How was the taiping 10 commandments different from the old testament?

Harry Riches, Answer requested by Ross Botwinick

My understanding of the Taipang Rebellion is there was a spiritual element and the Ten Commandments were used as a basis to point to the error of ancestral worship and the idolatry of the Imperial rulers. Evidently, The Quing Dynasty crushed the rebellion lead by the disgruntled Hong Xiuquan (1814-1864). A rebellion that apparently grew out of his being refused employment in the government civil service. [1]

There are claims that Hong Xiuquan put a positive spin on the Ten Commandments and removed their negativity. However, the Ten Heavenly Precepts as reprinted by Michael Franz [2]are:

Thou shalt honor and worship the Great God
Thou shalt not worship false gods
Thou shalt not take the name of the Great God in vain
On the seventh day, the day of worship, thou shalt praise the Great God for his grace and virtue
Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother
Thou shalt not kill or injure
Thou shalt not commit adultery or be licentious
Thou shalt not steal or plunder
Thou shalt not utter falsehoods
Thou shalt not conceive a covetous desire

As you can see the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th Heavenly Precepts are all expressed in the negative. This suggests that people who claim they are positive are either purposely promoting falsehood or they are sloppy researchers. Or, maybe, the authority I have relied upon, Franz Michael's three volume work, is poor scholarship.

The Wikipedia shorthand version of the Ten Commandments for the lazy are as follows:

Here are the Ten Commandments from the Torah. They are different to both versions above.

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”(Exodus 20:1-17)

There is a vast difference between the Taiping and Wikipedia versions compared to what the Bible actually states.

The first commandment tells us that God Himself is actually speaking these words and they are not just made up or copied from any other text as promoters of falsehoods make out; especially those who claim to know something about religion and the Creator, when they do not know Him at all.

Furthermore, God explains in the first commandment Who He is to the people of Israel and why He is their God. This is not found anywhere else in the world, yet ignorant people claim that they know about religion and overlook this salient point.

People even claim to be Christians, and theologians at that, and yet they do not understand this simple and clearly expressed fact: the first commandment of the Decalogue explains WHO God is and WHY the people of Israel should have no other gods before Him.

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me."

The Taiping extrapolation that the God Who brought the Israelites out of Egypt is the Great God, does not speak of deliverance from bondage or leading people from one territory to another.

As for the rest of the Taiping Heavenly Precepts, you can see that they are similar in some respects, but not exactly the same as written in the Ten Commandments.

The abbreviated version of the Ten Commandments often misleads people into thinking that these are the only words ever written by God Himself. However, the genuine searchers for truth do not rely on shallow minds for their information. The genuine searcher digs deep until everything is on bedrock. Although, one does not have to dig too deep to demonstrate that the Taiping Heavenly Precepts, although apparently extrapolated from the Ten Commandments, are really quite different; in fact, it is misleading to suggest that they are close to having the same meaning. This difference has been demonstrated by comparing the first commandment. However, this difference is also particularly evident in the second, third, fourth and fifth commandment (without mentioning the length of the tenth).

Understanding The Ten Commandments From A New Testament Perspective

Footnotes

[1] http:// Hong Xiuquan and the Tai...

[2] http://Franz Michael The Taiping...

Written May 14 · Answer requested by Ross Botwinick