The Ten Commandments displayed in Everett represents only a minority of the beliefs in the state and is even more absurd when you realize that it picked the Protestants and snubbed the Catholics.
The Ten Commandments – or Decalogue, as it is also known – comes in three different versions: Catholic, Protestant and Jewish (Hebrew). The Catholic version omits the part about graven images and the Hebrew Decalogue is similar to the Protestant one with an added proclamation about the slavery of Jews in Egypt. All three consist of 10 statements that are interpolations and don’t include all the Old Testament laws. The entire text can be found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, where anyone can see how the favorite ones were picked for the three different versions.
In 1959 officials in Everett allowed the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments to be erected in front of our then city hall. Everett, is seems, can’t even be all-inclusive in its endorsement of Christianity.
The verse following the graven images one (Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 5:9) lists the penalty for having such an image: “Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.”
What a beautiful sentiment and such a shame that wouldn’t fit on the stone. Everett – white, male, Protestant, stuck-in-the-50s Everett – should be proud of cursing the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of non-Protestants.
Marysville
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