Bible search for 10 commandments

I need help devising a bible search for any combination of the 10 commandments (two or more) across the entire bible. Examples would be across a chapter- Exodus 20, Leviticus 19, Deuteronomy 5 or across a few verses- Psalm 50:18-19, Ezekiel 20:16-20- or single verse- Hosea 4:2, Luke 18:20, Romans 13:9.

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Dave Hooton

So, are you looking for expressions of the Commandments or examples of their violation/keeping?

Looking for examples of "keep the sabbath", idolatry, adultery, thieving/stealing, murder, "honor father and mother" will require a number of word forms/expressions, together with the opposite sense e.g. "profaning my sabbaths", whilst understanding that this also refers to other sabbaths than the 7th day one. If you want "idolatry" then there are a number of expressions like "after their idols", "after false idols", "carved image" to consider.

Lonnie Spencer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1057892#Comment_1057892

Thanks for your reply Dave. Expressions would be comprehensive but probably unwieldly. Examples would be possible. What I ended up doing was a bible search in all passages with key words- gods OR idols OR "name in vain" OR sabbath OR ...etc. After going through the results I came up with 19 results that fit my parameters. I was wondering if there is a more precise way to search that might have got something I missed. I am curious why these 10 commandment lists are used where they are mentioned and why sometimes a partial list is used and why these particular commandments were selected for violation. I may do some work on the expressions some day and do some additional research. Thanks again for helping me think it through.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1057900#Comment_1057900

I was wondering if there is a more precise way to search that might have got something I missed.

You can use "Match All word forms" in the Search panel menu, but use [match case]gods OR idols OR... to avoid a proliferation of God, god etc.

I am curious why these 10 commandment lists are used where they are mentioned and why sometimes a partial list is used and why these particular commandments were selected for violation.

The negative Commandments reflect the primary "evil" of the inhabitants of the Promised land; the same evil that lead to the Flood. So you will find occurrences in specific situations e.g. Sodom, or exhortations to the people because of what has been neglected/lost over time. The positive exhortation to "love God" is worth following i.e. (love,Love) NEAR (Lord, God) ---> with "Match Case".

Lonnie Spencer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1057904#Comment_1057904

Thanks Dave,

I'll give those searches a run.

Mark Barnes

I need help devising a bible search for any combination of the 10 commandments (two or more) across the entire bible. Examples would be across a chapter- Exodus 20, Leviticus 19, Deuteronomy 5 or across a few verses- Psalm 50:18-19, Ezekiel 20:16-20- or single verse- Hosea 4:2, Luke 18:20, Romans 13:9.

I don't think a bible search like this is going to be possible, or necessary. There's too much nuance, so it's a job for a human, not a machine.

The good news is that humans have already done this already. All you need to do is collate their work. I would therefore recommend:

Creating a Passage List for every commandment.
Looking at the Factbook entry for the topics that relate to each commandment (e.g. adultery). Save the Passages section as a Passage List.
For completeness, you could also:

Look up the topics in a topical dictionary and add additional Bible references from there. I recommend starting with the Dictionary of Bible Themes, but you could also try Nelson's and New Naves.
Search the Bible using the Cultural Concepts section of Factbook.
Add in all the cross-references to the individual verses in Exodus 20:3-17 (e.g. cross-references to Exodus 20:14 for your adultery Passage List).

The difficult bit will then come in finding overlap between these various datasets, as Logos only lets you compare one against the other. This will take time. I think the best way of doing that would be using the following syntax in a Basic Search:

({PassageList NoOtherGods}, {PassageList CarvedImage}, {PassageList NameInVain}, …) NEAR ({PassageList NoOtherGods}, {PassageList CarvedImage}, {PassageList NameInVain}, …)

That would give you some false positives if there were two identical sections near to each other, but you could weed those out fairly easily.

You might want to replace NEAR with WITHIN 500 CHARS or whatever you feel is appropriate (for some reason you can't specify WORDS with this type of search). In testing I discovered you get different results if you replace NEAR with WITHIN, so that's worth doing as a second search.

(If you want to save time, you could not bother with PassageLists and rely instead on the Cultural Concepts search that you found in step 3.2. Less work, but probably less accurate too.)

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1057922#Comment_1057922

As proof of concept, here's the simple search syntax (not bothering the Passage Lists), that looks for overlap of just three of the commandments.

({Section <Culture = Theft>}, {Section <Culture = Murder>}, {Section <Culture = Adultery>}) WITHIN 200 CHARS ({Section <Culture = Theft>}, {Section <Culture = Murder>}, {Section <Culture = Adultery>})

I checked the first five results for accuracy:

1 Kings 21:8-19 (Naboth's vineyard), addresses both murder and stealing. I doubt you would have found that story by any other search.
Job 24:14-15 is exactly what you're looking for.
Jeremiah 7:6, 9 is also exactly what you're looking for.
Ezekiel 18:10-12 covers murder and theft (though misses the implied adultery in v11).
Matthew 23:31-35 is a false positive. It comes because there are two separate references to murder in close proximity.

Nonetheless, it's a pretty good proof of concept, I think. You'd need to experiment with your range. 200 CHARS seemed the sweet spot in my quick testing.

Note that this search missed most of the ones you found: Psalm 50:18-19, Hosea 4:2, Luke 18:20 and Romans 13:9. I think that's because the references were so direct and brief the cultural concepts search never picked them up. That's where the Topical Dictionaries/Cross References combined with Passage Lists would help, I think.

David Ames

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1057900#Comment_1057900

and why sometimes a partial list is used and why these particular commandments were selected

Maybe, just maybe that the ones listed in any given time or place depended on the makeup of the audience present. [[and then we write long sermons on why only those were mentioned when it was just the ones that that audience needed to be reminded of]]

Lonnie Spencer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1057938#Comment_1057938

Thanks Mark for getting me pointed in the right direction. I was hoping you and Dave Hooton would chime in because you guys are pretty amazing at searching. And you didn't disappoint.[:D] I know the 10 commandments are a pretty broad subject and I am just bumping around looking for patterns of them in the Scriptures. I did notice that gods, images, and idols are probably the most mentioned commandments in the Old Testament. While adultery was mentioned the most in the New Testament- both physical and spiritual. I think that may say a lot about the cultures during those times.

Thanks David for your input. The reason that idea interested me was I had read somewhere in one of my commentaries that when the writer mentioned some of the commandments in a cluster, he intended his hearers to think of all of the commandments and not just the few. I am not really sure I agree with that assessment and wondered if it could be tested one way or another Which is where some background digging with the Factbook would be a great help

The 10 commandments is just one of those subjects that interested me-when you never have the time or the power of Logos- back in the days when I was preaching fulltime. So, retirement and "someday" has finally come.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Lonnie

Jerome Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1057976#Comment_1057976

Another resource available in Logos is my book, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.

I specifically remember setting up extensive cross references for the Ten Commandments.

If you have this resource, check it out.

Lonnie Spencer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1058002#Comment_1058002

Your book is always at the top of my resources. You are the reason I found the Psalm 50:18-19. Great find. Thanks for all your work Jerome and chiming in.[:D]