that the bible positively teaches falsehood and immorality, the question of inspiration is at once closed for all self-respecting and impartial judges. But, as intimated, nothing can satisfy prejudice, or conquer wilful ignorance. Prejudice on the one hand, and stupidity on the other, are as impervious to argument as a duck's back is to water.
The present book is not for minds that are closed. When we go to court to have a case tried, the value of the evidence we present does not depend upon the appreciation of our adversary's counsel. However convincing our testimony, he will never admit that it proves his client guilty. It is the impartial judge, and it is, again, the open-minded jury, that must pass upon the evidence. In the same way, what we say here about the bible will not convert the priests or the rabbis. We do not write for them. Our book will have no effect upon the pope; it is not meant to change his views. This book is for those who can afford the truth.
In conclusion, the bible is a very delicate subject to handle. The material in hand is so prodigious, and of such a nature, that I am at a loss to know what to say and what to omit. There are many things in the bible to which I would like to call attention but which I am debarred from so doing because good taste will not allow it. Yet not to be able to refer to these matters places me in the position of an attorney who has his best witnesses and evidence thrown out by a ruling of the court. The church people are permitted to go on and print in every language the texts and stories of the bible which I am not allowed even to read in public—much less to comment on them. They can sell the book by the millions, containing absurdities and atrocities which, by order of the court (that is to say, of public opinion, or of good taste), I am prohibited from referring to in my argument against the authority of the book. The reader can have no idea what a protection that is to the bible. The defendant, as it were, has gagged the prosecution. It needs no effort to realize how much the bible is indebted to this fact for its being tolerated at all in the twentieth century. Courtesy prevents the exposure which would completely change the world's opinion of the book.
But one can be a little freer in a book than on a public platform. Many of the texts quoted in this volume could not have been read from the platform. But there are numerous passages in the bible which would cause even cold print to blush. We shall not disturb those.
The Sects and Their Bibles
THE Jews deny that the second half of the bible is inspired; the Christians admit that the first part of the bible is not as binding as the second part.
The Jew fails to observe that, in denying inspiration to the New Testament, he is also depriving the Old of its inspiration. The arguments by which he disproves the New Testament are the same which disprove the Old, and all other "inspired" documents.
The Christian, by admitting that the Old Testament is no longer as binding upon the conscience of man as it was at one time, or as the New Testament is now, surrenders the whole question of inspiration. If the Old Testament has been superseded, the New might be, too. If what God says in one part of the book can be ignored by the Christians, what he says in another part of the book may just as reasonably be ignored by the Jews, and—this is important—what God says in either part of the book may be ignored by the Rationalist. In other words, the Rationalist agrees with the Christian that the Old Testament is passé, and with the Jews, that the New Testament is nothing more than ecclesiastical literature. The Rationalist uses the arguments of the Jew against the New Testament, and the arguments of the Christian against the Old, with the result that practically both Testaments fall by the blows of the sectarians themselves. Both Jew and Christian seem to be unable to perceive, or if they do, they are unwilling to admit, that not only has each destroyed the position of the other, but also his own.
All the objections which the Jew brings against Christianity are equally valid against his own Judaism. Does he object to the Christian trinity? There is a trinity also in his religion. In Genesis we read that the Lord appeared unto Abraham in three persons. He entertained and worshiped the three men as one Lord. * Does the Jew object to the dogma of incarnation? In the Old Testament, God repeatedly appears in flesh and blood. Is it the immaculate conception that the Jew can not accept? In Judaism, too, that miracle was of frequent occurrence. Maidens in the Old Testament, as in the New, see an angel of the Lord and become pregnant. Is it the doctrine of hell to which the Jew objects? Jesus, in all probability, borrowed it from the Talmud. Is it an exclusive salvation that the Jew rejects? But the extra ecclesia non est solus of the Catholic is but another version of the "Outside Israel there is no salvation" of the Old Testament. Is it the doctrine of blood atonement in the New Testament which offends him? The Old Testament is as red as the New. The difference between Judaism and Christianity is one of name, largely. Is it not remarkable how people will subscribe to the very doctrines which they reject, if presented to them under a different name? Jew and Christian have persecuted one another in the past. Why? Only for a name. The pity of it! Judaism is Christianity, and Christianity is Judaism. They are called by different names—that is all.
To the Jew we say: "You will not take upon you the yoke of the New Testament; cast down also the yoke of the Old." And to the Christian we say: "You have already emancipated yourself from the authority of the Old Testament to a great extent; free yourself also from the authority of the New."
Catholic and Protestant Bibles
THE Catholics do not believe in the Protestant bible; the Protestants do not trust the Catholic bible. Each tells the truth about the bible of the other, but not of his own.
As in the case of the Jew and the Christian, neither the Catholic nor the Protestant seems to realize that in condemning each other's bible as untrustworthy, or as a manipulated copy, they are condemning also each his own bible. If the Catholics have tampered with the Word of God, as the Protestants claim they have; and if the Protestants have a defective bible, as the Catholics charge, then the claim that God has preserved his revelation from human error falls to the ground. If God did not protect the Protestant bible from corruption, he is liable to be equally unconcerned about the Catholic bible, from which it follows that the Word of God can be, and has been, corrupted, which, if true—and both Catholics and Protestants say it is—then there is no incorruptible Word of God.
The Rationalist shares with the Catholic the latter's opinion of the Protestant bible; and of the Catholic bible, it doubts its reliability just as the Protestants do. Putting what the Protestants and Catholics say of each other's bible side by side, the Rationalist arrives at the conclusion that both bibles are untrustworthy.
Let us now consider another phase of the Catholic-Protestant position on the bible. The Protestants are apparently very anxious to make the reading of the bible in the home and the school imperative; the Catholics, on the other hand, seek to make it equally imperative not to read the bible. It is well known that the popes of Rome, as heads of the church and vicars of Christ, have repeatedly forbidden the reading of the bible by the people. An index of forbidden books is kept in Rome for the guidance of the faithful, and, surprising as it may seem, the bible was placed upon this Index Expurgatorius by the popes themselves. The bull of Pius IV. reads: "Whosoever shall dare to own a copy of this book (bible) and read it without having procured a special dispensation shall not receive absolution for his sins."
Similar prohibitions were given by Pius VI., Leo II, XII., Gregory XVI., Pius IX. in his Syllabus, and Clement XI. in his famous bull, Unigenitus. In the Index of forbidden books of Pope Innocent XI., 1704, one of the books forbidden is "the bible in any of the popular languages."
This prohibition was not against the Protestant bibles only, for the fourth clause in the Index is a warning against Catholic bibles as well, "bibliorum Catholicis autoribus versorum."
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