Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, stand at the center of E. L. Doctorow's City of God as the scriptural text that most sharply focuses the novel's theological questions. The Commandments are not merely cited but actively debated, reinterpreted, and reimagined within the narrative, serving as the touchstone for the Synagogue of Evolutionary Judaism's effort to separate what is essential in Jewish teaching from what is merely customary or intellectually untenable. Through the discussions at the synagogue and the reflections of the novel's narrator, the Decalogue becomes the site where the book tests whether an ethically conceived life can survive the collapse of traditional belief in divine revelation.