The oldest known complete inscription of the Ten Commandments sold at auction for more than $5 million on Wednesday, more than doubling the presale estimate of where the bidding would end.
The auction, which was overseen by Sotheby’s, lasted about 10 minutes and involved interested parties from around the world, according to The Associated Press.
“The 155-pound (52-kilogram) marble slab was acquired by an anonymous buyer who plans to donate it to an Israeli institution,” the AP reported, citing Sotheby’s.
Oldest Ten Commandments tablet
The stone tablet that was up for sale is about 1,500 years old and is believed to be “the only complete tablet of the Ten Commandments still extant from this early era,” per Sotheby’s.
It was found in 1913 during a railway project in what’s now southern Israel. The workers who uncovered it had no sense of the religious significance of the discovery.
“For 30 years it served as a paving stone at the entrance to a local home, with the inscription facing upwards and exposed to foot traffic,” Sotheby’s reported.
Then, in 1943, the tablet was found and then acquired by a scholar who understood what had been inscribed on the stone — or at least most of the inscription.
“The 20 lines of text incised on the stone closely follow the Biblical verses familiar to both Christian and Jewish traditions. However, this tablet contains only nine of the commandments as found in the Book of Exodus, omitting the admonition ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain’ while including a new directive – to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site specific to the Samaritans,” Sotheby’s reported.
It’s not unusual for the text on ancient engravings of the Ten Commandments to be different than what we think of as the Ten Commandments today.
The Bible itself offers at least three different versions of the famous list of rules, depending on how you read it, according to Bruce Wells, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas.
Ten Commandments controversy
This week’s high-profile sale of the Ten Commandments tablet comes as a Ten Commandments controversy plays out in Louisiana.
Earlier this year, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law requiring public schools to hang a copy of the Ten Commandments in all of their classrooms. It was meant to take effect in January 2025, but opponents won an injunction in court.
The ruling said that Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law was unlikely to hold up in light of the Supreme Court’s past rulings on religious displays in schools, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Louisiana officials appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will consider lifting the injunction during oral arguments on Jan. 23.
The ACLU, which is fighting the Ten Commandments displays, sent a letter to Louisiana public school superintendents on Thursday reminding them that they shouldn’t put up new Ten Commandments posters as the case plays out.