十诫对西方文化的影响

With its immeasurable influence on Western culture, the Bible has shaped the western world. Bible has two part which are well-known as the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the Ten Commandments of Moses is an important part of the Old Testament which influence western culture a lot.

In Christianity, everyone believes in God and God is considered to be the supreme, while in Confucianism, there is not such a God to worship. In the Ten Commandments, the first four commandments are all about the relationship between people and God. It requires people to worship the only one true God. For Christianity, God is the Creator of all things in the world so everyone is subordinate to God. They should regard God as the center and standard of their behavior.

However,the Ten commandments, which contain the most fundamental principles of moral life, without which the very existence of human society becomes impossible, were retained and even reinforced in the New Testament. It was because of such importance and inviolability that the Ten commandments were written not on paper or some other perishable material but on stone.

As we shall see, the Ten commandments follow a specific plan. They start with the most important and obvious and go to the less important and less obvious. The first four define duties towards God, while the following five define duties towards other people. The last commandment

speaks of controlling one's thoughts and desires.

On the other hand,The Ten Commandments are the first part of God's law system. In essence, they are a summary of the hundreds of laws found in the Old Testament Law, which offering basic rules of behavior for spiritual and moral living. They were designed to guide Israel into a life of practical holiness. The decalogue was formulating the old customs in legal form and giving us the original concept of contract in civil law and several ideas of criminal charges and procedure law with the only simple ten rules. These laws still instruct us for exposing sin and showing people God's standard. The Ten Commandments had a profound influence on Western society until today that we could still find Moses or the Ten Commandments appearing in the architectural embellishment of the US Supreme Court building.