remember i didn t say it was necessarily a good source just that it looked good the site was URL my memory of what they said was accurate i do not have the competence to defend what they said james tauber s response indicates a breadth of knowledge i can t match original message from james tauber mailto jtauber URL sent sunday august NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER am to johnhall evergo net fork URL subject re a biblical digression on sat NUMBER aug NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER john hall johnhall evergo net said ran across a site which claimed to explain the original meaning of the ten commandments it seems some of those meanings have evolved a bit too by meanings have evolved do you or they mean that the hebrew words have changed meaning or that our understanding of the hebrew words have changed or do they posit a pre mosaic form of the laws that had evolved by time of the pentateuch in particular there was a claim that the commandment on stealing was actually specifically about man stealing selling a free man into slavery this seems bogus to me a quick check of the text indicates the the hebrew word in question is ganav which elsewhere in the pentateuch eg gen NUMBER NUMBER is used to mean steal silver and gold amongst other things in july NUMBER i made the following comment in response to a similar claim about the real meaning of one of the ten commandments the translations since cause problems at each successive remove we have the original language versions though so this is not an issue i m sure most everyone is familiar with the argument that the meaning of the commandment is thou shalt not murder rather than kill this has nothing to do with successive translations it is based on our knowledge of the meaning of the hebrew word ratsach most modern translations i ve seen translate it murder but elsewhere the word is used of an animal killing a human something for which most english speakers wouldn t use the word murder URL james james tauber jtauber URL URL 