A more likely
view, and one held by many competent interpreters, is that this present collection of ten commandments, this Decalogue, this
aggregate of «ten words,» probably represents not an original nucleus around which the
growing fullness of Old Testament torah formed, not a chronologically prior basic code which was subsequently expanded, but rather a self - conscious, consummately discerning effort to reduce to its most significant essence a relatively comprehensive and detailed body of torah.