_“Therefore they took a key and opened them.”—Judg. 3: 25._
IT is the carefully-formed conclusion of many independent thinkers that
there is very little real history or biography in the Old-Testament
Scriptures. It is a monstrous mistake in modern ministers to take as
literal what is, in fact, strictly allegorical. The figurative character
of most of the Bible narratives was well known and freely admitted by
many ancient writers, Jewish and Christian, as will be shown hereafter.
It would be natural to commence our studies of Hebrew symbolism with the
account of the creation and alleged fall of man; but as this dogma is so
directly connected with the dogmas of modern sacerdotalism, we reserve
the examination of the so-called Mosaic account of Eden and the fall
until we are ready to enter upon what is called, in theological
parlance, “the redemptive scheme” of Christianity. We say so-called
Mosaic account, for there are many reasons for doubting, as I have
shown, that he wrote the Pentateuch, should his existence be admitted
for the sake of argument. Archbishop Burnet, in speaking of the story of
creation, says: “We receive this history without examination, because it
was written by Moses; but if we had found it in the work of a Greek
philosopher, a rabbi, or Mohammedan, our minds would be arrested at
every step by doubts and objections. This difference in our judgment
does not come from the nature of the facts; it comes from the opinion we
have of Moses, whom we believe to be inspired.” Here are three
assumptions not supported by a particle of evidence, to wit: that such a
man as Moses existed, that he was supernaturally inspired, and that he
wrote Genesis and other books of the Pentateuch under divine
inspiration. Now, we have no account of the real existence of Moses, and
no account of what he did and said except from writings accredited to
him and the incidental mention of him in the New Testament. His alleged
wonderful exploits in Egypt are not mentioned in Egyptian annals nor in
any other contemporaneous writings, while many things-said of him in the
Old Testament are substantially recorded of many other persons, as
already shown.
There are many reasons for believing that Moses was a personification of
the sun and his whole history a myth. Observing persons cannot fail to
notice that all ancient paintings and statues of Moses represent him
with horns, probably originally denoting the rays of the sun when in the
constellation Taurus the Bull. The fact is well known that what is
called the history of the Jews is mainly fiction, and that, too,
borrowed from other peoples and modified to suit circumstances; and very
bungling work have they made of it. The sacerdotalists of the world may
be safely challenged to produce anything strictly original from the Old
Testament, especially relating to morals. The historian Josephus admits
that the Jews “never invented anything useful.” Even the writings of
Josephus should be received with many grains of allowance. He was
himself superstitious and credulous, as shown in his story of a heifer
giving birth to a lamb when being led from the temple stable to the
altar. Moreover, we have no ancient certified copies of what he did
actually write, and there is abundant evidence of alterations and
interpolations in his alleged writings by sacerdotalists in modern
times. There is no greater imposition palmed off upon the ignorant than
the commonly-believed falsehoods that the Jews were a very ancient
people and that their Scriptures are the oldest book extant.
We now take up a few Bible stories, and give to them a symbolic instead
of an historic interpretation; and for obvious reasons we begin with the
alleged progenitor of the Jewish nation, _Abraham_.
It may or may not be a mere coincidence that by transposing the letters
of the name Abraham we have the name Brahma—just as in the old legend of
the sacrifice of the daughter of Agamemnon, Iphthi-genia, if we divide
the syllables into words, Iphthi-geni, we have literally Jephthah’s
daughter; so, after all, it may be greatly to the credit of Jephthah
that the story is fabulous. These curious coincidences are not here
offered as evidence. It is acknowledged, at least by implication, in the
Bible itself that the story of Abraham is of Chaldean origin, as his
father Terah was a native of Ur of the Chaldees and the alleged
patriarch was a Chaldean. Now, these people were great astronomers in
very ancient times, and were accustomed to veil their occult science
under just such allegorical personifications and fabulous tales as this
of Abraham. Paul, or whoever wrote the Epistle credited to him, lets out
the whole secret (Gal. 4: 22-26): “For it is written Abraham had two
sons, one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of
the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by
promise; _which things are an allegory,_” etc. Now, if you carefully
read the apostolic explanation in these verses, you will notice that the
two sons of Abraham are two covenants, and the bondmaid Hagar represents
an Arabian mountain, which by a magical change becomes the same as the
city of Jerusalem. The name Abram signifies the “Father of Elevation,”
which is the astronomical distinction of the planet Saturn, the
exaltation of which, with its devious ways, well represents the alleged
history of its prototype. The word _Chasdim_, translated _Chaldees_,
literally means _light_, and is a professional not a geographical name,
and probably refers to the art of magic and the work of astrologers; so
that it is more than probable that Abram was not a person, any more than
Chasdim was a place. There are many references in the Scriptures which
favor this interpretation, but which cannot here be mentioned. Even in
the _Lord’s Prayer_, found in Jewish rituals long before the Christian
era, there are evidences that it was first addressed to Saturn. There
never was any form of religious worship which did not contain an
expression equivalent to _Our Father who art in heaven_. Even Jupiter
means _Our Father in the sky_.
The name of Abram has many variations, and there is an important sense
in which he may be called “the father of many nations.” He was the
Esrael of the Chaldeans, the Israel of the Phœnicians, as the historian
Sanchoniathon distinctly alleges that their name for Saturn was Israel:
the names Abraham and Israel are used interchangeably in both the Old
and New Testaments, and among the Hindoos, the Greeks, the Persians, and
other nations he was the god Saturnus of the whole pagan world. Even
upon the dials of our “grandfathers’ clocks,” cherished in many families
as heirlooms in our day, his memory is kept green by the figure of the
god of Time. Scores of other similitudes between Saturn and Abraham
could here be introduced did space permit. Suffice it to say, Saturn in
fable married his own sister, who was a star; and so did Abraham, and
the name of his wife signifies a star. Both had many sons, but each had
a favorite son, and Saturn called his _Jeoud_, which implies an only
son, as Abraham so regarded Isaac. A learned English scholar has
suggested that the name “Jeoud” is the real origin of the name “Jew,”
and he assigns several philological and historical reasons for his
theory. It is certain in the minds of many profound and independent
investigators that the Jewish tribes originated in Arabia, and were
originally a mere religious order, and that their so-called history is
largely fabulous, and that their exodus is a comparatively modern novel
with an ancient date, as has been shown.
Let us now take the best-remembered incident in the life of Abraham, the
attempted murder and the rescue of his son Isaac, and see what will come
of applying the symbolic instead of the literal interpretation to it.
Let it be noted that this is not an original story. The ancient Hindoos
have one like it. King Haris-candra had no son. He prayed for one, and
promised that if one should be born to him he would sacrifice him to the
gods. One was born, and he named him Rohita. One day his father told him
of his promise to Varuna to offer him in sacrifice. The son bought a
substitute, and when he was about to be immolated he was marvellously
rescued. Then there is the well-known similar story written by the
Phœnician Sanchoniathon
thirteen hundred years before our era. Then there is the Grecian story
of Agamemnon, to whom, when about to sacrifice his daughter, a stag was
furnished by a goddess as a substitute. There is another Grecian fable
in which a maiden was about to be sacrificed, and as the priest uplifted
his knife to shed her blood the victim suddenly disappeared, and a goat
of uncommon beauty stood in her place as a substitute. Another story
runs thus: In Sparta the maiden Helena was about to be immolated on the
altar of the gods, when an eagle carried off the knife of the priest and
laid it upon the neck of a heifer, which was sacrificed in her stead.
Similar stories might be produced from among many nations in the most
ancient times, long before the Jews picked this up in Babylon and
rewrote it, with modifications, so as to apply it to their mythical
progenitor; for this fable of Abraham’s offering was not written until
after their return from their Babylonish captivity—much nearer our own
time than is generally suspected.
Regarded as an historic account of a real transaction, this story of the
attempted sacrifice of a beloved son by a venerable father is shocking
in the extreme, dishonoring alike to God and to Abraham. A good God
could not have done such an unnatural and cruel thing. He had no
occasion to try Abraham to find out how much faith he had. He knew that
already. Regarded as an astrological allegory, it is ingenious and
contains a moral lesson, to wit: obedience to the voice of God and the
hope of deliverance in the hour of extreme emergency. The defect in the
story is, that God could trifle with a loving child, and pretend to
require him to break one of his own commandments, “Thou shalt not kill,”
and subject him to its own penalty, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man
shall his blood be shed.” It would not have availed Abraham to plead
that God told him to murder his son, any more than it availed the
Pocasset crank when he pleaded that God had directed him to murder his
little daughter. The State of Massachusetts sent the semi-lunatic to a
safe place of confinement. This story of Abraham and Isaac has led to
scores and scores of murders of children by their fathers, just as the
passage in the Old Testament, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,”
has been pleaded in justification of the cool, deliberate murder of
multitudes of men, women, and children on the charge of witchcraft.
The literal interpretation of what is called infallible Scripture has
been the most bitter curse to deluded, priest-ridden humanity. It is the
“stock in trade” of ignorant and selfish ecclesiastics to-day.
Let us look a little more closely at this Abraham-and-Isaac myth.
Abraham was the personification of Saturn, the god of Time, while Isaac
was the personification of the Sun. Abraham took Isaac up to
Hebron—which means _union or alliance_, and clearly indicates a union of
the ecliptic and equinoctial line—the very point at which the Ram of the
vernal equinox passed by, or, as might be poetically said, was caught in
a cloud or bush; so that the whole story was written long ages before in
the celestial heavens, and emblazoned in the skies at the return of each
vernal equinox. Writers on astro-theology point out details at great
length to support the symbolic interpretation, but it is enough for pur
purpose to merely give the keynote. Let the fact be specially noted that
the names of the patriarchs have an astrological meaning,
and that the twelve sons of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, who became
the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, have distinctly astrological
characters, fully indicated in Jacob’s dying blessing on his sons (Gen.
49) and in the corresponding “Song of Moses” (Deut. 33), on the banner
carried by the different tribes in their mythical march from Egypt to
Canaan; and that on the breastplate of the officiating high priest the
jewels correspond to the celestial signs of the solar zodiac; and
although Jacob had children by several different women and was a
first-class Mormon, his twelve sons are made to correspond with the
twelve months of the year and the twelve signs of the zodiac. This fact
is admitted by the orthodox author of _The Gospel in the Stars_. His
daughters are not considered worthy of notice, as that would have
spoiled the riddle. The philology and etymology of the name _Jacob_ has
suggestions of the serpent; and from his history he must have been a
snaky fellow from the first to the last. He was born with his hand upon
his brother’s “heel,” and he managed to cheat him out of his share of
his mother’s affections, and lied to his father, and conspired with his
mother to rob Esau, his brother, of his “blessing.” The stories of Laban
and Leah and Rachel all conform to the symbolic rather than the literal
hypothesis, as well as Jacob’s vision of the ladder, and his
wrestling-match with the angel, when he openly obtained the astrological
name of the children of Saturn—Israel. It must be admitted that the
allegorical hypothesis relieves the patriarchs of the charge of many
mean things, such as the heartless manner in which Abram treated Hagar
when Sarah got jealous, and the manner in which he treated Sarah herself
when he lied to the king through a selfish cowardice and gave his wife
over to the lusts of the monarch Abimelech, who was (or one bearing his
name) deceived by Isaac in regard to Rebekah by a similar trick (Gen.
26:1). Lot, the nephew of Abraham, was guilty of a meaner and more
unmanly act when he himself proposed to give over his two virgin
daughters to the worse than beastly lusts of a howling mob, to protect
two angels who were guests at his tent (Gen. 19:1-11).
But theologians will never willingly admit that the Abraham of Genesis
was a myth. They well know the logical conclusion. They would have to
give up the “Abrahamic covenant,” which is the basis of sacerdotalism.
When Professor Driver, of the orthodox University of Oxford, recently
admitted only by implication that Abraham may have had no real personal
existence, and claimed that such hypothesis would not be injurious to
religion, his article was rejected and suppressed by the editor of an
orthodox paper in Philadelphia as dangerous. But to assume that all the
principal actors of Genesis and some other books were impersonations,
not persons, would not destroy the good things they are alleged to have
said and done. It is no more necessary to insist upon the real
personality of Abraham than to insist upon the literal existence of
Faithful and Great-Heart and other impersonations in _Pilgrim’s
Progress_. Nobody insists that the characters in the parables accredited
to Jesus must be taken in a literal sense. And yet it may be admitted
that the fictions of Scripture may have been suggested by some persons
and facts, just as in modern novels there generally is some person who
stands for the original of the story. This is eminently so in the novels
of Dickens and D’Israeli. Nevertheless, it is difficult to doubt that
the principal characters of the Old Testament are mythical, pure and
simple, as we find the originals in the older scriptures of different
nations, confessedly founded upon the solar and other forms of
Nature-worship. The feet is, that the only rational way to explain the
marvellous stories of the Hebrew Scriptures is by the well-known methods
of ancient symbolism.
Let us now merely glance at some other Old-Testament fables.
_Noah_ and his Deluge are mainly mythical, as this story is almost a
literal copy of the Chaldean, though found substantially in the writings
of many other nations. It readily fits the allegorical method of
interpretation in almost every particular. The Chaldean account as
written by Berosus, and found recently by the late George Smith of the
British Museum on the clay tablets, is so much like the story in Genesis
that the latter must have been copied from the former; and the slight
variations in the two narratives are no greater than might have been
expected as between Chaldea and Palestine. The Jews obtained it from
Babylon, as there is no mention made of this miracle in any book of the
Bible written before the Captivity. The books of Psalms, Proverbs,
Chronicles, Judges, Kings, etc. are silent on this subject. Josephus
defended the Noachian Deluge on the sole ground that an account of it
was held by the Chaldeans, never pretending that the Chaldean account
was taken from the Jewish record.
But it is useless to dwell on the story of a universal deluge of water.
It is in the light of modern science physically impossible and absurd;
and such men as Buckland, Pye Smith, Hugh Miller, and Hitchcock, with
many other distinguished Christian scientists, give up the doctrine of a
universal deluge while claiming a partial one. And here, again, the
ancient astronomy comes in with an explanation of partial floods of
waters by the natural results of the “precession of the equinoxes,” in
which, at certain periods during the change of the polar axis of the
earth, great physical convulsions must follow, with wide eruptions of
water, making a partial overflow and suggesting the idea of a universal
deluge. Four such cataclysms must have occurred while the sun was making
one journey through the twelve zodiacal constellations. Prof. Huxley has
recently well said: “But the voice of archæology and historical
criticism still has to be heard, and it gives forth no uncertain sound.
The marvellous recovery of the records of an antiquity far superior to
any that can be ascribed to the Pentateuch, which has been effected by
the decipherers of cuneiform characters, has put us in possession of a
series once more, not of speculations, but of facts, which has a most
remarkable bearing upon the question of the trustworthiness of the
narrative of the Flood. It is established that for centuries before the
asserted migration of Terah from Ur of the Chaldees (which, according to
the orthodox interpreters of the Pentateuch, took place after the year
2000 b. c.) Lower Mesopotamia was the seat of a civilization in which
art and science and literature had attained a development formerly
unsuspected, or, if there were faint reports of it, treated as fabulous.
And it is also no matter of speculation, but a fact, that the libraries
of this people contain versions of a long epic poem, one of the twelve
books of which tells the story of a deluge which in a number of its
leading features corresponds to the story attributed to Berosus, no less
than with the story given in Genesis, with curious exactnesss.
“Looking at the convergence of all these lines of evidence leads to the
one conclusion—that the story of the Flood in Genesis is merely a
version of one of the oldest pieces of purely fictitious literature
extant; that whether this is or is not its origin, the events asserted
in it to have taken place assuredly never did take place; further, that
in point of fact the story in the plain and logically necessary sense of
its words has long since been given up by orthodox and conservative
commentators of the Established Church.”
The only rational interpretation of the extraordinary stories of the
Pentateuch and other scriptures is to regard them as mythical and
allegorical, borrowed from the astrological systems of more ancient
peoples. It is very difficult to present within the limits here allowed
what has grown into ponderous volumes in elucidating the matter in hand.
The story of Jonah and the Fish, taken as a literal story, is
incredible, though the notorious Brooklyn preacher thinks that it must
be literally true, as that God might have so diluted the gastric juice
in the stomach of the fish as to make Jonah quite indigestible! This
whole story is found in earlier pagan writings, and is fully explained
by the astronomical phenomena. The earth is a huge fish in the ancient
mythology, and on December the 21st the sun (Jonah, the type) sinks into
its dark belly, and after three days—to wit, December 25th—it comes
forth. The Sun-god is on dry land again.
There is a Hindoo fable much like this. In Grecian fable Hercules was
swallowed by a whale at Joppa, and is said to have lain three days in
his entrails. The Sun was called _Jona_, as can be shown from many
authorities. The nursery-tale of “Little Red Riding-Hood” was also a
sun-myth, mutilated in the English story, showing how the _Sun_ was
devoured by the _Black Wolf_ (Night), and came out unhurt. Scores of
similar sun-myths could be narrated.
But there are geographical inaccuracies which show its mythical
character. Instead of Nineveh being “three days’ journey” from the coast
where Jonah was vomited out, it is distant some four hundred miles of
hill and plain, and the size of the city was not twenty by twelve miles,
but more nearly eight by three miles. Moreover, the city showed no signs
of decay till about two hundred and fifty years after the alleged
warning of Jonah. It is truly astounding that intelligent men can be so
blind. It was recently admitted by high Christian authority that there
is not a particle of proof for this story except that Jesus had referred
to Jonah as being “three days and nights in the whale’s belly.” If Jesus
did say this, he used it as an illustration. He probably stated a
current tradition, if he said it at all.
Let us now try our key in the closet-door of the Samson story.
According to the Bible account, Samson performed twelve principal
exploits; and if you will turn to any good dictionary of mythology you
will find a wonderful likeness to the twelve labors of Hercules in the
Greek myth of the Sun. Time can be taken to examine only one—the cutting
off of Samson’s hair while reposing in the lap of Delilah, and the
consequent loss of his strength. Professor Goldhizer says: “Long locks
of hair and a long beard are mythological attributes of the sun.”...
“When the powerful summer’s sun is succeeded by the weak rays of the
winter’s sun, its strength departs.” But as the sun becomes ascendant
again he renews his strength, just as Samson’s strength returned when
his hair grew out again. The seven locks represent the seven planetary
worlds. The constellation Virgo represents Samson’s wife; and Delilah,
in whose lap he dallied and lost his strength, represents the months of
autumn, before the winter came to hand him over to the Philistines, the
dreary time of the winter months. The story of Samson is found in the
sun-myths of all the Sun-worship-ping nations, and the story of Hercules
was known in an island colony of the Phœnicians five hundred years
before it was known in Greece; and the story is almost as old as
humanity itself. The very name Samson (or Samp-shon) in some languages
means the sun; and there is not an exploit recorded of him that does not
yield to the solar interpretation; and when modern ministers undertake
to explain how Samson caught three hundred foxes and set fire to their
tails, they never think to mention (if they happen to know it) that in
the ancient festival of Ceres a fox-hunt was enacted in the theatres of
Rome in which burning torches were bound to the foxes’ tails. We have an
explanation of this from Prof. Steinthal: “This was a symbolical
reminder of the damage done to the fields by mildew, called the ’red
fox’ in the last of April. It was at the time of the _Dog Star_ at which
the mildew was most to be feared; and if at that time great solar heat
followed too close upon the hoar-frost or dew of the cold nights, the
mischief raged like a burning fox through the corn-fields. Like the
lion, the fox is an animal that indicates the solar heat, being well
suited both by its color and long-haired tail.” Bou-chart gives a
similar explanation and application, and so do many other writers. It
remains for ministers of this nineteenth century to dole out the ancient
fables of the past as literal history to the grown-up children of
to-day. The story of Samson in all its details yields to the key of
ancient symbolism. Why not admit the fact that this is a solar myth, and
thus get clear of all the blasphemy and absurdities of a literal
interpretation?
The incredibly absurd story of Joshua’s commanding the sun to stand
still for several hours has a rational explanation, regarded as a myth,
well known to initiates to set forth the correction of the calendar, so
as to make different periods correspondras one stops a clock to make it
agree with the ringing of the standard time by the town bell. There are
scores of parallels in ancient history.
Regard Solomon as a sun-myth, and you have no difficulty about the size
of his family. The seven hundred wives and the three hundred concubines
represented so many stars. Even the narratives of David’s exploits with
the five kings, his “unpleasantness” with Saul, and his dalliance and
intrigue with Bathsheba yield to the astro-mythological key.
The same is true of the story of the two she-bears that ate up the
forty-two children who called shorn Elisha “bald-head.” The prophet was
the Sun, denuded of his curls at a certain astronomical period; the two
bears were the constellations _Ursa Major and Ursa Minor_, the great
bear and the little bear; and the forty-two children were a group of
stars covered by the two bears, so that, figuratively, it might be said
they were “eaten up.” And yet the late Dr. Nehemiah Adams of Boston once
exclaimed: “I believe that the forty-two children who made fun of the
bald head of the prophet of God are now in hell.” He once wrote an
admirable book entitled _Agnes; or, The Little Key,_ but he failed to
find the skeleton key to unlock the solar fable of the prophet, the
saucy little children, and the voracious bears.
Within the last few months Philadelphia has been the scene of a most
imposing ecclesiastical ceremony—the investiture of the Roman Catholic
archbishop with the pallium, a narrow band or sash made from wool grown
upon white lambs that had been blessed by the Pope on St. Agnes’ Day. We
heard the eloquent sermon of the archbishop of New York, and he
commenced his plausible discourse by tracing the pallium to the mantle
that fell from Elijah upon Elisha, the summer and winter sun, and was
worn by him after the translation of Elijah. But we try our skeleton
key, and find that Elijah represented the ascending summer sun, and
Elisha the sun of autumn; and when Elijah gained the greatest height, of
course his lessened rays, well called a “mantle,” fell upon the
bald-headed man representing the autumn. This is the whole story in
plain language, and this is the kind of stuff that ecclesiastical
man-millinery is made of. The crowd stared with admiration and wonder,
just as children are amused with their doll-babies, who are “sick” or
“well,” “naughty” or “good,” according to the whims of the “little
women” who dress and nurse them. There is a doll-baby period in every
child’s history, and it may be necessary to have a doll-baby period in
religion; but it does seem to some of us that it is about time for
full-grown women and men to doff their bibs and aprons, lay aside their
doll-babies and other ecclesiastical toys, and act as becomes men and
women of full growth. Even Paul said, “When I was a child, I spake as a
child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away
childish things.” It has been well said by a judicious writer:
“Intelligent readers, except revelationists, well know that the Hebrew
fables are myths which teem with history of a kind, if we can only
separate the wheat from the chaff. So also is the story of the Creation
in Genesis. We have a very valuable myth, though a purely phallic tale,
such as East Indians—and perhaps they only—can thoroughly comprehend.
“We would not seek to detract from the great value of myths, for,
besides their own intrinsic worth, these stories also exhibit to us many
phases of ancient life and thought. Myths may be regarded as history
which we have not yet been able to read. We should not discard as untrue
or unhistorical any tale, biblical or other, as implying that it is
false and unworthy of consideration. On the contrary, we cannot too
earnestly and patiently ponder over every ancient tale, legend, or myth,
as they all have some foundation and instructive lesson. Whenever an
important myth has existed an important fact has doubtless been its
basis.”