Should the Ten Commandments be displayed in government buildings, and does that violate the Constitution?

In Southwest Florida, Collier County commissioners have concluded that's okay so long as the foundation of Mosaic Law is accompanied by other historical records. What do you think?

Aug 27, 2025

In the Old Testament story, the Jewish leader Moses came down from a mountain with stone tablets on which he said God had inscribed the rules by which his tribe was to live.

The Ten Commandments, with all their “shall nots,” is widely held to be both a religious and historical document, part of the foundation of all our modern laws. Check out our own Constitution and the theme of “shall nots.” It suggests a connection in many people’s minds.

Among them:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This separation of church and state is foundational to what America is all about. And efforts to introduce religious practices and documents into publicly owned places like schools and government buildings have been controversial.

But there’s a loophole: If, say, a copy of the Ten Commandments is part of a larger display of, say, legal documents, then the courts have said that may be okay.

And, based on that interpretation, the Collier County Commission this week approved the installation of a display in several county buildings that will include the Ten Commandments.

The vote was 4-1, with Commissioner Burt Saunders casting the dissenting vote.

The Ten Commandments, while not directly incorporated into our laws (that would be unconstitutional), have nonetheless served as moral guideposts in many Western societies.

But what many people may not realize is that long before Moses had his storied return from the mountaintop, many of the rules of behavior incorporated in the Ten Commandments had already long been established.

Legal codes that predated Moses, such as the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu (around 2100 BC) and the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (around 1750 BC), had already prohibited crimes such as murder.

Many religious scholars have concluded that the Ten Commandments were hardly unique and, if not outright plagiarism, then at least were derived from the broader concept of morality already present during Moses’ time (around 1446 BC).

So, what about all those earlier legal codes? Should they be part of displays such as those authorized this week in Collier County? Is their absence evidence of religious bias prohibited by our First Amendment?

And what about that part of the Ten Commandments that has nothing to do with law but insists that the Israelites restrict their worship to only one deity, to wit: “I am the LORD your God; you shall not have strange gods before me.”

Sounds like the establishment of a religion, does it not?

There are, as it turns out, more than 4,000 different religions on planet Earth. Some, like the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, are monotheistic, believing in a single deity. Others, such as Hinduism, not so much.

Throughout recorded history there are estimated to have been tens of thousands of religions, many polytheistic, all of which have prescribed standards of conduct for their followers.

It’s from this vast history and our communal sense of right and wrong that our modern laws exist.

Did the Ten Commandments play a role in that? Of course.

Should a Biblical text from one of only many faiths be singled out for inclusion in a display such as the one approved in Collier County this week?

That’s the debate.

The Ten Commandments

The Code of Hammurabi

J.C. Bruce, journalist and author, is the founder of Tropic Press. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and his native Florida.

Thanks to our sponsor

Today’s report is brought to you by Tropic Press Books, home of The Strange Files. Interested in sponsoring these reports? Contact: Advertising@Tropic.Press

Advertising at Tropic Press

It’s good to share

Tropic Press is a reader-supported publication. Here’s a big shout-out to all our loyal subscribers. Feel free to forward this email to your friends so they can enjoy it too. The more people we reach, the greater community of like-minded people we build. This is your chance to be part of all that. Thanks!