A Doubter's Guide to the Ten Commandments

A decent attempt to dig deeper into the philosophical as well as theological basis for why our societies behave the way we do. Our acceptance of certain norms and standards, according to the author, are based primarily in the words given to Moses. The author's contention that no other rules or laws have had the same impact on history would seem to be on solid footing; however, the approach to examine each of the ten commandments in its own chapter seems like perhaps a bit of overkill. Not a bad read, and digs deeper than a lot of popular Christian books.

This book is rather more interesting than its title suggests.
The ten commandments are considered from both the viewpoint of Deuteronomy and Exodus versions and surprisingly there are minor differences and these reveal more than the lay reader would imagine. He takes each of the commandments separately and then when we reach the tenth Dickson shows how the tenth relates to the first and we start the entire cycle again.
It was especially interesting to see that although in Exodus the Commandments are given as part of the narrative in Deuteronomy they are carefully unpacked and explained in the following chapters so the first commandment is discussed in Chapters 6-11, the second in Chapter 12, and so on.
We see the ten commandments through the lens of the whole bible beginning in Genesis where Adam and Eve are forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and this law was given because everything else in the garden was good and available to them so it is that the ten commandments are a list of do not's because everything else is permissible to mankind.
These laws are not done away with in the New Testament but made even more challenging. So Jesus says not that adultery is wrong but that it is wrong to direct sexual desire towards someone other than our spouse or you shall not steal updates to you shall not withhold from anyone what is their due, especially those in need.
As no-one can attain the uprightness of either the ten commandments or the adaptations that were brought in with Jesus it is good for us that Jesus took our guilt upon himself to make us right with God. As there was no other good enough.
This is a very challenging look at the ten commandments on which so much of Western life is based.