Ten Commandments
65
Knowing the structural elements is a
prerequisite for discoveries of structures, such
as the ring- structure of benzole by
Kekule in 1865 or the double-helix
structure of DNA by Crick
and Watson in 1953.3) Since the text of
the Ten Commandments is probably
the most widely known ancient stone
inscription, which has been completely
preserved not only once
(Exodus 20, 2–14), but twice
(Deuteronomy 5, 6–18), it was only a
question of time until somebody would
come up with a good idea for
discovering their three-dimensional structure.4)
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irretrievably lost, so that they
can never be completely recon- structed,
although attempts at
reconstruction have been made by
classical scholars since
the time of the
Renaissance, cf. Rudolf Düll,
Das Zwölftafelgesetz,
3. Aufl. 1959
München, pp. 9–11; and TORAH
OF THE ALPHABET (N. 1) pp. 16
and 17.
3) In both cases the component parts
had already been discovered prior to
knowing their structural arrangement. Having all
the ingredients of a
cake simply does not mean that you know
how to bake it:
Discovering structures, whether in
the natural or in the
cultural sciences such as
jurisprudence, is a creative accomplishment
all of its own.
4) On account of the Dead
Sea Scrolls I had great confidence
in the reliability of
the biblical text of
the Ten Commandments. The
same meticulous care taken
by Jewish tradition in
copying the text of the
Bible for the last
two thousand years must also
have prevailed ever since
Joshua first copied the law of
Moses (Joshua 8, 30–35).
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