I could find in the Bible more instances of Jahweh's cruelty and
barbarity and lack of mercy than I can find room for.
In Deuteronomy, the Lord hardens the heart of Sihon, King of Hesbon, to
resist the Jews, and then "utterly destroyed the men, women, and little
ones of every city."
In Leviticus, Jahweh threatens that if the Israelites will not reform
he will "walk contrary to them in fury, _and they shall eat the flesh of
their own sons and daughters_."
In Deuteronomy is an account of how Bashan was utterly destroyed, men,
women, and children being slain.
In the same book occur the following passages:
When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither
thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before
thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites,
and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and
the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee;
thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt
make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them.
That is from chapter vii. In chapter xx. there are further instructions
of a like horrible kind:
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off
from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth
give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing
that breatheth:
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and
the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites,
and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.
And here, in a long quotation, is an example of the mercy of Jahweh, and
his faculty for cursing:
The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he
have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to
possess it.
The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning,
and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and
they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the
earth that is under thee shall be iron.
The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust:
from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be
destroyed.
The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies:
thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways
before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of
the earth.
And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and
unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.
The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with
the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou
canst not be healed.
The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and
astonishment of heart:...
And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high
and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout
all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates
throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of
thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath
given thee, in the siege, and in the straightness wherewith
thine enemies shall distress thee:
So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate,
his eyes shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife
of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he
shall leave....
For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn into the
lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase,
and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows
upon them.
They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning
heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth
of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the
young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of
grey hairs.
I think I have quoted enough to show that what I say of the Jewish God
Jehovah is based on fact. But I could, if needful, heap proof on proof,
for the books of the Old Testament reek with blood, and are horrible
with atrocities.
Now, consider, is the God of whom we have been reading a God of love?
Is He the Father of Christ? Is He not rather the savage idol of a savage
tribe?
Man and his gods: what a tragi-comedy it is. Man has never seen one of
his gods, never heard the voice of one of his gods, does not know the
shape, expression, or bearing of one of his gods. Yet man has cursed
man, hated man, hunted man, tortured man, and murdered man, for the sake
of shadows and fantasies of his own terror, or vanity, or desire. We
tiny, vain feeblenesses, we fussy ephemera; we sting each other, hate
each other, hiss at each other, for the sake of the monster gods of
our own delirium. As we are whirled upon our spinning, glowing planet
through the unfathomable spaces, where myriads of suns, like golden
bees, gleam through the awful mystery of "the vast void night," what
are the phantom gods to us? They are no more than the waterspouts on the
ocean, or the fleeting shadows on the hills. But the man, and the woman,
and the child, and the dog with its wistful eyes; these know us, touch
us, appeal to us, love us, serve us, grieve us.
Shall we kill these, or revile them, or desert them, for the sake of the
lurid ghost in the cloud, or the fetish in his box?
Do you think the bloodthirsty vindictive Jahweh, who prized nothing but
his own aggrandisement, and slew or cursed all who offended him, is
the Creator, the same who made the jewels of the Pleiades, and the
resplendent mystery of the Milky Way?
Is this unspeakable monster, Jahweh, the Father of Christ? Is he the God
who inspired Buddha, and Shakespeare, and Herschel, and Beethoven, and
Darwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and massacre, in
rapine and in rape, in black revenge and deadly malice, in slavery, and
polygamy, and the debasement of women; and in the pomps, vanities,
and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter--we
may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable
personality. It is time to have done with this nightmare fetish of a
murderous tribe of savages. We have no use for him. We have no criminal
so ruthless nor so blood-guilty as he. He is not fit to touch our
cities, imperfect as we are. The thought of him defiles and nauseates.
We should think him too horrible and pitiless for a devil, this
red-handed, black-hearted Jehovah of the Jews.
And yet: in the inspired Book, in the Holy Bible, this awful creature
is still enshrined as "God the Father Almighty." It is marvellous. It
is beyond the comprehension of any man not blinded by superstition, not
warped by prejudice and old-time convention. _This_ the God of Heaven?
_This_ the Father of Christ? This the Creator of the Milky Way? No.
He will not do. He is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not
clean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare: a bad dream born in savage
minds of terror and ignorance and a tigerish lust for blood.
But if He is not the Most High, if He is not the Heavenly Father, if
He is not the King of kings, the Bible is not an inspired book, and its
claims to divine revelation will not stand. THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE
Carlyle said we might judge a people by their heroes. The heroes of the
Bible, like the God of the Bible, are immoral savages. That is because
the Bible is a compilation from the literature of savage and immoral
tribes.
Had the Bible been the word of God we should have found in it a
lofty and a pure ideal of God. We should not have found in it open
approval--divine approval--of such unspeakable savages as Moses, David,
Solomon, Jacob, and Lot.
Let us consider the lives of a few of the Bible heroes. We will begin
with Moses.
We used to be taught in school that Moses was the meekest man the world
has known: and we used to marvel.
It is written in the second chapter of Exodus thus:
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that
he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens:
and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that
there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
And when he went out the second day, behold two men of the
Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the
wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who
made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill
me as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said,
Surely this thing is known.
The meekest of men slays an Egyptian deliberately and in cold blood. It
may be pleaded that the Egyptian was doing wrong; but the remarks of the
Hebrew suggest that even the countrymen of Moses looked upon his act of
violence with disfavour.
But the meekness of Moses is further illustrated in the laws attributed
to him, in which the death penalty is almost as common as it was in
England in the Middle Ages.
Also, in the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we have the following
story. The Lord commands Moses to "avenge the children of Israel of the
Midianites," after which Moses is to die. Moses sends out an army:
And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded
Moses; and they slew all the males.
And they slew the kings of Midian, besides the rest of them
that were slain; namely Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur,
and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor
they slew with the sword.
And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian
captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all
their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all
their goodly castles, with fire.
And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men
and of beasts....
And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the
captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which
came from the battle.
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
Behold, these called the children of Israel, through the counsel
of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of
Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill
every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children that have not known a man by lying
with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Moses is a patriarch of the Jews, and the meekest man. But suppose any
pagan or Mohammedan general were to behave to a Christian city as Moses
behaved to the people of Midian, what should we say of him? But God was
_pleased_ with him.
Further, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers you will find how Moses the
Meek treated Korah, Dathan, and Abiram for rebelling against himself and
Aaron; how the earth opened and swallowed these men and their families
and friends, at a hint from Moses; and how the Lord slew with fire from
heaven two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense, and how
afterwards there came a pestilence by which some fourteen thousand
persons died.
Moses was a politician; his brother was a priest. I shall express no
opinion of the pair; but I quote from the Book of Exodus, as follows:
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out
of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto
Aaron, and said unto 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.
And Aaron said unto 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.
And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were
in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
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.
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron
made proclamation, and said, To-morrow is a feast to the Lord.
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings,
and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and
to drink, and rose up to play.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people
which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted
themselves.
Aaron, when asked by Moses why he has done this thing, tells a lie:
And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that
thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?
And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot; thou
knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.
For they said unto me, 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.
And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break
it off. So they gave it to me: then I cast it into the fire,
and there came out this calf.
And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had
made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)
Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on
the Lord's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of
Levi gathered themselves together unto him.
And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put
every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate
to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother,
and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses;
and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
So much for this meek father of the Jews.
And now let us consider David and his son Solomon, the greatest of the
Bible kings, and the ancestors of Jesus Christ.
Judging King David by the Bible record, I should conclude that he was a
cruel, treacherous, and licentious savage. He lived for some time as
a bandit, robbing the subjects of the King of Gath, who had given him
shelter. When asked about this by the king, David lied. As to the nature
of his conduct at this time, no room is left for doubt by the story of
Nabal. David demanded blackmail of Nabal, and, on its being refused, set
out with four hundred armed men to rob Nabal, and kill every male on his
estate. This he was prevented from doing by Nabal's wife, who came out
to meet David with fine presents and fine words. _Ten days later Nabal
died, and David married his widow._ See twenty-fifth chapter First Book
of Samuel.
David had seven wives, and many children. One of his favourite wives was
Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah.
While Uriah was at "the front," fighting for David, that king seduced
his wife, Bathsheba. To avoid discovery, David recalled Uriah from the
war, and bade him go home to his wife. Uriah said it would dishonour
him to seek ease and pleasure at home while other soldiers were enduring
hardship at the front. The king then made the soldier drunk, but even so
could not prevail.
Therefore David sent word to the general to place Uriah in the front of
the battle, where the fight was hardest. And Uriah was killed, and David
married Bathsheba, who became the mother of Solomon.
So much for David's honour. Now for a sample of his humanity. I quote
from the twelfth chapter of the Second Book of Samuel:
And Joab sent messengers to David, and said, I have fought
against Rabbah, and have taken the city of waters.
Now therefore gather the rest of the people together, and
encamp against the city, and take it: lest I take the city,
and it be called after my name.
And David gathered all the people together, and went to Rabbah,
and fought against it, and took it.
And he took their king's crown from off his head, the weight
whereof was a talent of gold with the precious stones: and it
was set on David's head. And he brought forth the spoil of the
city in great abundance.
And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them
under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron,
and made them pass through the brick kiln: and thus did he unto
all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the
people returned unto Jerusalem.
But nothing in David's life became him so little as his leaving of it. I
quote from the second chapter of the First Book of Kings. David, on his
deathbed, is speaking to Solomon, his son:
Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me,
and what he did to the two captains of the host of Israel, unto
Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he
slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war
upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that
were on his feet.
Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head
go down to the grave in peace.
But show kindness unto the sons of Barzillai, the Gileadite, and
let them be of those that eat at thy table; for so they came to
me when I fled because of Absalom thy brother.
And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a
Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in
the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me
at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not
put thee to death with the sword. Now therefore hold him not
guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest
to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave
with blood.
These seem to have been the last words spoken by King David. Joab was
his best general, and had many times saved David's throne.
Solomon began by stealing the throne from his brother, the true heir.
Then he murders the brother he has robbed, and disgraces and exiles a
priest, who had been long a faithful friend to David, his father. Later
he murders Joab at the altar, and brings down the hoar head of Shimei to
the grave with blood.
After which he gets him much wisdom, builds a temple, and marries many
wives.
Much glamour has been cast upon the names of Solomon and David by their
alleged writings. But it is now acknowledged that David wrote few, if
any, of the Psalms, and that Solomon wrote neither Ecclesiastes nor the
Song of Songs, though some of the Proverbs may be his.
It seems strange to me that such men as Moses, David, and Solomon should
be glorified by Christian men and women who execrate Henry VIII. and
Richard III. as monsters.
My pet aversion amongst the Bible heroes is Jacob; but Abraham and Lot
were pitiful creatures.
Jacob cheated his brother out of the parental blessing, and lied about
God, and lied to his father to accomplish his end. He robbed his
brother of his birthright by trading on his necessity. He fled from his
brother's wrath, and went to his uncle Laban. Here he cheated his uncle
out of his cattle and his wealth, and at last came away with his two
cousins as his wives, one of whom had stolen her own father's gods.
Abraham was the father of Ishmael by the servant-maid Hagar. At his
wife's demand he allowed Hagar and Ishmael to be driven into the desert
to die. And here is another pretty story of Abraham. He and his family
are driven forth by a famine:
And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt,
that he said unto Sarai, his wife, Behold now, I know that thou
art a fair woman to look upon:
Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see
thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill
me, but they will save thee alive.
Say, I pray thee, thou are my sister; that it may be well with
me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt the
Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.
The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before
Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep,
and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and
she-asses, and camels.
And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues
because of Sarai, Abram's wife.
And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast
done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her
to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go
thy way.
And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him
away, and his wife, and all that he had.
But Abraham was so little ashamed of himself that he did the same thing
again, many years afterwards, and Abimelech King of Gerar, behaved to
him as nobly as did King Pharaoh on the former occasion.
The story of Lot is too disgusting to repeat. But what are we to think
of his offering his daughters to the mob, and of his subsequent conduct?
And what of Noah, who got drunk, and then cursed the whole of his sons'
descendants for ever, because Ham had seen him in his shame?
Joseph seems to me to have been anything but an admirable character,
and I do not see how his baseness in depriving the Egyptians of their
liberties and their land by a corner in wheat can be condoned. Jacob
robbed his brother of his birthright by trading on his hunger; Joseph
robbed a whole people in the same way.
Samson was a dissolute ruffian and murderer, who in these days would be
hanged as a brigand.
Reuben committed incest. Simeon and Levi were guilty of treachery and
massacre. Judah was guilty of immorality and hypocrisy.
Joshua was a Jewish general of the usual type. When he captured a city
he murdered every man, woman, and child within its walls. Here is one
example from the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua:
And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir; and
fought against it:
And he took it, and the king thereof; and all the cities
thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword,
and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he
left none remaining: as he had done to Hebron, so he did
to Debir, and to the king thereof; as he had done also to
Libnah, and to her king.
So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south,
and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he
left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed,
as the Lord God of Israel commanded.
And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and
all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon.
Elijah the prophet was of the same uncompromising kind. After he had
mocked the god Baal, and had triumphed over him by miracle, he said to
the Israelites:
"Take the prophets of Baal. _Let not one of them escape._"
And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook
Kishon, and slew them there.
Now, there were 450 of the priests of Baal, all of whom Elijah the
prophet had killed in cold blood.
And here is a story about Elisha, another great prophet of the Jews. I
quote from the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings.
And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up
by the way, there came forth little children out of the city,
and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up,
thou bald head.
And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the
name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of
the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
After this, Elisha assists King Jehoram and two other kings to waste and
slaughter the Moabites, who had refused to pay tribute. You may read the
horrible story for yourselves in the third chapter of the Second Book
of Kings. There was the usual massacre, but this time the trees were cut
down and the wells choked up.
Later, Elisha cures a man of leprosy, and refuses a reward. But his
servant runs after the man, and gets two talents of silver and some
garments under false pretences. When Elisha hears of this crime, he
strikes the servant with leprosy, _and all his seed for ever_.
Now, it is not necessary for me to harp upon the conduct of these men of
God: what I want to point out is that these cruel and ignorant savages
have been saddled upon the Christian religion as heroes and as models.
Even to-day the man who called David, or Moses, or Elisha by his proper
name in an average Christian household would be regarded as a wicked
blasphemer.
And yet, what would a Christian congregation say of an "Infidel" who
committed half the crimes and outrages of any one of those Bible heroes?
Do you know what the Christians call Tom Paine? To this day the
respectable Christian Church or chapel goer shudders at the name of the
"infidel," Tom Paine. But in point of honour, of virtue, of humanity,
and general good character, not one of the Bible heroes I have mentioned
was worthy to clean Tom Paine's shoes.
Now, it states in the Bible that God loved Jacob, and hated Esau. Esau
was a _man_, and against him the Bible does not chronicle one bad act.
But God _hated_ Esau.
And it states in the Bible that Elijah went up in a chariot of fire to
heaven.
And in the New Testament Christ or His apostles speak of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob as being in heaven. Paul speaks of David as a "man after God's
own heart"; Elijah and Moses come down from heaven, and appear talking
with Christ; and, in Hebrews, Paul praises Samuel, Jephtha, Samson, and
David.
My point is not that these heroes were bad men, but that, in a book
alleged to be the word of God, they are treated as heroes.
I have been accused of showing irreverence towards these barbarous
kings and priests. Irreverence! It is like charging a historian with
disrespect to the memory of Nero.
I have been accused of having an animus against Moses, and David, and
all the rest. I have no animus against any man, nor do I presume to
censure my fellow creatures. I only wish to show that these favourites
of God were not admirable characters, and that therefore the Bible
cannot be a divine revelation. As for animus: I do not believe any of
these men ever existed. I regard them as myths. Should one be angry with
a myth? I should as soon think of being angry with Bluebeard, or the
Giant that Jack slew.
But I should be astonished to hear that Bluebeard had been promoted to
the position of a holy patriarch, and a model of all the virtues for the
emulation of innocent children in a modern Sunday school. And I think it
is time the Church considered itself, and told the truth about Jehovah,
and Moses, and Joshua, and Samson.
If you fail to agree with me I can only accept your decision with
respectful astonishment.