PART III.
I. The First Chapter of the Bible
|MUCH depends upon what impression the first chapter produces upon our minds. If we find the statements therein contained accurate, precise, reasonable, original, of course, that fact will dispose us very favorably toward the remainder of the book; but if, on the other hand, the first chapter should appear to us as fantastical, fictitious, legendary, contradictory, grotesque--made up of gossip borrowed from here and there--naturally, we will be prejudiced against the chapters which follow. If the first chapter is not true, the credit of the book will certainly suffer. We may read the rest of the book as literature, or from curiosity, but as the word of God--no!
Curious, is it not, that there is not a Christian scholar, or a university man, who does not admit that the opening chapter of the bible is legendary, that is to say, not true. Sir Oliver Lodge, who is one of the champions of the church, in his reply to Professor Haeckel, refers to the first chapter as "the old Genesis legend." Canon Farrar, who was a shining light in the Anglican church, calls this same chapter an allegory, that is to say, a fable. And the scholarly authors of the Encyclopedia Biblica do not hesitate to deal with the story of the creation in Genesis as mere gossip, borrowed from Assyrian and Babylonian sources.
There is hardly a single educated Christian who accepts the first chapter of the bible as anything more than tradition or fiction.
The dean of the University of Chicago, who is a Baptist clergyman, recently said this in public print: "It is irreligious to teach that the world was made in six days, when we know that it was not." But the first chapter of the bible teaches that untruth, and for two thousand years the churches, according to this Christian professor, have taught what is not true. In the Ten Commandments, supposed to have been given by God himself, and which are still read in all the churches, we are ordered to keep the seventh day holy, "for in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, etc." Yet, this Christian professor says this is not true. What is still more puzzling is that this same professor who condemns the first chapter as erroneous, accepts the second, or the third, or the tenth, as the word of God! Even more astonishing than this is the conduct of the religious teachers who from Monday to Saturday believe in the scientific doctrine of evolution, but on Sunday repeat with the _Westminster Catechism_ that "In six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth." What shall we think of a religion that can make people so callous as that?
Of course, a book or a man may make a number of statements of which some are true and some are not, but the man or the book that makes statements of which some are true and some false ceases to be different from any other book or man. The position of the orthodox preachers, that the bible is infallible from cover to cover, is very much more consistent than the position of the Christian professor we have quoted, who says that the first chapter of the bible is not the word of God, but the second or the fifth is. No. If the first chapter of your "holy" book is not divine, the whole book is human.
But to state, as these Christian scholars do, that what the bible says in its first chapter is not true, is to make a very serious admission. If Genesis is a legend, Jesus might be a legend, too, for both Genesis and Jesus are in the same "holy" book. If the bible is unreliable when it says the world was created, it may be equally unreliable when it says Christ was incarnated. If it is not true that the universe was made in six days, it may not be true either that Christ rose from the grave. Our evidence for either statement is the bible. If the story of the fall of man is a myth, the story of the "Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world," may also be a myth. You can not part with Genesis and keep Jesus. The moment a single stone is removed from the structure of super-naturalism, the safety of the whole building is threatened. The tragedy of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is inseparably related to the tragedy of a dying god on Calvary. Christ is supposed to have shed his blood because Adam's sin had brought a curse upon the whole human race; and if Adam is a myth, what becomes of Christ?
The First Verse of the Bible
|BUT let us read the first verse of the first chapter:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Indeed! The text could not be more childish if it read: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the moon." Is not the moon, or the earth, a very small part of "the heaven" and included therein? Why separate the earth, or the moon, from the rest of the universe? How would it sound to say: "In the beginning God created the earth and the Sandwich Islands?" or "the earth and a grain of sand"? But our next comment will show that if the writer of this first verse of the first chapter of the bible was pitiably ignorant of his subject, the translator of it was even worse than ignorant--he was, I am sorry to say, also a falsifier.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
I hold my breath! The very first verse shows deliberate manipulation and tampering with the text. The Hebrew word which has been rendered into English as "God," is "Elohim," which means gods, not God. The singular of Elohim is Eloah--the dreaded one. But the Hebrew text reads Elohim, not Eloah, that is to say, the plural and not the singular form is used. Had the translators of the bible been free from sectarian prejudices, the first verse in the bible would have read: "In beginning (not in the beginning) the gods created the heaven and the earth." But the priesthood, which had the bible in its custody, desired to prove by it the dogma of monotheism. Yet, the first verse of the first chapter of the bible proved polytheism--more than one god. Whereupon, the translators quietly dropped the letter "s" from the word gods, and made it to read God, thereby suppressing the fact that the supposed inspired writer of the opening chapter of the book was a Pagan, with more gods than the translators themselves believed in. It does not require much effort to see what the consequences would have been had the first verse of the bible been truthfully rendered into the modern tongues. "In beginning the gods created the heaven and the earth" might have relegated the bible to the limbo of other mythological compositions. "The gods" would have made the exclusiveness of Christianity or Judaism impossible. The history of European religions would have been different had not that one letter "s" in the first verse of the first chapter of the bible, and the very first time the deity is mentioned, been killed by the translators. Of course, finding manipulation in the very first verse, we will begin to suspect that other texts, too, have been "doctored."
The very name of the book--Holy Bible--shows manipulation. By what, or by whose authority is the book called "holy"? It is nowhere stated in any of the manuscripts translated that the writings are "holy." The words Holy Bible, then, represent nothing more than the opinion or guess, or, at best, the judgment, of the English translators of the book.
But there is a more serious example of manipulation on the title-page of the Bible. Instead of admitting that the translation has been made from Hebrew and Greek copies, not originals, for there are no originals (and, therefore, there is no way of telling how true the copies are, since they can not be compared with the originals), the words _Translated out of the original Greek_ is inserted on the title-page of the New Testament. This, I am compelled to say, is an indefensible misstatement. The truth is that the originals, if they ever existed, are lost. The bible as we have it is not quite two hundred and fifty years old, and the most ancient manuscript in existence of the Old Testament is not a thousand years old. This is the _Codex Petropolitanus_, which is in the library of St. Petersburg. But where are the originals? Why were they lost? Why were they "inspired" if they were not to be preserved? But how can men who do not hesitate to state in print that they possess the "original Greek" of the New Testament when they do not and never have possessed it, pose as the moral teachers of the world? If the translators of the bible wished to confine themselves to the truth, instead of saying "Translated out of the original Greek, which is not so, they would have said this on the title-page of their work:=
````A Collection of Writings
```Of Unknown Date and Authorship,
````Rendered Into English
``From Supposed Copies of Supposed Originals
````Unfortunately Lost.=
Rev. T. K. Cheyne, who is one of the contributors to the most scholarly work recently produced by churchmen, * gives a number of instances of deliberate manipulation of bible texts by the translators. "The Old Testament," he writes, "is not altogether in its original form; it has undergone not merely corruption, but editorial manipulation. This is plainer in some books than in others; but nowhere, perhaps, is it more manifest than in the Psalter." Two of his examples of mistranslation are from the twenty-ninth psalm:
* The Encyclopedia Biblica.
Authorized Version. Literal Translation.
1. Give thanks unto the Ascribe unto Yahwe, O ye Lord, O ye mighty, give unto sons of Jerahmeel, the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe unto Yahwe glory
2. Give unto the Lord the and strength. glory due unto his name; Ascribe glory, O ye Ish- worship the Lord in the maelites, unto Yahwe, beauty of holiness. Worship Yahwe, Rehoboth and Cush.
Compare also the first verse of the one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm with its literal translation as given by Doctor Cheyne :
Authorized Version. Literal Translation.
1. O Lord thou hast O Yahwe ! thou hast rooted searched me, and known me. up Zarephath,
2. Thou knowest my It is thou that hast cut down-sitting and mine upris- down Maacath; ing, thou understandest my Ashhur and Arabia thou thoughts afar off. hast scattered. All Jerahmeel thou hast subdued.
But one of the worst cases of tampering with "inspired" texts is to be found in the New Testament. For nearly two thousand years the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of the first epistle of St. John has been saying this: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one."
You may look high and low for that text in the Revised Version, but you will not be able to find it there. That text has slipped out of, or has been spirited away from, the bible, _revised_. After twenty centuries of time, the forgery blushes to look criticism in the face. The smuggled text for the trinity is still in the King James' bible, but the best scholarship of the church, at least, is ashamed of it, and has dropped it. What confidence can be placed upon men who wait for twenty hundred years before they will admit that what the Rationalist has been saying right along about the bible being a medley (to which from time to time the sects made such additions as suited their interests or from which they dropped whatever was prejudicial to their claims) is really true.
But let us return to the first verse of the bible: It is evident that the writer of that verse believed in more than one god. This is shown by other references to the subject in the same chapter. He makes Elohim, or the gods, say, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Still another text reads: "Behold the man has become as one of us," which is also in keeping with the "gods" who created the heaven and the earth.
In reply to this criticism, it has been argued that the "we" or the "us" and the "our" in this part of the bible prove the doctrine of the trinity. The Catholic bible, in a footnote, plainly says so. Evidently, John Milton was of the same opinion, for in Paradise Lost he says:=
```... Therefore the omnipotent
```Eternal father--thus to his Son audibly spake:
```Let us make now man in our image... *=
* Paradise Lost, book VII.
But why should the words "us" and "our" prove that there are only three persons in the Godhead? Why may not "we" mean four, or forty? Why only three? It is really childish to see in "gods," or in "we," a proof of only three gods, and no more.
Besides, the members of the trinity are all supposed to belong to the male sex; but the "gods" in Genesis say that they created man in their image, "male and female," the implication being that there were female as well as male gods in the "we" of the first chapter of the bible. This argument failing, the defenders of the bible make a second attempt to explain away the letter "s" in gods: The writer of the first chapter of the bible, they argue, wrote the plural form out of respect to the deity. He used the "royal style" of speaking to express his veneration. But if "gods" in the plural is the respectful title of the deity, why did the translators use the disrespectful singular in English? Why did they drop the plural for the singular in the translation? Or is it only in Hebrew that the "royal style" must be observed? And is it conceivable that a God who elsewhere in the bible says "I"--"I am a jealous God," and "I only am God," and "there is none other beside me"--would here, and in the very first chapter, and on a most important subject, say "_we_ gods" created "the heaven and the earth"?
There is no better way to prove the weakness of a cause than by trying to uphold it by equivocal arguments. Men would never be arguing that "we" means the trinity, or that it is the "royal style," etc., if they had more cogent arguments to advance. It is only when we are hard pressed that we resort to sophistry.
But let us read the second verse:
_The earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters._
Honestly, it is impossible to get any intelligible meaning out of such a sentence. The earth was without _form?_ Was not the form of our globe the same in the beginning as it is now? Can there be anything without a form of some kind? The revisers of the authorized version of the bible, wishing to remedy this ignorant statement, have dropped the word form, and substituted in its place the word waste: "The earth was waste and void." But "waste" and "void" mean practically the same thing. The revisers have simply refused to translate the word which means "without form." Of course, the revised version is not read in all the churches; and in the authorized version, "the earth is without form." This meaningless text has been made to support the idea that at one time there was only chaos, out of which the creator evolved cosmos. Science, however, has shown that nature was never in a state of chaos. The laws of matter are the same to-day, and will be the same to-morrow--and they have never been different. The law of gravitation, for instance, was as potent and inevitable when the earth was younger as it is now. There was just as much order, or to put it differently, nature was as orderly a billion years ago as she is to-day. Everything happened according to the inherent properties of matter and force then, as now, and as it will happen to-morrow and forever. Chaos, then, is a figment of the theological mind. To provide God with something to do, a chaos was invented, which had to be tamed into a cosmos to keep the deity occupied.
But the text proceeds to inform us that "darkness was upon the face of the deep." This can not mean that the land itself was in the light; it must mean that the entire earth, land and sea, were wrapped up in darkness. All we have, then, in the beginning, is _darkness_, and God's spirit moving about in the darkness. What a beginning! If God is light, as we are told elsewhere in the bible, how could there be darkness where he lived and moved about? God in the dark! or, God and the darkness! The unknown! It is this Darkness which men have called God! And is it not significant that because of this early association with darkness, the gods have always preferred it to the light. In First Kings, sixth chapter, fourth verse, we read that Solomon in building his temple "made windows of narrow lights." The house was meant to be the dwelling place of God, and care was taken to shut out the light, except what slipped in through narrow windows. Modern church buildings show the same prejudice against the light. God feels at home in the darkness! That was his first home--when he moved about in the universal night. It is also plainly stated in the bible that God prefers darkness for his abode.
_The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness._ *
* I Kings viii, 12.
God! Darkness! They are joined together and no man has ever been able to put them asunder.
But let us read on:
_And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good._
Was that the first time the deity saw the light? Did he not know before this that the light was good? If he really had been moving over the face of the waters in total darkness for _oons_, who could blame him for calling the light good? After he saw that the light was good, he divided it from the darkness, and he called the light day, and the darkness he called night, "and the evening and the morning were the first day." We have now day and night--evening and morning; but we have as yet no sun. Indeed, the sun is not created until the fourth day. How could there be light without the sun? And why create a sun if light could be had without it? The earth is in darkness or in the light according to its relative position to the sun. By its revolution on its axis the earth presents an ever shifting surface to the sun. The earth's movements are caused by two contrary forces, the centripetal and the centrifugal--the one tossing the earth like a ball into infinite space, and the other tugging it toward the sun. The equilibrium of these forces marks the diurnal course of the earth. Without the sun there would be no revolution of the earth, and if the earth stood still, there could be neither evening nor morning. And yet this verse states there was day and night, morning and evening, before there was any sun. The idea that the world is a progressive body, with the reins in the grip of those two forces, the centrifugal and the centripetal, whipping her on, and yet never letting her for a moment, even, to step out of the celestial race-course, never entered the puny and prosaic minds of myth-makers. Is there any reason why we should accept so impossible an explanation of the origin of the universe, or of the relation of the earth to the sun, when we have within our reach the stupendous revelations of science?
The creation of the sun, like the creation of the woman, seems to have been an afterthought. Not only was there both light and darkness--a day and a night--before there was any sun, but the sunless light was also strong enough to produce vegetation, for the bible states that herbs and trees appeared and flourished on the third day; that is to say, vegetation arrived twenty-four hours before the sun. Not only does the bible speak of the stars as if they were thrown in, "He made the stars also," but the sun seems to have been thrown in, too--just as a grocer weighing beans tosses into the already loaded scales a few additional ones.
"The sun was made to give light upon the earth," say the Scriptures. But the earth was already lit up by the "Let there be light, and there was light," of the deity. The grass grew and the trees bore fruit after their kind without any help whatever from the sun. But an excuse must be provided for the existence of the sun: it was made "to give light upon the earth." It never occurred to the infallible writer that the sun, being one million five hundred thousand times bigger than the earth, would give more light than the earth could use. What would we say to the wisdom of creating a million million candle-power electric flame to light a molecule of dust? Yet, not only the sun which is fifteen hundred thousand times bigger than ourselves, but also the stars which are many times bigger than the sun, and of which there are an infinite number, were all created to dance attendance on this tiny dewdrop of a world, trembling in infinite space. The man who originated this gossip about sun and stars thought the firmament was a solid roof, just about so large and so far from the earth. It was made of hammered plate, and was equipped with windows which opened and shut, to let out or to stop the rain. The stars, sun and moon were fastened to this upper roof and worked to and fro "like sliding panels." Is it possible that people find this infantile story of earth and sky inspiring? And is it not a pity that we Americans, in this twentieth century, lack both the courage and the frankness to speak our minds freely on the bible? If this Asiatic book has done no other harm than to seal the lips of science from fear, it has done enough to deserve all the criticisms that Rationalism has leveled against it.
Theologians Discover That Six Days Means Six Periods
|THE defenders of the first chapter of the bible, in their attempt to reconcile theology with science, have advanced the theory that the "six days" of creation, instead of meaning six natural days of twenty-four hours, means six indefinite periods of time. The object of this explanation is to give the deity sufficient time to build his universe in, and so bring the story of theology and science into something like harmony. Of course, "six" meant six, and "days" meant days for nearly two thousand years, and there was no idea of ever changing the meaning of these words until the voice of Charles Darwin was heard in the world. Then in haste the clergy, too, made a "great" discovery. Darwin discovered the law of evolution; the clergy discovered that "six days" in the bible means six _oons_, or eras of large proportions.
There is a semblance of truth in this contention of the theologians. When, for example, we say in Washington's day, we mean, the century, or the times Washington lived in. Or when we say "in the day of the Lord" we do not mean a day of twenty-four hours, but a long and indefinite period of time. But this defense breaks down completely when it is remembered that the bible positively states the _number_ of days required to make the world in. One day of indefinite duration would have been enough if time were what God needed. Why "six" indefinite times? The "six" before the word days is unanswerable proof that the "inspired" writer meant just six days and nothing more. When the number of days required for any purpose is stated, "days" can only mean one thing. If we say Washington crossed the Delaware and drove the English out of the State in "six days," there is absolutely no way of making the "six days" mean anything else than six days. The number "six" is fatal to the theological theory that days means eras. God was for forty days on Mount Sinai; Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days; and he remained with his disciples for forty days after his resurrection. If forty days means forty days, six days can mean six indefinite periods of time only when there is no other way of saving the creed.
Still another proof that the bible writers believed the universe was called into existence in six natural days, is their phrase, "and the evening and the morning were the first day," and "the evening and the morning were the second day," and so on to the end of the week. We do not need an evening and a morning to complete an indefinite era. And the seventh day on which, in imitation of the Lord, we are supposed to rest from our labors--is that, too, an indefinite period of time? Moreover, to intimate that six days were not enough for an almighty god to create the universe in would be nothing less than skepticism. It is expressly stated in the bible that nothing "is too hard" for God; why, then, are not six days of twenty-four hours enough? They _were_ enough, before Darwin. To extend the six days into six periods is to make terms with science, and when one begins to do that one has already lost his faith. In the bible of India, God only _thought_ of creating a world, and behold the world was. That way of creating is more becoming to a god. He, who could create out of nothing, could create also without time. The Hindu god is bigger than the Hebrew. The former only thinks the world into being. The latter needs six eras, or indefinite time, for the same piece of work. It is the Hindu who has faith.
Let me explain: If I were asked, for example, to tell the time according to my watch, there is only one answer I could make, if I wished to tell the truth. I am limited to one answer--one only. But if I did not care to tell the time as I have it, there are a hundred things I could say instead. A man can say many things that are not true, but only one thing can he say if he wishes to answer a question honestly. The theologians do not seem to want to tell the truth about the bible; hence they have a hundred other things to say. There is no end to the dodges, excuses, apologies, sophisms--the allegorical, metaphorical, spiritual interpretations--they can resort to to avoid giving the one true answer about the bible.
To the scientist "six days" means six days; to the theologian they mean whatever the interests of his creed require them to mean. They may mean one thing to-day and another to-morrow. If the theologian is addressing missionary converts, "six days" means six days, and if he is addressing scientists, he may make the "six days" mean six very long periods--as long as his hearers desire. The first and last duty of the theologian is to save his creed. He will tell the truth when it helps his creed; he will suppress the truth when he thinks it will hurt his creed. He was not ordained to be loyal to the truth; he was ordained to stand up for the creed. "An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven," cried Shylock, when he was asked to listen to the voice of humanity. Likewise, when Reason appeals to the clergyman to tell the truth about the bible, he answers: "An oath, an oath, I have taken an oath to defend the creed. Shall I lay perjury to my soul?"
But Genesis is as unreliable on the question of the age of the earth as it is on the way it came into existence. While it is not stated in the bible just how old the earth is, by comparing and computing the various dates it gives the precise biblical age of the earth may be arrived at. According to the chronology of the bible, the earth is something near six thousand years old. Of course, it may be that "years" in the bible no more means years than "days" means days, but if they do, then the bible is wrong again. It is now generally admitted by scientists that the age of our planet runs into the millions. There is not a single scholar who accepts the bible chronology seriously. According to Darwin, who weighs his statements before he makes them, two hundred millions of years would hardly be enough to bring about the multifarious forms of life which now exist on the earth.
Historians have discovered traces of a civilization on the banks of the Nile long before the mythical Adam opened his eyes in Eden. Egypt was in blossom long before the forbidden tree was planted in paradise, and archeology has proved the existence of man on this planet myriads of years before Egypt reared her pyramids, or Athens her Parthenon. Out of the caves of Germany, England and France have been dug the bones of primitive man who saw the light of the sun and heard the swing of the sea nearly two hundred and fifty thousand years ago. In a publication of the Smithsonian. Institution, issued and paid for by the United States Government, it is stated that there is enough proof to make the age of the earth at least seventy millions of years. Every day, except on Sunday, and everywhere, except in church, the United States affixes its official seal, and gives full approval, to the teachings of science; but on Sunday, and in church, the same United States officially bows down and worships as the Word of God a book that makes all science a heresy and a blasphemy. And we wonder that there is so much false profession in the land!
Mr. Gladstone, a few years ago, tried to help the theologians defend Genesis against the onslaughts of Darwinism. It was the object of his encounter with Huxley to show that the bible account of creation was as consistent with the known facts as the theory of evolution. In fact, Genesis, according to Gladstone, was a sort of introduction to Darwin's _Origin of Species_. In his admirable reply to Gladstone, Professor Huxley gives the bible version of the origin of life and the world to show the irreconcilable difference between revelation and science. Says Professor Huxley:
_The bible teaches that this visible universe of ours came into existence at no great distance of time from the present, and that the parts of which it is composed made their appearance in a certain definite order, in the space of six natural days, in such a manner that on the first of these days light appeared; that on the second the firmament or sky separated the waters above from the waters beneath the firmament; that on the third day the waters drew away from the dry land, and upon it a varied vegetable life, similar to that which now exists, made its appearance; that the fourth day was signalized by the apparition of the sun, the stars, the moon and the planets; that on the fifth day aquatic animals originated within the waters; that on the sixth day the earth gave rise to our four-footed terrestial creatures, and to all variations of terrestial animals except birds, which had appeared on the preceding day; and, finally, that man appeared upon the earth, and the emergence of the universe from chaos was finished._
Continuing, Professor Huxley shows how the theologians try to wiggle out of all that this implies by quietly changing the natural meaning of the words used by the bible writers. He says:
_If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis--as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake--is not the meaning of the text at all. The account is divided into periods that we may make just as long or as short as convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent with the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out of structureless rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations._ *
* Controverted Questions, page 100.
The Great Tragedy
|BUT it is when we come to read the bible story of the creation of man that its unreliability becomes more manifest than ever. The story of Adam and Eve seems to have been lifted bodily out of some foreign document. This is evident from the fact that it is never referred to again throughout the Old Testament. When the Jews were carried into captivity they became familiar with the Babylonian legend of creation, its Garden of Eden, the serpent, the forbidden tree, the fall of man, etc. The name of the first man in the Babylonian story was _Adami_.
The belief that man was formed out of the earth is very ancient. Men saw dead bodies return to dust, and, naturally enough, they inferred from it that man was made out of the dust of the earth.
In the Jewish story, as related in the second chapter of Genesis, the first man was a bachelor, and if he had liked that sort of life, woman, in all probability, would never have been created. It is suggested in the story that God asked Adam to choose a companion from among the animals, which were made to pass before him, that he might name them, and if possible select from among them a companion for himself:
_And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for him._ *
Adam was lonely:
_And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs... and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man._ **
* Genesis ii, 20.
** Ibid. 21-22.
The story of the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, on which the whole theological system of the churches is built, is so crude that it can not stand any kind of an examination. Adam and Eve, for instance, are warned against the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But, really, they did not have to eat of this tree to be able to tell good from evil, for they already knew the difference. When Adam saw God, his maker, did he not love and honor him? If so, he knew what was good. Did he not love his garden home? If so, he could tell what was good. And did he not rejoice when Eve appeared before him with the freshness of beauty in her cheeks and the sparkle of love in her eyes? If so, Adam knew what was bliss. What was the object, then, of telling Adam that he must not learn to distinguish good from evil? Did not Adam and Eve enjoy their daily walks and musings? Did they not see that the trees and the flowers springing up at their feet were fair to look upon? Were they not able to smell the fragrance that came with each passing zepyhr, or to feast on the luxury of shade and color that greeted their eyes? Did not the song of the birds wake melodies in their souls? Surely they were not wooden beings without either feeling or taste; yet, if they could feel and choose, they certainly knew what was good and what was not good before they ate of the magical tree in Eden.
Again, were not Adam and Eve made in the image of God? How, then, could they be ignorant of good and evil? If they could not tell the difference between good and evil, or between God and the devil, in what sense were they created moral beings? A man really created in the likeness of God does not have to eat of a tree before he can tell right from wrong.
God said to Adam: "For on the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." That is conclusive evidence that Adam knew good from evil before he ate of the forbidden tree; for he feared death. He must have known that it was a terrible thing to die; he must have known enough to prefer life to death, else he could not have been scared by such a punishment.
"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, _thou shalt not eat of it_." This was not only a superfluous commandment, but also one that could under no conceivable circumstances be obeyed. How could any one be prevented from acquiring knowledge? To live is to learn. Why did God give Adam eyes and ears if he was not to see or hear? But to see and hear is to compare, and to compare is to learn. Memory retains what the eyes and the ears have communicated to it, and thus is born experience--the universal teacher. To give a man a pair of lungs, and then to tell him he shall not breathe, would not be more unreasonable than to give a man organs, senses, brains--to make him in the image of God--and then to menace him with instant death if he should acquire knowledge. To give an impossible commandment is to desire its violation.
The apologists of the bible say that God was only trying Adam's character, as he tried Abraham's faith when he ordered him to sacrifice his son Isaac. But why try Adam with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Why not with some other tree? And why try him with an impossible commandment? The first requisite of a trial is that it be fair. Was it fair to deny to living and growing minds, "divinely" made, the acquisition of experience? Is it fair to deny to one athirst, the truth? And for whose benefit was the trial? God certainly must have known in advance how Adam would behave under the circumstances; and as for Adam, how could he act otherwise than as God had foreordained? Let the truth be told: the bible deity was only seeking a pretext to damn the first man he ever created and to curse the only world he ever made. And this, that the clergy may be able to declaim, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to die for it"!
If God meant only to test Adam's loyalty to his creator, how explain the following text:
_And the Lord God said, Behold the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.... So he drove out the man_. *
* Genesis iii, 22-24.
I am sorry, but that text places God in a poor light. The tree was forbidden, to prevent Adam from becoming a higher being. The "Good God" was angry because man had become like one of us. And "he drove out the man" for an equally envious reason: "Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" The "Lord God" did not desire man to be immortal--that is why he "drove" him out of Paradise, and to make the fall of man sure, to prevent his ever rising to "divine" heights, the Lord God stationed guards with flaming swords at the gates of Eden to beat back man from "the way of the tree of life." And is this the God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to die for it? Had he been more honest with Adam the crime of the crucifixion might have been prevented.
It is one of the principal tenets of all the churches that man was created immortal, and that but for Adam's disobedience there would have been no death in the world and Paradise would have remained in man's possession forever. But there is not the shadow of a foundation in the story as told in the bible for such an inference. The bible teaches the very opposite of what the churches hold. Adam is driven from Paradise to _prevent_ him from becoming immortal by eating also of the tree of life. If God really wished the happiness of nan, he would, instead of warning him against magical trees, have instructed him in the things that preserve life and promote joy. He would have told Adam and Eve how to love one another, to moderate their desires, and to labor daily for beauty as well as for bread. He would have warned them, not against the tree of knowledge, but against the cunning, crafty serpent, of whose existence he leaves them in utter ignorance. If the bible God were really the friend of man, he would never have pitted two inexperienced children like Adam and Eve against Satan, the Lord of hell, and a match for God Almighty himself. And in the hour of danger the Lord was not there to help his little ones! He left them alone with the fiend who plays with loaded dice! By whose permission did the devil make his appearance in Paradise? And was there a devil before Adam fell? What a story! Created and concealed in Eden, there was a devil, a monster, who springs upon the first human pair, and they bleed to death in his clutches; and "the Lord God" does not appear on the scene until after the devil has retired. And this is the being whom we must call "Our Father"! We are unable to find in the bible either a paradise or a father. We have been taught to believe that where the devil is there is hell; the devil was in the Garden of Eden, therefore, the Garden of Eden could not have been truly a Paradise. And had God really been a "father," he would never have forgotten to warn his children against the serpent and his deadly sting.
But the story as told in Genesis is more creditable to the Evil One than to "the Lord God." The devil told the truth to Eve when he assured her that "In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." His statement squares with the facts. He did not deceive them. Nor did he coax, or urge them to eat of the fruit of the tree. Adam and Eve were left to do as they pleased. The devil did not threaten them with dire consequences if they refused to obey his word. No attempt was made to scare or "stampede" them into plucking the forbidden fruit. All he did was to tell them exactly what would happen if they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge; and then he retired. Let us place in parallel columns the words spoken by the serpent, or the devil whom he is supposed to have personified, and those of the Lord God:
The Lord God said : And the serpent said :
But of the tree of the Ye shall not surely die.
knowledge of good and evil, For God doth know that in
thou shalt not eat of it: for the day ye eat thereof, then
in the day that thou eatest your eyes shall be opened, and
thereof thou shalt surely ye shall be as gods, knowing
die.* good and evil. **
* This was spoken to Adam alone, for as yet Eve was not created. See Genesis ii, 16, 17.
** Ibid. iii, 5.
Which of the two speakers told the truth? Adam and Eve did not die on the day they ate of the tree, as God had said they would--Adam lived to be nine hundred years old--and their eyes were opened to know good and evil, just as the devil had predicted. We have already anticipated and answered the argument that when God said they would die on the day they ate of the forbidden tree, he meant they would become mortal. They were not immortal before they had tasted of the fruit, since God expelled them from Eden to prevent them from eating also of the tree of life and becoming immortal.
To few of the readers of the bible has it ever occurred that the first commandment God ever gave to man practically made the acquisition of knowledge a crime. The truth is that the first commandment of every revealed religion is a "Thou shalt not know." According to Genesis, the Lord offered a Paradise to man on condition that he steer clear of knowledge. There has been considerable discussion as to the precise location of the Garden of Eden. But if we do not know where the Garden of Eden was, we know very well what it was. The Garden of Eden was--Ignorance. This is the Paradise which the revealed religions offer to man. To know is to be expelled from Paradise. After God had placed Adam in Paradise, that is to say, in a state of ignorance, he said to him: "Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge," threatening him at the same time with death on the day that he ate of the fruit of that tree. Everything else was permitted save the acquisition of knowledge. On the day that man opened his eyes he lost the paradise of the gods--Ignorance!
It has been customary to trace modern scepticism, or free inquiry, to the eighteenth century, or to the Renaissance; but in reality modern thought began with Adam in the Garden of Eden--assuming for the time being the correctness of the narrative. Man broke the very first commandment the gods ever gave, "Thou shalt not know," and by so doing he became himself a menace to the gods. That is very interesting. It was not man who died on the day the fruit of knowledge was plucked; it was the gods. "Take care!" said man to God. "Take care! The day on which I eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge thou shalt die!" It is now admitted by the foremost biblical scholars that there are really two different stories of the creation of man in the first and second chapters of the bible. The universe is called into being by _Elohim_ in the first; while _Jahve_ is the name of the creator in the second. Another important difference between the two accounts of the creation is that in the one, man appears before the deity has completed the creation of the heaven and the earth; while in the other man is the last thing God creates. It will be observed also that there is not a word said in the second account about man being made in the image of God, or of his being created male and female; while there is nothing in the first account about a garden or a forbidden tree. On the contrary, in the earlier story every tree is given for "meat" unto the man and the woman, who were created at the same time, and not the one out of a rib of the other, and at a later time, as is related in the second account. In the first, or Elohistic story, God blesses Adam and Eve and commands them to "be fruitful and multiply"; in the second, or Jehovistic story, child-bearing is not a blessing, but a curse pronounced upon the woman for having eaten of the forbidden fruit. Eve has no offspring until she is expelled from Paradise in the second version, while in the first, Adam and Eve are commanded from the start to "multiply and replenish the earth."
But why are both stories published? In all probability, to satisfy both the _Elohistic_ and _Jehovistic_ factions. It is also probable that the different accounts are the work of different compilers or collectors of news. The bible gives many signs of being a miscellany of floating reports and rumors, or "they says," picked up here and there, and put together very loosely. Nor should we be surprised at the differences between the Elohistic and Jehovistic writers, for they are not more hopelessly at variance with each other than are the evangelists who tell the story of Jesus.
II. Taboo and Totem.
|WHAT is the most probable explanation of the Garden of Eden story, whether in its Babylonian or Hebrew form? To answer this question and also to help explain many of the institutions and ceremonial observances in the bible, it will be necessary to acquaint ourselves with the meaning of certain words, such as taboo, totem and magic. The word taboo has come into the modern language from the Polynesian, and it means forbidden. And yet there is a fundamental difference between a thing which is forbidden in the English sense of that word, and a thing which is taboo in the sense which primitive races attached to that word. For example, when we see a notice which reads, "Passengers are forbidden to stand on the platform of the train," or "Smoking not allowed in the dining-car," the object of the interdiction is in either case perfectly plain. We know why the act in question is prohibited. There is no suggestion of mystery about it. A thing that is taboo, however, is so for a reason which is undiscoverable. The bible forbids the eating of pork. Why? The theologians try to explain that the prohibition against pork had a sanitary motive. Such an answer is tantamount to an admission on their part that they have not studied the bible with any care at all. To say that Moses objected to pork on sanitary grounds would be about as reasonable as to say that he commanded the extermination of Gentiles on humanitarian grounds. Yet many fall into the mistake of supposing that it was the fear of leprosy, or the thread-worm, which induced the Jewish legislator to place swine's flesh under a ban. To see how inadequate this explanation is, all we have to do is to remember that in all the bible there is not a single disease of any kind which is caused by the eating or the drinking of anything. Disease in the bible is supernatural. Meats or vegetables, the observance or neglect of dietary and sanitary laws, have absolutely nothing to do with the coming or going of a pestilence. Health, in the bible, has no more to do with cleanliness of the body, with the use of soap, or moderation and prudence in eating and drinking, than success in war, or prosperity in life has with personal merit or effort. It is God who sends both health and sickness, famine or the plague, as he sends manna from the clouds and quails from the sea. To win a battle the people had only to stand still, and see the Lord fight for them. Not until the Greeks appeared in history was it discovered that health and sickness had natural causes, and that the gods had nothing whatever to do with them. What, then, is the explanation of the interdict against swine's flesh in the bible? Before answering that, let us look at a few other examples, of taboo in the Old Testament.
The name of God, like swine's flesh, was taboo. "That shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (the _in vain_ is a rationalist explanation which was affixed to the text by a later hand). Now, why was the name of God forbidden? In all probability it was to prevent the stranger or the enemy from calling upon their God; it explains the unwillingness of the Jews to share Jahve with the rest of the world. But it is as much a guess to say why the name of God was taboo, as it is to give a reason for the ecclesiastical ban against the hog. The commandments of science are intelligible; the dogmas of religion are dark. Why do we have to believe in the trinity, the virgin birth, etc., in order to be saved? It is a mystery.
Another taboo was the Ark of the Covenant. This was a wooden box, supposed to be the retreat of the deity. To touch this wooden chest meant instant death. Uzzah was instantly killed for trying to steady the ark in transit, "for the oxen shook it." * And, on another occasion, over fifty thousand people were massacred "because they had looked into the ark of the Lord." ** Why destroy "fifty thousand and three score and ten men" for such a trifle? If it were because they disobeyed the priest, was it not the duty of the priest to give the reason which made touching or looking into a box a deadly crime? But in religion to ask for an explanation is also taboo. The things of religion are not supposed to be understood. To understand is taboo.
* II Samuel vi, 6.
** I Samuel vi, 19.
A more important example of things forbidden without reason or rhyme is the Sabbath. The prevailing interpretation is that out of compassion for man and beast the deity ordained a day of rest. But the truth is that pity for the laboring man or the animal had positively nothing to do with the institution of "holy moons" and Sabbaths. It is the stress of modern thought that leads priests and rabbis to explain the Sabbath on Rationalist grounds. To begin with, oriental races were not so exceeding fond of work as to necessitate a divine fiat to compel them to take a rest. If anything, they needed to be urged and scourged to work at all. They were only too willing to let the Lord do everything for them. The ideal of the oriental believer was to be "like the lilies of the field, which toil not, neither do they spin." * What need was there for the bible people to invent machinery, to build factories, or to acquire science, when a miracle-working God was ever at their elbow."_O, to be Nothing, Nothing_," is to this day, one of the hymns in the churches.
* The Sermon on the Mount.
In the twenty-second chapter of Deuteronomy it is forbidden "to plough with an ox and an ass together." The theologians quote the text to prove that kindness to animals was the motive of this ordinance, as kindness to man was, of the Sabbath. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Why, then, is it unlawful to yoke an ass with an ox? It is another one of the mysteries of religion.
We have only to read on to learn that motives of humanity, justice or economy play no part at all in these ordinances. "Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds," says the same chapter. Surely this was not from any consideration of compassion for the soil or the seed. And when the bible again says: "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sort, as of woolen and linen together," is it for sanitary or economic reasons that the commandment was given? When again we read, "Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox or of sheep," etc., it surely was not for any hygienic reason that fat was prohibited, for it goes on to say that "the fat belongs to the Lord." But why should the Lord be so jealous of fat? It is no more possible to understand the ordinance against fat, or mixed seed sowing, or garments of mingled yam, and a thousand other similarly puerile edicts in the Old Testament, than it is to understand why it is necessary to sprinkle a man with water, or rub him with oil, before he can be a good Christian. Why an ox and an ass should not plough together is just as much a mystery as transubstantiation. The English and the American bible societies are translating these Hebrew and Christian riddles and distributing the book at the rate of about twenty million copies a year, costing an amount of money, energy and time, which if devoted to the advancement of health alone would do more toward making this earth a paradise for man, now and here, than all the mysteries and miracles of religion.
But let us not forget to explain the origin of the ban against the Sabbath, or the seventh day. It will surprise the Sabbatarian to learn that originally work was forbidden on the seventh day of the week for the same reason that many in our day object to start on a journey or on an enterprise of any kind on a Friday, or on the thirteenth of the month. The prejudice against Friday and the number "13" is based on the belief that both the day and the number are evil. Why? Nobody knows exactly. In the same way, the seventh day was considered by all Semitic races as an evil day--a day of disaster, unpropitious and accursed. The fear of the savage for the seventh day was as foolish as our fear of Friday, or of the number "13." But we laugh at our own prejudice about Friday and regard the savage's awe of the seventh day as inspired.
As already stated, the seventh day was taboo because it was supposed to be accursed. No work was to be done on that day, not because the work would spoil the day, but because they feared the day would spoil the work. Even in our day, if a man goes fishing on a bright Sunday, and is drowned, or if children go picnicking on the Sabbath, and are run over, the usual comment is that they lost their lives, not for fishing or picnicking, but for doing these perfectly innocent things on a certain day. Sunday is an evil day--for fishing, or for recreation of any kind. On the Sabbath, the safest thing, according to the bible, is to stay indoors. It is a bad day for pleasure, and a bad day for labor. There is only one thing that is safe on the Sabbath--going to church. Do we wonder now that children hated the Sabbath, or that a gloom fell upon both young and old on that lugubrious day?
But this supposedly evil day in time came to be regarded as "holy." I say supposedly evil, because there are no evil days, even as there are no "holy" days. One day is like another; it is superstition that makes a certain day, or place, or number, holier than another. And we have a right to be suspicious of a religion that thinks more, for example, of the number 3, or 7, or 40, or of the first or seventh day of the week than of other days or numbers. One of the motives which, according to the bible, actuated the building of a temple for Jehovah was to observe more solemnly "the Sabbaths and the new moons of the Lord." * The new moons! Why is a "new moon" more virtuous or talismanic than a full moon? What has righteousness to do with "new moons" or full moons? Why do we have to spend millions of dollars every year to send missionaries abroad to teach them the observance of "Sabbaths and new moons"? I am aware that the missionaries omit the "new moons," but is it not also in the Word of God? And what right has the missionary to drop anything from the Word of God? Has he forgotten the awful warning of the closing words of the bible? "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life," etc. ** But there is not a sect that has not both taken from, and added to, the Word of God. We tremble to think what will happen to them. "God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book." *** And what could be worse than the plagues mentioned in the bible? ****
* II Chronicles ii, 4.
** Revelation xxii, 19.
*** Revelation xxii, 18.
**** One of the rather mild plagues is described in Leviticus xxvi, 22-29: "I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children.... And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters." Twenty million copies a year of this book are sold!
As a day of rest and recreation, of intellectual, moral and aesthetic culture and pleasure, Sunday will always be one of the dearest institutions of civilization. But as already explained, humanitarian or ethical motives had no share at all in the making of the Jewish-Christian Sabbath. Would the clergy, for instance, consent to have any other day than Sunday observed as "holy"? Would they have the courage to call Tuesday or Thursday the Sabbath of the Lord, sanctified and set apart from all eternity? If not, the inference is inevitable that what they are principally interested in is the day--the taboo--and not the rest and profit which may be derived from quitting work on a given day of the week.
Among the primitive races a thing was taboo either because it was supposed to be "unholy" or because it was supposed to be "holy." A Catholic must not touch the sacraments because they are "holy," and the Jew must not touch swine's flesh because it is "unholy." In the one case, as in the other, it is a "thou shalt not." Why the touch of the fingers should defile the sacraments but not the touch of the palate or the lips; or why swine's flesh should mar one's character or standing before the community, is not explained because it can not be explained. Theology is a collection of enigmas. The less the people understand their religion the more they believe in it. A taboo is not meant to be understood; it is only meant to be obeyed. The Babylonians, from whom the Hebrews got their Sabbath, refrained from work on that day because they considered it an evil day; we refrain from work on that day because we think the day too sacred for work. It is not at all strange that the reason for a given taboo, being no more than a whim, should in the course of time change. The "thou shalt not" remains; the why does not matter much, because the why belongs to reason, and religion is a matter of faith.
The Totem
|TO show further how the unholy becomes, in time, the holy, or vice versa, let us glance at another barbaric institution of the past, that of the totem. The word taboo, as already explained, is Polynesian in origin; the word totem has come to us from the American Indian. Totem is a more difficult word to translate into modern thought. The most popular definition I could give to it would be to say that a totem is a "mascot." And yet, it is very much more. To savage tribes a totem was an object, more frequently an animal, which was sacred to the particular tribe that had identified itself with it. The thing, or the plant, or the beast thus selected, became an emblem, badge or bond of union. It served also as a sort of password by which the members of the tribe were recognized, and a center around which the clan grouped itself. To the totem they looked for preservation against famine, war and annihilation as a tribe. The totem was the soul of the tribe--the tribe in essence. The golden-rod is the national flower of America, the lily is upon the shield of France, the shamrock is Irish, the world over; in some such sense, only meaning very much more, was the totem to our savage ancestors.
Now we are in a position to guess at least why the bible forbids swine's flesh. Solomon Reinach, a distinguished Jewish scholar, and member of the French Academy, says that the boar was the totem of the Jew long before Moses appeared on the scene. * The totem was protected by a taboo, and, therefore, to eat it was a national crime. To destroy one's totem was a sacrilege and a blasphemy, punishable by death. They looked upon the man who ate his totem with more abhorrence than we would feel toward a fellow countryman who insulted his flag. Here, then, we have two counter currents; the Sabbath, beginning as an evil day, becomes "holy," while the hog, once a totem, an object of reverence, a god, degenerates into an unclean beast. Yet the one, as much as the other, is as taboo as ever.
* Orpheus, Solomon Reinach, page 27: "Les Juifs pieux s'abstiennent de manger du porc, parce que leurs lointains ancestres, cinq on six mille ans avant notre ere, avaient pour totem le sanglier."
The "thou shalt not labor on the Sabbath day," and the "thou shalt not eat swine's flesh," remain the same, though the why is shifted from the "because it is unholy" to a "because it is holy," in the case of the Sabbath; and from the "because it is holy" to a "because it is unholy," in the case of the hog. In the meantime, it remains as true as ever that there is nothing either "holy" or "unholy" about a hog or a day. Why was the seventh day cursed or blest? Why, of all the animals, was the hog selected, first to be adored and then to be abhorred? While many interesting reasons could be suggested, the truth is that, like the majority of religious rites and dogmas, both taboo and totem are impenetrable mysteries. When, in the Merchant of Venice, Shylock is asked why he covets a pound of that merchant's flesh, "nearest his heart," with a toss of his head, and his eyes afire, he replies: "It is my humor." * And if we were to ask Jehovah why swine's flesh is taboo, or why the seventh day is "holy," or why the priest under penalty of death must carry a golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of his robe, ** or why the man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised shall be cut off from his people ***, or why "Whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die," **** or why it is a deadly crime to peep into a wooden box, or yoke an ass with an ox, the answer would be the same: "It is my humor."
* Act iv, Scene I.
** Exodus xxviii, 34-43.
*** Genesis xvii, 14.
**** Numbers xvii, 13.
Nothing could be more convincing that humor and not reason dictated the commandments in the bible, than the large number of taboos, the neglect of which was invariably visited with death. If a man kindled a fire in his kitchen on the Sabbath, or picked up sticks, he "shall surely be put to death"; if he forgot to observe the feast of the passover, or ate leavened bread during the passover, or ate the fat, or the blood of the animals he slaughtered for food, he "shall surely be put to death"; if a man made a holy ointment, or perfumery, or if he offered sacrifices without the help of a priest, or killed his cattle without giving a part of it to the priest, he "shall surely be put to death." If a man entered the house of the dying, or touched a pig or a dead animal, and did not pay the priest to absolve him from his guilt, he "shall surely be put to death."
The Old Testament is a veritable deathtrap. On every page, and behind every sentence, almost, there is a trap. It takes a very clever dodger to escape falling into one of them. Even Moses was caught and smashed in a trap. Out of all the people who left Egypt for the promised land, all but two perished in the wilderness because of some infringement of the ceremonial law. What a failure! Even as Eden, offered for a paradise to man, became the tomb of the human race, the promised land became the cemetery of the people who sacrificed their homes for it. Such is the humor of the gods!
But let us speak of another totem. The Catholics eat fish on Friday. Not one out of a million Catholics knows why fish is preferred to meat on a certain day in the week. The fish, too, was at one time a totem in Syria. The early Christians, being largely from that part of the country where the fish was sacred, made a place for it in their new faith. In the writings of the Christian Fathers, Jesus is often called the Big Fish, and his disciples the little fish. Upon many of the ancient Christian tombstones there was engraved a fish. Tertullian, a shining light in the early church, speaks of his converts as "the fishes born in the waters of baptism." In the early communion service, the fish represented the divine elements. To this day the fish, an ancient Syrian totem, holds its sway not only upon Christians, but also upon the Jews. An orthodox Jew, no matter how poor, must have his fish every Friday evening. *
* Orpheus, Solomon Reinach, page 29.
But how did people come to eat their totem? It was explained above that swine's flesh is taboo, because of the sacredness of the boar to an ancient Semitic tribe; if the fish was also sacred, and protected by a "thou shalt not," or a taboo, how did it come to be an article of diet? Under exceptional circumstances all primitive tribes ate their totems, or their gods. In the time of famine or war they fed on the sacred beast for self-preservation--before which all other laws break down. Moreover, it was their belief that by eating their totem they acquired its virtues and strength. To partake of the qualities of the totem, and to become more closely identified with it--made one with it--it was deemed necessary on solemn occasions to eat it. Eating the totem came to be, in time, a religious rite. Of course, it was with many regrets and apologies that the savage slew his totem for food. He mourned over it and blamed himself for the death of his god. On the other hand, as intimated above, he argued that the only way he could get into a closer communion with his totem, and become a partaker of his virtues, he must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. The Christian communion service is the modern version of an ancient rite. On Sundays, and with much mourning, the Christian crucifies again his totem, to eat of his body, broken for him on the cross, and to drink of his blood, shed for the remission of his sins. Is it not wonderful how one superstition is like another?
The Holy Ghost, one of the members of the trinity, is represented in the form of a dove, because, like the fish and the boar, the dove was another ancient totem. Whenever an animal, or a tree, or any other object, is made to represent the deity, as the dove represents the Holy Ghost, or the fish the Son of God, or the bull, or the eagle Zeus, we may be quite sure that at one time these animals were gods. Gradually, from being regarded as gods, they came only to represent them. When the Holy Ghost, now and then, takes on the form of a dove, it goes to prove that the Holy Ghost started as a dove--the dove was the Holy Ghost. And just as races of men sometimes fall back to the level of their ancestors, the gods go back to the dove, and the fish, and the boar, whence they came. The gods, too, like their religions, die of the same disease--that of being found out.
The point which it has been the object of the discussion on taboos and totems to establish is that the laws and commandments in the bible, as well as the doings attributed to the deity represent, not Reason, but humor. Whim plays the chief rôle in the divine drama. Noah is ordered to take with him into the ark, "of every clean beast" seven pairs; "and of beasts that are not clean, two pairs, the male and the female." But no instruction is given him as to what makes a beast clean or unclean, or how Noah is to tell the one from the other. Nor is it explained why a certain number of unclean beasts are to be saved, while all the unclean of the human race are to be drowned. The only answer we would get from the "Lord God," if we asked him for an explanation, would be, "It is my humor."
And why should any animals be preserved at all? If the deity could by a word of his mouth cause all forms of life, vegetable and animal, to spring forth out of the ground; if by a mere "Let there be light," he could create light--why should he trouble himself about packing the ark with specimen animals to preserve the species? And why was it necessary to rain for forty days, to drown a world which it took him about six days to create out of nothing? But we are reasoning, and in religion, reason is taboo.
How different is science! The bible is a book of puzzles; science is common sense. The bible treats of forms and ceremonies--of holy water, holy oils, holy wafers and of forbidden trees and animals. Science, on the other hand, explains the inexorable laws of nature, a knowledge of which, and obedience to which, makes for life and happiness. Let us rejoice that science has broken for us the spell of superstition.
III. The Bible and Magic
|STILL another word, the explanation of which would greatly help us to understand the bible, is the word magic. A magician, according to Voltaire, is a man who pretends to possess the secret of doing what nature can not do. Another Frenchman defines magic as the "strategy of the savage." There is not very much difference between these two definitions. Magic is the weapon, or the art, or the science, of the savage against the powers of nature. The magician claims to be able to "go one better" than nature, or to bring nature to terms. If there is a drought, the magician offers to compel rain from the stubborn skies; if the plague is upon the land, the magician bids it steal away; if wild beasts attack his hut, the magician throws a spell over them and makes them harmless. Fire will not burn, water will not drown, the grave can not hold its prey, and even the gods become helpless at a word from the magician. Magic, in a sense, is the coup d'etat of the savage.
When one country is at war with another, the best generalship consists in finding out the tactics of the enemy with a view of beating him at his own game. Likewise, the aim of the magician is to steal the secret of the gods and then play the part of a god not only better than the gods themselves, but against them as well. Is not man wonderful!
In one sense, magic is science in the making. But while science seeks to control nature through knowledge, magic resorts to spells, charms, incantations and concoctions. In other words, magic is dishonest science.
Now, much as I regret to say it, the bible is more than tainted with this kind of science. Not a word is there in the bible about studying the laws of nature, for study is not necessary where there is magic. The real thing, science, is made superfluous by the imitation article--magic. Thus the bible, by its preference for a false science, postponed, if it did not succeed in defeating altogether, the intellectual evolution of man.
Scarcely anything happens in the bible in a natural way. Miracles are so many, and so frequent, that there is practically no nature in the bible. The dead arise, the rivers flow backward, the sea turns into dry land, sticks change into serpents, the axe head floats on the water, walls and fortifications fall at the sound of a trumpet, animals talk, virgins become mothers, sun and moon are arrested and then set free, and a universe is produced out of nothing, with as little ado as a magician requires to pull a rabbit out of his sleeve.
We are in the land of magic. Nature is suspended, and the supernatural is in full swing.
I read the other day of a country farmer who went to see a celebrated conjurer perform his wonders. He saw the "wizard" pick money out of the air, shoot watches into people's pockets, change copper into gold and silver, and perform a hundred other equally marvelous feats. As he was leaving the charmed presence of the juggler, he expressed his surprise that so resourceful a man should be under the necessity of giving performances to earn a living. He could not understand why a man whose touch turned everything to gold should collect dimes at the box office. Of course, the explanation is perfectly simple: The wonders which the conjurer performs are sham wonders. In the same way, the miracles in the bible never help anybody nor accomplish anything because they are sham miracles. The bush which bums, and yet is not consumed, is a sham bush--the bush is not a bush, and the fire is not real fire. The few loaves and fishes with which Jesus fed a great multitude were sham loaves and fishes, and the multitude which, though hungry, could not exhaust the food, was a sham multitude. Sham bread, sham multitude, sham hunger! Such are the wonders of the conjurer or the magician in or outside the bible. If Jesus really possessed the power of multiplying a few loaves into an exhaustless supply of bread, why is there then any poverty in the world?
Moreover, the miracles--which are as thick on the pages of the bible as blackberries on a bush--what good did they do to the people for whose benefit they were performed? If the Egyptians perished in their homes, the Jews perished in the wilderness; if the Egyptians lost their slaves, the Jews lost their sons and daughters--lost themselves. What good did all the miracles performed in their behalf do for them? Their city, Jerusalem, was set on fire, their homes pillaged, their children put to the edge of the sword, over and over again. What benefit did they derive from the ten thousand miracles lavished upon them? And look at the Greeks! Not one miracle did Jehovah perform for them. Yet they rose to be the masters of the world, and are still by their worth and genius, the teachers of mankind.
The most unexpected and impossible things are said and done in the bible. When Abraham was bom, his father, Terah, was seventy years old. In every other book, as the father grows older, the son, too, would advance in years. But in the bible, while Terah grows older, Abraham grows younger, or stops growing altogether, so that when his father is two hundred and five years old, he himself is only seventy-five years old, making him sixty years younger than he should be by all the laws of arithmetic. But what is arithmetic to a magician? When the theologian says three times one is one, he is not thinking of so little a thing as mathematics--there are no impossibilities for the magician. He can make the three one, and the one three. Listen to one of the great Christian Fathers, Tertullian:
_What have the philosopher and the Christian in common? The disciple of Greece, and the disciple of heaven? What have Athens and Jerusalem, the church and the academy, heretics and Christians in common? There is no more inquiry for us, now that Christ has come, nor any occasion for further investigation, since we have the gospel.... The Son of God is dead; it is right credible because it is absurd; being buried he has arisen; it is certain, because it is impossible._
There are no difficulties for theologians. If
"Isaiah, the prophet, cried unto the Lord, and he brought the shadow (of the sun) ten degrees backward... in the dial," * why could not Abraham grow backward? If Joshua could arrest the sun, what is a little miracle like that of Abraham standing still while the whole world moved on? If Jesus could be bom without a father, why could not Melchisedec be bom without either a father or a mother? This personage was, perhaps, one of the most wonderful in bible history. He had neither beginning nor ending, neither a father nor a mother.
_For this Melchisedec... to whom also Abraham gave a tenth (of the spoils)... without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God._ **
* II Kings xix, ii.
** Hebrews vii, 1-3.
Wonderful as he was, he believed in getting his share of the spoils. The theologians, in the bible, or outside of it, do not seem to be in the least surprised at the incredible things in the Word of God. If Eve were not startled when she heard the serpent talk, neither is the American theologian who takes that for his text. If Balaam was not at all perplexed when his ass opened its mouth and asked him a question, neither are the divinity professors in our universities who explain the incident to their pupils. This, if anything, is the more wonderful miracle.
If I were riding a horse, and all of a sudden the animal should turn around and ask me what the subject of my lecture would be for next Sunday, I would certainly be dumfounded. Yet neither Balaam, nor his fellow theologians of to-day, show the least perturbation over an ass interrogating his rider. They can not afford to. Is not God almighty? And, besides, upon what grounds would they be justified in rejecting this or that miracle while accepting others? Was it more difficult for Balaam's ass to have talked than for Christ to have been bom without a father, or Melchisedec without any parents at all? Magic and miracle know no laws.
"If God had not opened the mouth of the ass," said Father Ignatius, a modern evangelist of the Anglican communion, "remember that there would have been no Christ." The Christian who says he believes in the virgin birth, but not in the talking serpent or ass, is a sceptic already. The reasoning by which he rejects the one miracle is equally effective against all the others. To accept the Christ miracle by faith, and to reject the Balaam miracle by reason, is a procedure which leads to anarchism in thought and faith. Oh, no; if you believe in the supernatural at all you will have to believe in Melchisedec and Balaam, as you do in the virgin-born Christ. You can not choose your miracles. All or none! And the man who believes in one miracle is not a bit different from the man who believes in a million.
The Unitarian president of America * defines Christianity as "The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." When Edward Everett Hale died, the Unitarians said that "Pater noster"--our Father--expressed the heart and soul of his Christianity. A short time ago, Doctor Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, undertook to reduce Christianity to the same simple terms. The idea common to these men is that the only essential thing is the God idea. Never mind about Balaam, or the virgin birth. "Our Father which art in heaven" is all that is necessary. But one moment: Is not God as much a miracle as Christ or Balaam? How do we know God is, or that he is a father, or that he is in heaven? By faith? Why then is not faith also enough to make all miracles true? The "Our Father" is a chip of the same old block of supernaturalism. There are against one little chip from the block all the objections that there are against the whole block. If God is our father by faith, then Christ was bom of a virgin by faith, and the whale swallowed Jonah by faith, and the pope is the vicar of God by faith, and so on to the end of the creed. Let us be consistent; which is another way of saying, let us be honest.
* President Taft
The Unbelievable in the Bible
|THE bible taxes even _credulity_ beyond the point of endurance. No matter how willing one may be to believe everything in the bible, there is a limit even to one's willingness to believe. When Moses was upon the mountain talking with God, the people down in the plain were worshiping idols. Is it possible that with the quaking and thundering mountain before them, with the deity sitting on its summit, the Jews would have had the temerity to worship a golden calf? Yet this is precisely what the Jews are accused of doing. The parting of the Red Sea is easier to believe than that the Jews worshiped a calf in the immediate presence of "the one true God"! Let us glance at the story as it is told in the bible.
_And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightning, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God. And they stood at the nether part of the mount.
And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice_. *
Is it believable that, under such circumstances, with the only God in sight of all the people, and his voice in their ears, the Jews could have turned to Aaron and said to him:
_Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him._ **
Both stories can not be true. Either there was no quaking mountain, or sounding trumpet, or voice of God answering Moses from the summit, or the tale of the golden calf is an interpolation. If the people were too stupid to know better, how was it that Aaron, the brother of Moses, who had met "the true God" on several occasions, instead of showing the least indignation or surprise, says to them:
_Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons and of your daughters, and bring them unto me._ ***
* Exodus xix, 16,17,19.
** Exodus xxxii, 1.
*** Exodus xxxii, 2.
Yes, "bring me your gold," has been the cry of the mystery-man from the beginning of the world!
_And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt_. *
All this in full view of the flaming mountain, with God conversing with Moses, and the trumpet blowing louder and louder! It is simply impossible. There is not credulity enough in man, it seems to me, for such contradictory stories. I know men say they believe in them, but do they?
Strange as was the conduct of Aaron and the people on this occasion, the behavior of Moses, when he came down and saw the people dancing like naked savages about their newly fashioned god, ** was even more inexplicable. He made a drink out of the golden calf, which he first ground into powder, and caused "the children of Israel to drink of it." *** What could have been his idea in converting the god into a beverage? A text like that indicates plainly the presence of fetishism in the bible. Even as looking at a brazen serpent was supposed to cure them of serpent bites, the drinking of gods melted into a beverage was thought to be a remedy against idolatry. Other examples, proving the fetishistic beliefs of Moses, are not wanting in the bible. To make a house "holy" or proof against the plague, Moses put up the following magical prescription:
* Exodus xxxii, 4.
** Exodus xxxii, 25.
*** Exodus xxxii, 20.
_And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:
And he shall kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water:
And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times:_
_And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet._ *
To ascertain a woman's virtue, the prescription was as follows:
_And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:
And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:
And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter._
This was not all; an animal's flesh was also burned and mixed with the water.
_And when he hath made her drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled... her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people_. **
* Leviticus xiv, 49-52.
** Numbers v, 11-27.
If these symptoms did not appear, then the woman was not guilty. But is it believable that, with God at their elbow, constantly answering questions, revealing to them the pas and the future, and making all hidden things plain, they needed mixed drinks, or concoctions, to find out whether or not a woman was innocent? And mark you, evidence had no place at all in the Mosaic court. No witnesses were examined, and no testimony taken; it was the mixed preparations that did the work of judge and jury. Is it possible that all this is divine?
Blood, according to the bible, is a great disinfectant. The way to sanctify a man or a people was to sprinkle them with blood.
_Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
And thou shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon the garments of his sons with him. *
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people._ **
How does such a practice differ from fetishism? How can blood on the garments have any effect upon the conscience or the intellect? The plea that all this was mere symbolism, if applied also to the rites and ceremonies prescribed by the Hindu or Persian priesthood, would make all religions inspired. The ancient Hindus believed that cow-dung was divinely prescribed for sanctifying purposes. Why was not that, too, mere symbolism? The word symbolism is made to cover a multitude of superstitions. Lacking the courage, and sometimes also the honesty, to say that such ceremonies prove a very low state of culture on the part of the people who observed them, clever theologians not only excuse or defend them, but they even profess to find symbolized in them the mysterious purposes of the infinite. Superstition dies hard.
Even as sprinkling with blood sanctified the people, confessing to a goat secured a pardon from God for sin.
_And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited_. ***
* Exodus xxix, 20-21.
** Exodus xxiv, 8.
*** Leviticus xvi, 21-22.
Could this be the origin of the confessional? The goat ceremony has a wider meaning than the commentators will admit. There were really two goats, upon which Aaron, the priest, cast lots, "one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat." *
The word "scapegoat" is a euphemism; the Hebrew text says _Azazel_. Now this was one of the terrible names of God. Both Jews and Mohammedans believed Azazel to be a dread divinity. Milton introduces Azazel as the standard-bearer of the fallen hosts of heaven. The Arabs, who are a branch of the Semitic race, paid homage to this celestial, and spoke of him as the counsellor or advocate of Allah who was banished from heaven because when Adam, the first man, appeared upon the scene, he would not bow to him. Azazel did not think much of man; and it was for that he lost his position. The "scapegoat," then, in the text was none other than his Satanic majesty, the fallen chief of the heavenly hosts--the devil. Setting apart a goat for Azazel, or allowing him to share with Jehovah the offering at the altar, gives support to the belief that the Jews worshiped the devil as well as Jehovah. It is plainly stated in other parts of the bible that devil worship was common among the Jews even as late as the time of Rehoboam, who reigned after David and Solomon. ** But more light is thrown on the subject of the intimacy between God and Satan in the story of Job.
* Leviticus xvi, 7-8.
** II Chronicles xi, 15: "And he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils."
IV. The Strangest Story in the Bible
|ONE of the strangest chapters in the bible is the description of the interview between God and the devil. The interview takes place in heaven. We have already met the devil in Paradise; now we are to find him, as the French say, in a _tête à tête_ with Jehovah, at the exclusive headquarters of the latter. There is much reason to believe that these two beings, who seem to be together on important occasions, originally sprang from the same stock, if such a term could be used. Jehovah and Azazel, or Satan, appear to be first cousins. This is the impression of nearly every student who looks into their pedigrees. In the thought of early man God was hardly distinguishable from the devil. The evidence bears out the bible suggestion that at one time God and the devil were on the best of terms, and kept house together. In those days it was really difficult to tell them apart. In the twenty-first chapter of the first book of Chronicles, it is written by "inspiration" that "God moved David to number Israel." In the twenty-fourth chapter, the first verse, of the second book of Samuel, we read that it was Satan who moved David to take a census of the nation. There is no inconsistency here. God and Satan belong to the "unknown," and they pull together. When, as the bible informs us, there was war in heaven, the two relatives quarreled and parted. And though ever since they have maintained separate quarters, now and then, when there was a reunion of the family, Satan was invited to join the festivities. There is a saying that "blood is thicker than water," and still another, that "blood will tell." The occasional conferences and exchange of confidences between Jehovah and Satan, as related in the bible, is a confirmation of these popular proverbs.
The instructions given to Aaron about being sure to have two goats, and to let Azazel have the one which fell to his lot, even though it may be the fatter animal, shows the care which Jehovah takes of his ancient comrade and minister. Perhaps this was necessary to keep the peace. At any rate, it is evident that Jehovah was mindful of the rights of Azazel.
But now about the interview between Jehovah and Satan: "Now there was a day," says the bible, "when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them." * Was he, too, one of the Sons of God? It is impossible to read the description of these family gatherings in heaven with Satan also invited, without being impressed with the importance of the devil in the councils of God. Perhaps the _entente cordiale_ between Satan and Jehovah is to be explained by the fact that the latter had not found any one among all his ministers who could fill the place made vacant by the resignation of Satan. Jehovah needed the devil, and this dependence upon him to carry to a successful issue his most urgent and mysterious decrees was the secret of the deference shown to the devil in these periodical reunions at the throne of God. On one of these occasions, as we have seen, when the children of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan, of course, was there among them. But this was not the only time that Satan was invited to meet with God. His presence at these gatherings created no surprise, because he had been seen there frequently. But I am not equally sure that the marks of special attention shown to him by the Lord of heaven did not make the saints a little jealous of him. The reports of these meetings in heaven confine themselves exclusively to what transpires between the two principals, God and Satan. The other "sons of God" seem to have acted what in modern parlance would be called "a silent part."
* Job i, 6.
Jehovah inquired of his distinguished guest, the news and whence he came. As the Lord knew all the news himself, and also whence Satan came, he must have asked these questions for the purpose of "drawing him out," to use an expression in vogue among diplomats.
But Satan knew how to keep a secret. He answered his host's question without really telling anything either of the news, or whence he came: "From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it," he replied. If we were not afraid of exposing ourselves to the charge of blasphemy, we would say that this was a devilish answer. It said nothing. Evidently Satan wanted God to show his hand first.
"Hast thou considered," asked the Lord, addressing Satan more confidentially, and coming to the point, "my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fear-eth God, and escheweth evil?" *
* Job 1,8.
In all probability the reference to Job was to prove that there was one man, at least, whom the devil had not yet been able to win over to his side. But the devil had an explanation for his failure to get Job; it was not because Job loved God, but because of the favors God kept showering upon him.
"Doth Job fear God for naught?" he asked. "Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?... But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." *
This was a challenge. Satan would not allow that there was even one man who loved and served God from choice. To show his confidence in Job, the Lord not only accepted the devil's challenge, but volunteered to hand over his one faithful subject to the tender mercies of the Evil One.
_And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold all that he hath is in thy power._ **
* Job i, 9-11.
** Job i, 12.
Thereupon Satan hurried out in search of his victim. Whether or not the other "children of God" who were present at this reunion, heard this interesting conversation between the two divinities, and who they thought would come out winner in the contest over a denizen of the earth, is not recorded. Job, of course, was not aware of the fact that Jehovah and Satan were throwing dice for his soul. Nor was he consulted whether or not he wanted to be turned over to the devil for the worst drubbing any one ever received. From a human point of view, it was an unspeakable outrage to take a "perfect and upright man" and hand him over to be thrashed within an inch of his life. But there is, the learned doctors of divinity tell us, a difference between human and divine justice. "God's ways are not our ways," as his conduct in this case amply proves.
The devil lost no time in falling upon Job now that he had _carte blanche_ to bring his ingenuity into play. He began by attacking Job's property, which the Sabeans carry off. Scarcely has the patriarch reconciled himself to this loss, when word is brought to him that "the fire of God is fallen from heaven," burning up everything that belonged to him in the fields. "The fire of God"? It looks as if Jehovah had not only permitted Satan to ruin Job, if he could, but he was helping him, personally, by sending down fire upon Job's servants and cattle. And what was the fault of these that they, too, should be punished? And why were the sons and daughters of Job killed? For the next messenger tells Job that all his children were destroyed by a terrific windstorm, also sent by God. But it is one thing to ask these questions of a theologian, and another thing to get him to answer them. Despite these terrible blows, however, Job remained loyal to God. Jehovah came out ahead in the first inning. But the game is not over yet.
Another meeting is arranged for between these two powers. Again they meet in heaven. It was a dangerous thing to let the devil into heaven so often, after the experience of Adam and Eve in Paradise, with its dire results, not only to man, but to the son of God himself, whose crucifixion might have been prevented by refusing the devil admittance into Eden. When the devil was seated comfortably next to the deity--or perhaps he was standing--he was asked about Job, who had remained true to God despite the fact that the latter had delivered him up to the devil. But we will let Jehovah state his own case:
_And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause._ *
* Job ii, 3.
Do you know, reader, why I have put in italics the concluding words in the above quotation? It is the most terrible text in all the bible. It is what the lawyers would describe as the most conspicuous instance of self-incrimination on record. In this passage the Lord of heaven and earth makes the frightful admission that he did wrong upon the suggestion of the devil--that he was tempted of the devil to commit a crime! This is staggering. He also admits that the crime was committed against a just man, and without cause! We have in this text a most humiliating picture of the deity--a God obeying the devil! The English language is inadequate to help express the horror, the pity, the indignation, the defiance, the scorn, the sorrow which the spectacle of a God admitting a heinous crime but pleading that the devil moved him to commit it, provokes in me. If I could weep the world into common sense, I would do it; if I could laugh these absurdities and immoralities out of the world's mind and conscience, who would prevent me?
I am really afraid of a God who will take advice from the devil. I am afraid of a God who will cause a "perfect and upright man" to be ruined "without cause," just to win a wager from the devil.
To me, the strangest discovery one makes in the bible is that God and the devil are, to use the nomenclature of the commercial world, business partners. They meet occasionally to discuss policies and to exchange views. Each is mindful of the rights of the other. God would rather see his servant Job ruined than drive the devil out of his presence for moving him to commit a crime. Which is God and which is the devil?
But let us return to the story: Satan was not willing to grant that he had lost, until Job had been punished some more. So he asked for permission to attack Job in his own person:
"Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face," * suggested the devil. What did the other partner say to this? Although he had just admitted that he did wrong to an innocent man, to a friend, he is willing to do it again, and this time he consents to be more cruel and unjust than before.
_And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand._**
Like a flash, Satan fell upon Job and smote him "from the sole of his foot unto his crown." Job became a disgusting heap of prurient and carious flesh.
_And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes._ ***
* Job ii, 4-5
** Job ii, 6.
*** Job ii, 9.
Thus Job becomes a football between these two gambling divinities. After losing everything, after being deprived of his sons and daughters, he himself is brought down by foul sores and boils to the verge of death. Indeed, death would have been preferable to being the toy and plaything of Jehovah-Satan. The preachers defend this loose story and call it inspired, on the ground that it taught Job _patience_. But was there no saner way of teaching him the lesson of patience?
The bible God plays with fire. His attempt to teach Adam obedience cost the damnation of the human race and the death of his own son. He almost tempted Abraham to stick a knife into his own son in trying to make sure of his faith. He tried Jephtha's loyalty, and it cost the latter the life of his young daughter; and to teach Job patience, servants, cattle, sons and daughters--all are slaughtered.
Moreover, if Job was "a perfect and upright man," as the text claims, what need was there of teaching him patience--and at such a cost, too? The clergy, lacking the courage to say that the story of God and Satan, gambling for the soul of Job, is a myth, rack their brains for excuses and apologies to explain its presence in the Word of God. Nor is it true that the story was meant to teach us submission to God, whether he sends good or evil. That is what free-born people would call blasphemy. It is wrong to submit to evil. It is base to kiss the hand that robs us of our rights. We do not deserve freedom if we can endure slavery. Justice is born of the rebellion against wrong, as truth is born of the protest against error. The Asiatic submits; the European rebels. Of that rebellion is born civilization. Prometheus, defying the gods, and not Job, licking the hand that has crushed him, is our inspiration!
I am also aware of the argument of the liberal clergy, that the book of Job is only a poem. Why not say so, then, in plain print? Why bind an imaginary composition in the same volume with the "infallible word of God?" But, even as the first chapter of Genesis was inspired history until Darwin exposed its untruth, so was the Book of Job inspired history until criticism showed its inherent immorality. As a play, Job is one of the most successful in ancient literature. But what is a play doing in the "Holy Bible"?
But my main object in reciting the story of this Arab sheik was to show the family resemblance between the two sovereigns, the one of heaven, the other of hell. In the New Testament, too, Satan figures as a personage of importance, and not at all as one who has been disarmed and degraded. On one occasion Jesus and the devil met in the wilderness. The conversation which took place between them shows the devil was as independent and resourceful with the junior God as he was with Jehovah. According to St. Mathew, the devil picked up the Son of God and flew with him through the air. When he had set him down on the pinnacle of the temple he told him what he wanted. From there he carried Jesus to an exceeding high mountain, so high that from its summit "all the kingdoms of the world" could be seen. * Now a being who could fly through the air with a god tucked away under his arm is not to be slighted.
* Matthew iv, 1-12.
Satan has gone. Jehovah must follow. Neither can live without the other.