[krapp]

Judaism was a monotheistic religion surrounded by polytheists, their concern was maintaining their cultural integrity and identity.

Other commandments (though shalt not covet, etc) are concerned with materialism and greed. "Though Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me" is pretty clearly about precisely what it says on the tin.

[ARandomerDude]

Not necessarily.

"Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things."

- Philippians 3:19

[aljarry]

Letter to Philippians is much younger history, though. I don't recall Old Testament ever mixing meaning of "gods" and hedonism.

[crgwbr]

One example would be Matthew 6:24b:

“You cannot slave for God and for Riches”

Riches is capitalized because it’s being personified as a competing god.

[aljarry]

It's also New Testament, but the "Riches" is capitalized in specific translation you're using, it's not capitalized in New King James, and neither in New International Version. I'd wager it's relatively modern addition.

To see if that point is actually in the sources, you would need to go into Greek, or look for a good historic analysis of Gospel of Matthews.

[edit]

Ten commandments come from oral tradition, but most probably were written down at least a few hundreds years earlier (500 or 600BC)

[constGard]

Of course; I'm just pointing out that the conflation has both precedent and cultural roots.

[8note]

Especially keeping Seleucid influence down when they tried to hellenize Israel