TRADITION VS SCHOLARSHIP
The answer
Rules about worship. Exodus 34:11-26 lists three festivals, firstborn animals, no treaties with the peoples of the land, "You shall not make cast idols" (Exodus 34:17), and "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" (Exodus 34:26). Then Exodus 34:28 says Moses "wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." Murder, adultery and theft are not in the list.
Why it’s interesting
The New Oxford Annotated Bible, a study Bible, says the "ten commandments" are these worship rules, and that finding ten of them is difficult. Michael Coogan, a scholar, calls the list the Ritual Decalogue, a Ten Commandments about worship. Where it came from is debated: the study Bible says it may be an older writing used in Exodus, or an editor may have added it later.
Genuinely debated
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