When did the 10 Commandments Begin

Gregory Thompson

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All men at creation to the image resent day are under the ten commandments .
All will be responsible for keeping them perfectly.
That contradicts the scripture in Romans 5.
 
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dqhall

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So we know that God gave the 10 commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. My question is, did the 10 commandments exist before then. Like when did taking God's name in vain start being a sin, or when did lying and stealing start being a sin?
There were early Sumerian, Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian moral and legal writings. The Code of Hammurabi c. 2500 BC contained the law about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth also found in Exodus 21:24. Scholars indicated the Egyptian Book of the Dead contains seven of the Ten Commandments. It was written before Exodus was written.
 
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Carl Emerson

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Well the problem is that you cannot say that the ten commandments were not included in the commandments that God told Abraham and why won't they be included? Why would God not want Abraham to keep the 10 commandments?
I don't think anyone said this...
I just don't want the verse ignored.
 
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Mark Quayle

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No Ten Commandments before Sinai

““The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Mount Sinai. The LORD did not make this covenant with our ancestors, but with all of us who are alive today.” (Deuteronomy 5:2–3)
True; nevertheless, (not that you don't know this, but I think this is what he was asking) right has always been right, and wrong wrong. God put conscience in us before the commandments were given. It was sin to kill Abel.
 
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Lets try to have a respectable discussion.

So we know that God gave the 10 commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. My question is, did the 10 commandments exist before then. Like when did taking God's name in vain start being a sin, or when did lying and stealing start being a sin?

Yes, these existed before Mt. Sinai, written on Adam's heart before the fall.
 
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mreeed

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Sin is not imputed where there is no law...and yet the whole world was judged for sin before we have virtually any mention of law. How does that work? Perhaps there was a more direct knowledge at work or accessible before the Flood? Though even by Lamech's time morals were already getting all twisted up. Is there a difference in how God deals with us corporately vs individually?

I think 'the law' in some form was written on Cain's heart (example of his time), and God's words to him about sin crouching at his door in his anger that was to lead to sin could be said to underscore this point.
 
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JackRT

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Bible scholars have determined that the earliest of the three versions of the ten commandments is Exodus 34:1-28 and dates to about 950 BC. The other two versions are quite different but are similar to each other but they were written several centuries later. One has to wonder why the earliest is so different from the other two and why it is almost completely ignored.
 
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JackRT

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I should add that the earliest version seems very primitive compared to the other two. For example, the final commandment in this earliest version reads “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” This suggests that it may have been based on an earlier religious code.
 
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Tone

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Sin is not imputed where there is no law...and yet the whole world was judged for sin before we have virtually any mention of law. How does that work? Perhaps there was a more direct knowledge at work or accessible before the Flood? Though even by Lamech's time morals were already getting all twisted up. Is there a difference in how God deals with us corporately vs individually?

I think 'the law' in some form was written on Cain's heart (example of his time), and God's words to him about sin crouching at his door in his anger that was to lead to sin could be said to underscore this point.


Yeah, I mean, the children of Israel were subject to pagan captivity for a long time...whatever was known at the beginning was corrupted by the seed of the serpent.
 
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Bruce Leiter

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Lets try to have a respectable discussion.

So we know that God gave the 10 commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. My question is, did the 10 commandments exist before then. Like when did taking God's name in vain start being a sin, or when did lying and stealing start being a sin?

They became sins when Adam and Eve fell for Satan's lie and tried to make themselves equal with God. Sin is self-centeredness, and that began with the fall. However, God spoke the ten commandments as part of the national form of the covenant given to Abraham in Genesis 15-17 and provided for Israel's good.
 
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JacksBratt

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Ok so lets break it down. When did lying or stealing or coveting first became sinful? Was it as the moment God gave the commandments to Moses?
Right and Wrong were well known from the time of the fall. These "commandments" were written in stone by God's own finger to make it clear and give solid standards for which the priests would give sacrifices.

Before that wrong was still wrong.
 
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Guojing

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Ok so lets break it down. When did lying or stealing or coveting first became sinful? Was it as the moment God gave the commandments to Moses?

Romans 5:12-19 explains it well. Lying and stealing was always wrong. But until the law was given, those deeds were not imputed to one as sin.

If you drive too fast, you might get into an accident but in a country with no speed limit, they cannot punish you for speeding.
 
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Tone

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Romans 5:12-19 explains it well. Lying and stealing was always wrong. But until the law was given, those deeds were not imputed to one as sin.

If you drive too fast, you might get into an accident but in a country with no speed limit, they cannot punish you for speeding.


So, because these things are not conducive to the healthy and full life the Creator designed for us...they are inherently sin.
 
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Guojing

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So, because these things are not conducive to the healthy and full life the Creator designed for us...they are inherently sin.

Yes, but it makes a lot of difference whether they were imputed as sin or not.

For example Abraham lied twice when he did not reveal that Sarah was his wife to the pharaoh. Yet God was never upset with Abraham and only appeared in the dream of the pharaoh.
 
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Chris35

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The law didnt exist before the 10 commandments, however sin still existed.

13To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam.




Abraham was justified by faith in God, not by any works he did good or bad.

What then shall we say that Abraham our father[a] has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted [c]as grace but as debt.



The promise is we are made heirs not through the law but through the rigtheousness of faith.

3 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.


We are dead to the law, no longer under the law.

So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.



Spirit is better then the law.
One could theoritically fulfill the 10 commandments, and still have a wrong heart. You dont have to give to the needy, in order to fulfill the 10 commandments.


In the kingdom of God there would no law, because there is no need for one. Living by the spirit means to love everyone. If everyone looked after eachother in every way, well what a great world. A world that the law cant bring, but a world that comes from the spirit.
 
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DamianWarS

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Lets try to have a respectable discussion.

So we know that God gave the 10 commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. My question is, did the 10 commandments exist before then. Like when did taking God's name in vain start being a sin, or when did lying and stealing start being a sin?
everything that is against God is a sin. there are no timestamps. So although Adam did not receive a commandment to not kill or curse God these are still implicit.
 
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Yarddog

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So, before the law...was the law?
A different law. Faith. Abraham had no Mosaic Law, he had faith. God said go and he went without looking back. God told Lot to go and he went, without looking back on what he was called out of. His wife looked back and turned in too salt. The Hebrew were called out of Egypt but looked back and could not enter God's rest.

We have God's Holy Spirit to guide us and we need no written law. We go where the Spirit takes us without looking back.
 
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