further, are complicit (the age of Alternative Facts notwithstanding) in Steve’s breaking of the commandment against bearing false witness.
Every Roman Catholic rendering of the Ten Commandments includes
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (surprise!!!) expresses well:
The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. the present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. the Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities.
Let’s dig just a little deeper. What people refer to as the “Ten Commandments” are found in at Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. Neither of these places calls the list “Ten Commandments”. In fact, as is clear in my table below – there are not ten.
Exodus 34:28, Deuteronomy 4:13, and Deuteronomy 10:4 refer to Ten Commandments (or better, “Ten Words”). But how we actually divide the Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21 texts to result in Ten Commandments varies from tradition to tradition. Variations between traditions regularly happens in attempts to systematise biblical texts. I have written about these different attempts several times already (here, here, and here). This table is another clarification (source):
In summary: biblical texts are often complex, difficult to systematise. We can disagree with each other – even vigorously, including with other Christians. But don’t spread falsities; don’t let anti-Catholic prejudice blind you to the truth (or, for others, anti-Protestant, anti-Anglican/Episcopalian, anti-Orthodox… for that matter).
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