8 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying,
If a man die, _and have no son_, then ye shall cause his
inheritance to pass unto his daughter.
And our law works a little that way yet; being the result of
ecclesiastical law it naturally would.*
* See Appendix N. 5 and P. 5.
Next we have Num. xxxvi.:
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_.
9 Neither shall the inheritance remove from _one_ tribe to
another tribe; but every one of the tribes of the children
of Israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance.
10 _Even as the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters
of Zelophehad_.
That is all the women were for--articles of conveyance for property.
Save the land, no matter about the girls. Now these silly women actually
believed that God told Moses whom they had to marry just because Moses
said so! I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is not safe to take
heavenly communications at second-hand. Second-hand articles are likely
to be varnished over, and have to be taken at a discount. And it seems
to me that, if the Lord is at all particular as to whom a girl should
marry, she is the one for him to discuss the matter with. Moses didn't
have to live with the _sons_ of Zelophehad, and consequently wasn't the
one to talk the matter over with. But, you see, it won't do to question
what Moses said God told him, because upon his veracity the whole
structure is built. He had more personal interviews with the Deity than
any other man--he and Solomon--and hence they are the best authority.
I have here the 31st chapter of Numbers, but it is unfit to read. It
tells a story of shame and crime unequalled in atrocity. It tells
that God commanded Moses and Eleazar, the priest, to produce vice and
perpetrate crime on an unparalleled scale. _It tells us that they obeyed
the order, and that 16,000 helpless girls were dragged in the mire of
infamy and divided amongst the victorious soldiers_. They were made
dissolute by force, and by direct command of God!
This one chapter stamps as false, forever, the claim of inspiration for
the Bible. That one chapter would settle it for me. Do you believe that
God told Moses that? Do you believe there is a God who is a thief, a
murderer, and a defiler of innocent girls? Do you believe it? Yet this
religion is built upon Moses' word, and woman's position was established
by him. It seems to me time for women to retire Moses from active
life. Coax him to resign on account of his health. Return him to his
constituency. He has been on the supreme bench long enough. Don't
let your children believe in such a God. Better let them believe in
annihilation. Better let them think that the sleep of death is the end
of all! Better, much better, let them believe that the tender kiss
at parting is the last of all consciousness for them, and after that
eternal rest! Don't let their hearts be seared, their lives clouded,
their intellects dwarfed by the cruel dread of the God of Moses! Better,
thrice better, let the cold earth close over the loved and loving dust
forever, than that it should enter the portals of infinite tyranny.
Next we will take Deut. xx. 10-16:
10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it,
then proclaim peace unto it. [Good scheme!]
11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and
open unto thee, then it shall be, _that_ all the people
_that_ is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and
they shall serve thee.
12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make
war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
13 _And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy
hands_, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of
the sword:
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 thy enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very
far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these
nations.
16 But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy
God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive
nothing that breatheth.
The injunction to proclaim peace unto a city about to be attacked and
plundered strikes me as a particularly brilliant idea. When you go
to rob and murder a man, just tell him to keep cool and behave like a
gentleman and you won't do a thing to him but steal all his property and
cut his throat and retire in good order, God always seemed to fight on
the side of the man who would murder most of his fellow-men and degrade
the greatest number of women. He seemed, in fact, to rather insist on
this point if he was particular about nothing else. And, by the way,
if you had happened to live in one of those cities, what opinion do you
think you would have had of Jehovah? Would he have impressed you as a
loving Father? Here we have 2 Samuel v. 10, 12-13:
10 And David went on, and grew great, and the Lord God of
hosts was with him.
12 And David perceived that the Lord had established him
king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for
his people Israel's sake.
13 And David took him more concubines and wives out of
Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet
sons and daughters born to David.
The nearer he got to God--the more God was "with him," the more wives he
wanted. Next we have 2 Samuel xx. 3:
3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem, and the king
took the ten women, his concubines, whom he had left to keep
the house, and put them in ward, and fed them * * * * * So
they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in
widowhood.
Now what did David do that for? I don't know. It was such a trifling
little matter that it was not thought necessary to give any reason.
Perhaps he had eaten too much pie and felt cross; and what else were
those women for but to be made stand around on such occasions? Weren't
they his property? Didn't those ten women belong to David? Hadn't he a
perfect right to shut them up and feed them if he wanted to? Don't you
think it was kind of him to feed them? I wonder if he sang any of his
psalms to them through the key-hole. His son Absalom had just been
killed, and he felt miserable about that. He had just delivered himself
of that touching apostrophe we often hear repeated from the pulpit
to-day, to awaken sympathy for God's afflicted prophet: "O my son
Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O
Absalom, my son, my son!" And I haven't a doubt that there were at least
ten women who echoed that wish most heartily. It must have been carried
in the family without a dissenting vote.
To this God of the Bible a woman may not go unless her father or husband
consents. She can't even promise to be good without asking permission.
This God holds no communication with women unless their male relations
approve. He wants to be on the safe side, I suppose. I'll read you
about that. It is in one of the chapters that are not commonly cited as
evidence that God is no respecter of persons, and that the Bible holds
woman as man's equal; nevertheless it is as worthy of belief as any
of the rest of it, and its "Thus saith the Lord" and "as the Lord
commanded Moses" are "frequent and painful and free," as Mr. Bret Harte
might say. The chapter is Numbers xxx.:
And Moses spake unto the heads of the tribes concerning the
children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord
hath commanded.
2 If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to
bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he
shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.
3 If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself
by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth;
4 And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she
hath; bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at
her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith
she hath bound her soul shall stand.
5 But if her father disallow her in the day that he
heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she
hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive
her, because her father disallowed her.
6 And if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or
uttered aught out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul;
7 And her husband heard _it_, and held his peace at her in
the day that he heard _it_; then her vows shall stand, and
her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand.
8 But if her husband disallowed her on the day that he
heard _it_; then he shall make her vow which she vowed, and
that which she uttered with her lips, wherewith she bound
her soul, of none effect: and the Lord shall forgive her.
9 But every vow of a widow, and of her that is divorced,
wherewith they have bound their souls, shall stand against
her.
10 And if she vowed in her husband's house, or bound her
soul by a bond with an oath;
11 And her husband heard _it_, and held his peace at her,
_and_ disallowed her not; then all her vows shall stand, and
every bond wherewith she hound her soul shall stand.
12 But if her husband hath utterly made them void on the
day he heard _them_; then whatsoever proceeded out of her
lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of her
soul, shall not stand: her husband hath made them void; and
the Lord shall forgive her.
13 Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul,
her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it
void.
14 But if the husband altogether hold his peace at her from
day to day; then he establisheth all her vows, or all her
bonds, which are upon her: he confirmeth them, because he
held his peace at her in the day that he heard them.
15 But if he shall any ways make them void after that he
hath heard them; then he shall bear her iniquity.
16 These are the statutes, which the Lord commanded Moses,
between a man and his wife, between the father and his
daughter, _being yet_ in her youth in her father's house.
Between man and his God they tell us there is no one but a Redeemer; but
between woman and man's God there seems to be all her male relations,
which, I should think, would prevent any very close intimacy. And by the
time the divine commands to woman were filtered through the entire
male population, from Moses to the last gentleman who, in the confusion
natural to the occasion, misquotes "with all _thy_ worldly goods I _me_
endow," I should think it not impossible that some slight errors may
have crept in, and the Church should not feel offended if I were to aid
her in their detection.
Here we have two or three passages that are said to be the words of
Jesus. I hope that is not true. But I, believing him to have been a man,
can understand how they might have been the words of even a very good
man in that age and with his surroundings; but the words of a perfect
being--never! Of course I know that we have no positive knowledge of any
of the words of Jesus, since no one pretends that they were ever
written down until long after his death; but I am dealing now with the
theological creation upon the theologian's own grounds. My own idea of
Jesus places him far above the myth that bears his name.
3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto
him, They have no wine.
4 Jesus saith unto her, _Woman, what have I to do with
thee?_
--John ii, 3-4.
I hope that Christ did not say that--for his manhood I hope so. I would
rather believe that this is the mistake of some "uninspired" writer than
think that one who in much had so gentle and tender a nature, was
unkind and brutal to his mother. No one would attempt, in this age, to
apologize for such a reply to so simple a remark made by a mother to her
son. But they say "he was divine." They also tell us he was a perfect
example; but with this evidence before me, I am glad our men are human.
Still I cannot pretend to say that this is not divine--never having made
any divine acquaintances. I can only say, humanity is better.
Then again he is reported to have said a most cruel thing to the
broken-hearted mother of a dying child, and I would rather believe the
Bible uninspired and keep my respect for Jesus, the man. It will be
better for this world to believe in Jesus, the brave, earnest man, than
in Jesus, the cruel God.
21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of
Tyre and Sidon.
22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same
coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O
Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed
with a devil.