DEAR ABBY: Your recent printing of the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments has no doubt produced an avalanche of response.
The problem with them is that they are thousands of years out-of-date and functionally incomplete.
To cite just one glaring omission: The world would be a very different place today if the Ten had also included: Honor thy children. -- PHILOSOPHER IN CULVER CITY, CALIF.
DEAR PHILOSOPHER: I did, indeed, receive an avalanche of mail for having printed the King James version of the Ten Commandments, and I was shocked by the number of people who complained. Read on for a sample:
DEAR ABBY: Recently you printed the Ten Commandments. In doing so you referred to the "Old Testament." Jews prefer to refer to it as the Hebrew Bible. By calling it the "Old Testament," it implies that God has made a new covenant with mankind, a concept Jews do not accept. Also, the proper translation of commandment No. 6 is, "Thou shalt not MURDER," not "Thou shalt not kill." They are distinctly different words in Hebrew, as they are in English. -- LANCE LUBIN, GULFPORT, FLA.
DEAR LANCE: Please don't think I'm being defensive, because some of my best friends were Jewish -- my mother and my father -- and I was taught to call it the Old Testament. But thanks for the rest of the input.