The Decalogue and the New Testament

How to cite this article: David Flusser, “The Decalogue and the New Testament,” Jerusalem Perspective 29 (1990): 6-10, 15 [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2534/].

From the time of the earliest church fathers, Christians have assigned an even more exalted position to the Decalogue than have Jews. In order to draw a clear distinction between the two religions, early Christians reasoned that their teachings were superior to those of Judaism. Some went so far as to claim that the Torah had been superseded. However, the high value which Christians assigned to the Ten Commandments was at no time affected by these attitudes. Quite the contrary, it was exactly the broad general character of the Decalogue, by contrast to the detailed commandments of Judaism, that recommended it to Christians.