Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 November 18

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November 18

Islamic scholars giving lectures in French

Is there any videos where a Muslim scholar or a bunch Muslim scholars that give lectures in French? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.23.232 (talk) 02:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

It might be hard to find videos in which the scholars' religion is mentioned, unless of course they're lecturing based on their own religious beliefs. Are you looking specifically for lectures on Islamic topics, or are you looking for just any old topic, as long as it's a Muslim speaking in French? Nyttend (talk) 02:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The OP should simply search for islamique or musulman at youtube. Toronto doesn't block such searches, does it? μηδείς (talk) 03:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The term Muslim scholar gives better results than either of those. érudite musalman site:youtube.com. Taknaran (talk) 16:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Most of those are in Arabic. The first one in French is this, where a "scholar" celebrates a woman's death and blames all terrorism and immorality on her. He additionally blames the mothers (note: not the fathers) who taught their children this corruption. And some people still wonder why lots of French people hate Muslims. --Bowlhover (talk) 06:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

From the description, that's actually an extreme partisan Shi`ite speech, whose main target would be Sunnis, or traditional Sunni historiography (it goes together with Dua Sanamain Quraish)... AnonMoos (talk) 08:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

James Le Jeune date of death etc.

I just move a draft article by new editor Enuejel to James Le Jeune. Please help find and source James Le Jeune's exact date of death in 1983. Also, can you please find a reference for the information in the article: "great uncle is the English Victorian artist/painter Henry Le Jeune." Thanks. -- Jreferee (talk) 10:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I gave Google a through going over without finding anything to help. Sorry. Alansplodge (talk) 08:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Neolithic revolution vs Industrial Revolution...Which demographic explosions for a given territory?

Dear Oracle, Hello,

Knowing that the human carrying capacity of a given territory (the human number that can live on this territory), is different depending on the type of society (hunter-gatherers / agricultural civilization / industrial civilization), what is precisely the relative importance between the Neolithic revolution(hunter-gatherers -> agricultural civilization ) and the industrial revolution(agricultural civilization -> industrial civilization), in terms of demographic multiplication?

About the Neolithic Revolution, J.C. bar and G. Bigot write, in their very interesting book "Toute l'histoire du monde"(in french): << the consequences of this technical change were formidable. Why? Because agriculture allows a same territory to feed one hundred times more men than hunting. For example, the territory of the current France, which can live 300 000 hunters to the maximum, can feed 30 million peasants! Suddenly, humanity, which was, in the good years, few million people on Earth at it's best, was, after the agricultural revolution, hundreds of millions of people - data that will not change until the industrial revolution of the XIX century, eight thousand years later! >> ( http://othmanmekouar.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Toute-lhistoire-du-monde-Jean-Claude-Barreau-Guillaume-Bigot.pdf )

A multiplication by 100 of the population during the transition of society Hunter-gatherers to agricultural civilization? ..to compare with an increase only by 7 of the earth population during the Industrial Revolution... (And, as it is based on cheap rarefying fossil energy and polluting the planet, we are actually above the carrying capacity of the planet...)

But different passages of wikipedia articles tend to give different multiplication of the human carrying capacity in the transition from hunter-gatherers to agricultural civilization society: times 10, times 30, or times 100...

Thanks in advance for your thought on this question!

Tangoman.fr (talk) 14:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think industrialization per se is unsustainable, just certain forms of it. Similarly, certain forms of agriculture are unsustainable, such as the slash-and-burn method. StuRat (talk) 20:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The OP's essay seems more an invitation to discussion than a request for a reference--especially since he himself quotes references and refers to our articles. μηδείς (talk) 20:31, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Do tell. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

μηδείς , i don't understand, you mean that this reference desk is only for asking for references?? I am more familiar with the french wiki where the corresponding page of this 'Reference desk' is called "Oracle", and its purpose is to ask any question of encyclopedic matter... ( https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Oracle ) Tangoman.fr (talk) 17:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

StuRat, i wouldn't understand anyone saying that "industrialization is sustainable" while the 75% of the energy this industrialization is using are fossil energies that are getting rare soon and that is starting to drive the climate mad. Anyway, thank for your answers, i got plenty of responses in .fr ( https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Oracle#R.C3.A9volution_n.C3.A9olithique_vs_R.C3.A9volution_industrielle_.E2.80.A6Quelle_explosions_d.C3.A9mographiques_pour_un_territoire_donn.C3.A9_.3F ) ;-) Tangoman.fr (talk) 17:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

In England, where it all started, the Industrial Revolution was accompanied by the Agrarian Revolution. The Agrarian Revolution saw common grazing land being turned over to improved arable production which needed fewer labourers and put small-scale subsistence farmers out of business. These migrated to the towns to become the industrial workforce. The industrial workforce could be sustained because of improved agricultural production. Alansplodge (talk) 21:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Private property a new phenomenon

I was just reading the article on socialism and I see in one part of it that economist Joseph Schumpeter that instutitions like "the state" (not quite sure what that means), property and taxation are exclusive to capitalist societies or only make sense in them and and in another part that says "Modern socialism originated from an 18th-century intellectual and working class political movement that criticised the effects of industrialisation and private property on society.". Am I missing something here? I thought taxes, government, and property have existed for thousands of years. It seems like these views can't see back farther than the Industrial Revolution. — Melab±1 ☎ 16:17, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Think feudal system and caste system, and you'll see it goes back a lot farther. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Taxes are known go back to the farming societies of the Middle East. Egyptian farmers had to pay a percentage of their crops to the state. The same in the fertile crescent. Egyptians seem to have been treated as hereditary tenant farmers, so our notion of real estate law would obviously vary from theirs. The Hebrews had plenty of law about property, there are the famous laws on gored oxen. Roman law was very complex, with private property law being very important and much more similar to ours than earlier societies. μηδείς (talk) 18:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

According to Exodus 21:28–32, there were laws about an ox that gored a man or a woman, but there is no mention of an ox being the recipient of the act of goring. Perhaps this should be included in the article "List of common misconceptions".

—Wavelength (talk) 19:51, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

There's much more than the one chapter of Exodus on this and other property laws. See Damages_(Jewish_law)#The_Four_.22Father_Categories.22_of_Damage. μηδείς (talk) 20:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I imagine there was always some personal property, like clothes and personal weapons and small tools. However, land and buildings might have tended to have more of a public ownership than they have now. The difference is that clothes, for example, are made for, and often by, one person, and only one person can wear them at a time, while it would take multiple people working together to farm the land and construct and maintain buildings. StuRat (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

A broad anthropological view will help here. Chimps live in groups of about 30, and defend a home territory from other chimp tribes, occasionally going to war with their neighbors which involves some sort of trespass. Chimps also hunt, and to the victor go the spoils, then shared out by rank. In other words, property in land and rare commodities are phenomena that predate humanity, and made our evolution possible. Primitive hunter-gatherer tribes still live on this basis of a clan averaging 30 members making exclusive claim to a certain territory and hunting rights on it, going to war to defend themselves and just for the masculine fun of aggression. Chimps and humans in such societies have a mortality rate of about 30-35% by violence. See Before the Dawn for statistics. Such clans have common ownership of a territory and its hunting rights. Successful hunters get the choice cuts of meat. Prestige items can be held as personal property. In New Guinea, this lifestyle augmented by the communal planting of yams, and the individual ownership of pigs, used in barter, is common.

When agricultural societies with limited resources become large enough, state societies emerge. Who has the right to farm what land becomes subject to a bureaucracy. In societies with tens of thousands of people, a lifestyle that required one to know everyone in his tribe face-to-face becomes impossible. People live in households of families and extended families, with the ownership of household goods and perhaps communal ownership of land. The origin of writing seems to have arisen in part as a way to keep track of contracts and taxes. Note that this was the business of priests in the beginning. The Romans still registered their wills with the Vestal Virgins, not a notary, at the end of the Republic.

You get the idea at this point. Even birds have nests. Property is a phenomenon that predates Marx, and predates our common ancestor with the Chimp. μηδείς (talk) 20:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Property is a set of social relations that only emerges in some particular societies, much like industrial bureaucracies only arise in particular societies. Schumpeter clearly believed in the social construction of institutions (Joseph_Schumpeter#Schumpeter_and_capitalism.27s_demise). Schumpeter was influenced by historicism (Historical_school_of_economics) and so for Schumpeter institutions like "the state," "property," and "tax" were almost certainly historically specific and historically contingent forms. Large western bureaucracies (which didn't previously exist) didn't rely on continuous consumption taxes on mass products levied through a consumer market before the 18th and 19th centuries; as a crude example. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Also for a really lovely example of the emergence of private property, which in our society requires production for exchange (often anticipatory), scholarly publishing has radically shifted in the past 200 (20) years. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. You should probably have started that off with "Schumpeter holds that property is a set of social relations that only emerges in some particular societies." This seems to be a no true Scotsman theory of property.

I'd like to see the dog's notion of property as a formal construct, when Schumpeter tried to take its bone.

μηδείς (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to see a dog talk and enact law. You seem to be playing eisegesis with the animal world. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

You might as well insist there's no such thing as justice, self-defense, or even a person, until these are defined legally. If you want to play marxist word games, that's fine; just attribute your narrow constructs to the minority who hold such notions. But republics are established to protect rights that inhere in the individual, not fantasies that happen to be the whim of some group that calls itself a legislature. μηδείς (talk) 22:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course there's justice, self-defence and the person. The former two are liberal constructs of the enlightenment period, and the latter something more modern but based out of a long tradition of ideas. The reality of these things extends as far as tolerated by society. "Self-defence" doesn't exist in the United Kingdom (try it, be a martyr to your own word game) Fifelfoo (talk) 23:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Self-defence in English law. Check and mate. It even uses the British spelling. — Melab±1 ☎ 00:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) On a factual matter, self-defence is part of English law (there isn't such a thing as "UK Law", Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own legal systems) - this is the official guidance on the issue. The main points of difference between England and the USA are that the force used in self-defence must be "reasonable and proportionate" to the threat (specifically, lethal force may not be used to defend one's property - see Tony Martin), and self-defence is not a "lawful excuse" for carrying a weapon (of any sort) in public. Tevildo (talk) 00:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Reasonability and proportionality are socio-cultural limits. Medeis is strongly arguing for a liberal conception of inherent and transcendent rights embodied in a person. Medeis' "self-defence" can't brook these limits—such limits would be culturally or socially impose and thus produce "self-defence" as a social or cultural norm changing throughout history, not a universal. (And, honestly, we should thank him for clearly and often representing a major view point on the humanities ref desk.) Fifelfoo (talk) 00:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, I don't disagree with your basic point, just with your specific assertion. (I won't comment on Medeis' gender, sie can do that hirself if sie feels it's important). Tevildo (talk) 00:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Him or her is fine. It's not a "statement", just a preference not to identify myself in certain ways. As for self-defense, I hold that governments are properly instituted to defend individual rights in as objective a manner as possible. (The alternates being tyranny, mob rule, or civil war.) We have found empirically that court systems like those established by common law work best at this. Personally, I would have no qualms defending myself or my own with vigilante justice if I thought it morally necessary. I just wouldn't then complain (although I might plead justifiable homicide) if I were arrested for it. Justice is like health. Health is no more a creation of doctors, but rather a reason for their existence, than justice is a creation of jurists, but a reason for their existence. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I've asked a question aimed at elucidating the perspective you put below in a new section. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:03, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I have answered you in the new thread below in two words. I'll answer you here that the concepts of health and ill heath are prior to the concept of healthcare professional in the same way that a concept of guilt or innocence is prior to the concept of a justice system. The notion of property predates various forms of property law. μηδείς (talk) 03:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll need to call you out on that bit about republics. The Romans didn't have liberalism. — Melab±1 ☎ 00:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure if you are addressing me, but if Paul could appeal to Rome based on his citizenship, that was the rule of law protecting his individual rights. Rome at its best was more liberal in the classic liberalism sense than any state before its time. μηδείς (talk) 03:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but Laozi held anti-authoritarian political positions, but it would be a mistake to call him a liberal. — Melab±1 ☎ 17:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The typical animal is more about "territory" than about "property" as such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Territory is property, so is a dog's bone. μηδείς (talk) 03:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Territory is more about what we call "personal space". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Private property, as referred to by leftists, is modern in terms of the age of humanity. I covered the state in another post on this page, which has been archived here. Unfortunately, I am tired and have work to do, so I can't explain private property in detail.

Keep on questioning. →Σσς. (Sigma) 01:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• One thing to note is that the modern concept of the nation-state is a relatively recent phenomenon. Without answering the economic question; the political and historic bit there on the relatively modern invention of "The State" is relatively new. Really, the idea of the nation-state, of a coincidence of "people-culture-government-land" as a cohesive single entity (for example "The French are a people who speak French and live in France which is defined by strict and inerrant borders that contain all the French people and French land") IS a modern concept. The nation-state was long in developing, but really has only existed in modern (i.e. post-Medieval; after about 1500) times, and in many places, most modern nation-states did not develop until the 1800s (Germany (1871) and Italy (1870) for example) or later (the Balkan or former Soviet states did not become established until the end of the 1900s). What this has to do with "capitalism vs. socialism" will probably be explained shortly by Fifelfoo in obfuscatory and impossible to understand communism-babble, but from a historic point of view, the idea of the "State" is modern. --Jayron32 03:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

"The state" as an idea or as an existing phenomenon? Because I see practically no difference between the Roman Republic and modern polities in essentials. — Melab±1 ☎ 17:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The nation-state is a concept distinct from the state. According to this, you are correct in that there is practically no difference between the Roman Republic and modern polities in essentials. They both protect the property of an upper class; they both enforce hierarchy. →Σσς. (Sigma) 04:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Hold on a second. What you're saying is that states exist to enforce hierarchy, but the states themselves are the hierarchies. It would correctly be the forces that reside in the polity that do the enforcing. I never could understand the line of thinking (whether Marxist or anarcho-capitalist) that sees states themselves as somehow significant. — Melab±1 ☎ 05:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The state is the conceptual structure and not the people who hold the roles within it. That's the distinction. For example, you can play any number of games with, say, the pieces in a chess set. What makes it chess is the rules by which the game is played, which tells you what the pieces do, how they move, how to win, etc. The rules are distinct from the pieces. Likewise, the state is the "rules" by which the heirarchy is built. The state exists as a conceptual thing aside from the people who hold the roles within it. If it isn't what you have is essentially a totalitarian dictatorship built solely on cult-of-personality of the person or persons who rule it and nothing more. If you really want to understand the difference between "the state" and "the people who hold jobs within the state", the difference is succinctly explained in John Adams explanation of a desire to build "an empire of laws, and not of men"[1]. What he was saying was that the institutions of the state persist outside of the men who hold them; and that THAT sort of state is the way to build a lasting society. Of course, the people who hold said roles shape them to their skills and personalities, but that doesn't mean the state is a non-entity or insignificant. The kind of state which exists is vitally important to the kind of society which is living under it. --Jayron32 00:24, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Not quite. The state, in Marxist terminology, is a mechanism for class rule. It is the primary instrument of political power in class society, consisting of organs of administration, and of force. A state of one kind or another will exist as long as social classes exist.

The state is created, in a way, by the upper class as a tool to legitimise everything that allows the upper class to stay on top of society. If you have a solid understanding of the basics of Marxism, you can see how Lenin puts it in chapter 1 of The State and Revolution.

For example, suppose that I walk into a community garden and declare "This is my garden now, and you can only work on it if you pay me half of whatever grows". If you accused me of stealing the land, your meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required. And because I stole it, what prevents the citizens who work in the garden from taking back what is rightfully theirs? What prevents them from defending their garden from me, the invader? The answer is simple. Violence. And when this violence is legitimised, we have the state.

The very fact that I need the state in order to keep control of the garden makes anarcho-capitalism impossible.

I hope this was a bit less obfuscatory and more possible to understand than what you usually see, @Jayron32: :) →Σσς. (Sigma) 02:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting, because I haven't tried to steal any vegetables from a community garden, nor have I ever tried to hurt anyone to enforce my desire to do so... --Jayron32 03:00, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

That's very interesting and all, but have you tried to appropriate the garden for yourself? →Σσς. (Sigma) 03:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Nope. --Jayron32 03:16, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The perfect analogy to the state being separate from the people is the erection being separate from the penis. One gets fucked by erections, no particular penis being necessary. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Lovely. — Melab±1 ☎ 23:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Seems synonymous with government to me. Then maybe defining a state as the governed community is better? A failed state would then be one where the government has collapsed. — Melab±1 ☎ 23:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Not quite. Government does not require a state. The state has authority over the people, and yet it is a tool used by the upper class in order to enforce property. Its only interest is to serve and protect the upper class. Therefore, in an abstract sense, the state is the people, but in a concrete sense, it is the upper class. The state is one class of society, it is separate (some prefer to use the word 'external', in case you see that in reading) from the people.

A system of government that is not separate from the people would have rules without rulers. Such a system would be anarchism of some kind. As I said here, it would be where every decision, from social to economic policy, is collectively decided by those who will be affected, not a higher power.

But is there a difference between anarchism and Marxism if the end goal is the same? Yes. Anarchists view any kind of state as inherently undesirable, and want to abolish it immediately. Marxists, on the other hand, acknowledge that the state serves an upper class, not necessarily the capitalists. The state can be repurposed in the interests of the workers, allowing us to build a state that protects the property of workers. Eventually, through a process I won't describe here, social classes are abolished, and because the state can only exist in the presence of social classes, it "withers away". The end result is the same, but the means and reasoning used to reach it are different.

I actually don't understand the state as well as I should, so this might be a confusing explanation. If it is, please, tell me, so we can all learn about this. →Σσς. (Sigma) 03:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to be a theologically liberal Fundamentalist Christian?

Is it possible to be a theologically liberal Fundamentalist Christian? Maybe a person may grow up in a Fundamentalist Church, but unlike his or her conservative parents, he or she adopts a very liberal theology but still retains the low-church style of worship. 140.254.229.160 (talk) 22:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The obvious answer is yes, all sorts of things are possible. But you need to define theologically liberal if you want a helpful, rather than an obvious answer. Defining what you mean by fundamentalist wouldn't hurt either. I am not sure low-church is a synonym. μηδείς (talk) 22:31, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm picturing someone who, for example, both believes and disbelieves the virgin birth. Or maybe picture a Unitarian going to a Southern Baptist church regularly just because he likes it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

As pointed out above, it depends how you define your terms. However, if by "Fundamentalist Christian" you mean what is described in our article Christian fundamentalism, and if by "theologically liberal" you mean Progressive Christianity (or maybe even Liberal Christianity), I would have to say no. Christian fundamentalism, by definition, has its roots in The Fundamentals and holds to conservative Protestant orthodoxy. It would be impossible to hold both views without a large helping of cognitive dissonance. On the other hand, if you are referring broadly to Evangelical Christians, then yes, one could believe in a liberal theology and still be Evangelical (there are churches in my city which consider themselves "Evangelical" that do not stress biblical inerrancy and are not against gay marriage for example).--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 02:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

It should also be noted that there's a historical tension between "evangelical" and "fundamentalist" ideologies, though non-Protestants tend to miss the difference; if only because both theologies tend to be very "strongly" religious, in the sense that both "evangelicals" and "fundamentalists" see themselves as putting their faith in a prominent place in their lives. This page explains some of the differences pretty well. Fundamentalism tends to be more inward-looking; most fundamentalists see the world as evil and corrupting and tend to withdraw from it. Fundamentalists are against modern music; contemporary Christian music and Christian rap for example would be abhorrant to Fundamentalist Christians, who often see popular music as corrupting. Evangelical Christians, on the other hand, are primarily outward looking, with a focus on missions and conversion of others to Christianity, using any tool and means at their disposal. CCM and Christian Rap are, at their core, Evangelical in nature. That's a bit of an oversimplification, and as with anything painted in such broad strokes, would be inaccurate on a person-by-person nature, but in general, it captures the differences between Evangelicals (outward, missionary) and Fundamentalists (inward, withdrawn, condeming) pretty well. Other differences in theology are pretty stark; most fundamentalists believe in Biblical literalism whereas only some Evangelicals may believe so. Evangelicals are a more diverse group, and tend more towards Biblical inerrancy rather than literalism. From the outside, it may look like the two are nearly identical; but consider this difference: A biblical literalist would say that every story in the bible, word for word, happened exactly as described. Biblical inerrancy would just mean that all parts of the Bible are true, but are more liberal in their understanding of "truth", and accept metaphorical and allegorical truths as a reasonable interpretation of the bible. Which is to say, where a "biblical literalist" (Fundamentalist) would read every story as having happened exactly as described, others (non-literalist Evangelicals) may see "truth in the lessons of the story" in the allegorical, rather than literal, sense. Again, these are broad strokes, and you're likely to find a diversity of beliefs under any of these camps, but this captures the general differences. Looking for other good articles, this one here does a good job of capturing the distinctions, including the inward-looking nature of Christian Fundamentalism and the outward-looking nature of Christian Evangelicalism. And another one here also has a good analysis of the difference. --Jayron32 02:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Shorter answer: Yes. The issue is not about what the individual person believes, but what beliefs that person feels are required of others. Thus the Pope certainly believes in the Immaculate Conception, but that does not mean that the Pope believes that all who do not believe in that dogma are doomed -- heck what if a new dogma is voted on after a person is dead (that one was voted on in 1870), there is no way for anyone to know if people believe in a future dogma. In the same way, it is possible for a person to believe in some sort of creation fact or allegory (yes -- fundamentalists certainly know that parables and allegories are found in the Bible, and do not require a belief that an actual "Good Samaritan" was known to Jesus, and the claim that this is only true of non-fundamentalists is flawed) while some others who are also "fundamentalist" may personally believe that the Great Flood was an historically verifiable event. And fundamentalists may absolutely be evangelical - that distinction is flawed - the terms are not contradictory to each other. Collect (talk) 12:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Where are the real ten commandments?

I generally disregard Disinfo as a reliable source. But the book of them "50 things you are not supposed to know" left me thinking where they are wrong, if at all. They claim that "the ten commandments we always see aren't the ten commandments." According to the source, for the bible [Exodus 20:2-17] are not THE commandments, although these are regarded as the ten commandments. The real ten commandments, according to them, are significantly different, and are to be found in [Exodus 34], on. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:01, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• The relevant article appears to be Ritual Decalogue.--90.165.122.84 (talk) 23:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• When conservative groups argue for placement of the Ten Commandments in public places, they are clearly not referring to this "alternate" version. Somehow, "Thou shalt not kill" seems a bit more relevant to society in general than does "Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
  • On a fairly literal reading of the text, the commandments in Exodus 34 are the ones written on the second set of stone tablets that Moses received on Mt Sinai after the episode with the Golden Calf (and which are described in the text as "the ten commandments", aseret ha-dvarîm), while the traditional Decalogue of Exodus 21 consists of the commandments that God spoke to Moses on the Israelites' first arrival at Sinai. Tevildo (talk) 00:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

It must be said that many people find the word "real" inappropriate when discussing religious matters. HiLo48 (talk) 00:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

It must be said that you have to take an 'in-universe' interpretation, when discussing any matter. For example, if asked whether in Back to the future they traveled first to the past or to the future, your answer cannot be 'it's not possible to time travel.' 'Real' here it therefore from a believer's perspective. It doesn't mean what god really told us. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The Hebrew Bible uses the term translated as 'the ten commandments' three times: in Exodus 34:28, Deuteronomy 4:13 and Deuteronomy 10:4. In both instances in Deuteronomy, these 'ten commandments' are clearly identified as the words spoken by God from the mountain (thus the traditional ten commandments from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). Only the phrase in Exodus 34:28 can possibly be connected to the ritual decalogue, but if you read carefully, you'll notice that the words on the two tablets were to be written by God himself (Exodus 34:1), while the 'ritual decalogue' was written down by Moses. Lindert (talk) 00:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

If you examine the passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy, you'll find it's possible to draw the dividing lines between commandments in different places. IIRC, our article on Ten Commandments points out these canonical differences. Which one is "real" will be down to POV. --Dweller (talk) 01:03, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The question was not about that, Dweller. It was about the two sets in Exodus and it was answered above. OsmanRF34 (talk) 01:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)