Matthew Henry John Bartlett

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Monday 15 March, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 9:42 am

The Ten Commandments, Birdman-style
Nice design: South Gin [flashtastic]

10 responses to “”

  1. bryan says:

    thats cool. 2 & 3 are a bit weird. wouldn’t it be better to lump them together? because taking the lord’s name in vain isn’t there, as far as I can make out.

  2. matt says:

    Taking the Lord’s name – bearing the Lord’s name – wearing the Lord’s name – baptised in the Name. The son carries the father’s name – the Son carries the Father’s name – we sons carry the Father’s name. Son and sons represent (image) their Father in the world. To wear bear take the Name in vain isn’t saying “GOLLY I stubbed my toe”, it’s having been marked out as one of the Father’s images and representing Him badly.

  3. dan says:

    South Gin is manufactured by the same peeps what bringed you 42below vodka.
    I want some too.

  4. aaron says:

    yes, that’s EXACTLY the point matt. Well said.

  5. bryan says:

    interesting. i’ve never really thought about that commandment that way. It’s always been a case of misusing the lord’s name — as in the NIV — rather than misbearing it. The KJV says “take” which is ambiguous in this case :-) so what would you say about *misusage* then? it’s obviously still wrong even under your interpretation, but does ur version of the commandment _directly_ relate to blasphemy in anyway, or only by implication?

  6. Matthew says:

    indirectly – it’s an implication, but to focus on that is like focussing on what happens between 10.30 & 11.45 on Sunday morning.

  7. sternum says:

    It is clearly both. And I quote, ‘you Fools’ (Jono, Tuesday 16 March).

  8. bryan says:

    i won’t try and deny my and others’ mutual foolhood. i’ll just be petty and refer you to matthew 5:22 ;-) i agree debating over meanings of words in scripture can get just a little pedantic. but it’s a case of where to draw the line between insightful perceptive enlightening new interpretations of a text, and a merely puerile desire to be different and controversial. the line isn’t always clear to me. maybe it is to you :-)

  9. matt says:

    It’s worth testing the meanings of individual words in pivotal texts like the Ten Commandments, because this kind of text functions as a symbol talisman synecdoche (!) for the whole of Scripture.

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