Dr. Farrar takes the position that "the Bible is not homogeneous in its
morality." There is a higher and a lower; and, to adopt the fine but
paradoxical metaphor of Milton, within the lowest deep a lower deep
still opens its dreadful abyss of crime and brutality. The same
admission is made by Professor Bruce,* of the Free Church of Scotland;
but this gentleman is more subtle than Dr. Farrar, and tries to save
the reputation of the Bible by a notable piece of cauistical
special-pleading. He does not allow, though he does not expressly
deny, that the Bible contains any immorality. What he does is to draw
a distinction between high morality and low morality. Immorality is
sinning against your conscience. High morality is acting right up to its
noblest dictates. Low morality is conduct in honest conformity to the
low standard of a conscience but half-enlightened. When the prophetess
Deborah sings triumphantly over the infamous exploit of Jael, who
invited the fugitive Sisera into her tent, and assassinated him while he
slept in the confidence of her hospitality, we must not say that either
of these precious females was guilty of immorality. They were simply
carrying out a low morality. And the same applies to Deborah's
exclamation: "To every man a damsel or two"--meaning that the Jewish
soldiers slew their male enemies and dragged home a brace of maidens
each for themselves. Such conduct would be highly improper now, but it
was all right then; at least it was as right as they knew; and we must
not judge the actors by later ethical standards. So says Professor
Bruce, and it would be true enough if the Bible were not put forward as
a divine book, or if it ever reprehended the infamies of God's chosen
people. But it does nothing of the kind; it mentions Jael and Deborah in
terms of absolute approval.
* Christian Apologetics, p. 309.
Dr. Farrar severely denounces the Jewish wars of extermination in
Palestine, regardless of the fact--which is as true as any other
religious fact in the Bible--that these atrocities were expressly
commanded by Jehovah. Divines have defended the massacre of the
Midianites, for instance, and the appropriation of their unmarried
women; but Dr. Farrar calls their arguments "miserable pleas," and adds
that if such "guilty and horrible" doings were "recorded without
blame," it only shows that "the moral views of the desert tribes on such
subjects were in this respect very rudimentary." These desert tribes
were the chosen people of God; their prophets spoke under divine
inspiration; yet even Jeremiah, in denouncing Moab, cries: "Cursed be he
that keepeth back his sword from blood." According to Dr. Farrar, this
proves how "slow" was the "development of the religious consciousness of
mankind." But how did it happen that the Jews, with all the advantage
of special inspiration, were just as slow in this respect as any other
nation in the world's history? What is the use of "inspiration" if
it does not appreciably quicken the natural development of the human
conscience?
Many of the Bible heroes are fit for a distinguished place in the
Newgate Calendar. Dr. Farrar himself cannot stomach "some details" in
the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Jephthah, and David. Still, he urges
that "the use made of them in the sceptical propaganda is often
illegitimate." These worthies were not "faultless." It is their "general
faithfulness" which is "rightly held up to admiration as our example."
Faithfulness to what? Simply to their own greed and ambition, first of
all, and secondly to the dominance of their tribal god Jehovah, who by
such instruments triumphed over his rival dieties, and became at last
the sole Lord God of Israel.
Dr. Farrar allows no palliating plea for the cursing Psalms. He cites
a few of the very worst passages, black with hatred and red with blood,
and asks: "Can the casuistry be anything but gross which would palm off
such passages as the very utterance of God?" Moses was "a great lawgiver
and a great prophet," but Dr. Farrar will not "defend the divinity of
passages so morally indefensible" as that, for instance, which gives the
slave-owner impunity in killing his slave, provided he does not slay
him on the spot, but beats him so that he dies "in a day or two." Nor
is there "divinity" in the order to the Jews to refrain from eating bad
meat, but to sell it to the Gentiles. Neither is there "divinity" in
the order (Deut. xxi. 10-14) to take a wife for a month on trial. These
things are parts of an ostensibly divine code, but lawgivers and people
were alike mistaken. Inspiration did not guide them aright, but somehow
or other it enables Dr. Farrar to correct their blunders three thousand
years afterwards; which is merely saying, after all, that inspiration
does not pioneer but follow the march of human progress.
During the reign of David a dreadful incident occurred. There had been
a three years' famine, and David "inquired of the Lord." The answer was,
"Blood upon Saul and upon his house!" Seven of Saul's sons were hung
up "unto the Lord," and the famine was stopped. Dr. Farrar tells of an
intelligent artisan who got up at a meeting and asked "whether it was
not meant to imply that God was pacified by the blood of innocent human
victims?" But he does not give the answer; and it either means this or
it means nothing at all. In the same way, the story of Jephthah, who
offered his daughter as a burnt-offering to the Lord, takes such an
immolation for granted as a religious act of perfect propriety. Jephthah
is mentioned as a hero of faith in the New Testament, and no hint is
given that he acted wrongly in sacrificing his daughter on the altar of
Jehovah.
We have said enough on this subject to give the reader a fair idea
of Dr. Farrar's position. Let us now pass from Bible morals to Bible
manners.
"The Bible," says Dr. Farrar, "is assailed on the ground that it
contains coarse and unedifying stories." Take the story of Lot and his
daughters, to say nothing of the bestial attempt on the angels in Sodom.
Could anything be more repulsive? Is there any excuse for putting such
abominable feculence into the hands of children? After a lot of talk
about it, and about, Dr. Farrar offers us the following most sapient
observation: "The story of Lot wears a very different complexion if we
regard it as an exhibition of unknown traditions about the connection
between the Israelites and the tribes of Moab and Ammon." But what does
this mean? The Moabites and Ammonites, according to the Bible, were
hereditary enemies of the Jews, and it was impossible to exterminate
them. They were evidently near of kin to the chosen people. Now, if
these two facts are put together, it is easy to see the purpose of this
story of Lot and his daughters. The Jews traced their own descent, in a
perfectly honorable way, from Abraham and his legitimate wife Sarah, who
are doubtless legendary characters. On the other hand, they traced
the descent of the Moabites and Ammonites, their cousins and enemies,
through the no less legendary Lot and his two daughters, thus throwing
the aspersion of incest upon the cradle of both those races. This is the
adequate and satisfactory explanation of the story. It is an exhibition
of dirty and unscrupulous hatred; and, as such, it is a curious fragment
of "the Word of God."
Take next what Dr. Farrar calls "the pathetic story of Hosea," the
prophet who was ordered by God to marry a prostitute--not to use the
more downright language of the English Bible. Dr. Farrar suggests that
there is some doubt as to the meaning of the original. Hosea's wife
may have turned out a baggage after the nuptials, instead of being one
before. "It was the anguish caused by her infidelity," he says, "that
first woke Hosea to the sense of Israel's infidelity to Jehovah." And
read in the light of this "modern criticism" the story of Hosea is "in
the highest degree pure and noble." How pretty! All that remains for Dr.
Farrar to do is to explain away as equally "pure and noble" the imagery
of Ezekiel in reference to Aholah and Aholibah. There is no reason why
"modern criticism" in the hands of gentlemen like Dr. Farrar should not
transform Priapus into a Sunday-school teacher.
Not only are there very gross stories in the Bible, many of which
are too beastly to dwell upon, but its language is often gratuitously
disgusting. And every scholar knows that the Hebrew text is sometimes
far more "purple" than our English version. Dr. Farrar admits that if
the "exact meaning" of certain passages were understood, they "could not
be read without a blush." "Happily," he says, they are "disguised by the
euphemisms of translations." That is to say, the inspired Bible writers,
or penmen of the Holy Ghost, as old divines called them, were often
indecent and sometimes positively obscene. Dr. Farrar's explanation is,
that "ancient and Eastern readers" were not easily shocked, and that our
modern "sensibility" is of "recent growth." But this proves again
that "inspiration" is in no sense the cause of progress, and does not
anticipate it in the slightest degree.