Produced by Carrie Lorenz and John B. Hare
THE WOMAN'S BIBLE.
PART I.
Comments on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
"In every soul there is bound up some truth and some error, and each
gives to the world of thought what no other one possesses."--Cousin.
1898.
By
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
REVISING COMMITTEE.
"We took sweet counsel together."--Ps. Iv., 14.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Lillie Devereux Blake,
Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford,
Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Clara Bewick Colby,
Rev. Olympia Brown,
Rev. Augusta Chapin,
Frances Ellen Burr,
Ursula N. Gestefeld,
Clara B. Neyman,
Mary Seymour Howell,
Helen H. Gardener,
Josephine K. Henry,
Charlotte Beebe: Wilbour,
Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll,
Lucinda B. Chandler,
Sarah A. Underwood,
Catharine F. Stebbins,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,[FN#1]
Louisa Southworth.
[FN#1] Deceased.
FOREIGN MEMBERS.
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, Finland,
Ursula M. Bright, England,
Irma Von Troll-Borostyant, Austria,
Priscilla Bright Mclaren, Scotland,
Isabelle Bogelot, France
COMMENTS
ON
GENESIS, EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS AND DEUTERONOMY,
By
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Lillie Devereux Blake,
Rev. Phebe Hanaford,
Clara Bewick Colby,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,
Ursula N. Gestefeld,
Mrs. Louisa Southworth,
Frances Ellen Burr.
PREFACE.
So many letters are daily received asking questions about the Woman's
Bible,--as to the extent of the revision, and the standpoint from which
it will be conducted--that it seems best, though every detail is not as
yet matured, to state the plan, as concisely as possible, upon which
those who have been in consultation during the summer, propose to do
the work.
I. The object is to revise only those texts and chapters directly
referring to women, and those also in which women are made prominent by
exclusion. As all such passages combined form but one-tenth of the
Scriptures, the undertaking will not be so laborious as, at the first
thought, one would imagine. These texts, with the commentaries, can
easily be compressed into a duodecimo volume of about four hundred
pages.
II. The commentaries will be of a threefold character, the writers in
the different branches being selected according to their special
aptitude for the work:
1. Two or three Greek and Hebrew scholars will devote themselves to
the translation and the meaning of particular words and texts in the
original.
2. Others will devote themselves to Biblical history, old manuscripts,
to the new version, and to the latest theories as to the occult meaning
of certain texts and parables.
3. For the commentaries on the plain English version a committee of
some thirty members has been formed. These are women of earnestness and
liberal ideas, quick to see the real purport of the Bible as regards
their sex. Among them the various books of the Old and New Testament
will be distributed for comment.
III. There will be two or more editors to bring the work of the
various committees into one consistent whole.
IV. The completed work will be submitted to an advisory committee
assembled at some central point, as London, New York, or Chicago, to
sit in final judgment on "The Woman's Bible."
As to the manner of doing the practical work:
Those who have been engaged this summer have adopted the following
plan, which may be suggestive to new members of the committee. Each
person purchased two Bibles, ran through them from Genesis to
Revelations, marking all the texts that concerned women. The passages
were cut out, and pasted in a blank book, and the commentaries then
written underneath.
Those not having time to read all the books can confine their labors
to the particular ones they propose to review.
It is thought best to publish the different parts as soon as prepared
so that the Committee may have all in print in a compact form before
the final revision.
E. C. S.
August 1st, 1895.
INTRODUCTION.
From the inauguration of the movement for woman's emancipation the
Bible has been used to hold her in the "divinely ordained sphere,"
prescribed in the Old and New Testaments.
The canon and civil law; church and state; priests and legislators;
all political parties and religious denominations have alike taught
that woman was made after man, of man, and for man, an inferior being,
subject to man. Creeds, codes, Scriptures and statutes, are all based
on this idea. The fashions, forms, ceremonies and customs of society,
church ordinances and discipline all grow out of this idea.
Of the old English common law, responsible for woman's civil and
political status, Lord Brougham said, "it is a disgrace to the
civilization and Christianity of the Nineteenth Century." Of the canon
law, which is responsible for woman's status in the church, Charles
Kingsley said, "this will never be a good world for women until the
last remnant of the canon law is swept from the face of the earth."
The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world,
that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned
before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced.
Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period
of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to
play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material
wants, and for all the information she might desire on the vital
questions of the hour, she was commanded to ask her husband at home.
Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up.
Those who have the divine insight to translate, transpose and
transfigure this mournful object of pity into an exalted, dignified
personage, worthy our worship as the mother of the race, are to be
congratulated as having a share of the occult mystic power of the
eastern Mahatmas.
The plain English to the ordinary mind admits of no such liberal
interpretation. The unvarnished texts speak for themselves. The canon
law, church ordinances and Scriptures, are homogeneous, and all
reflect the same spirit and sentiments.
These familiar texts are quoted by clergymen in their pulpits, by
statesmen in the halls of legislation, by lawyers in the courts, and
are echoed by the press of all civilized nations, and accepted by woman
herself as "The Word of God." So perverted is the religious element in
her nature, that with faith and works she is the chief support of the
church and clergy; the very powers that make her emancipation
impossible. When, in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, women
began to protest against their civil and political degradation, they
were referred to the Bible for an answer. When they protested against
their unequal position in the church, they were referred to the Bible
for an answer.
This led to a general and critical study of the Scriptures. Some,
having made a fetish of these books and believing them to be the
veritable "Word of God," with liberal translations, interpretations,
allegories and symbols, glossed over the most objectionable features of
the various books and clung to them as divinely inspired. Others,
seeing the family resemblance between the Mosaic code, the canon law,
and the old English common law, came to the conclusion that all alike
emanated from the same source; wholly human in their origin and
inspired by the natural love of domination in the historians. Others,
bewildered with their doubts and fears, came to no conclusion. While
their clergymen told them on the one hand, that they owed all the
blessings and freedom they enjoyed to the Bible, on the other, they
said it clearly marked out their circumscribed sphere of action: that
the demands for political and civil rights were irreligious, dangerous
to the stability of the home, the state and the church. Clerical
appeals were circulated from time to time, conjuring members of their
churches to take no part in the anti-slavery or woman suffrage
movements, as they were infidel in their tendencies, undermining the
very foundations of society. No wonder the majority of women stood
still, and with bowed heads, accepted the situation.
Listening to the varied opinions of women, I have long thought it
would be interesting and profitable to get them clearly stated in book
form. To this end six years ago I proposed to a committee of women to
issue a Woman's Bible, that we might have women's commentaries on
women's position in the Old and New Testaments. It was agreed on by
several leading women in England and America and the work was begun,
but from various causes it has been delayed, until now the idea is
received with renewed enthusiasm, and a large committee has been
formed, and we hope to complete the work within a year.
Those who have undertaken the labor are desirous to have some Hebrew
and Greek scholars, versed in Biblical criticism, to gild our pages
with their learning. Several distinguished women have been urged to do
so, but they are afraid that their high reputation and scholarly
attainments might be compromised by taking part in an enterprise that
for a time may prove very unpopular. Hence we may not be able to get
help from that class.
Others fear that they might compromise their evangelical faith by
affiliating with those of more liberal views, who do not regard the
Bible as the "Word of God," but like any other book, to be judged by
its merits. If the Bible teaches the equality of Woman, why does the
church refuse to ordain women to preach the gospel, to fill the offices
of deacons and elders, and to administer the Sacraments, or to admit
them as delegates to the Synods, General Assemblies and Conferences of
the different denominations? They have never yet invited a woman to
join one of their Revising Committees, nor tried to mitigate the
sentence pronounced on her by changing one count in the indictment
served on her in Paradise.
The large number of letters received, highly appreciative of the
undertaking, is very encouraging to those who have inaugurated the
movement, and indicate a growing self-respect and self-assertion in the
women of this generation. But we have the usual array of objectors to
meet and answer. One correspondent conjures us to suspend the work, as
it is "ridiculous" for "women to attempt the revision of the
Scriptures." I wonder if any man wrote to the late revising committee
of Divines to stop their work on the ground that it was ridiculous for
men to revise the Bible. Why is it more ridiculous for women to protest
against her present status in the Old and New Testament, in the
ordinances and discipline of the church, than in the statutes and
constitution of the state? Why is it more ridiculous to arraign
ecclesiastics for their false teaching and acts of injustice to women,
than members of Congress and the House of Commons? Why is it more
audacious to review Moses than Blackstone, the Jewish code of laws,
than the English system of jurisprudence? Women have compelled their
legislators in every state in this Union to so modify their statutes
for women that the old common law is now almost a dead letter. Why not
compel Bishops and Revising Committees to modify their creeds and
dogmas? Forty years ago it seemed as ridiculous to timid, time-serving
and retrograde folk for women to demand an expurgated edition of the
laws, as it now does to demand an expurgated edition of the Liturgies
and the Scriptures. Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew
off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving. Whatever your
views may be as to the importance of the proposed work, your political
and social degradation are but an outgrowth of your status in the
Bible. When you express your aversion, based on a blind feeling of
reverence in which reason has no control, to the revision of the
Scriptures, you do but echo Cowper, who, when asked to read Paine's
"Rights of Man," exclaimed "No man shall convince me that I am
improperly governed while I feel the contrary."
Others say it is not politic to rouse religious opposition.
This much-lauded policy is but another word for cowardice. How can
woman's position be changed from that of a subordinate to an equal,
without opposition, without the broadest discussion of all the
questions involved in her present degradation? For so far-reaching and
momentous a reform as her complete independence, an entire revolution
in all existing institutions is inevitable.
Let us remember that all reforms are interdependent, and that whatever
is done to establish one principle on a solid basis, strengthens all.
Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea
that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon. The object of an
individual life is not to carry one fragmentary measure in human
progress, but to utter the highest truth clearly seen in all
directions, and thus to round out and perfect a well balanced
character. Was not the sum of influence exerted by John Stuart Mill on
political, religious and social questions far greater than that of any
statesman or reformer who has sedulously limited his sympathies and
activities to carrying one specific measure? We have many women
abundantly endowed with capabilities to understand and revise what men
have thus far written. But they are all suffering from inherited ideas
of their inferiority; they do not perceive it, yet such is the true
explanation of their solicitude, lest they should seem to be too self-
asserting.
Again there are some who write us that our work is a useless
expenditure of force over a book that has lost its hold on the human
mind. Most intelligent women, they say, regard it simply as the history
of a rude people in a barbarous age, and have no more reverence for the
Scriptures than any other work. So long as tens of thousands of Bibles
are printed every year, and circulated over the whole habitable globe,
and the masses in all English-speaking nations revere it as the word of
God, it is vain to belittle its influence. The sentimental feelings we
all have for those things we were educated to believe sacred, do not
readily yield to pure reason. I distinctly remember the shudder that
passed over me on seeing a mother take our family Bible to make a high
seat for her child at table. It seemed such a desecration. I was
tempted to protest against its use for such a purpose, and this,
too, long after my reason had repudiated its divine authority.
To women still believing in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures,
we say give us by all means your exegesis in the light of the higher
criticism learned men are now making, and illumine the Woman's Bible,
with your inspiration.
Bible historians claim special inspiration for the Old and New
Testaments containing most contradictory records of the same events, of
miracles opposed to all known laws, of customs that degrade the female
sex of all human and animal life, stated in most questionable language
that could not be read in a promiscuous assembly, and call all this
"The Word of God."
The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is
that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do
not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians
what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of
the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that
they assign her, her emancipation is impossible. Whatever the Bible may
be made to do in Hebrew or Greek, in plain English it does not exalt
and dignify woman. My standpoint for criticism is the revised edition
of 1888. 1 will so far honor the revising committee of wise men who
have given us the best exegesis they can according to their ability,
although Disraeli said the last one before he died, contained 150,000
blunders in the Hebrew, and 7,000 in the Greek.
But the verbal criticism in regard to woman's position amounts to
little. The spirit is the same in all periods and languages, hostile to
her as an equal.
There are some general principles in the holy books of all religions
that teach love, charity, liberty, justice and equality for all the
human family, there are many grand and beautiful passages, the golden
rule has been echoed and re-echoed around the world. There are lofty
examples of good and true men and women, all worthy our acceptance and
imitation whose lustre cannot be dimmed by the false sentiments and
vicious characters bound up in the same volume. The Bible cannot be
accepted or rejected as a whole, its teachings are varied and its
lessons differ widely from each other. In criticising the peccadilloes
of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, we would not shadow the virtues of
Deborah, Huldah and Vashti. In criticising the Mosaic code, we would
not question the wisdom of the golden rule and the fifth Commandment.
Again the church claims special consecration for its cathedrals and
priesthood, parts of these aristocratic churches are too holy for
women to enter, boys were early introduced into the choirs for this
reason, woman singing in an obscure corner closely veiled. A few of
the more democratic denominations accord women some privileges, but
invidious discriminations of sex are found in all religious
organizations, and the most bitter outspoken enemies of woman
are found among clergymen and bishops of the Protestant religion.[FN#2]
[FN#2] See the address of Bishop Doane, June 7th, 1895, in the closing
exercises of St. Agnes School, Albany.
The canon law, the Scriptures, the creeds and codes and church
discipline of the leading religions bear the impress of fallible man,
and not of our ideal great first cause, "the Spirit of all Good," that
set the universe of matter and mind in motion, and by immutable law
holds the land, the sea, the planets, revolving round the great centre
of light and heat, each in its own elliptic, with millions of stars in
harmony all singing together, the glory of creation forever and ever.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
CHAPTER I.
Genesis i: 26, 27, 28.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth 27 So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female
image, created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Here is the sacred historian's first account of the advent of woman; a
simultaneous creation of both sexes, in the image of God. It is evident
from the language that there was consultation in the Godhead, and that
the masculine and feminine elements were equally represented. Scott in
his commentaries says, "this consultation of the Gods is the origin of
the doctrine of the trinity." But instead of three male personages, as
generally represented, a Heavenly Father, Mother, and Son would seem
more rational.
The first step in the elevation of woman to her true position, as an
equal factor in human progress, is the cultivation of the religious
sentiment in regard to her dignity and equality, the recognition by the
rising generation of an ideal Heavenly Mother, to whom their prayers
should be addressed, as well as to a Father.
If language has any meaning, we have in these texts a plain
declaration of the existence of the feminine element in the Godhead,
equal in power and glory with the masculine. The Heavenly Mother and
Father! "God created man in his own image, male and female." Thus
Scripture, as well as science and philosophy, declares the eternity
and equality of sex--the philosophical fact, without which there could
have been no perpetuation of creation, no growth or development in the
animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms, no awakening nor progressing in
the world of thought. The masculine and feminine elements, exactly
equal and balancing each other, are as essential to the maintenance of
the equilibrium of the universe as positive and negative electricity,
the centripetal and centrifugal forces, the laws of attraction which
bind together all we know of this planet whereon we dwell and of the
system in which we revolve.
In the great work of creation the crowning glory was realized, when
man and woman were evolved on the sixth day, the masculine and feminine
forces in the image of God, that must have existed eternally, in all
forms of matter and mind. All the persons in the Godhead are
represented in the Elohim the divine plurality taking counsel in regard
to this last and highest form of life. Who were the members of this
high council, and were they a duality or a trinity? Verse 27 declares
the image of God male and female. How then is it possible to make woman
an afterthought? We find in verses 5-16 the pronoun "he" used. Should
it not in harmony with verse 26 be "they," a dual pronoun? We may
attribute this to the same cause as the use of "his" in verse 11
instead of "it." The fruit tree yielding fruit after "his" kind instead
of after "its" kind. The paucity of a language may give rise to many
misunderstandings.
The above texts plainly show the simultaneous creation of man and
woman, and their equal importance in the development of the race. All
those theories based on the assumption that man was prior in the
creation, have no foundation in Scripture.
As to woman's subjection, on which both the canon and the civil law
delight to dwell, it is important to note that equal dominion is given
to woman over every living thing, but not one word is said giving man
dominion over woman.
Here is the first title deed to this green earth giving alike to the
sons and daughters of God. No lesson of woman's subjection can be
fairly drawn from the first chapter of the Old Testament.
E. C. S.
The most important thing for a woman to note, in reading Genesis, is
that that portion which is now divided into "the first three chapters"
(there was no such division until about five centuries ago), contains
two entirely separate, and very contradictory, stories of creation,
written by two different, but equally anonymous, authors. No Christian
theologian of to-day, with any pretensions to scholarship, claims that
Genesis was written by Moses. As was long ago pointed out, the Bible
itself declares that all the books the Jews originally possessed were
burned in the destruction of Jerusalem, about 588 B. C., at the time
the people were taken to Babylonia as slaves too the Assyrians, (see II
Esdras, ch. xiv, V. 21, Apocrypha). Not until about 247 B. C. (some
theologians say 226 and others; 169 B. C.) is there any record of a
collection of literature in the re-built Jerusalem, and, then, the
anonymous writer of II Maccabees briefly mentions that some Nehemiah
"gathered together the acts of the kings and the prophets and those of
David" when "founding a library" for use in Jerusalem. But the earliest
mention anywhere in the Bible of a book that might have corresponded to
Genesis is made by an apocryphal writer, who says that Ezra wrote "all
that hath been done in the world since the beginning," after the Jews
returned from Babylon, under his leadership, about 450 B. C. (see II
Esdras, ch. xiv, v. 22, of the Apocrypha).
When it is remembered that the Jewish books were written on rolls of
leather, without much attention to vowel points and with no division
into verses or chapters, by uncritical copyists, who altered passages
greatly, and did not always even pretend to understand what they were
copying, then the reader of Genesis begins to put herself in position
to understand how it can be contradictory. Great as were the liberties
which the Jews took with Genesis, those of the English translators,
however, greatly surpassed them.
The first chapter of Genesis, for instance, in Hebrew, tells us, in
verses one and two, "As to origin, created the gods (Elohim) these
skies (or air or clouds) and this earth. . . And a wind moved upon the
face of the waters." Here we have the opening of a polytheistic fable
of creation, but, so strongly convinced were the English translators
that the ancient Hebrews must have been originally monotheistic that
they rendered the above, as follows: "In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth. . . . And the spirit of God (!) moved upon the
face of the waters."
It is now generally conceded that some one (nobody pretends to know
who) at some time (nobody pretends to know exactly when), copied two
creation myths on the same leather roll, one immediately following the
other. About one hundred years ago, it was discovered by Dr. Astruc, of
France, that from Genesis ch. i, v. 1 to Genesis ch. ii, v. 4, is given
one complete account of creation, by an author who always used the term
"the gods" (Elohim), in speaking of the fashioning of the universe,
mentioning it altogether thirty-four times, while, in Genesis ch. ii,
v. 4, to the end of chapter iii, we have a totally different narrative,
by an author of unmistakably different style, who uses the term "Iahveh
of the gods" twenty times, but "Elohim" only three times. The first
author, evidently, attributes creation to a council of gods, acting in
concert, and seems never to have heard of Iahveh. The second attributes
creation to Iahveh, a tribal god of ancient Israel, but represents
Iahveh as one of two or more gods, conferring with them (in Genesis ch.
xiii, V. 22) as to the danger of man's acquiring immortality.
Modern theologians have, for convenience sake, entitled these two
fables, respectively, the Elohistic and the Iahoistic stories. They
differ, not only in the point I have mentioned above, but in the order
of the "creative acts;" in regard to the mutual attitude of man and
woman, and in regard to human freedom from prohibitions imposed by
deity. In order to exhibit their striking contradictions, I will place
them in parallel columns:
ELOHISTIC. --- IAHOISTIC.
Order of Creation: --- Order of Creation:
First--Water. --- First--Land.
Second--Land. --- Second--Water.
Third--Vegetation. --- Third--Male Man, only.
Fourth--Animals. --- Fourth--Vegetation.
Fifth--Mankind; male and female. --- Fifth--Animals.
--- Sixth--Woman.
In this story male and female man are created simultaneously, both
alike, in the image of the gods, after animals have been called into
existence. --- In this story male man is sculptured out of clay,
before any animals are created, and before female man has been
constructed.
Here, joint dominion over the earth is given to woman and man, without
limit or prohibition. --- Here, woman is punished with subjection to
man for breaking a prohibitory law.
Everything, without exception, is pronounced "very good." --- There is
a tree of evil, whose fruit, is said by Iahveh to cause sudden death,
but which does not do so, as Adam lived 930 years after eating it.
Man and woman are told that "every plant bearing seed upon the face of
the earth and every tree. . . To you it shall be for meat." They are
thus given perfect freedom. --- Man is told there is one tree of which
he must not eat, "for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die."
Man and woman are given special dominion over all the animals-"every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." --- An animal, a
"creeping thing," is given dominion over man and woman, and proves
himself more truthful than Iahveh Elohim. (Compare Genesis chapter ii,
verse 17, with chapter iii, verses 4 and 22.)
Now as it is manifest that both of these stories cannot be true;
intelligent women, who feel bound to give the preference to either, may
decide according to their own judgment of which is more worthy of an
intelligent woman's acceptance. Paul's rule is a good one in this
dilemma, "Prove all things: hold fast to that which is good." My own
opinion is that the second story was manipulated by some Jew, in an
endeavor to give "heavenly authority" for requiring a woman to obey the
man she married. In a work which I am now completing, I give some facts
concerning ancient Israelitish history, which will be of peculiar
interest to those who wish to understand the origin of woman's
subjection.
E. B. D.
Many orientalists and students of theology have maintained that the
consultation of the Gods here described is proof that the Hebrews were
in early days polytheists--Scott's supposition that this is the origin
of the Trinity has no foundation in fact, as the beginning of that
conception is to be found in the earliest of all known religious nature
worship. The acknowledgment of the dual principal, masculine and
feminine, is much more probably the explanation of the expressions here
used.
In the detailed description of creation we find a gradually ascending
series. Creeping things, "great sea monsters," (chap. I, V. 21, literal
translation). "Every bird of wing," cattle and living things of the
earth, the fish of the sea and the "birds of the heavens," then man,
and last and crowning glory of the whole, woman.
It cannot be maintained that woman was inferior to man even if, as
asserted in chapter ii, she was created after him without at once
admitting that man is inferior to the creeping things, because created
after them.
L. D. B.