caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand
sheep,
33 And threescore and twelve thousand beeves.
34 And threescore and one thousand asses.
35 And thirty and two thousand persons in of women that had not known
man.
It appears from the enumeration here of the booty, that the Israelites
took in this war against the Midianites seventy-two thousand beeves,
six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep, sixty-one thousand asses
and thirty-two thousand women virgins, beside the women and children
killed, (as they said) by God's order. The thirty-two thousand women
and women children were given to the soldiers and the priests. Why
should the social purity societies in England and America who believe
in the divine origin of all Scripture object to the use of women
children by their statesmen and soldiers when the custom was permitted
to the chosen people of Israel? True, the welfare of the priests,
lawgivers and soldiers was carefully guarded in selecting for them the
purest of the daughters of the Midianites.
Surely such records are enough to make the most obstinate believer
doubt the divine origin of Jewish history and the claim of that people
to have been under the special guidance of Jehovah. Their
claim to have had conversations with God daily and to have acted under
His commands in all their tergiversations of word and action is simply
blasphemous. We must discredit their pretensions, or else the wisdom of
Jehovah himself. "Talking with God," at that period was a mere form of
speech, as "tempted of the devil" was once in the records of our
courts. Criminals said "tempted of the devil, I did commit the crime."
This chapter places Moses and Eleazar the priest, in a most unenviable
light according to the moral standard of any period of human history.
Verily the revelations in the Pall Hall Gazette a few years ago, pale
before this wholesale desecration of women and children. Bishop Colenso
in his exhaustive work on the Pentateuch shows that most of the records
therein claiming to be historical facts are merely parables and
figments of the imagination of different writers, composed at different
periods, full of contradictions, interpolations and discrepancies.
He shows geologically and geographically that a flood over the whole
face of the earth was a myth. He asks how was it possible to save two
of every animal, bird and creeping thing on both continents and get
them safely into the ark and back again to their respective localities.
How could they make their way from South America up north through the
frigid zone and cross over the polar ices to the eastern continent and
carry with them the necessary food to which they had been accustomed,
they would all have perished with the cold before reaching the Arctic
circle. While the animals from the northern latitudes would all perish
with heat before reaching the equator. What a long weary journey the
animals, birds and fowls would have taken from Japan and China to Mount
Ararat. The parable as an historical fact is hedged with
impossibilities and so is the whole journey of forty years from Egypt
to Canaan; but if we make up our minds to believe in miracles then it
is plain sailing from Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, Both Ezra and
Jeremiah are said to have written the last book of the Pentateuch, and
some, question whether Moses was the author of either. Bishop Colenso
also questions the arithmetical calculations of the historians in
regard to the conquest of the Midianites, as described in the book of
Numbers.
E. C. S.
But how thankful we must be that we are no longer obligated to
believe, as a matter of fact, of vital consequence to our eternal hope,
each separate statement contained in the Pentateuch, such for instance,
as the story related in Numbers xxxi!--where we are told that a force
of twelve thousand Israelites slew all the males of the Midianites,
took captive all the females and children, seized all their cattle and
flocks, (seventy-two thousand oxen, sixty one thousand asses, six
hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep,) and all their goods, and
burnt all their cities, and all their goodly castles, without the loss
of a single man,--and then, by command of Moses, butchered in cold
blood all the women, except "the women-children and virgins, to be
given to the priests and soldiers."
They amounted to thirty-two thousand, mostly, we suppose, under the
age of sixteen. We may fairly reckon that there were as many more under
the age of forty, and half as many more above forty, making altogether
eighty thousand females, of whom, according to the story, Moses ordered
forty-eight thousand to be killed, besides (say) twenty thousand young
boys. The tragedy of Cawnpore, where three hundred were butchered,
would sink into nothing, compared with such a massacre, if, indeed, we
were required to believe it.
The obvious intention of Moses, as shown in these directions, was to
keep the Jewish race from amalgamation. But the great lawgiver seems to
have ignored the fact, or been ignorant of it, that transmission of
race qualities is even greater through the female line than through the
male, and if they kept the women children for themselves they were
making sure the fact that in days to come there would be Jewish
descendants who might be Jews in name, but, through the law of
heredity, aliens in spirit. The freedom of the natural law will make
itself evident, for so-called natural law is divine.
P. A. H.
Zipporah the wife of Moses was a Midianite, Jethro her father was a
priest of some sagacity and consideration. When he met Moses in the
desert he gave him valuable advice about the government of his people,
which the great lawgiver obeyed.
The sons of Zipporah and Moses, Gershon and Eliezer, were therefore of
Midianite blood, yet Moses sent an army of twelve thousand armed for
war; a thousand of each tribe, with orders to slay every man. If the
venerable Jethro was still alive he must have been murdered by his
grandsons and their comrades. This is a most extraordinary story. If
after the men, women and male children were all killed, thirty thousand
maidens and young girls still remained, the Midianites must have been
too large a tribe to have been wholly destroyed by twelve thousand
Israelites, unless the Jewish God fought the battle.
L. D. B.
CHAPTER X.
Numbers xxxii.
1 And the chief fathers of the families or the children of Gilead drew
near, and spake before Moses, and before the princes, the chief fathers
of the children of Israel:
2 And they said, The Lord commanded my lord to give the land for an
inheritance by lot to the children of Israel: and my lord was commanded
by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother unto his
daughters.
3 And if they be married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the
children of Israel, then shall their inheritance be taken from the
inheritance of our fathers, and shall be put to the inheritance of the
tribe whereunto they are received; so shall it be taken from the lot of
our inheritance.
4 And when the jubilee of the children of Israel shall be, then shall
their inheritance be put unto the inheritance of the tribe whereunto
they are received:
5 And Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of
the Lord, saying, The tribe of the sons of Joseph hath said well.
6 ......the Lord doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad,
saying, Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of
the tribe of their father shall they marry.
7 So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from
tribe to tribe: for every one of the children of Israel shall keep
himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.
8 And every daughter, that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of
the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the
tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy every man
the inheritance of his fathers.
10 Even is the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad:
11 ...... and were turned unto their father's brothers' sons.
In a former chapter there was a sense of justice shown towards the
daughters of Zelophehad, but here a new complication arises. The uncles
of these girls had their eyes on the property and perhaps feared that
their sons had not found favor in the eyes of their cousins, as they
might have seen and admired some fine looking young men from other
tribes. So the crafty old uncles moved in time to get a statute passed
that would compel daughters to marry in the tribe of their fathers and
got a direct command from the Lord to that effect, then the young
women, compelled to limit their predilections, married their cousins,
setting the laws of heredity quite aside; property in all ages being
considered of more importance than persons. Thus, after making some
show of justice in giving the daughters of Zelophehad the inheritance
of their fathers, the Israelites began to consider the loss to their
tribe, if peradventure the five sisters should marry into other tribes
and all this property be transferred to their enemies.
They seemed to consider these noble women destitute of the virtue of
patriotism, of family pride, of all the tender sentiments of
friendship, kindred and home, and so with their usual masculine
arrogance they passed laws to compel the daughters of Zelophehad to do
what they probably would have done had there been no law to that
effect. These daughters were known by the euphonious names of Mahlah,
Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah, and they all married their father's
brothers' sons. Cousins on the mother's side would probably have been
forbidden.
If Moses, as the mouthpiece of God, aimed to do exact justice, why did
he not pass an ordinance giving property in all cases equally to sons
and daughters.
E. C. S..
Moses gave what appears to be, in the light of this Christian era, a
just judgment when he decided that the daughters of Zelophehad should
inherit their father's property, but he gave as the law of inheritance
the direction that "if a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause
his inheritance to pass unto his daughter;" thus, as I think, unjustly
discriminating between women who have brothers and women who have none,
and he goes on further to deal unjustly with women when he directs that
the daughters of Zelophehad marry so that the inheritance justly
awarded them should not go out of the family of the tribe of their
fathers.
"Let them marry to whom they think best," and those words seemingly
recognize their righteous freedom. But immediately he limits that
phrase and informs the five women they must only marry in their
father's tribe, and were limited also to their father's family. The
result was that each married her own cousin. If this was contrary to
physiological law, as some distinguished physiologists affirm, then
they were compelled by the arbitrary law of Moses to break the law of
God.
P. A. H.
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY.
CHAPTER I.
Deuteronomy i.
3 And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on
the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of
Israel, according unto all that the Lord had given him in commandment
unto them;
6 The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long
enough in this mount:
7 Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the
Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the
hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by sea side, to the land
of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river
Euphrates.
8 Behold, I have set the before you: go in and possess the land which
the Lord sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give
unto them and to their seed after them.
10 The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day
as the stars of heaven for multitude.
This book contains an account of what passed in the wilderness the
last month of the fortieth year, which is supposed to be written by
Ezra, as the history is continued several days after the death of
Moses. Moses' farewell address to the children of Israel is full of
wisdom, with a touch of pathos. This had been a melancholy year with
the Hebrews in the death of Miriam, Aaron and Moses. The manner in
which this people were kept wandering up and down on the very verge of
the land of Canaan because they were rebellious does seem like child's
play. No wonder they were discouraged and murmured. It is difficult
from the record to see that these people were any better fitted to
enter the promised land at the end of forty years than when they first
left Egypt. But the promise that they should be as numerous as the
stars in the heavens, according to Adam Clarke, had been fulfilled. He
tells us that only three thousand stars can be seen by the naked eye,
which the children of Israel numbered at this time six hundred thousand
fighting men, beside all the women and children. Astronomers, However,
now estimate that there are over seventy-five million stars within the
range of their telescopes. If census takers had prophetic telescopes,
they could no doubt see the promises to the Hebrews fully realized in
that one line of their ambition.
Deuteronomy ii.
34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the
men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to
remain.
Though the women were ignored in all the civil affairs and religious
observances of the Jews, yet in making war on other tribes they thought
them too dangerous to be allowed to live, and so they killed all the
women and children. The women might much better have helped to do the
fighting, as it is far easier to die in the excitement of the
battlefield than to be murdered in cold blood. In making war on
neighboring tribes, the Jewish military code permitted them to take all
the pure, virgins and child women for booty to be given to the priests
and soldiers, thus debauching the men of Israel and destroying all
feelings of honor and chivalry for women. This utter contempt for all
the decencies of life, and all the natural personal rights of women as
set forth in these pages, should destroy in the minds of women at
least, all authority to superhuman origin and stamp the Pentateuch at
least as emanating from the most obscene minds of a barbarous age.
Deuteronomy v, vi.
16 Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath
commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well
with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
17 Thou shalt not kill.
18 Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
19 Neither shalt thou steal.
20 Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.
21 Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou
covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his
maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's.
2 That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes
and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy
son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.
The best commentary on these texts is that no Revising Committee of
Ecclesiastics has found it necessary to make any suggestions as to whom
the commandments are addressed. Suppose we reverse the language and see
how one-sided it would seem addressed only to women. Suppose this were
the statement. Here is a great lawgiver and he says: "Thou art to keep
all God's commandments, thou and thy daughters and thy daughter's
daughters, and these are the commandments: 'Thou shalt honor thy mother
and thy father.' 'Thou shalt not steal nor lie.' 'Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's husband, nor her field, nor her ox, nor anything that is
thy neighbor's.'"
Would such commandments occasion no remark among Biblical scholars? In
our criminal code to-day the pronouns she, her and hers are not found,
yet we are tried in the courts, imprisoned and hung as "he," "him" or
"his," though denied the privileges of citizenship, because the
masculine pronouns apply only to disabilities. What a hustling there
would be among prisoners and genders if laws and constitutions,
Scriptures and commandments, played this fast and loose game with the
men of any nation.
Deuteronomy iv.
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord
my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to
possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your
understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these
statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding
people.
7 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them,
as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments
so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
Adam Clarke in his comments on chapter iv, says, "there was no form of
worship at this time on the face of the earth that was not wicked and
obscene, puerile and foolish and ridiculous, except that established by
God himself among the Israelites, and every part of this taken in its
connection and reference may be truly called a wise and reasonable
service. Almost all the nations of the earth manifested in time their
respect for the Jewish religion by copying different parts of the
Mosaic code as to civil and moral customs."
As thoughtful, intelligent women, we question all this: First.--We see
no evidence that a just and wise being wrote either the canon or civil
laws that have been gradually compiled by ecclesiastics and lawgivers.
Second.--We cannot accept any code or creed that uniformly defrauds
woman of all her natural rights. For the last half century we have
publicly and persistently appealed from these laws, which Clarke says
all nations have copied, to the common sense of a more humane and
progressive age. To-day women are asking to be delivered from all the
curses and blessings alike of the Jewish God and the ordinances he
established. In this book we have the ten commandments repeated.
E. C. S.
CHAPTER II.
Deuteronomy vii.
1 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.
2 Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no
covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt
not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
4 For they will turn away thy son from following me.
5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and
break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their
graven images with fire.
6 For thou art a holy people.
7 The Lord did not set his love upon you, not choose you, because ye
were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all
people:
8 But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath
which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from
the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
With the seven nations that God cast out, the children of Israel were
commanded to make no covenants, nor matrimonial alliances lest they
should fall into idolatry. As men are more given to wandering in
strange countries than women these injunctions are intended specially
for them. Adam Clarke says, the heart being naturally inclined to evil,
the idolatrous wife would more readily draw aside the believing
husband, than the believing husband the idolatrous wife. That being the
case, could not the believing wife with her subtle influence have
brought over the idolatrous husband? Why should she not have the power
to convert to one religion as well as another, especially as there was
no choice between them. There could not have been anything worse than
the Jewish religion illustrated in their daily walk and conversation,
as described in their books, and if the human heart naturally inclined
to evil, as many converts might have been made to the faith of Moses as
to any other.
With this consideration it is plain that if the Jews had offered women
any superior privileges, above any other tribe, they could have readily
converted the women to their way of thinking. The Jewish God
seems as vacillating and tempest-tossed between loving and hating his
subjects as the most undisciplined son of Adam. The supreme ideal of
these people was pitiful to the last degree and the appeals to them
were all on the lowest plane of human ambition. The chief promise to
the well-doer was that his descendants should be as numerous as the
sands of the sea.
In chapter ix when rebellion at Horeb is described, Aaron only is
refered to, and in chapter x when his death is mentioned, nothing is
said of Miriam. In the whole recapitulation she is forgotten, though
altogether the grandest character of the three, though cast out of the
camp and stricken with leprosy, in vengeance, she harbors no
resentment, but comforts and cheers the women with songs and dances,
all through their dreary march of forty years.
Deuteronomy x.
18 He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and
loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.
19 Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land
of Egypt.
The sacred fabulist has failed to give us any choice examples in which
the Jews executed just judgments for widows or fatherless girls; on the
contrary in all their dealings with women of all ranks, classes and
ages they were merciless and unjust.
As to the stranger, their chief occupation was war and wholesale
slaughter, not only of the men on the battlefield, but of innocent
women and children, destroying their cities and making their lands
desolate. A humane person reading these books for the first time
without any glamour of divine inspiration, would shudder at their
cruelty and blush at their obscenity.
Those who can make these foul facts illustrate beautiful symbols must
have genius of a high order.
Deuteronomy xii.
18 But thou must eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which
the Lord thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and
thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy
gates: and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that them
puttest thine hands unto.
19 Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as
thou livest upon the earth.
If women have been faithful to any class of the human family it has
been to the Levite. The chief occupation of their lives next to
bearing children has been to sustain the priesthood and the churches.
With continual begging, fairs and donation parties, they have helped
to plant religious temples on every hill-top and valley, and in the
streets of all our cities, so that the doleful church bell is forever
ringing in our ears. The Levites have not been an unqualified blessing,
ever fanning the flames of religious persecution they have been the
chief actors in subjugating mankind.
E. C. S.
CHAPTER III.
Deuteronomy xiii.
6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine
own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods,
which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh
unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even
unto the other end of the earth;
8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall
thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou
conceal him:
9 But thou shalt surely kill him: thine hand shall be first upon him
to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
Here is the foundation of all the terrible persecutions for a change
of faith so lamentable among the Jews and so intensified among the
Christians. And this idea still holds, that faith in the crude
speculations of unbalanced minds as to the nature of the great first
cause and his commands as to the conduct of life, should be the same in
the beginning, now and forever. All other institutions may change,
opinions on all other subjects may be modified and improved, but the
old theologies are a finality that have reached the ultimatum of
spiritual thought. We imagine our religion with its dogmas and
absurdities must remain like the rock of ages, forever.
Deuteronomy xv.
6 And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son,
and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the
Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless,
and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God
hath chosen to place his name there.
14 And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy
daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the
stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.
15 Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the Lord thy God in
the place which the Lord shall choose.
16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord
thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened
bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.
In the general festivities women of all ranks were invited to take part,
but three times a year Moses had something special to say to the men;
then women were not allowed to be present. We have no instance thus far
in the Jewish economy of any direct communication from God to woman. The
general opinion seemed to be that man was an all-sufficient object of
worship for them, an idea not confined to that period. Milton makes his
Eve with sweet humility say to Adam, "God thy law, thou mine."
This is the fundamental principle on which the canon and civil laws
are based, as well as the English classics. It is only in the galleries
of art that we see the foreshadowing of the good time coming. There the
divine artist represents the virtues, the graces, the sciences, the
seasons, day with its glorious dawn, and night with its holy mysteries,
all radiant and beautiful in the form of woman. The poet, the artist,
the novelist of our own day, are more hopeful prophets for the mother
of the race than those who have spoken in the Scriptures.
E. C. S.
Deuteronomy xvii.
1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock or sheep,
wherein is blemish, or any evil favouredness: for that is an
abomination unto the Lord thy God.
2 If there be found among you, man or woman that hath wrought
wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his
covenant:
3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the
sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not
commanded;
4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired
diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such
abomination is wrought in Israel:
5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman unto thy gates
and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
This is certainly a very effective way of strengthening religious
faith. Most people would assent to any religious dogma, however absurd,
rather than be stoned to death. As all their healthy tender lambs and
calves were eaten by the priests and rulers, no wonder they were so
particular to get the best. To delude the people it was necessary to
give a religious complexion to the sacrifices and to make God command
the people to bring their choicest fruits and grains and meats. It was
very easy for these accomplished prestidigitators to substitute the
offal for sacrifices on their altars, and keep the dainty fruits and
meats for themselves, luxuries for their own tables.
The people have always been deluded with the idea that what they gave
to the church and the priesthood was given unto the Lord, as if the
Maker of the universe needed anything at our hands. How incongruous the
idea of an Infinite being who made all the planets and the inhabitants
thereof commanding his
creatures to kill and burn animals for offerings to him. It is truly
pitiful to see the deceptions that have been played upon the people in
all ages and countries by the priests in the name of religion. They are
omnipresent, ever playing on human credulity, at birth and death, in
affliction and at the marriage feast, in the saddest and happiest
moments of our lives they are near to administer consolation in our
sorrows, and to add blessings to our joys. No other class of teachers
have such prestige and power, especially over woman.
E. C. S.
CHAPTER IV.
Deuteronomy xviii.
9 When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee, thou shalt not learn the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or
his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an
observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or
a necromancer,
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.
One would think that Moses with his rod taking the children of Israel
through the Red Sea, bringing water out of a rock and manna from
heaven, going up into a mountain and there surrounding himself with a
cloud of smoke, sending out all manner of pyrotechnics, thunder and
lightning, and deluding the people into the idea that there he met and
talked with Jehovah, should have been more merciful in his judgments of
all witches, necromancers and soothsayers. One would think witches,
charmers and necromancers possessing the same power and manifesting
many of the same wonders that he did, should not have been so severely
punished for their delusions. Moses had taught them to believe in
miracles. When the human mind is led to believe things outside the
realm of known law, it is prepared to accept all manner of absurdities.
And yet the same people that ridicule Spiritualism, Theosophy and
Psychology, believe in the ten plagues of Egypt and the passage of the
children of Israel through the Red Sea. If they did go through, it was
when the tide was low at that point, which Moses understood and Pharaoh
did not. Perhaps the difficulty is to be gotten over in much the same
way as that employed by the negro preacher who, when his statement,
that the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea on the ice, was
questioned on the ground that geography showed that the climate there
was too warm for the formation of ice, replied: "Why, this happened
before there was any geography!" The Jews, as well as the surrounding
nations, were dominated by all manner of supernatural ideas. All these
uncanny tricks and delusions being forbidden shows that they were
extensively practised by the chosen people, as well as by other nations.
Deuteronomy xx, xxi.
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is
in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself;
and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God
hath given thee.
15 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord
thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them
captive,
11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire
unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;
12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave
her head, and pare her nails;
13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and
shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a
full month: and after that she shall be thy wife.
14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt
let her go whither she will: but thou shalt not sell her at all for
money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast
humbled her.
15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they
have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the
firstborn son be hers that was hated:
16 Then it shall be, when he maketh his son to inherit that which he
hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the
son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn:
17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by
giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the
beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
All this is done if the woman will renounce her religion and accept
the new faith. The shaving of the head was a rite in accepting the new
faith, the paring of the nails a token of submission. In all these
transactions the woman had no fixed rights whatever. In that word
"humbled" is included the whole of our false morality in regard to the
equal relations of the sexes. Why in this responsible act of creation,
on which depends life and immortality, woman is said to be humbled,
when she is the prime factor in the relation, is a question difficult
to answer, except in her general degradation, carried off without her
consent as spoils of war, subject to the fancy of any man, to be taken
or cast off at his pleasure, no matter what is done with her. Her sons
must be carefully guarded and the rights of the first-born fully
recognized. The man is of more value than the mother in the scale of
being whatever her graces and virtues may be. If these Jewish ideas
were obsolete they might not be worth our attention, but our creeds and
codes are still tinged with the Mosaic laws and customs. The English
law of primogeniture has its foundation in the above text. The position
of the wife under the old common law has the same origin.
When Bishop Colenso went as a missionary to Zululand, the horror with
which the most devout and intelligent of the natives questioned the
truth of the Pentateuch confirmed his own doubts of the records.
Translating with the help of a Zulu scholar he was deeply impressed
with his revulsion of feeling at the following passage: "If a man smite
his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he
shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two,
he shall not be punished: for he is his money." Exodus xxi: 20, 2 1. "I
shall never forget," says the Bishop, "the revulsion of feeling, with
which a very intelligent Christian native, with whose help I was
translating these last words into the Zulu tongue, first heard them as
words said to be uttered by the same great and gracious Being, whom I
was teaching him to trust in and adore. His whole soul revolted against
the notion, that the Great and Blessed God, the Merciful Father of all
mankind, would speak of a servant or maid as mere 'money,' and allow a
horrible crime to go unpunished, because the victim of the brutal usage
had survived a few hours!"
Though they had no Pentateuch nor knowledge of our religion, their
respect for the mother of the race and their recognition of the
feminine element in the Godhead, as shown in the following beautiful
prayer, might teach our Bishops, Priests and Levites a lesson they have
all yet to learn.
EVENING PRAYER.
"O God, Thou hast let me pass the day in peace: let me pass the night
in peace, O Lord, who hast no Lord! There is no strength but in Thee:
Thou alone hast no obligation. Under Thy hand I pass the day! under Thy
hand I pass the night! Thou art my Mother, Thou my Father!"
Placing the mother first shows they were taught by Nature that she was
the prime factor in their existence. In the whole Bible and the
Christian religion man is made the alpha and omega everywhere in the
state, the church and the home. And we see the result in the general
contempt for the sex expressed freely in our literature, in the halls
of legislation, in church convocations and by leading Bishops wherever
they have opportunities for speech and whenever they are welcomed in
the popular magazines of the day.
E. C. S.
CHAPTER V.
Deuteronomy xxiv.
1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass
that she find no favour 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.
2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another
man's wife.
3 And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of
divorcement, and giveth it in her hand and sendeth her out of his
house: or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;
4 Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to
be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before
the Lord: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin which the Lord thy
God giveth thee for an inheritance.
5 When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war,
neither shalt he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at
home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken.
All the privileges accorded man alone, are based on the principle that
women have no causes for divorce. If they had equal rights in law and
public sentiment, a large number of cruel, whiskey drinking and profane
husbands, would be sued for divorce before wives endured one year of
such gross companionship.
There is a good suggestion in the text, that when a man takes a new
wife he shall stay at home at least one year to cheer and comfort her.
If they propose to have children, the responsible duties of parents
should be equally shared as far as possible. In a busy commercial life,
fathers have but little time to guard their children against the
temptations of life, or to prepare them for its struggles, and the
mother educated to believe that she has no rights or duties in public
affairs, can give no lessons on political morality from her standpoint.
Hence the home is in a condition of half orphanage for the want of
fathers, and the State suffers for need of wise mothers.
It was customary among the Jews to dedicate a new house, a vineyard
just planted, or a betrothed wife to the Lord with prayer and
thanksgiving, before going forth to public duties. This idea is
enforced in several different chapters, impressing on men with families
that there are periods in their lives when "their sphere is home"
their primal duty to look after the wife, the
house and the vineyard.
Deuteronomy xxv.
5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no
child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger:
her husband's brother shall take her to wire.
6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed
in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out
of Israel.
7 And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his
brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, my husband's
brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will
not perform the duty of my husband's brother.
8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and
if she stand to it, and say, I like not to take her:
9 Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the
elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot.
I would recommend these texts to the consideration of the Bishops in
the English House of Lords. If a man may marry a deceased brother's
wife, why not a deceased wife's sister? English statesmanship has
struggled with this problem for generations, and the same old
platitudes against the deceased wife's sister's bill are made to do
duty annually in Parliament.
Deuteronomy xxviii.
56 The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure
to set the sole of her foot upon ground for delicateness and
tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward her husband of her bosom, and
toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her children which
she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly
in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee
in thy gates.
64 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy
ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the
flocks of thy sheep.
68 And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the
way whereof I spake unto thee, thou shalt see it no more again: and
there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and
no man shall buy you.
This is addressed to men as most of the injunctions are, as to their
treatment of woman in general. In enumerating the good things that
would come to Israel if the commandments were obeyed, nothing is
promised to women, but when the curses are distributed, woman comes in
for her share. Similar treatment is accorded the daughters of Eve in
modern days. She is given equal privileges with man, in being
imprisoned and hung, but unlike him she has no voice in the laws, the
judge, the jury, nor the manner of exit to the unknown land. She is
denied the right of trial by her own peers; the laws are made by men,
the courts are filled with men; the judge, the advocates, the jurors,
all men!
Moses follows the usual ancient idea that in the creation of human
life, man is the important factor. The child is his fruit, he is
the soul. The spirit the vital spark. The woman merely the earth that
warms and nourishes the seed, the earthly environment. This
unscientific idea still holds among people ignorant of physiology and
psychology. This notion chimes in with the popular view of woman's
secondary place in the world, and so is accepted as law and gospel. The
word "beget" applied only to men in Scripture is additional enforcement
of the idea that the creative act belongs to him alone. This is
flattering to male egoism and is readily accepted.
E. C. S.
In the early chapters of this book Moses' praises of Hebrew valor in
marching into a land already occupied and utterly destroying men, women
and children, seems much like the rejoicing of those who believe in
exterminating the aboriginees in America. Evidently Moses believed in
the survival of the fittest and that his own people were the fittest.
He teaches the necessity of exclusiveness, that the hereditary traits
of the people may not be lost by intermarriage. Though the Israelites,
like the Puritans, had notable foremothers as well as forefathers, yet
it was not the custom to mention them. Perhaps the word fathers meant
both, as the word man in Scripture often includes woman. In the preface
by Lord Bishop Ely, to what is popularly known as the Speaker's Bible,
the remark is made that "whilst the Word of God is one, and does not
change, it must touch at new points the changing phases of physical,
philological and historical knowledge, and so the comments that suit
one generation are felt by another to be obsolete." So, also, it is
that with the higher education of women, their wider opportunities and
the increasing sense of justice, many interpretations of the Bible are
felt to be obsolete, hence the same reason exists for the Woman's
Commentary, which is already popularly known as the Woman's Bible.
Deuteronomy is a name derived from the Greek and signifies that this
is the second or duplicate law, because this, the last book of the
Pentateuch, consists partly in a restatement of the law,
as already given in other books. Deuteronomy contains also, besides
special commands and advice not previously written, an account of the
death of Moses. Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia states that "the
authority of this book has been traditionally assigned to Moses, but,
of course, the part relating to his death is not supposed to be written
by himself, and indeed the last four chapters may have been added by
another hand." DeWette declares that Moses could not have been the
author. He not only points to the closing chapters as containing proof,
but he refers to the anachronisms in earlier chapters, and insists that
the general manner in which the Mosaic history is treated belongs to a
period after the time of Moses. And Rev. John White Chadwick in his
"Bible of To-day" declares that "Prophetism created Deuteronomy." He
speaks of Malachi, the last of the Prophets, as the first to mention
the Mosaic law, and says that in the eighth century before Christ there
was no Mosaic law in any modern sense. The Pentateuch in anything like
its present form was still far in the future. Deuteronomy more than a
hundred years ahead. Leviticus and Numbers nearly three hundred. * * *
The book of Deuteronomy was much more of a manufacture than any
previous portion of the Pentateuch. * * * Not Sinai and Wilderness, but
Babylon and Jerusalem, witnessed the promulgation of the Levitical law.
Its priest was Ezra and not Aaron; but who was its Moses the most
patient study is not likely ever to reveal. The roar of Babylon does
not give up its dead. It would seem as if the Rev. Dr. George Lansing
Taylor shared some of these ideas when, in his poem at the centennial
of Columbia College, he said:
"Great Ezra, Artaxerxes' courtly scholar--
Doctor, ere old Bologna gave that collar,
A ready scribe in all the laws of heaven,
From Babylon ascends, to Zion given,
Armed with imperial power and proclamation,
To rear God's house and educate a nation.
As editor for God, the first in story,
He crowns the editorial chair with glory.
Inspired to push Jehovah's mighty plan on
He lays its corner-stone, the Bible canon.
His Bible college, Bible publication,
Convert the city, crown the Restoration,
And fix the beacon date for History's pages
The chronologic milestone of the ages."
This chapter of Deuteronomy in the solemnity and explicitness of its
blessing and cursings must produce a deep impression on those who are
desirous of pursuing a course which would promote personal and national
prosperity. Reading chapter xix and remembering the history of the Jews
from Moses to this day I reverently acknowledge the sure word of
prophecy therein recorded. Chapter xxx also has high literary merit.
Its euphony is in accordance with its solemn but encouraging warnings
and promises. It touches the connection divinely ordained and eternally
existing between life and goodness, death and sin, emphasizing the
apostolic injunction, "cease to do evil, learn to do well." This
chapter, giving the last directions of Moses and intimations of his
departure from earth, is one of deep interest. How the Lord
communicated to him that his end approached does not appear, but deeply
impressed with the belief, he naturally called together Joshua and the
Levites and gave his final charge. Whether fact or fiction this
farewell is deeply interesting. The closing chapters, containing the
"song of blessing," comes to all lovers of religious poetry as the swan
song of Moses. Though doubting its authorship, one may enjoy its beauty
and grandeur. Chapter xxxiv narrates the death of Moses:
"By Nebo's lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan's wave."
It tells briefly the mourning of the children of Israel over their
great leader's departure and affirms the appointment of Joshua, the
son of Nun, as his successor, and fitly closes the
valuable collection of writings called the Pentateuch.
Since I have proposeed the elimination of some of the coarser portions
of Deuteronomy, I wish to add the testimony of Stevens in his
"Scripture Speculations," as to the general morality of this ancient
code. "Barbarous as they were in many things, childish in more, their
laws are as much in advance of them as of their contemporaries,--were
even singular for humanity in that age, and not always equaled in ours.
We forget that there were contemporary nations which justified
stealing, authorised infanticide, legalized the murder of aged parents,
associated lust with worship. None of these blots can be traced on the
Jewish escutcheon. By preventing imprisonment for debt, Moses
anticipated the latest discovery of modern philanthropy. * * * Even the
mercy of Christianity was foreshadowed in his provision for the poor,
who were never to cease out of the land; the prospered were to lend
without interest, and never to harden their heart against a brother.
The hovel of the poor was a sanctuary, and many a minute safeguard like
the return of the debtor's garment at nightfall, to save him from
suffering during the chilliness of the night, has waited to be brought
to light by our more perfect knowledge of Jewish customs." But that the
Scriptures, rightly interpreted, do not teach the equality of the
sexes, I must be permitted to doubt. We who love the Old and New
Testaments take "Truth for authority, and not authority for truth," as
did our sainted Lucretia Mott, whose earnest appeals for liberty were
often jewelled, as were Daniel Webster's most eloquent speeches, with
some texts from the old Hebrew Bible.
P. A. H.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PENTATEUCH.
The primal requisite for the more accurate understanding of the Bible
is its translation from the past to the present tense. It has been
studied as history, as the record of a remote past whose truth it has
been well-nigh impossible to verify. It should be studied as a record
of the present, the present experience of the individual and the race
which is to ultimate in the perfect actualization of generic
possibilities.
Like the tables of stone the Bible is written on both sides; or it has
a letter which is its exterior and an interior spirit or meaning. The
history which constitutes its letter illustrates those principles which
constitute its meaning. The formless must be put into form to be
apprehended. Mistaking the form for that substance which has been
brought to the level of human apprehension by its means, is the error
which constitutes the basis of dogmatic theology. Error in a premise
compels error in conclusions. It is no wonder that woman's true
relation to man and just position in the social fabric has remained
unknown. A Moses on Pisgah's height is needed to-day to see and declare
this promised land; and he must be revelator, first, to women
themselves, for they especially need enlightenment upon the true nature
of the Bible.
So long as they mistake superstition for religious revelation, they
will be content with the position and opportunities assigned them by
scholastic theology. They will remember and "keep their place" as thus
defined. Their religious nature is warped and twisted through
generations of denominational conservatism; which fact, by the way, is
the greatest stumbling block in the path of equal suffrage to-day, and
one to which the leaders of that movement have seemed unaccountably
blind.
Thus woman's strongest foes have been of her own sex; and because her
sense of duty and religious sentiment have been operative
according to a false ideal, unintentionally women have been and will
continue to be bigoted until they allow a higher ideal to penetrate
their minds; until they see with the eye of reason and logic, as well
as with the sentiment which has so long kept them the dependent class.
The Bible from beginning to end teaches the equality of man and woman,
their relation as the two halves of the unit, but also their
distinctiveness in office. One cannot take the place of the other
because of the fundamental nature of each. The work of each half in its
own place is necessary to the perfect whole.
The man has more prominence than the woman in the Bible because the
masculine characters in their succession represent man as a whole--
generic man. The exterior or male half is outermost, the interior or
female half is covered by the outer. One is seen, the other has to be
discerned, and can be discerned by following the harmonious relativity
between the two halves of the unit. There is a straight line of ascent
from the Adam to the Christ, within which is the straight line of
ascent from the Eve to the Mary. The book of Genesis is the substance
of the whole Bible, its meaning is the key to the meaning of the whole;
it is the skeleton around which the rest is builded. If the remainder
of the Old Testament were destroyed its substance could be
reconstructed from Genesis. As the bony structure of the physical body
is the framework which is filled in and rounded to symmetrical
proportions by the muscular tissue, so Genesis is the framework which
is symmetrically rounded and filled by the other books, which supply
the necessary detail involved in basic principles.
The first chapter of Genesis is not the record of the creation of the
world. It is a symbolical description of the composite nature of man,
that being which is male and female in one. The personal pronoun "He"
belongs to his exterior nature; and the characters which illustrate
this nature and the order of its development are men. The pronoun "She"
belongs to the interior nature, and all characters--fewer in number--
which illustrate it, are women. "Male and female created he them." The
second chapter describes the nature and origin of the visible world,
the nature and origin of the soul, their relation to each other and to
this dual being. With the third chapter begins the symbolical
illustration of the soul's existence--of its continuity of existence
which is unbroken till its highest possibilities are actualized, till
all the inherent capabilities of the dual being are fully manifested.
The leading characters of Genesis--Adam, Enos, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob and Joseph--seven in number, represent the seven chief stages of
the soul's existence which follow each other like the notes in the
musical scale. It is our own experience that is there portrayed, both
present and prospective. What we as individuals, and nations are now
going through in our efforts for betterment, is told in the story of
Genesis. More than this, the clue to assured betterment is found there
also. This experience is on two lines which are always distinct but
never separate--the male and the female. These are indissolubly bound
together "from the beginning," the same principles, necessitating the
same moral standards and spiritual ideals, and governing both. The
largest measure of our individual and national perplexities and
sufferings has come from the ignorant straining apart of that which
"God hath joined together" and which we can not successfully and
permanently "put asunder."
The remaining four books of the Pentateuch, supply the detail
beginning between the Adam and Noah of Genesis, rounding out that part
of the skeleton. The Exodus from Egypt under the leadership of Moses,
represents the soul's growth out of purely sense-consciousness by the
help of spiritual perception. Moses is the personification of this
faculty inherent in and operative from the eternal ego, the dual being,
which is "the Lord" of the Bible. The Old Testament presents the outer
or masculine nature of this "Lord" as the Jehovah. The New Testament
presents the inner or feminine nature as the Virgin.
The children of Israel according to their tribes, represent the
ranging characteristics or parts which make up the soul of self-
consciousness. They are the "chosen people" because when the
soul sees with its spiritual insight as well as with its sensuous
outsight, it can, if it will, choose between the two as guides. Their
experiences in the wilderness are what we are passing through to-day;
for there is now a people who have made this choice and are following
the higher leader in their work for the human race, which is the only
satisfactory way of working for themselves. But this leader--spiritual
perception--cannot put the soul in possession of its promised land--a
higher state of existence or quality of self-consciousness. It sees the
higher and leads in its direction; but understanding of fundamental,
therefore unvarying and always applicable, principles is necessary for
that realization which Is the attainment of the higher, or its
possession.
Moses' death before crossing Jordan illustrates this limitation, which
is also the limitation of earnest reformers to-day. They can see for us
and point out that which awaits them; but they can never take those
others "into the land." They must travel on their own feet.
Joshua, as the leader after Moses, is the personification of this
understanding. He is Moses' sepulchre, for Moses is buried in him.
Spiritual insight develops understanding which is its continuity. Hence
the continuation of experiences under Joshua the "Saviour" through whom
the soul takes "possession" of its higher state. In the "wilderness" of
transition from the old to the new, mistakes occur which mar their
consequences. In this illustration of the Pentateuch, Miriam "speaks
against" Moses, is stricken with leprosy and "set without the camp,"
and the people cannot journey till all is "brought in again."
Woman's intellectual development after ages of repression, has
resulted with many of the sex, in an agnosticism which, at first
liberal, has grown to be a dogmatic materialism. She "speaks against"
spiritual insight and its revelations. In forsaking her dogmas and
creeds she has forsaken religion. She is to be "brought in again"--
brought to see that religion is of the soul and is individual; while
dogma and doctrine are from the sensuous out-side alone. The one tends
to true freedom, the other generates bondage. Broadly, women of to-day
are of two classes; those who are still held by the conservatism of
creeds, and those who have gone to the other extreme through the
exhilaration of intellectual activity. Both classes must meet upon a
common ground, recognition of fundamental principles and effort to
apply them--before the New Testament can become the practical ethical
standard.
An outline of a subject so vast and profound as the nature and meaning
of the Pentateuch, must necessarily be more or less unsatisfactory. It
cannot be detached from the rest of the Bible which is a complete
organic body. Its meaning is consecutive and harmonious with first
premises, from beginning to end. The obvious inconsistencies and
absurdities involve only its letter, which may or may not be true as
history without affecting the truth of the book itself which lies in
its meaning.
The projectors of "The Woman's Bible" must not avoid the whirlpool of
a masculine Bible only, to split upon the rock of a feminine Bible
alone. This would be an attempt to separate what is intensely joined
together and defeat the end desired. The book is the soul's guide in
the fulfilling of its destiny--that destiny which is involved in its
origin; and the soul, in sleep, is sexless. Its faculties and powers
are differentiated are masculine and feminine.
If the question is asked--"What is your authority for this view of the
Bible?" the answer is "I have none but the internal evidence of the
book itself. When joined it is self-evident truth, requiring no
external authority to give it support."
U. N. G.
APPENDIX.
As the Revising Committee refer to a woman's translation of the Bible
as their ultimate authority, for the Greek, Latin and Hebrew text, a
brief notice of this distinguished scholar is important:
Julia Smith's translation of the Bible stands out unique among all
translations. It is the only one ever made by a woman, and the only
one, it appears, ever made by man or woman without help. Wyclif, "the
morning star of the Reformation," made a translation from the Vulgate,
assisted by Nicholas of Hereford. He was not sufficiently familiar with
Hebrew and Greek to translate from those tongues. Coverdale's
translation was not done alone. In his dedication to the king he says
he has humbly followed his interpreters and that under correction.
Tyndale, in his translation, had the assistance of Frye, of William
Roye, and also of Miles Coverdale. Julia Smith translated the whole
Bible absolutely alone, without consultation with any one. And this not
once, but five times--twice from the Hebrew, twice from the Greek and
once from the Latin. Literalness was one end she kept constantly in
view, though this does not work so well with the Hebrew tenses. But she
did not mind that. Frequently her wording is an improvement, or brings
one closer to the original than the common translation. Thus in I.
Corinthians viii, 1, of the King James translation, we have: "Knowledge
puffeth up, but charity edifieth." Julia Smith version: "Knowledge
puffs up and love builds the house." She uses "love" in place of
"charity" every time. And her translation was made nearly forty years
before the revised version of our day, which also does the same.
Tyndale, in his translation nearly three hundred and seventy-five years
ago, made the same translation of this word; but Julia Smith did not
know that and never saw his translation. This word "charity" was one of
the words that Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, charged
Tyndale with mistranslating. The other two words were "priest" and
"church," Tyndale calling priests "seniors," and church,
"congregation." Both Julia Smith and the revised version call them
priests and church. And he gives the word, "Life" for "Eve" "And Adam
will call his wife's name Life, for she was the mother of all living."
One more illustration: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea
in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east
to Jerusalem." King James translation. "Now when Jesus was born, etc.,
behold there came wise men from the sunrisings to Jerusalem." Julia
Smith version. She claims to have made a perfectly literal
translation, and according to the verdict of competent authorities,
Hebrew scholars who have examined her Bible, she has done so. Her work
has had the endorsement of various learned men. A Hebrew professor of
Harvard College (Prof. Young) called on her soon after her Bible was
issued and examined it. He was much astonished that she had translated
o correctly without consulting some learned man. He expressed surprise
that she should have put the tenses as she did. She said to him: "You
acknowledge that I have translated according to the Hebrew idiom?" He
replied: "O yes, you have translated literally." That was just what she
aimed at, to get an exact literal translation, without regard to
smoothness. She received many letters from scholars, all speaking of
the exact, or literal translation. Some people have criticised this
feature, which is the great merit of the book.
Julia Smith was led to make the translation at the time of the Miller
excitement in 1843, when the world was to come to a sudden termination;
when the saints were preparing their robes for ascension into the
empyrean, and wicked unbelievers (the vast majority) were to descend as
far the other way. She and her family were much interested in Miller's
predictions, and she was anxious to see for herself if, in the original
Hebrew text of the Bible there was any warrant for Miller's
predictions. So she set to work and studied Hebrew, having previously
translated the New Testament, and also the Septuagint from the Greek.
So absorbed did she become in her work that the dinner bell was
unheeded, and she would undoubtedly have many times gone to bed both
dinnerless and supperless had not the family called her off from her
work. Once a. week she met with the family and a friend and neighbor,
Miss Emily Moseley, to read over and discuss what she had translated
during the week. This practice was kept up for several years. When she
came to publish the work, (the manuscripts of which had lain in the
garret some twenty-five or thirty years) the cashier of the Hartford
bank, where the sisters had kept their money, told her she was very
foolish to throw away her money printing this Bible; that she would
never sell a copy. She told him it didn't matter whether she did or
not; that she was not doing it to make money; that she found more
satisfaction in spending her money in this way than in spending it all
on dress. Thanks to our more enlightened age, this translation did not
meet with the opposition the early translators had to contend with. The
scholars of those days thought learning should be confined to a select
few; it was, in their view, dangerous to put the Bible into a language
the common people could understand, especially women. Here is what one
Henry de Knyghton, a learned monk of that day, said: "This Master John
Wiclif hath translated the gospel out of Latin into English, which
Christ had intrusted with the clergy and doctors of the Church that
they might minister it to the laity and weaker sort, according to the
state of the times and the wants of men. But now the gospel is made
vulgar and more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than
it used to be to the most learned of the clergy and those of the best
understanding." To say nothing of reading the Bible, what would this
learned man have thought of a woman translating it, and five times at
that! It would seem as if the bare suggestion must have stirred his dry
bones with indignation.
King James appointed fifty-four men of learning to translate the
Bible. Seven of them died and forty-seven carried the work on. Compare
this corps of workers with one little woman performing the Herculean
task with without one suggestion or word of advice from mortal man!
This Bible is ten by seven inches, and is printed in large, clear
type. There are two styles of binding, cloth and sheepskin. The
cloth binding was $2.50 at the time it was issued and while Julia Smith
lived, and the other was $3.00, but as they are getting scarcer the
price may have gone up. They will be a rarity in the next century and
will be much sought after by bibliomaniacs, to say nothing of scholars
who will want it for its real value. Julia Smith had the plates of her
Bible preserved, but where they are now is more than I know. It was
published by the American Publishing Company, of Hartford, in 1876.
Julia Evelina Smith, of Glastonbury, Conn., was one of five sisters of
a somewhat notable family, the father and mother both having strong
traits of character and marked individuality. The mother, Hannah
Hickok, was a fine linguist and mathematician. She once made an almanac
for her own convenience, almanacs being rather scarce in those days.
She could tell the time of night whenever she happened to awake by the
position of the stars. She was an omnivorous reader and a great
student, and in those days before the invention of stoves, her father,
in order to allow her the requisite retirement to gratify her studious
tastes, built her a small glass room. In the days of the Abby and Julia
Smith excitement, when they refused to pay their taxes, some writer was
so wicked as to say that Julia Smith's grandfather shut her mother up
in a glass cage. Seated in this glass enclosure, placed in a south
room, with the sun's rays beating down upon her, as upon a plant in a
conservatory, she could pursue her studies to her heart's content. She
was an only child and adored by her father; and so much did she think
of him that in his last illness, when she was away at school, she rode
four hundred miles on horseback in order to see him before he died.
Julia Smith's father, the Rev. Zephaniah H. Smith, a graduate of Yale,
was settled in Newtown, Conn., near South Britain, where he married
Hannah Hickok. He preached but four years, resigning his position on
the ground that the gospel should be free; that it was wrong to preach
for money--ideas promulgated by the Sandemanians of those days, the
followers of Robert Sandeman, a Scotchman, who organized the sect in
England and in this country, it having originated with his father-in-
law, John Glas, the sect being called either Glassites or Sandemanians,
the former being given the preference in Scotland and England. The
ideas of these people were followed out by the Smith family, and at
Abby and Julia Smith's funeral, as at the funerals of those who had
gone before them, there was no officiating minister and no services.
Simply a chapter of the Bible was read, and one or two who wished, made
remarks. On a fly-leaf of the Bible Julia Smith read every day was
written the request that she should be buried by her sisters in
Glastonbury, and with no name on the tombstone but that of her own
maiden name. This request was followed out. The names of the Smith
sisters are so unique, and inasmuch as they have never been known to be
printed correctly, it may not be out of place to give them here,
preceding them by those of their parents, making a short family record
for future reference:
Zephaniah H. Smith, born August 19, 1758. Died February 1, 1836.
Hannah Hickok, born August 7, 1767. Died December 27, 1850
They were married May 31, 1756.
DAUGHTERS OF THE ABOVE
Hancy Zephina, born March 16, 1787. Died June 30, 1871.
Cyrinthia Sacretia, born May 18, 1788. Died August 19, 1864.
Laurilla Aleroyla, born November 26, 1789. Died March 19, 1857.
Julia Evelina, born May 27, 1792. Died March 6, 1886.
Abby Hadassah, born June 1, 1797. Died July 23, 1878.
Julia was educated at Mrs. Emma Willard's far-famed seminary at Troy,
New York. Abby, the youngest of the family, was the one who added to
their fame, when, in November, 1873, at a town meeting in Glastonbury,
she delivered a speech against taxation without representation. She had
just attended the first Woman's Congress in New York, and on her way
back said she was going to make a speech on taxation; that she should
apply to the authorites {sic} to speak in town hall on town meeting
day. She and Julia owned considerable property in Glastonbury and their
taxes were being increased while those of their neighbors (men) were
not. She applied to the authorities, but they would not let her speak
in the hall, so she spoke from a wagon outside to a crowd of people.
This speech was printed in a Hartford paper (the Courant) and was
copied all over the country, and the cry: "Abby Smith and her cows" was
caught up everywhere. Abby Smith's quaint, simple speeches attracted
attention, and the sale of the cows at the sign-post aroused sympathy,
and from that time on their fame grew apace. The hitherto light mail-
bags of Glastonbury came loaded with mail matter from all quarters for
the Smith sisters. And this continued for some years, or till the death
of Abby in 1878, which was followed by the marriage of Julia the
following spring, and the discontinuance of the sale of the cows at the
public sign-post. She married Mr. Amos A. Parker, both being eighty-
seven years of age. Julia Smith sold the old family mansion in
Glastonbury and bought a house at Parkville, Hartford. She died there
in 1886 and her husband died in 1893, nearly one hundred and two years
of age.
F. E. B.
Advertisements from original, Vol. 1
EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE
BEING THE REMINISCENCES OF
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
(1815-1897.)
This new work by our distinguished countrywoman is a 12mo of 475 pp.,
complete in one volume, cloth bound, with eleven portraits. Price $2.00.
I Dedicate This Volume To
Susan B. Anthony,
My Steadfast Friend For Half A Century.
CONTENTS.
Chapter.
I.
Childhood.
II.
School Days.
III.
Girlhood.
IV.
Life at Peterboro.
V.
Our Wedding journey.
VI.
Homeward Bound.
VII.
Motherhood.
VIII.
Boston and Chelsea.
IX.
The First Woman's Rights Convention.
X.
Susan B. Anthony.
XI.
Susan B. Anthony (Continued).
XII.
My First Speech Before a Legislature.
XIII.
Reforms and Mobs.
XIV.
Views on Marriage and Divorce.
XV.
Women as Patriots.
XVI.
Pioneer Life in Kansas--Our Newspaper, "The Revolution."
XVII.
Lyceums and Lecturers.
XVIII.
Westward Ho!
XIX.
The Spirit Of '76.
XX.
Writing "The History of Woman Suffrage."
XXI.
In the South of France.
XXII.
Reforms and Reformers in Great Britain.
XXIII.
Woman and Theology.
XXIV.
England and France Revisited.
XXV.
The International Council of Women.
XXVI.
My Last Visit to England.
XXVII.
Sixtieth Anniversary of the Class of 1832--The Woman's Bible.
XXVIII.
My Eightieth Birthday.
PREFACE
The interest my family and friends have always manifested in the
narration of my early and varied experiences, and their earnest desire
to have them in permanent form for the amusement of another generation,
moved me to publish this volume. I am fully aware that its contents have
no especial artistic merit, being composed partly of extracts from my
diary, a few hasty sketches of my travels and people I have met, and of
my opinions on many social questions.
The story of my private life as the wife of an earnest reformer, as an
enthusiastic housekeeper, proud of my skill in every department of
domestic economy, and as the mother of seven children., may amuse and
benefit the reader.
The incidents of my public career as a leader in the most momentous
reform yet launched upon the world--the emancipation of woman--will be
found in "The History of Woman Suffrage."
New York City, September, 1897 Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Mrs. Stanton in this book, in her inimitable way, relates anecdotes
of, and experiences with, a number of the leading women, statesmen,
authors, and reformers of the last sixty years. The following are a few
names selected at random from the
INDEX OF NAMES.
Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward.
Bradlaugh, Hon. Charles, M. P.
Bright, Hon. Jacob M. P.
Bright, Hon. John, M. P.
Browning, Robert.
Bryant, William Cullen.
Curtis, George William.
Cobbe, Frances Power.
Clarkson, Thomas.
Charming, Rev. William Ellery.
Carlisle, Lord and Lady.
Byron, Lady.
Cushman, Charlotte.
Dana, Charles A.
Douglass, Frederick.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo.
Fry, Elizabeth.
Fuller, Margaret.
Garrison, William Lloyd.
George, Henry.
Grant, General Ulysses S
Greeley, Horace.
Grevy, President Jules.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell.
Hyacinthe, Pere.
Ingersoll, Robert G.
Kingsley, Canon Charles.
Krapotkine, Prince.
Lowell, James Russell.
Martineau, Harriet.
Mill, John Stuart.
Mott, Lucretia.
O'Connell, Daniel.
Owen, Robert Dale.
Parker, Rev. Theodore.
Parnell, Hon. Charles Stuart, M. P.
Phillips, Wendell.
Seward, Governor William H.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe.
Smith, Hon. Gerrit.
Stanton, Hon. Henry B.
Stepniak.
Stone, Lucy.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher.
Sumner, Hon. Charles.
Whittier, John G.
Willard, Emma.
Willard, Frances E.
See Press Comments on following pages.
This book will be sent, mail prepaid, on receipt of price, by
European Publishing Company,
W Broad Street, New York City.
PRESS COMMENTS.
It is a very readable book.--Albany Times-Union.
The Reminiscences are delightful.--The Louisville Dispatch.
The tale is as interesting as any romance or drama.--N. Y. Mail and
Express.
A bright, entertaining tale, and one which contains much valuable
information.--N. Y. Herald.
We know of no other autobiography which will command more profound
interest.--The Rocky Mountain News.
It is the life story of a genuine American woman and will excite wide
interest.--The Minneapolis Tribune.
A breezy narrative of a long and active life, told with spirit and
humor.--The Woman's Journal.
Every sentence in this book would serve as a text for a chapter were
merited amplification practicable.--Ithaca Journal.
The book is illustrated with a number of excellent portraits of the
author, and is full of interest.--New London Day.
A well written account of a long and busy life. A highly interesting
biography and a delightful book, which is well worth reading.--N. Y.
Evening World.
A human document of no small interest and value. A straightforward and
piquant story of a noteworthy personality.--The Chicago Tribune.
A combination of several kinds of charm. It is frankly personal. It is
impossible not to wish there had been very much more of each chapter.
--N. Y. Evening Sun.
It is unexpectedly amusing, as well as instructive, some of the
author's experiences being narrated in a most realistic and delightful
manner.--Washington Post.
Two chapters of this interesting autobiography are devoted to Miss
Susan B. Anthony, the friend and fellow-laborer in the field of Woman's
Rights with Mrs. Stanton.--Jeannette L. Gilder in N. Y. Sunday Journal.
It is a book well worth reading and shows what one woman may do with a
purpose and a will back of it. The personal part of the Reminiscences
are of much interest, and force admiration for the tactful, courageous
and able woman.--Pittsburg Post.
It is one of the most important books of the year, Particularly to the
women of this country. It is absorbingly interesting. The trouble that
the reader encounters is that he finds it hard work to lay the book
down.--Boston Daily Advertiser.
The story of the life of this great American woman will be read with
much interest in many homes. It is a book of much artistic merit and
her Reminiscences cannot be other than interesting. The book throughout
is delightfully entertaining--Troy Times.
A most charming and interesting picture of a wife, mother and a
friend. Every one who has seen or heard of this leader of the woman
question of the century will rejoice that such a book has been given to
the world.--Boston Investigator.
It is not principally the record of her public career as a leader in
the movement for the emancipation of woman, but rather the story of her
private life which is set forth in this volume. Especially interesting
are those reminiscences that deal with the author's early days.--N. Y.
Sun.
This book abounds in interesting experiences. The style is simple and
amusing, showing the writer possessed of a keen sense of humor and the
fitness of things, as well as justice. It is particularly interesting
to women whether they sympathize with the views of the writer or
otherwise.--Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable book and never lacking in interest. It
will be an inspiration for American girls to read its chapters. She
gives graphic pictures. The volume contains several fine portraits. The
book is racy and pleasing, whether the reader agrees with the author in
all things or not.--Chicago Inter-Ocean.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's recollections, covering eighty years, easily
come first in the array of new noteworthy books, because of the
surprise they will afford the public, having been almost unheralded;
because of the impressive and protracted public career of the author;
because of her inflexible devotion to and sincerity in a cause long
unpopular, and because, moreover, Mrs. Stanton is an American. This is
a most interesting volume.--N. Y. Times.
Eighty Years and More.
Being the Reminiscences of ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. Complete In one
volume. 12mo, 475 pp. Cloth, eleven portraits. Price $2.00.
PRESS COMMENTS--(Continued).
The story of Mrs. Stanton's life is one which interests many thousands
in this country, and which will also be read with interest in other
lands, for her reputation as a reformer and writer is international;
her strong personal characteristics give to this autobiographical work
a charm of its own. It contains some of the most entertaining
reminiscences that have been given to the public. It is a book which is
sure to be widely read.--Worcester Spy.
The personal element is the fascinating part of the book which holds
one's attention and keeps him reading to the end. It is a bright,
breezy, and radical turn-the-world-upside-down book. We do not like its
religious tone. We do not like the author's occult theosophy. We do not
like her sociology, with its good word for the windmill logic of the
speculative Bellamy. We do not like her views of marriage and divorce.
But when all is said, and with all these wide differences lying between
us to qualify our enjoyment of this book, we have enjoyed it much. Mrs.
Stanton is a first-rate raconteuse and fills her pages with amusing
recitals and brilliant encounters--N. Y. Independent.
TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE CLUBS: We will supply Clubs with single copies of
this book at $2 per copy, postage prepaid. We will forward five (5)
copies of this book to any address, express charges prepaid, on the
receipt of six dollars ($6.00).
We Wish An Agent In Every Woman Suffrage Club. Correspondence with
those who desire to become Agents solicited.
SPEECHES, LETTERS AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS
OF
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
12mo, 500 pp., cloth, five portraits. Price $2.00.
This work will be similar in style and binding to Eighty Years and
More, will contain valuable editorial notes by Theodore Stanton, A. M.,
and will be published in January, 1899.
New York
European Publishing Company
And Paris
THE WOMAN'S BIBLE.
COMPLETE IN TWO PARTS.
REVISING COMMITTEE.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford.
Clara Bewick Colby.
Rev. Augusta Chapin.
Mary Seymour Howell.
Josephine K. Henry.
Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll.
Sarah A. Underwood.
Catharine F. Stebbins.
Ellen Battelle Dietrick.
Ursula N. Gestefeld.
Lillie Devereux Blake.
Matilda Joslyn Gage.
Rev. Olympia Brown.
Frances Ellen Burr.
Clara B. Neyman.
Helen H. Gardener.
Charlotte Beebe Wilbour.
Lucinda B. Chandler.
Louisa Southworth.
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, Finland.
Ursula M. Bright, England.
Irma von Troll-Borostyani, Austria.
Priscilla Bright McLaren, Scotland.
Isabelle Bogelot, France.
PART I.
A 12mo, 160 pp. paper. Third American and Second English Edition.
Twentieth Thousand. Price 50 Cents.
It contains Comments on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lillie Devereux Blake, Rev.
Phebe A. Hanaford, Clara Bewick Colby, Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Ursula
N. Gestefeld, Louisa Southworth, Frances Ellen Burr.
PART II.
A 12mo, 217 pp. paper. First American Edition, Ten Thousand. Price 50
Cents.
It contains Comments on The Old and New Testaments from Joshua to
Revelation, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Louisa Southworth, Lucinda B.
Chandler, Anonymous, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Clara
B. Neyman, Frances Ellen Burr, Ellen Battelle Dietrick, and Letters and
Comments in an Appendix, by Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Mary A.
Livermore, Frances E. Willard, Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll, Irma von Troll-
Borostyani, Mrs. Jacob Bright, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Anonymous, Susan
B. Anthony, Edna D. Cheney, Sarah A. Underwood, Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell, Josephine K. Henry, Ursula N. Gestefeld, Catharine F.
Stebbins, Alice Stone Blackwell, Matilda Joslyn Gage, E. T. M.,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others, and the resolution passed by the
National-American Woman Suffrage Association, repudiating "The Woman's
Bible," together with the discussion thereon.
See Press Comments on The Woman's Bible on next page.
PRESS COMMENTS
ON THE
WOMAN'S BIBLE
The comments are right up to date.--Cincinnati Tribune.
The most humorous book of the year.--The Hartford Seminary Record.
Of all possible books this is perhaps the most extraordinary possible.
--The Week, Toronto, Canada.
A very clever analysis of passages relating to the sex.--Public
Opinion, N. Y. City.
The new Woman's Bible is one of the remarkable productions of the
century.--Denver News.
A unique edition of the Scripture. An extraordinary presentment of
Holy Writ!--Denver Times.
The work is unique. Its aim is to help the cause of woman in her
battle for equality.--Beacon, Akron, Ohio.
Robert G. Ingersoll is the only person on earth capable of a work
equal to Mrs. Stanton's sensation, "The Woman's Bible."--Chicago Times-
Herald.
The attack of the new woman on the King James Bible will be observed
with interest where it does not alarm. But let "The Woman's Bible" and
the truth prevail. It may be that Lot himself was turned into a pillar
of salt.--Chicago Post.
It has come at last, as it was bound to come--the emancipated woman's
Bible. The wonder is it has been delayed so long. This is not a
blasphemous book.--The Egyptian Gazette, Alexandria, Egypt.
The "new woman" has broken out in a fresh direction and published "The
Woman's Bible." In it the conduct of Adam, the father of the race, is
described as "to the last degree dastardly."--Westminster Budget,
London, Eng.
One of the most striking protests devised by woman for the purpose of
showing her rejection of the conditions under which our mothers lived.
It is evidently the mission of "The Woman's Bible" to exalt and dignify
woman.--The Morning, London, Eng.
We have read some of the passages of the commentary prepared for "the
Woman's Bible" by that very accomplished American woman and Biblical
student, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They are a great deal more
satisfactory than many of the comments upon the same texts that we have
read in other and more pretentious Commentaries. Mrs. Stanton's
interpretative remarks are shrewd and sensible--Editorial N. Y. Sun.
Of man-made commentaries on the Bible we have had sufficient to stock
a library and yet they have left room for this commentary by women.
These revisers have proved the need of an intelligent examination of
the Scriptures from the woman's point of view. The lady commentators
are not wanting in a sense of humor--the quality in which biblical
critics of the male sex are usually unhappily deficient. There is much
that is very funny and very interesting in this new commentary upon the
Bible.--The Daily Chronicle, London, Eng.
The Standard says, "The Sisterhood of Advanced Women has taken a bold
step towards emancipation. It has long groaned under certain
implications of servitude contained in a few passages of Scripture, and
has, therefore, determined to abolish these disabilities by publishing
'The Woman's Bible.'" It is not only the type that is new. New readings
of old passages are given, and the volume contains suggestions to show
that the verses about women's inferiority really mean the opposite of
the ordinary acceptation. In it Eve is rather praised than otherwise
for having eaten the apple. It is pointed out that Satan did not tempt
her with an array of silks and satins, and gold watches, or even a
cycling costume--the things which some people think most seductive to
her descendants--but with the offer of knowledge; a man being of such a
lethargic and groveling nature that a similar lofty ambition never
entered his mind. Besides, if the fruit was not to be eaten, Eve should
have been informed of the fact at first hand, and not through an
agent.--Pall Mall Gazette, London, Eng.
The above books will be sent, mail prepaid, on receipt of price, by
European Publishing Company,
68 Broad Street, New York City.
THE WOMAN'S BIBLE
PART II
COMMENTS ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS
FROM
JOSHUA TO REVELATION
"OH! Rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain;
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run.
And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun."
--The Parish Register.
1898.
The Bible in its teachings degrades Woman from Genesis to Revelations.
REVISING COMMITTEE.
"We took sweet counsel together."-Ps. Iv., 14.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford,
Clara Bewick Colby,
Rev. Augusta Chapin,
Ursula N. Gestefeld,
Mary Seymour Howell,
Josephine K. Henry,
Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll,
Sarah A. Underwood,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,[FN#4]
Lillie Devereux Blake,
Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Rev. Olympia Brown,
Frances Ellen Burr,
Clara B. Neyman,
Helen H. Gardener,
Charlotte Beebe Wilbour,
Lucinda B. Chandler,
Catharine F. Stebbins,
Louisa Southworth.
[FN#4] Deceased.
FOREIGN MEMBERS.
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, Finland,
Ursula M. Bright, England,
Irma Von Troll-Borostyani, Austria,
Priscilla Bright Mclaren, Scotland,
Isabelle Bogelot, France.
COMMENTS ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS
FROM
JOSHUA TO REVELATION, BY
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,
Louisa Southworth,
Lucinda B. Chandler,
Anonymous,
Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Frances Ellen Burr,
Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford,
Clara B. Neyman.
APPENDIX.
LETTERS AND COMMENTS BY
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Josephine K. Henry, Frances E. Willard, Eva A.
Ingersoll, Mary A. Livermore, Irma von Troll-Borostyani, Mrs. Jacob
Bright, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Anonymous, Rev. Phebe A.
Hanaford, Ednah D. Cheney, Sarah A. Underwood, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell,
Alice Stone Blackwell, Ursula N. Gestefeld, E. M., Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Sarah M. Perkins, and Catharine F. Stebbins.
Resolution
Of
National-American Woman Suffrage Association repudiating "The Woman's
Bible," and Speech of Susan B. Anthony.
Dedicated To The Memory Of
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,
In Whose Death We Lost The Ablest Member Of Our Revising Committee.
PREFACE TO PART II.
The criticisms on "The Woman's Bible" are as varied as they are
unreasonable. Both friend and foe object to the title. When John Stuart
Mill wrote his "Subjection of Woman" there was a great outcry against
that title. He said that proved it to be a good one. The critics said:
"It will suggest to women that they are in subjection and make them
rebellious." "That," said he, "is just the effect I wish to produce."
Rider Haggard's "She" was denounced so universally that every one read
it to see who "She" was. Thus the title in both cases called attention
to the book.
The critics say that our title should have been "Commentaries on the
Bible." That would have been misleading, as the book simply contains
short comments on the passages referring to woman. Some say that it
should have been "The Women of the Bible;" but several books with that
title have already been published. The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage says:
"You might as well have a 'Shoemakers' Bible'; the Scriptures apply to
women as we'll as to men." As the Bible treats women as of a different
class, inferior to man or in subjection to him, which is not the case
with shoemakers, Mr. Talmage's criticism has no significance.
"There's nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility."
Another clergyman says: "It is the work of women, and the devil." This
is a grave mistake. His Satanic Majesty was not invited to join the
Revising Committee, which consists of women alone. Moreover, he has
been so busy of late years attending Synods, General Assemblies and
Conferences, to prevent the recognition of women delegates, that he
has had no time to study the languages and "higher criticism."
Other critics say that our comments do not display a profound
knowledge of Biblical history or of the Greek and Hebrew languages. As
the position of woman in all religions is the same, it does not need a
knowledge of either Greek, Hebrew or the works of scholars to show that
the Bible degrades the Mothers of the Race. Furthermore, "The Woman's
Bible" is intended for readers who do not care for, and would not be
convinced by, a learned, technical work of so-called "higher criticism."
The Old Testament makes woman a mere after-thought in creation; the
author of evil; cursed in her maternity; a subject in marriage; and all
female life, animal and human, unclean. The Church in all ages has
taught these doctrines and acted on them, claiming divine authority
therefor. "As Christ is the head of the Church, so is man the head of
woman." This idea of woman's subordination is reiterated times without
number, from Genesis to Revelations; and this is the basis of all
church action.
Parts I. and II. of "The Woman's Bible" state these dogmas in plain
English, as agreeing fully with Bible teaching and church action. And
yet women meet in convention and denounce "The Woman's Bible," while
clinging to the Church and their Scriptures. The only difference
between us is, we say that these degrading ideas of woman emanated from
the brain of man, while the Church says that they came from God.
Now, to my mind, the Revising Committee of "The Woman's Bible," in
denying divine inspiration for such demoralizing ideas, shows a more
worshipful reverence for the great Spirit of All Good than does the
Church. We have made a fetich of the Bible long enough. The time has
come to read it as we do all other books, accepting the good and
rejecting the evil it teaches.
"There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds."
Hon. Andrew D. White, formerly President of Cornell University, shows
us in his great work, "A History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology," that the Bible, with its fables, allegories and endless
contradictions, has been the great block in the way of civilization.
All through the centuries scholars and scientists have been imprisoned,
tortured and burned alive for some discovery which seemed to conflict
with a petty text of Scripture. Surely the immutable laws of the
universe can teach more impressive and exalted lessons than the holy
books of all the religions on earth.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
January, 1898.
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA.
Joshua ii.
1 And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy
secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and
came into a harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there.
2 And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men
in hither to-night of the children of Israel to search out the country.
3 And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men
that are come to thee which are entered into thine house: for they be
come to search out all the country.
4 And the woman took the two men, and hid them and said thus, There
came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were.
5 And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate when it
was dark, that the men went out; whither the men went I wot not; pursue
after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them.
This book gives an account of the final entrance of the children of
Israel into the Promised Land. Joshua was the successor of Moses, and
performed the same miracle in parting the waters of the Jordan that
Moses did to enable his people to pass through the Red Sea. He was
seven years fighting his way into the land of Canaan, where he spent
the closing years of his life in peace.
There is mention of two women only in this book, though a casual
reference is again made to the daughters of Zelophehad, as described in
a former chapter.
In saving the spies from their pursuers, Rahab made them promise that
when Jericho fell into the hands of Joshua, they would save her and her
kinsmen. From the text, it seems that Rahab fully understood the spirit
of her time, and with keen insight and religious fervor, marked
characteristics of women, she readily entered into the plans of the
great general of Israel.
Rahab was supposed to have been a great sinner, her life in many
respects questionable; but seeing that victory was with the Israelites,
she cast her lot with them. From the text and what we know of humanity
in general, it is difficult to decide Rahab's real motive, whether to
serve the Lord by helping Joshua to take the land of Canaan, or to
save her own life and that of her kinsmen. It is interesting to see
mat in all national emergencies, leading men are quite willing to avail
themselves of the craft and cunning of women, qualities uniformly
condemned when used for their own advantage.
There is no more significance, as one of our critics says, in
commentating on the myths of the Bible than on Aesop's fables. The
difference, however, is this: that in the latter case we admit that
they were written by a man; while in the former, they are claimed to
have been inspired by God. Though at variance with all natural laws, it
is claimed that our eternal salvation depends on believing in the
plenary inspiration of the myths of the Scriptures; as the "higher
criticisms," written by learned scholars and scientists, are not
familiar to women, our comments in plain English may rid them of some
of their superstitions.
Though the injustice to woman is the blackest page in sacred history,
the distinguished Biblical writers take no note of it whatever. Even
Hon. Andrew D. White, though he devotes several pages of his work to
the statue of Lot's wife in salt, vouchsafes no criticism on the
position of Lot's wife in the flesh, nor of Lot's outrageous treatment
of his daughters. The wonder is that women themselves should either
believe that such unholy proceedings were inspired by God, or make a
fetich of the very book which is responsible for their civil and social
degradation.
Joshua x.
11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in
the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from
heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died
with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the
sword.
12 Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up
the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of
Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the
valley of Ajalon.
13 And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stayed, until the people had
avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book
of Jasher? So the Sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted
not to go down about a whole day.
14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord
hearkened unto the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.
According to the sacred fabulist, Joshua surpassed Moses in the
wonders which he performed. In taking the city of Jericho, as
recorded in Chapter viii., he did not use the ordinary enginery of war,
but told his soldiers to blow a simultaneous blast upon their trumpets,
while all the people with united shouts should produce such a violent
concussion of the air as to bring down the walls of the city. He not
only subsidized the atmosphere to overpower his enemies, but he
commanded the sun and the moon to stand still to lengthen the day and
to lighten the night until this victory was complete.
It seems that the Lord was so well pleased with Joshua's refined
military tactics that he suspended the laws of the vast solar system to
vindicate the superior prowess of one small tribe on the small planet
called the earth. The Lord also resorted to more material and forcible
means, sending down tremendous hailstones from heaven, and thus with
one fell blow destroyed more of his enemies than the children of Israel
did with the sword.
There are no events recorded in secular history that strain the faith
of the reader to such a degree as the feats of Joshua. Moses, with his
manna and pillar of light in the wilderness and his dazzling
pyrotechnics on Mount Sinai, fades into insignificance before these
marvellous manifestations by Joshua, with the Canaanites, Jericho, and
the sun and moon under his feet. Though teaching the people that all
these fables are facts, still the Church condemns prestidigitators,
soothsayers, fortune tellers, Spiritualists, witches, and the
assumptions of Christian Scientists.
Joshua xv.
16 And Catch said, He that smiteth Kirjathesepher and taketh it, to
him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.
17 And Othniel, the son of Kenez, the brother of Caleb, took it; and
he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.
18 And it came to pass, as she came unto him, that she moved him to
ask of her father a field: and she lighted off her ass; and Caleb said
unto her, What wouldest thou?
19 Who answered, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south
land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs,
and the nether springs.
In giving Achsah her inheritance it is evident that the judges of
Israel had not forgotten the judgment of the Lord in the case of
Zelophehad's daughters. He said to Moses, "When a father dies leaving
no sons, the inheritance shall go to the daughters. Let this henceforth
be an ordinance in Israel." Very good as far as it goes; but in case
there were sons, justice demanded that daughters should have an equal
share in the inheritance.
As the Lord has put it into the hearts of the women of this Republic
to demand equal rights in everything and everywhere, and as He is said
to be immutable and unchangeable, it is fair to infer that Moses did
not fully comprehend the message, and in proclaiming it to the great
assembly he gave his own interpretation, just as our judges do in this
year of the Lord 1898.
Achsah's example is worthy the imitation of the women of this
Republic. She did not humbly accept what was given her, but bravely
asked for more. We should give to our rulers, our sires and sons no
rest until all our rights--social, civil and political--are fully
accorded. How are men to know what we want unless we tell them? They
have no idea that our wants, material and spiritual, are the same as
theirs; that we love justice, liberty and equality as well as they do;
that we believe in the principles of self-government, in individual
rights, individual conscience and judgment, the fundamental ideas of
the Protestant religion and republican government.
E. C. S.
THE BOOK OF JUDGES.
CHAPTER I.