The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew: עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, romanized: ʿĂsereṯ haDəḇārīm, lit. 'The Ten Words'), or the Decalogue (from Latindecalogus, from Ancient Greekδεκάλογος, dekálogos, lit.'ten words'), are religious and ethical directives, structured as a covenant document, that, according to the Hebrew Bible, are given by YHWH to Moses. The text of the Ten Commandments was dynamic in ancient Israel and appears in three markedly distinct versions in the Bible:[1] at Exodus20:2–17, Deuteronomy5:6–21, and the "Ritual Decalogue" of Exodus 34:11–26.
Scholars disagree about when the Ten Commandments were written and by whom, with some modern scholars drawing comparisons between the Decalogue and Hittite and Mesopotamian laws and treaties.[3]
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^Rom-Shiloni, Dalit (2019). "The Decalogue". In Barmash, Pamela (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law. Oxford University Press. pp. 135–155. ISBN978-0-19-939266-7. “Three main dating schemes have been proposed: (1) it was suggested that the
Decalogue was the earliest legal code given at Sinai, with Moses as author, and the Amphictyony confederation as its setting (Albright 1939, 1949, Buber 1998, and others); (2)
the Decalogue was considered a product of the pre-exilic monarchic period, well embedded in the deuteronomistic writings, but presumed to reflect earlier periods of evolution (and possibly to be of northern origin; Carmichael 1985, Reventlow 1962, and Weinfeld 1990, 1991, 2001, among others); (3) the Decalogue has been understood as a postexilic product shaped primarily by deuteronomistic and priestly currents in the eighth century BCE and forward, and secondarily by prophetic and or wisdom influences. Among the features that seem to point to the lateness of the collection are its gradual literary evolution and its place within the Sinai traditions (Aaron 2006, Blum 2011, Hölscher 1988, and others). Harrelson (1962, who accepted this third dating suggestion) was cautious enough to admit that there were no good arguments to substantiate firmly any of these general frameworks”