_Fifteen Reasons Why the Bible Should Not Be in the School Room_
I. _The Question of Religion Involved._ Those who want the Bible read
in the public schools declare it to be the word of God. Now it either
is such or it is not. If taught as the word of God, such teaching would
be religious and therefore, as the courts maintain, unconstitutional.
If taught as a human production, would the advocates of its use in the
schools be so enthusiastic to place it there? As we have previously
observed, the subject of religion cannot be eliminated from any
study of the Bible. The result would be the dragging of it into the
public school, where of all places it should not be. It would cause
dissension, disagreement, and bad feeling and bring about the very
thing we do not want to happen, the dividing of the children into
religious groups or sects. The object of our schools above all things
is to make the forthcoming citizens Americans, not to divide them
into religious or national coteries. Let religion be taught in the
churches and Sunday schools. If it is of any value its worth will be
communicated from these places in the lives of those who attend them.
If the churches, as many of them as we have, as great effort as they
make to spread their teachings, and as much wealth as they possess, to
say nothing of the power of God behind them, cannot make their good
influence felt without encroaching upon the public secular school,
we have a right to assume that they are valueless. The Rev. Joseph
Parker, the eminent English clergyman, who was opposed to thrusting the
Bible into the schools, said that to do so was a reflection upon the
ministry. It implied that ministers are unable to do their own work and
must call upon the schoolmaster to help them.
II. _The Age of the Bible._ A book written over two thousand years
ago, in the infancy of the human intelligence, before the birth of
scientific knowledge, has no place as a text book in the schools of
the twentieth century. But, some will urge, are not other works of
antiquity studied in the schools? True, but under these circumstances:
They are used in higher education; they are used for a particular
purpose, as, for instance, the study of the language, history, or
habits of an ancient people; there are not the controversies or other
objectionable features connected with their study that would follow
the Bible. Why need we go to a book so old as the Bible for our
ideals? Have we not them among ourselves? We think we have. We think
our Abraham Lincoln a greater and a better man than Abraham of Ur of
the Chaldees. We think our Ingersoll and our Webster were greater
orators than Peter and Paul. We think Shakespeare, Byron, Burns, Moore,
Shelley, and our own Longfellow were greater poets than the writers
of the Psalms. We think Darwin knew more about biology, Herschel more
about astronomy, Lyell more about geology, Mill more about logic and
political economy, and almost any physician more about medicine and
surgery than were known by Moses or any other man, real or imagined,
who it is alleged wrote the Bible. We think that Herbert Spencer was
a greater philosophical genius of all the biblical writers, and that
Benjamin Franklin was a wiser and a cleaner man morally than was
Solomon. We think that Edison has done more good in the world than
did Ezekiel, and that Isaac Newton proclaimed greater truths than did
Isaiah. We think that Buddha, Confucius, Manu, and Zoroaster taught as
good systems of morals as did Jesus. If Jesus died to save the world,
thousands have also died in behalf of or on account of Jesus so the
debt has many times been repaid. If Jesus died in behalf of principles
which he deemed to be good, so did Bruno, Savonarola, Legate, Wightman,
Ferrer, and others too numerous to mention. Bible virtues of any real
value are strictly human virtues to be found in all ages and climes,
among all races and religions. Is it possible that for moral teaching
we must revert to the book of a people who were so far behind their
neighbors that except Saul and Jonathan they had “neither sword nor
spear in the hand of any of the people”? (1 Samuel xiii, 22.) And a
people who had no blacksmiths, but who “went down to the Philistines
to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his
mattock”? (verses 19 and 20). And a people who had no mechanics among
them, but when their king wanted to build a house for himself had to
send to a “heathen,” Hiram, king of Tyre, for masons and carpenters? (2
Samuel v, 11.)
III. _The Bible is not a book_, but a collection of books, written
hundreds of years apart, and arbitrarily, in the midst of great and
stormy controversy, gathered together in one volume. There was always a
dispute as to what books should compose it. The Hebrew Bible contains
thirty-nine books. The King James, or Protestant English, version
contains sixty-six, while the Roman Catholic or Douay version in
addition to these contains the Apocrypha, making in all seventy-two.
These different factions of religionists respectively reject certain
books the others accept. For a history of the controversies over what
books should compose the Bible, see Davidson on “The Canon,” “An
Introduction to the New Testament,” by the Rev. B. W. Bacon, D.D.,
of the Yale Divinity School, and the article on the Canon in the
Encyclopedia Biblica.
IV. Unless used for the purpose of teaching some foreign language, any
book studied in the public schools should be written in the English
language, not in a foreign or a dead language. The Old Testament was
written in the ancient Hebrew, practically a dead language at the
beginning of the alleged Christian era. Many translations have been
made, of which John E. Remsburg says, after speaking of the English
versions, Wicliffe’s, Tyndale’s, King James’s, the New Version, and
the Douay: “The foregoing are but a few of the numerous versions of
the Bible, ancient and modern, that have appeared. Nearly every nation
of Europe has had from one to a score. Luther’s version is nearly four
hundred years old, and yet Germany has seventeen translations and
consequently seventeen versions before Luther’s was published. England
had many besides those named.”
V. The Bible should not be read in the public schools because so many
false and unfounded claims have been made for it, claims that have
been nullified by the conclusions of modern science and criticism and
recent investigations and discoveries. These false claims are embodied
in the popular teaching of the book. It is claimed, for instance, that
the first five books of the Old Testament were written by Moses in the
thirteenth century B. C.; that the four gospels of the New Testament
were written by those whose names appear as the writers; that Paul
wrote the fourteen epistles that bear his name, and fictitious claims
are made for other books. In the face of modern scholarship, which has
submitted the Bible to the same scrutiny and criticism to which other
books have been submitted, all these claims have been proved false and
unfounded. This is so clear that the orthodox churches have split over
the situation, one party accepting the old or traditional view, and the
other the modern or scientific.
VI. As Archdeacon Farrar has said, all parts of the Bible are not of
equal value. The sixty-six books bound into one represent every variety
of literature--poetry, fiction, mythology, drama, legend, tradition,
and some things possibly historical. Yet the popular teaching of the
books makes no distinction between them, and uncritically places all
upon the same level and gives them the same value.
VII. The Bible should not be read in the schools because it relates
as facts numerous miracles, wonders, and myths, impossible in the
nature of things, as the established matter-of-fact experience of
mankind proves, which bear upon their face the marks of ignorance,
superstition, and fraud. In the ordinary course of life we laugh at
such narratives and regard them only as fairy tales. Why, then, in the
instruction of youth should we teach what we ourselves dismiss as the
fictitious and absurd?
VIII. The history of man proves that he has been enlightened, happy,
and prosperous to the extent that he has had a knowledge of Nature and
her laws, and that ignorance, superstition, and misfortune have been
the result of a lack of knowledge of, and the violation of, these laws.
In other words, science has been the great enlightener and civilizer.
Science today is the basis for judgment in all matters pertaining to
the welfare of the human race. Science has been called classified
knowledge, or as Professor Clifford has said, it is “organized common
sense.” “The subject of science is the human universe; that is to say,
every thing that is, or has been, or may be related to man” (Lectures
and Essays, page 24, R. P. A. Edition). Science is progressive. It
depends upon the continued advance of knowledge, is ever alert and
critical, calls everything into question and accepts nothing as true
without a preponderance of evidence. The Bible should not be read in
the schools because the science it teaches is that of a primitive
and a barbarous age. It was in accordance with the childhood of the
world, when, as Lydia M. Child says, “In the childhood of the race men
thought little and believed much, just as children do.” As a book in
the schools, the Bible, with its flat earth, its metallic firmament,
making the sun, moon, and stars as lanterns hung out to give light to
the day and the night, is a mockery and a distortion in this age of the
world. Its story of creation is a fairy tale only believable in an age
of ignorance. Its story of the origin of man is childish, being on a
par with similar myths of ancient peoples.
The Bishop of Oxford (England) has this to say about the teachings of
these myths to children: “You can hardly exaggerate the disaster it
has been to the education of children that they have been taught to
associate with religion things about the creation, the flood, and the
beginning of our race, which it was infallibly certain, when they grew
up to read the literature of their time, they would find false and
would reject as alien to the whole trend of the philosophy, science,
and history of their time.” This statement, coming from a clergyman of
such high standing, ought to be conclusive. We have neither the space
nor the time to dilate upon the conflict between the Bible and science
and the bitter struggle between religionists and the scientists. The
story has been written by one of our greatest of historians, Andrew
Dickson White, in his two large volumes entitled “The Warfare Between
Science and Theology in Christendom.” It has been written by Draper in
his “Intellectual Development of Europe” and in his “Conflict Between
Science and Religion.” Read these works and see clearly the folly and
the disaster of placing the Bible in the public schools. You will
not then be surprised that religionists of the type of W. J. Bryan
are now using their efforts to prevent the teaching of Evolution in
our public educational institutions. It is only a revival of the old
conflict between education and ignorance, between superstition and
knowledge. The cause of it all has been the use of the Bible as a book
of authority and teaching.
IX. The Bible has no place in the school room because it states as
facts the grossest absurdities. It speaks of an ax swimming in the
water (2 Kings vi, 5); it speaks of “an hundred and four score and five
thousand” men who arose early in the morning only to find that “they
were all dead corpses” (Isaiah xxxvii, 36); while we read in the ninth
and tenth chapters of 1 Kings that Solomon had more gold and silver
than there were in the world at that time; that the spies sent into
Caanan “cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and
they bare it between two upon a staff” (Numbers xiii, 23); that “we
saw the giants, and the sons of Anak, which came of the giants: and we
were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight”
(verse 33), and that the rabbit chews its cud like the cow (Lev. ii, 6).
We will call the reader’s attention to the very absurd story of the
Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, as shown by R. B. Westbrook, in his
work, “The Eliminator: or Skeleton Keys to Sacerdotal Mysteries”; “The
number of fighting men who marched out of Egypt is nowhere estimated
at less than 600,000, and if this represents only one-fifth of the
population, the latter must have reached 3,000,000. If we cut this down
one-third, so as to be sure of our figure, we make it 2,000,000 souls.
The number of the children of Israel who went into Egypt was seventy
(Ex. i, 5). They sojourned in Egypt 215 years. It could not have been
430, as would appear from Ex. xii, 40. The marginal chronology makes
the period 215 years, and there were only four generations to the
Exodus--namely, Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses (Ex. vi. 16, 18, 20).
How could these people increase in 215 years from seventy souls so as
to number 600,000 warriors? It would have required an average number
of 46 children to each father. The twelve sons of Jacob had between
them only fifty-three sons. At this rate of increase, in the fourth
generation there would have been only 6,311 males (providing they were
all living at the time of the Exodus), instead of 1,000,000. If we add
the fifth generation, who would be mostly children, the total number of
males would not have exceeded 28,465.
“All the first-born males from a month old and upwards, of those that
were numbered, were 22,273 (Numbers iii, 43). The lowest computation of
the whole number of the people at that time is 2,000,000. The number of
males would be 1,000,000. Dividing the latter number by the number of
first born gives 44, which would be the average number of boys in each
family, or about 88 children by each mother. Or, if where the first
born were females the males were not counted, the number of children by
each mother would be reduced to forty-four.
“Dan in the first generation had but one son (Gen. xlvi, 23), and
yet in the fourth generation his descendants had increased to 62,700
warriors (Num. ii, 26), or 64,400 (Num. xxvi, 43). Each of his sons and
grandsons must have had about eighty children of both sexes. On the
other hand, the Levites increased the number of ‘males from a month old
and upward’ during the thirty-eight years in the wilderness only from
22,000 to 23,000 (Num. iii, 39; xxvi, 62), and the tribe of Manasseh
during the same time increased from 32,200 (Num. i, 35) to 52,700
(xxvi, 34).
“The whole population of Israel were instructed in one single day to
keep the passover, and actually did keep it (Ex. xii). At the first
notice of any such feast Jehovah said, ‘I will pass through the land of
Egypt _this night_.’ The passover was to be killed ‘_at even_’ on the
same day that Moses received the command.... After midnight of the same
day the Israelites received notice to start for the wilderness. No one
was to go out of his house till morning, when they were to take their
hurried flight with their cattle and herds. How could 2,000,000 people,
scattered over a wide district, as they must have been with their
cattle and herds, have gotten ready and taken a simultaneous hurried
flight at twelve hours’ notice?
“The Israelites, with their flocks and herds, reached the Red Sea, a
distance of from fifty to sixty miles over a sandy desert, in three
days! Marching fifty abreast the able-bodied warriors alone would have
filled up the road for seven miles, and the whole multitude would have
made a column twenty-two miles long, so that the last of the body could
not have been started until the front had advanced that distance--more
than two days’ journey for such a mixed company. Then the sheep and
cattle must have formed another vast column, covering a much greater
tract of ground in proportion to their number. Upon what did these two
millions of sheep and oxen feed in the journey to the Red Sea over a
desert region, sandy, gravelly, and stony alternately? How did the
people manage with the sick and infirm, and especially with the seven
hundred and fifty births that must have taken place in the three days’
march?” (pages 85, 86, 87.)
In addition to this we need say nothing of the story of the flood or
other ridiculous Bible tales. The land of Caanan is described in the
Bible as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” as a rich land, where
gold and silver were as abundant as stones. We turn from this high
sounding Jewish boast to the description of it as given by General
Furlong, of the British army, who had marched over every mile of it:
“The area of Judea and Samaria is, according to the above authority,
140 × 40 = 5,600 square miles, which I think is certainly one-fourth
too much, my own triangulation of it giving only 4,500, or a figure of
about 130 × 35. I will, however, concede the allotment of 5,600, but
we must remember that, as a rule, the whole is a dismal, rocky, arid
region, with only intersecting valleys, watered by springs and heavy
rain from November to February inclusive, and having scorching heats
from April to September. Even the inhabitable portions of the country
could support only the very sparsest population, and I speak after
having marched over it and also a considerable portion of the rest of
the world. In India we should look upon it as a very poor province;
in some respects very like the hilly tracts of Mewar or Odeypoor in
Rajpootana, but in extent, population, and wealth it is less than a
small principality.”
Why should we place a book in the schools which teaches such falsehoods
when all around us are the grand truths of Nature?
X. The Bible should not be read in the schools because it teaches
oriental tyranny and kingcraft, against which our fathers fought and
offered their life blood. “Fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter ii, 17).
“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake:
whether it be to the king, as supreme; or to the governors, as unto
them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the
praises of them that do well” (verses 13 and 14). “Let every soul be
subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the
powers that be are ordained of God” (Romans xiii, 1). This is contrary
to the principles of Americanism as taught by the founders of our
republic, and has no place in the instruction of the young Americans of
today in our public schools.
XI. As one of the most progressive nations in the world we have granted
woman equal rights with man. The Bible should not be read in our
schools because it teaches the subjugation, degradation, and oriental
slavery of women prevalent in the age and country in which it was
written. “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow
and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children: and thy
desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (Genesis
iii, 16). “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands” (Col. iii,
18). “As the church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be subject
to their own husbands in everything” (Eph. v, 24). “Let your women keep
silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak,
but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
And if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home;
for it is a shame for a woman to speak in church” (1 Cor. xiv, 34, 35).
“Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.... For after this
manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned
themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; even as Sarah
obeyed Abraham calling him lord” (1 Peter iii, 1–6). “Let women learn
in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach,
nor to usurp authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam
was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman
being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Tim. ii, 11–14). Modern
civilization has bidden defiance to these words of Paul. We would ask
the good W. C. T. U. ladies who are working to place the Bible in the
public schools to ponder over these words of the apostle, as well as
over many other biblical passages. We would call their attention to the
despicable idea of marriage taught by Jesus in Matt. xix, 10–12, and by
Paul in the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians. In the Old Testament the
father selects a husband for his daughter, and is allowed to sell her
as a slave (Ex. xxi, 7). Let these ladies, who are the right bower of
the priest and parson, read and think over this passage: “When a man
hath taken a wife, and marries her, and it come to pass that she find
no favor in his eyes, ... then let him write her a bill of divorcement,
and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house” (Deut. xxiv,
1). Yet this is not quite so bad as the teaching of Jesus forbidding
divorce at all except for the cause of adultery. Let them read and
think of the following:
“Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee in
thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give
them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of
the sun” (2 Samuel xii, 11).
“Their children shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their
houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished” (Isaiah xiii, 16).
“I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city
shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished” (Zech.
xiv, 2).
“Let their wives be bereaved of their children and be widows” (Jer.
xviii, 21).
Wherever the Bible speaks of woman, from the first chapter of Genesis
to the last chapter of Revelation, its ideas are low and vile. Those
ideas have no place in the school room and are unfit for the reading of
children and young people anywhere. The late G. W. Foote once said that
the day would come when it would be the proud boast of woman that she
had never contributed a line to the Bible.
XII. The best thoughts of the best men, both Christian and
non-Christian, at the present day are turned to the question of how
to avert war, the curse of the world during the past ten years. The
Bible should not be read in the schools because from cover to cover it
teaches, commends, authorizes, and lauds the practice of men killing
each other. The best evidence of this is the Bible itself. The word war
occurs within its lids just two hundred and thirty-five times--threats
of war, rumors of war, devastations of war. The following are a few of
them: “The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name” (Exodus xv, 3);
“He teacheth my hands to war” (1 Sam. xxii, 35). See also Psalms xviii,
34, and cxliv. “And thou shalt consume all the people, which the Lord
thy God shall deliver thee, thine eye shall have no pity upon them”
(Deut. vii, 16); “Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God
doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save nothing alive that
breatheth; but thou shalt utterly destroy them” (Deut. xx, 16, 17);
“And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses;
and they slew all the males.... 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 burned all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly
castles with fire” (Numbers xxxi, 10).
These passages are typical of the Old Testament. To quote further would
be superfluous and wearisome. In the second chapter of Deuteronomy,
fourth and eighth verses, we find a thorough justification for the
marching of the Germans through Belgium in the late European war, an
outrage against all international law and the established rules of
justice which govern nations in their intercourse with each other.
Read the fourteenth chapter of Numbers and Deuteronomy ix, 23, and see
why all of the children of Israel twenty years old and over were doomed
to spend the remainder of their lives in the wilderness. Why? Because
they refused to _war_ against the inhabitants of the land of Canaan.
When the people told Jeremiah that they would go into Egypt where they
would be free from war (Jeremiah xlii, 14), the Lord replied that war
would also follow them there and that the sword “shall overtake you
there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye were afraid,
shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there ye shall die”
(verse 16). When Israel and Syria were without a war for three years it
was considered a matter worthy of special mention (1 Kings xxii, 1);
and God gave Judah a special dispensation from war. Jesus said: “I came
not to send peace but a sword” (Matthew x, 34). He said (Luke xxi, 24),
“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away
captive into all nations.” “And he that hath no sword, let him sell
his garment and buy one” (Luke xxii, 36). But, say some bibliolaters,
he meant the “sword of the spirit!” Read, however, the fiftieth verse
of the same chapter; “And one of them smote the servant of the high
priest, and cut off his right ear.” With what did he do this, the sword
of the spirit? And there still was war, even in heaven (Rev. xii, 7).
As Archdeacon Farrar well said, “The Bible is a barbarous book, written
in a barbarous age for a barbarous people.” Do we want this book read
in our public schools against the best thought, the highest learning
and the most humanitarian views of this age? The people who advocate
its reading there require watching.
XIII. The Bible should not be read in the public schools because
it contradicts itself nearly two hundred times. We will give a few
illustrations:
“And he said, _Thou shalt not see my face_: for there shall no man see
me and live” (Ex. xxxiii, 20).
“_And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face_, as a man speaketh unto
his friend” (11).
“And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, _hearing a
voice_, but seeing no man” (Acts ix, 7).
“And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but
_they heard not the voice_ of him that spake to me” (xxii, 9).
Jesus said, “If any man hear my words, and believe not, _I judge him
not_: for _I came not to judge the world_, but to save the world” (John
xii, 47).
“For the Father judgeth no man; _but hath committed all judgment to the
son_” (v. 22).
“And the anger of _the Lord_ was kindled against Israel, and he moved
David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah” (2 Samuel xxiv,
1).
“And _Satan_ stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number
Israel” (1 Chronicles xxi, 1).
“The Jews therefore said unto him, _It is not lawful for us to put any
man to death_” (John xviii, 31).
“The Jews answered him, We have a law, and _by our law he ought to
die_” (John xiv, 7).
What women visited the tomb on the morning of the resurrection?
“The first day of the week cometh _Mary Magdalene_, early when it was
yet dark, unto the sepulchre” (John xx, 1).
“In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day
of the week, came _Mary Magdalene and the other Mary_ to see the
sepulchre” (Matt. xxviii, 1).
“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they
came unto the sepulchre.... It was _Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and
Mary the mother of James, and other women_” (Luke xxiv, 10).
At what time in the morning did they visit the tomb?
“At the rising of the sun” (Mark xvi, 2).
“When it was yet dark” (John xx, 1).
Where did Jesus first appear to his disciples?
“Then said Jesus unto them (the women) Be not afraid; go tell my
brethren _that they go into Galilee_, into a mountain where Jesus had
appointed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him; but some
doubted (Matt. xxviii, 10, 16, 17).
“And they rose up the same hour, and _returned to Jerusalem_, and found
the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The
Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon.... And as they thus
spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them” (Luke xxiv, 33, 34,
36).
Did the disciples know that Jesus would arise from the dead? According
to Mark x, 32, 33 and 34, they did:
“And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things
should happen unto him, saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the
Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the
scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to
the Gentiles; and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall
spit upon him, and shall kill him; _and the third day he shall rise
again_.” Yet John xx, 9 distinctly says, “_For as yet they knew not the
scripture, that he must rise again from the dead._”
Did John the Baptist know Jesus when he came unto him to be baptized?
He did, according to Matt. iii, 13, 14: “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee
to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him,
saying, _I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?_”
Yet John himself admits that he did not know him:
“_And I knew him not_: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the
same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the spirit descending and
remaining on him, the same is he that baptizes with the holy ghost. And
I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of God” (John i, 33).
There is also another very material contradiction as to what the
centurion at the cross said:
“Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus,
saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared
greatly, saying, ‘_Truly, this was the Son of God_’” (Matt. xxvii, 54).
Luke gives an entirely different version:
“Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying,
_Certainly this was a righteous man_” (xxiii, 47).
Are works necessary for salvation, or is faith alone sufficient?
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by
the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that
we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of
the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified”
(Galatians ii, 16). “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is
dead in vain” (21). “Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by
faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans iii, 28).
“But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead”
(James ii, 20). “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith
without works is dead also” (26). “Ye see then how that by works a man
is justified, and not by faith only” (24).
“And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of
God Almighty, _but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them_” (Exodus
vi, 3). “_And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah-jireh_”
(Genesis xxii, 14).
These are but a few of the contradictions of the Bible, selected at
random from hundreds.
XIV. The Bible should not be read in the public schools because it
teaches, by direct commands, by the praise of them, by acknowledgment
of their habitual use as a matter of custom, the taking of intoxicating
liquors. Many of us may not believe the eighteenth amendment, as
interpreted by the Volstead act, to be the best means of abrogating the
evils of intemperance. All thinking men, however, believe that the use
of alcoholic beverages, considering the evils that result therefrom,
should be reduced to a minimum. The words “wines” and “strong drink”
occur in the Bible about two hundred and forty times. Among these are
to be found some passages condemning drunkenness. This is of no special
moment, as no moral code in the world upholds intoxication, while the
Mohammedan Koran distinctly condemns the use of alcoholic liquors
and stands for total abstinence. In the Bible, total abstinence is
commanded under special circumstances. For illustration, a Nazarite
must not drink during the period of his separation. When that period
is passed he may drink all he wishes. (See Numbers vi, 3, 20.) Jehovah
said unto Aaron, in his official capacity as high-priest: “Do not drink
wine or strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, _when ye go into
the tabernacle of the congregation_, lest ye die” (Leviticus x, 9).
Why? “That ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between
clean and unclean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the
statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses”
(10, 11). He wanted his priests to be entirely sober when performing
their priestly functions, and what employer does not? King Lemuel was
taught by his mother, “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for
kings to drink wine nor for princes strong drink: lest they drink and
forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted”
(Proverbs xxxi, 4, 5). Yet in the sixth and seventh verses is this
imperative command as to other people: “Give strong drink unto him that
is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts. Let him
drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more.”
Moses told the children of Israel: “Ye have not eaten bread, neither
have ye drank wine or strong drink: that ye may know that I am the Lord
your God” (Deut. xxix, 6). But this was in the wilderness, where no
bread or liquors were to be had. But what does he say in the fourteenth
chapter, twenty-sixth verse, after giving directions as to what is
lawful to eat? “And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy
soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, _or for wine, or for strong
drink_, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth.” Jesus said, “Verily I
say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine”--because
it was wrong to do so? On the contrary, “until that day that I drink
it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark xiv, 25). We admit such temperance
passages as are to be found in Proverbs xx, 1, and in Isaiah v, 11.
These refer strictly to the abuse, not to the moderate use of alcoholic
liquors.
Let us now look at other passages where the use of intoxicants is not
only commended but commanded. We have space to refer to but a few of
them. “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s
sake” (1 Timothy v, 23); “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink
thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy good works”
(Eccles. ix, 7); “Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine
the maids” (Zech. ix, 17); “They shall plant vineyards and drink the
wine thereof” (Amos ix, 14); “Wine maketh glad the heart of man” (Ps.
xiv, 15); “Wine, which cheereth God and man” (Judges iv, 13); “In the
holy place shalt thou cause the strong wine to be poured unto the
Lord for a drink offering” (Num. xxviii, 7); “Honor the Lord with thy
substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase; so shall
thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with
new wine” (Proverbs iii, 9, 10).
When God decided that the human race was so bad that he would have to
drown everybody he selected one man and his family to be saved--Noah.
Yet when the flood had subsided, and all returned to dry ground, Noah
got drunk (Genesis ix, 20–24). When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah,
he saved another drunkard, Lot. How this gentleman conducted himself
while under the influence of wine would not make a very edifying
subject for a Sunday school lesson (See Genesis xix, 30–38). David got
drunk himself and danced before the ark in a state of nudity, after
giving each of all the people “a flagon of wine” (2 Samuel vi, 14, 16,
19). Yet God said, “David ... a man after mine own heart, which shall
fulfill all my will” (Acts. xiii, 22). God also gives David two other
unqualified certificates of character (See 1 Kings xiv, 7, 8; xv, 5).
When Solomon erected the great temple he gave his laborers “twenty
thousand baths (nearly 17,500 gallons) of wine” (2 Chronicles ii, 10).
Jeremiah, one of God’s favorite prophets, tempted the Rechabites, who
were total abstainers, to drink (See Jeremiah xxxv, 2). Yet this same
God on another occasion said, “Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor
drink, that puttest thy bottle to him and makest him drunken” (Habakkuk
ii, 15).
The first miracle of Jesus was the transforming of water into wine
(John ii, 3–11), and in Luke vii, 33, 34, are these words: “For John
the Baptist came neither eating bread, nor drinking wine; and ye say,
He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye
say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans
and sinners.”
Bible advocates of temperance sometimes quote the following passages
from Paul, as evidence, to them, of Bible teaching of total abstinence.
“It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything
whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is made weak.” (Romans xiv:21.)
Also, “Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no
flesh while the word standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.” (1
Corinthians viii:13).
It will be noticed in the first that _flesh_ comes before wine,
while in the second, wine is not mentioned at all. When you read the
context in both cases you will find that Paul is merely warning his
hearers against meat offered to idols and that wine is only mentioned
incidentally. But when you turn to 1 Timothy, v:23, Paul imperatively
says, “DRINK NO LONGER WATER, BUT USE A LITTLE WINE FOR THY STOMACH’S
SAKE, AND THINE OFTEN INFIRMITIES.”
When confronted by these texts and the facts which they carry,
bibliolaters are driven to the entirely false and fictitious plea that
Bible wine was not intoxicating, that it might drown but could not
produce a drunk. We have no space here to discuss this makeshift. If
the reader is interested and wishes to pursue the subject, we refer him
to John E. Remsburg’s book, “The Bible,” pages 398–399; to the article
on “Wine and Strong Drink,” in that monument of scholarship, “The
Encyclopedia Biblica”; to that well-known orthodox work, Smith’s “Bible
Dictionary,” and to “Religion and Drink,” by Rev. E. A. Wasson.
Under our liquor laws as at present interpreted a priest, preacher,
or rabbi is permitted to purchase all the drink he desires for
“sacramental” purposes, while a physician is limited in the amount he
can prescribe for his patients. Why this unjust discrimination? If
liquor is a bad thing, why is it made good in the “sacrament”? This is
merely a trick common with the church to evade the force of the civil
law, just as is its effort to force the Bible into the public schools.
We, as citizens, protest against the unbridled fanaticism or base
hypocrisy of these people, who deny to others the privileges they claim
for themselves, then add insult to injury by trying to force upon the
country by law a book which advocates, teaches, abets, preaches, and
practices what they want by law forbidden.
XV. The entire idea under which they wish to place the Bible in the
schools is wrong. Why glorify one book above another? Any book to be
of service to a reader must be his servant, not his master. The real
question is, not what does a book say, but what does it say in accord
with the facts of life, nature, reason and experience? If a book
answers that test it is not necessary to praise it eternally, to say
nothing of asking special laws for its recognition. The idea has been
well expressed by the poet Lowell in these words:
“Slowly the Bible of the race is writ,
And not on paper leaves or leaves of stone;
Each age, each kindred, adds a verse to it,
Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan;
While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud,
While thunder’s surges burst on cliffs of cloud,
Still at the prophet’s feet the nations sit.”
No volume can be made large enough to contain this BIBLE, yet to it all
other books must conform.
Transcriber’s Note
Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have
been retained.
This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text and =equals= to
indicate bold text. Small capitals changed to all capitals.
p. 8: added “in” after “belief” (Action or conduct indicating a belief
in)
p. 12: changed “of” to “to” (on earth peace to men of good will)
p. 24: changed “depotism” to “despotism” (never rises above the merest
despotism)
p. 24: changed “in” to “is” (Much less is Christianity or any other
system)
p. 24: changed “almightly” to “almighty” (It is not almighty and we are
not to look)
p. 31: changed “summonded” to “summoned” (The teacher, summoned as a
witness)
p. 32: changed “ther” to “their” (put to death for participating in
their production)
p. 41: “Wicliffe’s” left as-printed; this name has many variant
spellings.
p. 46: changed incorrect citation “xl” to “xlvi” (Gen. xlvi. 23)
p. 61: changed “prohpet’s” to “prophet’s” and “nation’s” to “nations”
(Still at the prophet’s feet the nations sit)