New Commandments
Sir: I am puzzled by the new version of the Ten Commandments promulgated by Andrew Gimson in your issue of 13 De- cember.
First he drops the ban on representation- al sculpture. Is this the influence of your 5t critic? Then he removes the neigh- bour's wife from his second place in the list of possessions that are not to be coveted, and promotes her, not just above the house which customarily precedes her, but to a whole new Commandment of her own. Is this a concession to feminism?
The Gimson Decalogue must be catch- ing on well if as many as 11 of your respondents knew it. How many of the others knew the Moses version and were counted as ignorant?
Ralph Baxter
Quakers, Brasted Chart, Westerham, Kent The Roman Catholic system of numbering the Ten Commandments was inadvertently used for all Christians. In it, the first two Commandments according to the Protestant numbering are run together, and the last is divided into two. But this does not seem greatly to have disadvantaged the Protes- tants. For example, five Anglicans were recorded as knowing all Ten Command- ments, and only one, perhaps unfairly, as knowing only nine. A.G.
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