The front page story in the
Weekly World News this week featured the headline "Three New Commandments Found!", followed with "And you'll be
shocked to know what they are!" I hate to admit it, but I was
intrigued. So I picked up a
copy.
I'll present some information on the next three commandments, but I'd like to give the explanation behind the third tablet first.
The lost commandments were etched onto a single stone, which Dr. al-Harfez speculates was buried by Moses. “It may be the tablets were too heavy for him to carry, or perhaps he disagreed with some of the rules listed on the third stone."
That's right, folks: a man who personally spoke to God would then bury a stone which God explicitly ordered him to deliver to the Israelites under threat of smiting. (Note: The article actually says "hastily buried".) That said, here are the next three commandments:
XI. Thou shalt not partake of the forbidden herbs.
Ooh! God makes a dramatic statement about drugs. Of course, He also uses the term forbidden herb, which wasn't really in use until well after 1000 B.C. Pretty convenient. The WWN refers to drug use as "one of mankind's oldest issues". Fascinating. I can just picture all those Apostles smoking pot without knowing that it was against the will of God.
XII. Thou shalt not covet thy own brother.
Hey! Down with homosexuality! Well, maybe not strictly speaking... after all, you'd have a tough time finding a gay guy sleeping with his brother. But it's not portrayed to mean incest in the article, anyway. In order to really increase sales in the Bible Belt, they quote a 'theologian':
“It’s a shame that these three holy commandments were lost all those years ago. We might have been spared the AIDS epidemic ... if these sacred laws were included with the original 10.”
XIII. Thou shalt not take cloth and water to thy person on the seventh day.
Wow! It's not reffered to as "the Sabbath day", the traditional way that Sunday is referred to in the Bible (in places such as, oh, I don't know, the rest of the commandments). I don't know why the Weekly World News would choose to end the article on a weak note like this... unless, of course, it's true.
However, I firmly believe that God would stick to logical decrees. Also, he wouldn't perplex us by making the number of commandments odd.