The Nine Commandments

The Nine Commandments:
A Study Based on
The Nine Commandments by David Noel Freedman

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
Adult Sunday School Class, November 10 - December 22, 2002

This class will discuss David Noel Freedman. The Nine Commandments: Uncovering the Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible. New York, NY: Doubleday, 2000. The schedule that we will follow is shown in the table below. Note that for class 6 on December 15 will will also look briefly at Johnathan Kirsch. King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2001.

The thesis of Freedman's book is that beginning with the declaration of the Decalogue and the sealing of the covenant, the story of Israel bears out the solemn warnings provided by Moses in his farewell speech in Deuteronomy: persistent violation of the covenant would result in the destruction of the nation. As it happens, their violation of each commandment - one by one - until they run out of both books and commandments, they seal their doom. By then they are back in Babylon where they started, having lost everything that had been given to them by a kind, gracious, merciful God, who nevertheless insists on behavior worthy of the chosen people (modified from David Noel Freedman, p. xiii).

The class notes are Adobe 5.0 *.pdf files. You can download a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader™ if you need to.

The Class Schedule
(click on class number to view the notes):

Class Date	Period	Topic	Pages of Book
November 10, 2002	Class 1	Introduction and Commandments 1 and 2	1-20
November 17, 2002	Class 2	Commandments 1-3 and scences from the movie, The Ten Commandments	23-57
November 24, 2002	Class 3	Commandments 4 and 5	59-83
December 1, 2002		NO CLASS
December 8, 2002	Class 4	Commandments 6 and 7	85-118
December 15, 2002	Class 5	Commandment 8 and a discussion of the psychology of King David	119-152
November 3, 2002	Class 6	Commandment 9 and the Non-Commandment	153-180

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