Part 4

It is blasphemy to deny that Jahveh, like other gods of his time, commanded human sacrifice. He says: “No devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both _of man_ and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted which shall be devoted _of men_ shall be redeemed, but _shall surely be put to death_” (xxvii., 28, 29). This abomination is commanded by divine authority, and he is in danger of gaol and damnation who shall honestly repudiate the detestable thing.

It is blasphemy to deny that Jahveh ordained the disgusting trial of a wife suspected of infidelity which is related in Numbers v., 12—31. If the “spirit of jealousy” come on a man, he is to bring his wife to the priest. “And the priest shall take holy water in an earthern vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water;” this delectable but dirty drink is to be swallowed by the woman, after a charm has been repeated by the priest, as “an oath of cursing,” and if the woman has been unfaithful the water will have very unpleasant physical results, while if the suspicion of her husband be false “she shall be free.” This prompt way of settling matters would obviate all the expenses and formalities of a divorce court, and if the arrangement could be extended to include unfaithful husbands, this Christian country would be saved much cost. But though the Christians punish other people for unbelief they are thorough infidels themselves in all practical matters. They would far rather trust Sir James Hannen than dirty holy water, when they suspect conjugal infidelity.

It is blasphemy to deny that Jahveh was so passionate (God is without passions, Art. I.), and so vain that he could only be restrained from smiting his people by the appeal of Moses to his vanity: “Then the Egyptians shall hear it.... and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land.... the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying: Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness” (Numbers xiv., 12—16). This suggestion, most ingeniously introduced by Moses — who “managed” Jahveh with admirable tact — proved successful, and “the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word” (v. 20). Yet it is blasphemy to say that god changes his purpose.

Furthermore, although it is blasphemy to deny that u he is faithful that promised” (Heb. x., 23), yet we must believe that Jahveh declared to the Israelites, “ye shall know my breach of promise” (Numbers xiv., 34).

It is blasphemy to deny that Jahveh commanded that a man who “gathered sticks upon the sabbath day” (xv., 32—36) should be stoned to death. Yet is it equally blasphemy to deny that Jesus, the representative and first-begotten of Jahveh, condemned the Pharisees who declared that his disciples did “that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day” (Matt, xii., 2), when they gathered corn.

The poor Pharisees tried to obey the law as given by Jahveh; their reward was to be condemned by his son. Yet it is blasphemy to deny that “I and my Father are one” (John x., 30).

It is blasphemy to deny that Jahveh commanded the Israelites to “make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a riband of blue: and it shall be unto you for a fringe” (Numbers xv., 38, 39). It is hard to believe, though it is blasphemy to deny, that the “Eternal Spirit” troubled himself about “a fringe.”

It is blasphemy to deny that there is a “pit,” within the earth, into which people may fall alive, when the earth opens her mouth and swallows them up; further, that Korah, Dathan and Abiram, their wives, their sons and their little children, were so swallowed up, and “went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them” (Numb, xvi., 27—33).

It is blasphemy to deny that a plague so fierce that it slew 14,700 people in a few hours could be stopped by a man with a censer full of incense who “stood between the dead and the living” (xvi., 46—49). One can only suppose that the plague advanced steadily across the camp, like a fog, killing every person it covered. Thus only could a man stand between the living and the dead. Yet no such advancing destruction is known to history.

It is blasphemy to deny that a dry old rod belonging to Aaron blossomed miraculously when eleven other dry old rods behaved in the normal fashion (xvii., 2—9). And not only did Aaron’s rod bud and blossom, but it also yielded almonds, and this all in the course of one night. It is blasphemy to suggest that Moses, Aaron’s brother, who took the rods and who hid them “before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness,” quietly substituted a blooming and fruiting branch in the place of his brother’s rod, and yet this would be the explanation which would be at once suggested if a similar trick were played now-a-days. But in those easy-going and credulous times very little skill was needed to impose upon a crowd ready to be deceived.

It is interesting to note, in passing, the admirable provision made by Jahveh—through the mouth of his servant, Moses —for Aaron and his family. “All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the first fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee. And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the Lord, shall be thine” (Numb, xviii., 12, 13). This claim on the part of the priesthood has never been regarded as part of that ceremonial law which has been “done away in Christ.”

The story of Balaam is one of the tests to which true faith must be submitted. We learn in this that when Balak sent to ask Balaam to go to him that he might curse Israel, god at first commanded him not to go (Numbers xxii., 12), but a little later commanded him to go (20). God, as we know, never changes. When Balaam obeyed god’s command and went, “god’s anger was kindled against him because he went” (22), that is because Balaam did what god told him to do, and “the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him.” Balaam was riding on a donkey, and the donkey saw the angel, though no one else did, “and the ass turned aside out of the way.” Again the angel placed himself in front of the donkey, and the donkey squeezed past him, crushing Balaam’s foot against the wall. For the third time the angel confronted the donkey, and on this occasion in a narrow place, “where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.” Then the donkey tumbled down. Balaam was, not unnaturally, disturbed at his donkey’s extraordinary behavior, and he had struck her each time that she had, as he thought, misbehaved. And now occurred a wonderful thing. “The Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in my hand, for now would I kill thee. And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay.” Sensible persons are expected to believe this absurd story of a conversation between a man and a donkey. Peter speaks of it without any expression of doubt, saying: “the dumb ass, speaking with man’s voice, forbad the madness of the prophet” (2 Peter ii., 16). It is blasphemy to deny it; it is madness to believe it. Balaam’s ass stands on a level with Mahomet’s, and only the credulous and superstitious can yield credence to the stories of either.

It is not worth while to delay over Balaam’s rhapsodies, except to note their extreme inaccuracy. “God is not a man that he should lie” (Numbers xxiii,, 19); yet “I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet” (Ezech. xiv., 9). “Nor the son of man that he should repent” (Numbers xxiii., 19); yet “it repented the Lord that he had made man” (Gen. vi., 6). “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel” (Numbers xxiii., 21); yet, “I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people;” “how long will this people provoke me?” (Exodus xxxii., 9, and Numbers xiv., 11). This declaration is the more startling when we find Moses— whose acquaintance with the people was more intimate than that of Balaam—saying: “Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord.... Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you” (Deut. ix., 7 and 24). It is needless to accumulate these contradictory statements, all of which we are commanded to believe on peril of damnation.

Immediately after Balaam’s declaration of Israel’s holiness, we read how the people reverted to idolatry, and how “the anger of the Lord was kindled against them” (Numbers xxv., 3). Some more murders were committed to pacify Jahveh, and he himself slew 24,000 by a plague.

In Numbers xxxi. we have one of the most horrible stories related even in the Bible, the story of the slaughter of the Midianites. Jahveh sent his tribes against this unhappy race, and, after their usual wicked fashion, they “slew all the males.” Moved, however, by an unwonted touch of pity, they “took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones,” and brought them alive back to their camp. Moses, Jahveh’s friend, “was wroth with the officers of the host” for their unworthy humanity, and shrieked out in his rage: “Have ye saved all the women alive?” And then he commanded them to “kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman” that had been married, “but all the women children that” were virgins “keep alive for yourselves.” This bloodthirsty and loathsome command is of “divine authority.” It is blasphemy to deny that it was god-given. Yet what of the blasphemy that ascribes an order so fiendish to “the God of the spirits of all flesh?” These baby boys and prattling children, kill every one; these mothers and matrons of Midian, murder them one after another. Such is the command of Jahveh, who said: “Thou shalt not kill.” And these fair and pure maidens, these helpless women-children, whose natural guardians ye have slain, keep these for the satisfactions of your passions. Such is the command of Jahveh, who said: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Some of these fair girls were claimed as “the Lord’s tribute,” 352 in all. These were handed over to the Levites, and small doubt can be felt as to their fate.

To add a touch of the comic to this tragic scene, we learn that after all the fighting and the slaughter, not one solitary Israelite was missing, while the Midianitish nation, of which not a male was left alive, turns up again later as merrily as though it had never been destroyed, and “prevailed against Israel, and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds” (Judges vi., 2).

The book of Deuteronomy is awkward for the true believer, because it is a recital of the story related in the preceding book, and constantly contradicts the previous narrative. Thus Moses commands Israel to make no likeness or similitude of Jahveh on the ground that when he spake to them “out of the midst of the fire,” “ye heard the voice of the words but saw no similitude” (Deut. iv., 12); yet turning back we read that seventy-four of them “saw the god of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God” (Ex. xxiv., 10,11). It can scarcely be pretended that when they saw a visible being with “feet” and a “hand,” they “saw no similitude.”

In Deut. v., 15, the reason for keeping holy the sabbath day is different from the reason given in Ex. xx., 11. Both of these are given as the very words of Jahveh, spoken from “Horeb” or “Sinai.” One of the versions must be inaccurate, yet it is blasphemy to deny either. In Deut. v., 22, Moses says that after the ten commandments “he added no more.” In Exodus he added a large number of other commands (see xx.—xxiii.).

We learn in Deut. viii., 4, that during the forty years wasted in the wilderness “thy raiment waxed not old upon thee.” This was very satisfactory for the adults, but what happened to the growing children? The raiment of a week-old baby can scarcely have been suitable to the man of forty; did the clothes grow with the body, and as the numbers of the people increased very much during the forty years, were new clothes born as well as new babies? If such questions are regarded as blasphemous, I can only answer that they are suggested by Moses’ assertion of the remarkable durability of the raiment, and raiment that did not become old might surely also grow and reproduce itself. Once begin miracle-working on old clothes, and none can say how far it may go.

It is blasphemy to assert that it is wrong to swear, for the Bible commands: “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God.... and swear by his name” (Deut. x., 20). It is blasphemy to assert that it is right to swear, for the Bible commands: “Swear not at all” (Matt, v., 34).

Deuteronomy xiii., from the first verse to the last, is a disgrace to the book in which it is contained, and a scandal to the community which permits it to be circulated as of divine authority. Yet it is blasphemy to attack it and to show its horrible atrocity. If a prophet or dreamer arise and try to turn away the Hebrews from Jahveh, then they are told: “The Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God” (v. 3). Yet, although it is Jahveh’s own doing, that unfortunate “prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death” (v. 5). The same fate is to befall “thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul” (v. 6), if such try to turn any away from Jahveh’s worship; with a refinement of cruelty, devilish in its wickedness, “thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death” (v. 9). The wife, passionately loved, is to see her husband, in whose bosom she has lain, raise his hand against her, foremost of a howling mob, greedy for her blood. The daughter is to clasp her father’s knees in vain; he must strike her down as she clings to him in her agony. The trusting and trusted friend is to be betrayed to the slaughterers, and the hand most closely grasped in love is to be the first to catch up the heavy stone and to beat out the faithful life. And it is blasphemy to cry out against this horror, but not blasphemy to ascribe its invention to the god “whose tender mercy is over all his works.”

The murder commenced in the family circle is to be continued in the national policy. If a city of the Hebrews reject Jahveh, “thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword” (v. 15); nothing is to escape, a burning bloodstained ruin is to be left “for the Lord thy God” (v. 16), and then Jahveh will bless his brutal servants, who have done “that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God” (v. 18). This command is of divine authority, and has been largely obeyed in Christendom, but people have fortunately become too civilised to carry it out now.

In Deut. xiv., some of the natural history blunders of Lev. xi. are repeated. It is confusing, however, after reading in Lev. xi., 21—23, “these may ye eat, of every flying creeping thing,” etc., to find in Deut. xiv., 19, “Every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you; they shall not be eaten.” So that the Israelites are deprived of those remarkable four-legged locusts, beetles and grasshoppers which “have legs above their feet.” (Do other animals carry their feet above their legs?) It is delightful to find Moses speaking of a bat as a bird; clearly in those days the schoolmaster was not abroad, but it is hard that we should be compelled to choose between the blasphemy of speaking of the bat as a mammal, and the falsehood of treating it as a bird. A beautiful touch of generosity is to be found in v. 21: “Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien.”

The general law of warfare laid down in Deut. xx., 10—15, is brutal in the extreme. If any foreign city ventures to defend itself against Hebrew aggression, and closes its gates against the invader, then it is to be besieged, and “when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt Smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.” A yet worse fate is to be dealt out to the cities of Palestine, for in these “thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth” (v. 16). Of course such method of war has nothing surprising, when we consider the cruelty and barbarism of the Eastern nations of which the Hebrews were one, but it is surprising that in the nineteenth century the bloody customs of a savage tribe should be set forth as founded on “divine authority.”

If possible, still viler is the treatment of captive women; when thou “seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house.... and after that thou shalt.... be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be if thou have no delight in her,” thy passions being satisfied, “then thou shalt let her go whither she will” (Deut. xxi., 11—14). No wonder that prostitution is rife in every Christian city, when this command is placed before young men’s eyes as “of divine authority.” Similar low views are taken in Deut. xxiv., 1. While this degrading teaching is that of Jahveh, Manu, a mere man, with no “divine authority,” but with only a human heart, taught his followers to treat every aged woman as their mother, every young woman as their sister.

It is rather odd to note in passing that he is declared to be cursed who marries “his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother” (Deut. xxvii., 22), when we remember that Abraham said of his wife Sarah: “Indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife” (Gen. xx., 12). Thus Abraham, who is so highly blessed in one part of god’s word, is cursed in another.

The book of Joshua is taken up with the bloody wars of the Israelites; it is a mere record of savage butchery; every page reeks with slaughter. “They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword” (Josh, vi., 21). This, repeated _ad nauseam_, is the book of Joshua. The tale is varied now and then with the record of absurd miracles, as that of the falling down of the walls of Jericho, or the standing still of the sun and moon at the command of Joshua. From its ferocity and absurdity, the book is beneath contempt, yet it is of “divine authority.”

In the Book of Judges we have the record of a number of utterly unimportant victories and defeats in the history of the Hebrew nation. Why should these be accepted as “of divine authority” any more than any corresponding history of some other equally obscure and barbarous people?

Over the barbarous stories of Ehud stabbing Eglon, with its disgusting details (iii., 21, 22); of Jael murdering her guest, in defiance of all desert laws of hospitality, and receiving for her treachery the blessing of the Lord, a blessing shared only with Mary, the mother of Jesus (v. 24, compare Luke i., 28); of Gideon and of Abimelech, with the evil spirit sent by god (Judges ix., 23); of Jephthah and his vow and his sacrifice of his daughter (xi., 29—39), as Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia; of Samson with his absurd and brutal conduct (xiv., 19; xv., 4, 5; and 14— 19, etc.); of the Levite and his concubine, and the foul details thereon (xix.)—what can any say of these save that such coarse and brutal stories belong to the childhood of every nation, and that while other peoples look back on their savage history as a thing that is past, these Hebrew stories are preserved in perennial freshness, and are placed as a burden on the consciences of the civilised nations of Europe, and, to our shame, are defended from criticism by the brutal laws of blasphemy invented in savage times and sanctioned in England to-day.

The books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah are interesting for the light they throw on the growth of the Israelitish people, but regarded as of divine authority, they give manifold occasion “for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.”

Thus we read how the “ark of God” was carried to battle, and how the Philistines were afraid, and asked: “Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods?” But they wisely determined to try and save themselves, and bade each other: “Quit yourselves like men, and fight.” So they overcame Israel and his “mighty Gods,” and took the ark itself captive (chap. iv.). Jahveh, however, if he could not fight the Philistines, was strong enough to fight their gods, and when he was offered the hospitality of Dagon’s temple, and was left quiet for the night, he knocked poor Dagon down. The Philistines put Dagon up again, and this so annoyed Jahveh that on the following night he knocked Dagon down again, and cut off his head and “the palms of his hands” on the threshold. After that Jahveh performed a miniature edition of the plagues of Egypt in the various towns to which his ark was carried, until some clever priests hit upon the idea of putting the ark on a cart and harnessing in two milch kine, and letting them go wherever they pleased. Off marched the kine to Bethshemesh, and there they met the fate of all the unlucky creatures that did Jahveh any service, for the men of Bethshemesh took them and offered them as “a burnt offering to the Lord.” Then Jahveh broke out on the poor men of Bethshemesh, and killed 50,070 of them, because they (all of them?) had peeped into the ark (chaps, v., vi.). And it is actually blasphemy to deny any detail of this absurd story.

1 Samuel xv. is a chapter that many a pious soul must wish blotted out from the Old Testament. Samuel, as bloodthirsty as Moses, gave in “the Lord’s” name the horrible command: “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (v. 3). This fiendish command was not wholly obeyed, for Saul saved the king, and the best of the sheep and of the other animals. Thereupon Samuel came down and cursed Saul vigorously, and then committed the absurdity of telling Saul that the “Strength of Israel,” whose change of purpose he had just announced, and who “repented that he had made Saul king” (v. 35), was “not a man that he should repent” (v. 29). After this manifest untruth, he murdered poor Agag, hewing him “in pieces before the Lord” (v. 33). Yet it is blasphemy to deny that this tissue of bloodshed and lying is inspired by “the spirit of truth.”