language of the 10 commandments?

[kittynh]

So I was reading a book about modern art, and one of the points was that alphabets and written language was the first modern art.

One question brought up in the book was what language were the 10 commandments written in?

Good point I thought. Moses was an Egyptian or at least raised as one.

what's the guess?

[Ethnikos]

This is a good question. I have read that the written form of Hebrew would have come into use at around the Time of Moses.
Remember, he was living in Arabia for forty years before the Exodus.
I would have to guess the Hebrews had retained a distinct ethnicity, and they spoke a Canaanite language.
So, I would conclude the ten commandments would have been written in some sort of proto-Hebrew script.

[RandFan]

Good point I thought. Moses was an Egyptian or at least raised as one. Besides the bible, I'm not certain there is any evidence for this. I could be wrong.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Well. I checked my Bible and see he wrote in English.

BTW which 10 Commandments are you asking about? The first set that Moses dropped or the completely different set that God dictated the second time after forgetting what he wrote the first time, even though someone made a copy because we know what they were.

[HENTAI DOUKYUSEI JP]

I thought the originals were copied from the ones that GOD dictated after moses dropped them for not being originals?

[jimtron]

I thought they were smashed because people were worshipping a golden calf or something?

[Alex Libman]

Oral tradition. Then classical Hebrew. With no vowels, spaces, or punctuations. Then millenia of mistranslation. It doesn't actually say you shouldn't lie, cheat, steal, or kill other people. It says not to do that to your neighbors (i.e. fellow Israelites).

And they're just the first page of 613 actual commandments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot). So if you forgot to salt your sacrifices (#348) - oh man, you're screwed... And remember #613 - you have to let a woman go after you rape her.

[Mobyseven]

Short answer would be that we just don't know. If there really were tablets of stone, then we can hardly know what language they we written in - and besides, even if it was mentioned it would probably just say 'Hebrew' anyway. Whether or not the hebrew it was written in bore any resemblance to the Hebrew of the scriptures we couldn't know.

The first language we know they were recorded in though is Hebrew.

[CurtC]

BTW which 10 Commandments are you asking about? The first set that Moses dropped or the completely different set that God dictated the second time after forgetting what he wrote the first time, even though someone made a copy because we know what they were.

We don't know what they were the first time, do we? Other than when the Bible says that the second time was the same as the first:

"Exodus 34:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest."

Of course, he then goes on to put on those tablets a completely different set of commandments than the ones we usually see called that.

[gumboot]

I like that the 10 Commandments prove that there's more than one God. Man Christians hate that. Could be a mistranslation though.