described in 1 Kings vi.—viii., and we are bound to believe that Solomon
offered up 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep! It would scarcely have been
possible for him to have killed more than one animal in five minutes,
for each corpse would have to be dragged away to make room for the next,
and this is supposing that others prepared the dead animals for
sacrifice. Yet at this rapid rate, without stopping for food or rest or
sleep, it would have taken Solomon 11,833 hours and 15 minutes to
complete his task, or 493 days. As he must have stopped for food and
sleep we may double this time, and a pleasant 2 3/4 years poor Solomon
must have passed.
Numberless contradictions may be found in these historical books, but I
pass over them all at present, as well as over the succeeding books
until we come to the prophets, for to these I must devote the remainder
of the space allotted to this part of my subject. We may note in passing
the ludicrous absurdity of the headings, “reciprocal love of Christ and
his Church,” etc., put by commentators over the sensual and suggestive
descriptions of male and female beauty in the amorous “Song of Solomon.”
Isaiah is by far the finest and least objectionable of the seventeen
prophets whose supposed productions form the latter part of the Old
Testament. A distinctly higher moral tone appears in the writings called
by his name, and this is especially noticeable in the “second Isaiah,”
who wrote after the Babylonish captivity. There is also much fine
imagery and poetic feeling, and a distinct effort to raise the people
above the brutal savagery of animal sacrifice to the recognition that
justice and right-doing are more acceptable to Jahveh than dead animals.
Jahveh himself has wonderfully altered, and though there are many traces
of the savage Mosaic deity, the prevailing thought is of the “High and
lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose Name is Holy” (Is. lvii., 15).
It seems strange, after reading some of the more beautiful passages, to
suddenly come upon such a passage as that in chapter xxxiv., 6—8. Yet
all are equally inspired, and must be equally accepted as divine. It is
hard to imagine that the coarse indecency of chapter xxxvi., 12, is
dictated by “a God of purity.” Nor is it easy to see what good Isaiah
did by walking about “naked and barefoot” (chap. xx., 2,3). The
completeness of the nakedness is not left in doubt (v. 4). In any
civilised community Isaiah would have been taken up by the police. A
fresh difficulty is thrown in the believer’s way by the statement: “The
grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down
into the pit cannot hope for thy truth” (chap. xxxviii., 18). It is
therefore blasphemy to say that there is any “hope” for the dead. Yet it
is equally blasphemy to deny that the dead have hope of resurrection.
Jeremiah is a most melancholy prophet. He wails from beginning to end;
he is often childish, is rarely indecent, and although it may be
blasphemy to say so, he and his “Lamentations” are really not worth
reading.
Ezekiel is both childish and obscene in the grossest sense. I can fancy
how Sir W. V. Harcourt would characterise Ezekiel if he were not
protected by law. In the first chapter we are introduced to a wonderful
chariot, borne by four living creatures, each of whom had four wings and
four faces, and four sides, and they had a “likeness” which was separate
from them, for “it went up and down among the living creatures” (chap.
i., 18); and the chariot had four wheels, or perhaps eight, for there
was “as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel” (v. 16); these wheels
“went upon their four sides” (v. 17), which must have been very awkward,
and they were full of eyes—what do wheels do with eyes?— and were “so
high that they were dreadful” (v. 18); on the top of this conglomeration
of four-faced creatures and eyed wheels was a firmament, and on the
firmament a throne, and on the throne a man, amber-colored, and fire
enwrapped, and the man was “the Lord.” And it is blasphemy to deny the
truth of this unintelligible jargon of absurdities. Then this man
converses with Ezekiel, and “a hand”—apparently minus an arm and a
body—brings a book (chap. ii., 9), and Ezekiel eats this “roll” (chap.
iii., 1—3), a very indigestible one, 1 should fancy. Then Ezekiel takes
a tile, and sketches a town on it, and pretends to besiege the tile, and
sticks up an iron pan which he makes believe is an iron wall, and then
he lies before it, making a fort and a mount, and bringing battering
rams to bear on his old brickbat (chap. iv., 1—4). And it is blasphemy
not to believe that this midsummer madness was god-inspired. The
remainder of his conduct (w. 9—15) is too disgusting to mention, and as
we are not protected, to print it would bring us under Lord Campbell’s
Act. The same remark applies to the unutterable nastiness of chaps, xvi.
and xxiii. And this is in a book put into the hands of little boys and
girls, without one protest from the Home Secretary. After all this we
are not surprised to read “the spirit” lifted Ezekiel up in the air,
“the form of a hand” taking him “by a lock of mine head” (chap. viii.,
3). When we read that Gabriel lifted Mahomet in this manner, we say it
is an impudent fraud; when we read it of Ezekiel it is “the very truth
of God.”
The book of Daniel has been so utterly destroyed by criticism that it
would be wasted time to dwell upon it. Yet this book is kept as one of
the “prophets,” although it has been proved to demonstration that the
pretended prophecies were written after the event.
The “minor prophets” deserve a pamphlet to themselves, so full of
absurdities are they. Hosea, judging by chap. i., 2, 3, and iv., 1, 2,
must have been a man of very indifferent character. His writings have
the _two_ characteristics of the minor prophets, indecency and maniacal
raving; sexual vice is played upon in a manner that is wearisomely
disgusting (see v., 1—13; iv., 12—14; v., 3, 4; vi., 10, etc., etc.).
Amos tells us how “the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with
a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest
thou? And I said, a plumbline” (chap. vii., 7, 8). Amos was always
seeing queer things, and “the Lord” was always asking him what he saw!
He saw some grasshoppers (vii., 1, 2), and a basket of summer fruit
(viii., 1), and the “Lord standing upon the altar” (ix., 1). Jonah’s
adventures are famous, and it is blasphemy to deny that throwing Jonah
into the sea stilled the waves, that a great fish swallowed him, that
the fish was a whale (Matt, xii., 40), that he lived in the whale’s
stomach for three days and three nights, said his prayers there, and was
thrown up safe and sound after living for seventy-two hours inside an
animal! Zechariah is as bad for vision-seeing as Amos. He sees red,
speckled and white horses among myrtle trees (i., 8), and then four
horns (v. 18); a friendly angel talks with him (v. 9), and explains
matters in a fashion that makes them more confused. Then there is a “man
with a measuring line” (ii., 1), and Joshua the high priest “in filthy
garments,” whom they undressed and dressed up again (iii., 1—5). And
there are a candlestick, and two olive-trees, and some pipes which
“empty the golden oil,” and which are the “two anointed ones” (iv.).
Next comes “a flying roll,” and then can anyone make sense of the
following: “Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto
me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I
said, what is it? And he said, this is an ephah that goeth forth. He
said moreover, this is their resemblance through all the earth. And,
behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead, and this is a woman that
sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And
he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead
upon the mouth thereof. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and
behold there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for
they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah
between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked
with me, whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, to build
it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set
there upon her own base.” (Zech. v., 5—11.) Yet if we do not believe
this we shall be dammed.
I might heap together yet more of these absurdities, but to what end?
Who but a lunatic could have written such incoherent matter? Yet this
Old Testament, containing error, folly, absurdity and immorality is by
English statute law declared to be of divine authority, a blasphemy —if
there were anyone to be blasphemed—blacker and more insolent than any
word ever written or penned by the most hotheaded Freethinker.
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