The newest Harpers Index references one of the best articles on the Ten Commandments I’ve read anywhere. Unfortunately, The Decatur Daily’s Thou Shalt Debate by M.J. Ellington is now only available in Google’s cache. To ensure that you all get to read it, I’m going to mirror the entire article.

MONTGOMERY — When 25 state senators signed a bill to put protections for Ten Commandment displays in the state constitution, they said they were doing what voters want.

Yet a survey of 10 of those senators who backed the measure in the special legislative session that ended Monday found only one, the bill sponsor, who could name all 10 of the commandments. Three of the lawmakers surveyed represent Morgan, Limestone and Cullman counties.

The Alabama Religious Freedom Amendment called for voters to choose whether they wanted Ten Commandment displays on the grounds and inside the Capitol.

The bill did not pass, but it promises to again focus debate on when and how it is proper to display the Ten Commandments that Moses received on Mount Sinai to guide the children of Israel after they fled Egypt.

In the years that lawmakers have fought to display the Ten Commandments, none has attempted to pass a bill to display what Jesus called “the great commandment” found in Matthew and Mark.

Several lawmakers said people ask them to introduce bills on the Ten Commandments but none on Jesus’ “great commandment.”

John Giles, executive director of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, was asked why Christian conservatives concentrate on displaying Jewish law instead of Jesus’ “great commandment.”

Giles said Jesus’ “great commandment” only summarizes the others.

Sen. Wendell Mitchell, D-Luverne, who sponsored the bill, said recent U.S. Supreme Court and federal appellate court decisions on Ten Commandments’ cases left the legality of their display fuzzy. With a constitutional amendment, the displays might stand up in court better, said Mitchell, a retired dean of the law school at Faulkner University, a Church of Christ-affiliated university in Montgomery.

Legal bill

The last Ten Commandment fight over removal of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore’s display from the entrance of the court building cost more than $675,000.Mitchell said his bill will come up again either in the regular session next year, or perhaps sooner, if Gov. Bob Riley calls another special session. Mitchell, a Sunday school teacher, recited the short version of the Ten Commandments that he terms the foundation for moral law.

The other nine Sunday school-going senators, including Tom Butler, D-Madison; Zeb Little, D-Cullman, and Tommy Ed Roberts, D-Hartselle, named some but not all of the Biblical “thou shalt” list.

Butler said he believes if people want to post the Ten Commandments in every public building in the state, they have that right. When asked to test his own knowledge of the commandments, Butler named six.

Attorney Zeb Little, D-Cullman, knew that the First Commandment said to “have no other Gods before me.”

But the wording Little remembered first was not from Exodus but from Matthew when Jesus talked about the “great commandment.”

Roberts remembered five commandments, particularly ones that guide a person’s relationships with other people. While some legislators say the Ten Commandments issue is a good way to get conservative voters to the polls during an important election, Roberts said he is against politicizing the commandments in that manner. He said he signed the bill at Mitchell’s request.

Religious politics

Sen. Larry Dixon, R-Montgomery, recited eight of the Ten Commandments. Dixon said the commandments bill is an idea with a lot of public appeal.

“I honestly believe that whatever the U.S. Supreme Court rules will override any law we make on the subject,” Dixon said. He acknowledged that a significant appeal for the bill is its requirement that voters approve the measure at the ballot box.

“We want it in a general election because it will bring more fiscally conservative voters to the polls who are likely to be Republicans,” Dixon said. He called himself a moderate Republican who sometimes bows to political pressure like other politicians.

God or man’s will?

Dixon said he does have a debate with himself about decisions he must make. “Do you do it because it is politically correct, or do you do it because it is God’s will?” he asks. There is the threat of possible political fallout from voters on the far right to consider. “If you do not agree with them, they will try to destroy you politically,” Dixon said.

Sen. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, is an attorney who believes that it is important to make a clear statement of the state’s position on the Ten Commandments after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Byrne thinks there are limits to how far the state should go. “I think you can base your laws on them without promoting a particular religion,” said Byrne, who recited four of the commandments.

Sen. Del Marsh, R-Anniston, said he has no problem if people want to display their beliefs — The Ten Commandments or other religious symbols. Marsh recited six of the Ten Commandments.

Sen. Ted Little, D-Auburn, recalled that the first reference to the 10 Commandments is in the book of Exodus. He recited seven of the 10.

Jewish law

The commandments are a central part of Jewish law today and have been since Moses’ time. But it is Christians, not Jews who demonstrate and go to court over displays of the Ten Commandments in government buildings.

Rabbi Kenneth Segel of Temple Beth Or in Montgomery said Jews in this country “believe passionately in the separation of church and state and would not want to see that changed.”

Segel said Jews respect the Ten Commandments, which he termed “the source of our covenant with God and the basis of our teachings on morality and civility.” But the Jewish approach to displaying them is different from that of conservative and evangelical Christians.

Private display

“We believe the Ten Commandments should be a living religious affirmation of human worth and dignity and a foundation for how we lives our lives,” Segal said. “The commandments are to be taught and lived, not just put on a slab somewhere as a political tool.”

Segel said the most important place for a Ten Commandments display is private and that is significant: “It should be encased in our hearts.” Segel wishes everyone would concentrate on that.

As for the role of the Ten Commandments in the context of modern life, are there things that people miss if they concentrate on the monuments and not on the meaning of the words?

“The Ten Commandments are the beginning of civility, a foundation; but they are only a beginning,” Segel said. “My thought would be to let them not devote so much effort to displays of the Ten Commandments. Let them challenge themselves to live by the Ten Commandments. Let that be the big test of faith.”

Giles does agree with the rabbi on one point:

“If we all lived by the Ten Commandments, we could do away with the judiciary,” said Giles.

The Ten Commandments from the book of Exodus

Editor’s note: This account covers the first time God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20: 1-17 (King James Version)

1 And God spake all these words, saying,

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.

The great commandment

Editor’s note: A smiliar account of Jesus’ response to the question about the great commandment is found in Mark 12:28-34.

Matthew 22:34-40 (King James Version)

34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

There’s so much to praise about this article, from the mention that Jesus simplified the commandments to contrasting the evangelical zealotry with the liberal Jewish view, but I love that Ellington doesn’t mention a politician without reminding readers how many of the commandments he was able to name. Fucking brilliant.