"Why is 'You shall have no other gods before me' in the Ten Commandments?"

Just thinking (Danger, Will Robinson, Danger)---When my kids were younger, I spoke to them in language they could understand to help them to realize what I wanted them to learn about whatever I was trying to convey.

Why do we assume that God gave us all the information---interpretation, understanding, and appropriate categorization and delineation---of everything we humans could ever possibly need to know and understand conveyed to us in language that very few of us speak currently and which was formulated with consideration of the knowledge and culture of the time extant at the time.

Most good professors at the higher levels don't teach exclusively from the text---that's why they tell you that if you want to learn what is needed to pass the course, you need to listen to what he says in class and take notes.

After about 50 years of musing about this, I have tentatively concluded that God is probably the best teacher I know---But you had still better be listening when He talks to you (you will need to want and establish a personal relationship with Him to hear him) if you want to be able to use what you learned in the class. This post was edited by tom jackson at May 5, 2017 4:48 PM MDT

Did Jesus Ever Say He was God?
Jesus quotes - is Jesus God? Investigate these interesting claims...

Others were convinced that Jesus was God:
Paul: "Christ is the visible image of the invisible God."1
John: "He existed in the beginning with God."2
Peter: "you must worship Christ as Lord of your life."3
But what did Jesus say about himself?
Did he ever identify himself as God? According to the Bible...absolutely! Below are some of the statements he made.

Jesus Said He Was Equal to God.
Jesus Said He Existed Before Abraham
"Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad."
    The people said, "You aren't even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?"
    Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!"4
Jesus Said to See Him is the Same as Seeing God
Jesus shouted to the crowds, "If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark."5
"No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!"
    Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."
    Jesus replied, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you?"6
Jesus Said He Could Forgive Sins
"...that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he then said to the paralytic--"Rise, pick up your bed and go home." And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God..."7
He said to them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins."8
Jesus Said He Is the Judge and Can Grant Eternal Life
"For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father."9
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."10
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."11
"For it is my Father's will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day."12
Jesus Said He Was the Same as God
"The Father and I are one."
    Once again the people picked up stones to kill him.
    Jesus said, "At my Father's direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?"
    They replied, "We're stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God."13

Jesus Said He Is Our Source for Life.
"I Am the Bread of Life"
Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."14
"I am the way, the truth, the life"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."15
"I am the Light of the world"
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."16
"you will know the truth"
"If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."17
"have life, abundantly"
"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd....My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."18
"I will love him"
"...he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.... If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."19
"I am with you always"
"...behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

It looks as if intended as a statement of the uniqueness of God, but with no corroborating documents it's hard to do more than speculate what the unknown author really meant.

LOL!

One advantage of being an agnostic is that you needn't care less what individuals actually believe or whose editions of what ancient books actually  say, as long as they don't try to bully others into believing the same; so you can be interested in the beliefs and lore, and their origins, on a fairly neutral basis.


My background is Anglican but we were not an especially church-going family, and I stopped believing in God around about 12 when I'd moved from Sunday School (no I don't know why my parents sent me - just custom of the 1950s & 60s I expect) to "proper" church. After that, it was just school assemblies and RE lessons, and the occasional wedding and four funerals. Almost numerically true, too, is that. I do though have friends who are religious, and two or three of them are ordained clerics, and I have listened to a good many speakers from various faiths on the radio.

Consequently that background, and the daft point-scoring between some of you here, shows that really there is only one truth about religious "truth".
 
That is, any religious belief or text is "true" only to or for its own believers, not necessarily so to any other even in the same religion!

You are arguing over words by unknown Late Bronze Age tribal scribes who were no doubt sincere that they were transmitting what they thought God's wishes, but still only reflect their society's beliefs. That people now follow, no doubt sincerely in their own minds, essentially the same religion is fine for them, but it is not necessarily the same in detail, especially as the original texts have been so often re-translated, edited, interpreted, probably with a lot of "mis-" prefixes, with no externally corroborating sources, that no-one can genuinely claim to know what those ancient Hebrews actually meant!  

All it proves is that there is, and never has been, any one "true religion" or sect since time immemorial. Each is or was meaningful and "true" only to its own followers, no-one else. Sadly, too many people are terrified to accept that basic, stark fact of life - hence so much bitterness, hatred and murder down the ages and still today, over an improvable premise; and often over really very shallow points such as how to worship the same god within the same religion!


In the end, the OP is more academic than anything.  The Commandment just tells people who's boss.

The two earlier Abrahamic faiths were developed at a time when most religions used pantheons, some more soap-opera than salvation.

We can't know its actual history but the Hebrews probably formulated their monotheist belief and its auxiliary stories from all manner of ancient, oral-tradition sources, and decided having a unique, creative single god - 'God' - rather more logical.

So Judaism came first, and Jesus was a Jew - not a Christian. It were his followers who took his teachings to form what became Christianity, distinct from Judaism, but with the same deity.

Christianity worships the same God but believes He was also represented in human form for a couple of decades until the Resurrection from a particularly foul death. Though by by the Roman colonists, it was at the behest of local authorities frightened of his message and appeal. They were the priests, who were fellow-Jews, and to a lesser extent perhaps the Romans. Pontius Pilate thought him innocent but no doubt had good reason not to upset the Empire's bureaucratic olive-cart; for political, not religious, reasons. His own religion was the Roman pantheon, but the two religions themselves in Judaea were not at war with each other. It was easier for the Romans to let the Judaic priests maintain social order in their own way, and Jesus' execution was political rather than religious from the Roman point of view.

Islam worships the same, ancient Hebrew, God - but respects Jesus as a purely human though very wise teacher, so in its view, as not to compromise the essential mystery and uniquity of God. ("Islam" means, approximately, "I surrender" - to God.) Islam is unique in being an entire theism founded by one man, the Prophet Mohammed, although using the old Hebrew beliefs.

Each of these then goes off on all sorts of odd sectarian tangents and argues bitterly over them within themselves, let alone with each other. 

Over-enthusiastic followers in each tangent of each faith become desperately unhappy when anyone disagrees with them - all missing the essential point that their "truth" is theirs and theirs alone, and over a God for whom there cannot possibly be proof either for or against.


In the end it does not really matter what that Commandment's original text really intended. Nor what this, that or the other carefully-edited version of the Bible says in fine detail in obscure OT passages.

To the ancient Hebrews and to modern Jews, Muslims - and with the exception of human agency by Christ's life then spiritual after-life - Christians, there is only one god, that one they call 'God'.  You see that occasionally illustrated by church services that involve people from all three faiths.

How you worship that God for yourself is another matter, and only you, individually, can know that. 
X

To hog all the attention?

Because you need to be aware that there is a souce.  That "SOURCE" is God.  There is no other source.  If you go around thinking all things are equal, you lose sight of just what God actually is.   GOD IS.  We ARE.  We are all ONE.  That is the Source. 

Moses is credited with writing the first parts of the Bible. Moses is an Egyptian name, so he was probably a refugee from Egypt who knew of Aten the one god of the first monotheist the Pharaoh Akhnaten. The Hebrews were polytheists whose gods were called Elohim. Moses evidently believed that the gods of each culture did exist, but he vowed himself to serve the one deity that was nameless above all others. He asked the Hebrews to do the same as he did in that respect. There are passages that have this deity later known as YHWH talking to other gods. He said let us make man in our image, for example.

Because we have the power of choice.  

When we read this we can almost hear a thunderous voice shouting, “Don’t you dare put another god before Me!”  Yet this isn't some demand from a power-hungry, egocentric deity.  No, it’s a desire from a loving father who only wants what’s best for his children. 

Most parents want their children to grow up to be safe, healthy and happy adults.  In order to do this they give their children commands – ‘don’t talk to strangers’, ‘look both ways before crossing the street’, ‘take little bites when you eat’, ‘don’t eat cookies before dinner or it’ll spoil your appetite’.  They don’t tell their children these things in order to take the fun out of life, but rather they want to spare them from suffering consequences.  As adults, many parents have either seen or experienced the consequences that resulted from disobedience.  Now, from a child’s point of view some of these commands seem stupid as they can’t always see the reasons for them ('but everyone else is doing it').  So they choose to disobey.  Sometimes their disobedience leads to suffering (anything from discipline to injury) but sometimes it doesn’t (or so it seems at the moment).  It’s when the consequences aren’t immediate or isn’t as bad as their parents said it’d be that causes children to start doubting their parents commands ('I did it and nothing bad happened').  Soon they begin to think that they know better than their parents.  Unfortunately, this thinking continues after children become adults as well ('I can drink and then drive just fine'). 

As the ultimate parent, God doesn’t want to see His children suffer either.  So He gives us commands – ‘stay away from sin’, ‘love others’, ‘don’t put any other gods before Me’.  Let’s look at that last one - “Don’t have any other gods before Me”.  There is only one other “god” we can put before God and that’s self.  When we chose to put self before God, we’re saying, “I know better than God”.  We have only to look around to see the results of that – idolatry, disrespect, lying, murder, adultery, theft and greed (hmmm… does that list sound familiar?).  There are only 2 things vying for rule of our lives - God and self.  When God rules love and peace flourish, but when self rules, suffering abounds. 

Everything God tells us to do is for our best interests (whether we understand it or not).  He’s not trying to take the fun out of life; quite the contrary.  He’s trying to tell us how to live life to the fullest.  If we choose to obey God when he says, “don’t put any other gods before me”, we win.  Unfortunately, our ego can’t see that.

Because if it weren't, they wouldn't be the Ten Commandments. There would only be nine!