Is It God's Word?

I just finished the tome of that name. It was written (most definitely) by Joseph Wheless, a Judge and Associate Editor of the American Bar Association Journal, in 1926. Judge Wheless is referring in his book of course to the Bible and I'd like to devote this unapologetically long blog to the book. I'm glad to say that the book itself is online in its entirety (and if you want a local copy why not grab mine), but if you're anything like me you don't like reading too much text from a monitor (so I probably should apologize for the length of this blog - sorry!) and there's nothing like having a book to sideline and underline and even read in the bath – all things you can't or shouldn't do with a PC or laptop. I am admittedly then the proud owner of a seriously underlined, sidelined and waterlogged (steamlogged?) Is It God's Word? I encourage you to buy your own if you want more (much more) of the sort of things you find below – I present the merest smattering of points that particularly impressed me. Let's let Judge Wheless speak for himself, as he lets the Bible speak for itself – by so doing you can perhaps decide for yourself whether or no the Bible is the perfect (in every way) word of a perfect (in every way) God.

[Moses] As the story is recorded in Exodus ii, the princess of Pharaoh spied the ark in the Nile, “had compassion on” the babe and rescued him; afterwards, when he grew, “he became her son.” Now the remarkable incident: “And she called his name Moses: and she said, because I drew him out of the water” (Ex. Ii 10). What has “Moses” to do with “drew” out of the water? In English speech nothing discernible; but in the original Hebrew it is a plain play on words: “and she called his name Mosheh ...Because meshethi (I drew) him out of the waters” (Heb., mashad, to draw). The curious thing about it all is that the Egyptian princess is represented as speaking in Hebrew, or Chaldee, and making a pun- name for her protégé in that evidently unknown tongue. That it hardly happened that way is obvious. The birth, rescue, and “christening” of Moses have every indicium of myth... It may be remarked, parenthetically, that Moses nowhere claims to have written the Five Books, nor does the Bible elsewhere impute their authorship to Moses. It is only “the law” which is elsewhere attributed to Moses. Indeed, the books are written throughout in the third person – Moses did or said this or that; never, in all the relations of the doings and sayings of Moses does “I did” or “I said” once occur, except when Moses is recorded as making a speech..if Moses had written the books, surely be would have at least once written the name of the Pharaoh of the Exodus. But several times in the verses cited is it said, as often elsewhere in the Five Books, “Pharaoh king of Egypt,” as if Pharaoh were the name of the king instead of simply the official title of the ruler. In Genesis xxxvi a list of Edomite kings is given and it is said: “And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel” (xxxvi,31). It was some five hundred years after the death of Moses before Saul became the first king (1095 B.C.); hence Genesis could not have been written by Moses, or by any one until after the time when there were kings over Israel so that such a comparison could be possible. Again, in Judges xvii, 6 it is stated: “In those days there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes”; which shows two things: that the Book of Judges was not written until during or after the time when there were kings in Israel; and that the Five Books of Moses, containing the laws of Yahveh, were not written by Moses, and that the “law” claimed to have been “given” at Sinai was not existent; for that “law” specially forbade and fearfully denounced idolatry and minutely governed the whole lives of the Chosen People, leaving nothing to choice.

[Contradictions] If we find that the "Word of God" tells the same story in two or more totally different and contradictory ways, or that one inspired writer is "moved by the Holy Ghost" of Yahveh to tell his tale one way, and another inspired writer is moved to tell it in another way, totally different and contradictory in the essence of the alleged facts of the same event, we are forced to know and confess that one or the other record at least is wanting in God's inspiration of truth and is inevitably false. This being so, and there being no possible way of determining which version is the false and which may not be, both must be rejected as equally false, or equally uninspired and incredible; and in either event, the theory of inerrant inspiration and of the revealed truth of the "Word of God" is irreparably destroyed.

[God rests on the Sabbath:] All the eight works of creation were stuffed into six days, so that Yahveh could rest on the seventh day, the Jewish Sabbath, or day of rest. In order to accomplish this, and Yahveh thus be made to appear to institute and sanction the Sabbath, two distinct works, the creation of the seas and the dry land and the creation of trees and plants, are assigned to one, the third day; and two other works, the creation of the animals, and the creation of man and woman, are crowded into another day, the sixth -- eight distinct works in all. This obvious conclusion it is pleasing to find confirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia -- which makes many admissions without seeming to see their logically fatal effects: "The third day and the sixth day are distinguished by a double work, while each of the other four days has only one production assigned to it"; and it adds, curiously for it, but acutely and correctly: "Hence the suspicion arises that the division of God's creative acts into six days is really a schemation employed to inculcate the importance and the sanctity of the seventh day" (Vol. VII, p. 311)!

[One language or many?] Chapter x [of Genesis] tells of the families and descendants of the triplet sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet; and how their prolific offspring, in only about 144 years since the Flood, had grown into many different nations; and how these nations, of which about a score are particularly named, with their great cities, were "divided in their lands, every one after his tongue" -- which would imply that each nation already spoke a different language; that there were, indeed, as many tongues as there were nations sprung so suddenly from the three sons of Noah. This inference that there were already as many different languages as there were nations would seem to be strengthened by the repetition of that positive statement three times, after the account of the off-spring of each of the three sons of Noah. For the sacred record, after each catalogue of off-sprung nations, asserts that thus the several nations "were divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations" (Gen. X, 5, 20, 31). And for a final assurance it is in the closing verse averred: "These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the Flood" (x, 32). And all these nations were descended from three sons of Noah, in only 144 years; though it took the seed of Abraham 215 years to attain to merely seventy souls...Had one read this in some less inspired and sacred chronicle, some more human record, less would be the surprise when one reads the first verse of the very next chapter: "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." Next follows a truly remarkable migration; all the people of the earth, all these widely scattered nations in their great kingdoms and cities scattered from Euphrates to the sea, suddenly abandoned home, and city, and kingdom, and strangely journeyed from the east (though many must have come from the west, from towards the sea) and "they found a plain in the land of Shinah; and they dwelt there" (xi, 2) camped in the open plain, without house or home. "And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick; ... and let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto Heaven; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (xi, 3, 4). We need not stop to wonder why these nations had left their kingdoms and cities to come out in the plain and build one city for them all; nor how, speaking each a different language, they could talk understandingly together to concert such ambitious projects.

[Who did it?] In 2 Samuel xxiv, 1 it is recorded: "Yahveh moved David to number Israel and Judah"; of the same incident it is recorded in I Chronicles xxi, 1 that "Satan provoked David to number Israel" --a strange confusion of personages.

[Who killed Goliath?] Every child in Sunday school knows the heroic encounter between David and Goliath; how the stripling David went out unarmed save with a sling and some pebbles against the full-panoplied giant; how David put a pebble in his sling as he ran forward, "and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth" (i Sam. xvii, 49); and David took Goliath's sword and cut off the dead giant's head (xvii, 51); and David took the head "and brought it to Jerusalem; and he put his armor in his tent" (xvii, 54). David, a country shepherd, just come to camp to bring dinner, would hardly have had a tent; and surely he did not take Goliath's head to Jerusalem; for Jerusalem was the stronghold of the Jebusites, and not till David was seven and a half years king, many years after, did he enter even a small corner of Jerusalem, Sion. But the tale is entirely robbed of the romance and heroics by the flat contradiction of the whole episode; David did not kill Goliath at all. Some forty years later, when Saul was long since dead, and when David was king and at war with the Philistines, "there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" (2 Sam. xxi, 19)! Here the translators slip in another "pious fraud": the verse is made to read "slew the brother of Goliath" -- the words the brother of being in italics to indicate to the knowing that they are not in the original; nor are they, as any honest scholar will admit. The Revised Version fairly omits "the brother of," but puts these words in the margin, with a reference to 1 Chronicles xx, 5. Here it is quite differently related that "Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam." Further confusion is furnished by the duplicated verses about the giant in Gath, with six fingers and six toes on each hand and foot, who like Goliath "defied Israel," and "Jonathan the son of Shimeah the brother of David slew him" (2 Sam. xxi, 20, 21, and 1 Chron. xx, 6, 7). [My note for any JW readers here: check the Insight book under the heading “Goliath” for a frank admission of something rather impossible if the Bible is perfect and inspired – a scribal error.]

[The Rabbits of Israel:] In Bishop Ussher's year 1706, or 215 years after the original promise to Father Abraham, the Jacob family migrated into Egypt, having multiplied to only seventy persons [Stephen says: "threescore and fifteen i.e., seventy-five] souls" (Acts vii, 14).] in all the 215 years since Abraham; though we have just seen that Abimelech had complained to Isaac many years before that his Israelites were "much mightier" than the whole Philistine nation (Gen. xxvi, 16). Now “there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we" (Ex. i, 6-9); so he proposed making slaves of them, and proceeded at once to carry this plan into effect (i, 10, 11) without opposition. We know through revelation that the Chosen sojourned in Egypt 430 years (Ex. xii, 40); and Yahveh, whose word is sure, said: "Of a surety ... they shall afflict them four hundred years" (Gen. xv, 13), as is vouched for by the high priest in Acts vii, 6. The oppression naturally began only when the Chosen were made slaves by this Pharaoh "which knew not Joseph" (Ex. i, 8), and it lasted four hundred years; this necessarily dates the beginning of the bondage from only thirty years after the arrival of the Jacob family; so that in these mere thirty years the seventy had become "more and mightier" than all the empire of Egypt! Passing strange indeed. And, stranger still that without a word of protest or a blow of resistance this "More and mightier" Chosen People should submit to be made a race of slaves by a weaker and inferior nation, passeth all but inspired understanding.

[Poor Moses:] Moses was persuaded, and he took his heathen wife and two sons (Ex. iv, 20; xviii, 3), or one son (Ex. ii, 22; iv, 25), or left them all at home (Ex. xviii, 2, 3), and started on the trek across the desert to Egypt, carrying the conjuring rod with him. And the parting word of the God to Moses was a direction to tell Pharaoh: "Israel is my son, even my firstborn: And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn" (Ex. iv, 23). And maybe for practice in slaying, for no other reason appears, the God soon sought Moses himself for his first victim; for as Moses, with his wife and one child passed by a certain inn on the way, Yahveh the God waylaid Moses "and sought to kill him"! (Ex. iv, 24).

[The 10 plagues: pay particular attention to the fate of the poor cows:] Almost skeptical wonder is caused, in these modern times, by the series of inspired narratives of the famous plagues of Egypt. One is astonished at the preliminary miracle, the transformation of Aaron's rod into a snake and back again, which Yahveh wrought in order to prove to Pharaoh that Yahveh was indeed the Lord. But the Pharaoh was not taken aback by this at all, for at his call his sorcerers and magicians turned their rods into snakes (Ex. vii, 10-12), and honors thus far were even, although it is true that Aaron's rod swallowed up all the rods of the other conjurers. It is difficult at this distance of time and altered faith to quite understand the feat of Aaron's rod swallowing the other rods after they were turned from snakes to rods again, the swallowing act being more natural and reasonable while they were all snakes. The next wonder recorded is Aaron's stretching out his rod that had been a snake but was now a rod full of other rods that had been snakes and causing every drop of water in all Egypt to turn into blood. But the Pharaoh's heathen enchanters again did the very, same miracle (Ex. vii, 19-22). The principal marvel of this conjurer's miracle, it would seem to a detached observer, is that they could perform this second trick at all, as all the water in the kingdom, including that of the river Nile and that in every pool and vessel in the land, was already pure blood by the miracle of Aaron. The sacred text does not pause to explain this. The same curious phenomenon occurs with respect to the third plague; Aaron's conjuring up frogs out of the waters, which were not waters but blood. The frogs came "and covered the land of Egypt," and filled the river, the land, and the houses of Egypt. When it is straightway recorded that "the magicians did so with their enchantments" (Ex. viii, 5-7), one can only wonder where those enchanters' frogs came from, and what they covered, and how, seeing that Egypt was already full of frogs. At all events, honors were again even between Aaron and the enchanters. And the smell that they produced between them was something awful (viii, 14). Like miracles on the part of Yahveh and Aaron were performed in the plagues of the lice (viii, 17, 18) and of the flies (viii, 24), to the utter suffering of the Egyptian people, but all the glory this time was Yahveh's and Aaron's, as this was more sorcery than the Egyptian magicians had at their command on such short notice. So the enchanters and magicians all dropped out of the contest and left the field undisputed to Yahveh's and Aaron's plagueful miracles. This was just as well, for a few days afterwards they all got boils and blains (Ex. ix, 11), and could not have worked their magic to advantage. A plague of very remarkable consequences is next recorded in the inspired story. The Lord God of the Hebrews turned his attention to afflicting the dumb animal kingdom, which seemingly had little or nothing to do with the controversy between the King of Heaven and the Pharaoh of Egypt. The God sent a "very grievous murrain" on the Egyptian cattle of every kind, "and all the cattle of Egypt died" (Ex ix: 3-6). Think of it! in all Egypt, horses, asses, cows, oxen, sheep, camels, except those of the holy Israelites, all killed! Then, lo! no sooner had all the animals in the kingdom died, than the Lord Yahveh sent a plague of boils and Mains "upon man and upon beast," including the Egyptian magicians (ix, 10, 11) whose conjuring had been out-done by the miracles of Aaron. As the beasts were already all dead of the murrain (ix, 6), it may be wondered what was the point sending boils and blains upon them. But the very next plague showed that an unrecorded miracle must have intervened overnight, for all the dead animals are recorded as come to life. The proof of this unrecorded miracle is clear and logical: for Moses announced, after all the animals had died of the murrain (Ex. ix, 6) and then had been infested with boils and blains (ix, 9), that on the next day he would bring on a "very grievous hail" (ix, 18); and he considerately, this time, gave ample notice and chance of escape, and warned the Egyptians to gather up their cattle at once and get them under cover; for upon every man and beast which was left out in the open the hail should come down, and they should die; and some of the cattle were herded in, and some were left out in the fields (ix, 19-21). So those cattle killed of the murrain must have been resurrected overnight, or there would have been none alive to be herded in or left out to be killed again. The hail came as scheduled, mingled with fire, and smote man and beast and every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field, and destroyed Egypt (ix, 24, 25). Some may think this a good deal like poaching on the covenant of the rainbow, whereby Yahveh had promised no general destruction again by rain; but hail is rain frozen hard, and Egypt was not all the world; so there was a reasonable degree of difference. And when the Pharaoh saw the wrack and ruin of the hail, he said: "Yahveh is righteous" (ix, 27), as he might not have said if he had seen the Flood -- another difference. The plague of the locusts comes next in the sacred text; terrible swarms of these scourges blew up on the evil-laden east wind, so "that one cannot be able to see the earth" (Ex. x, 5), and "covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened" (x, 15); and "they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left" (x, 15). As every herb and tree in all Egypt had been already destroyed by the hail (ix, 25), the locusts must have had pretty poor picking. One is puzzled by the famous plague of Egyptian darkness which Yahveh next in his providence sent upon the doomed land -- "even darkness which may be felt" (Ex. x, 21). So dark it was for three whole days that it was as if they were nights, only much more so, for so thick was the darkness that lights could not be seen, except by the Chosen, who had light in their dwellings and could see as well as ever. To all human reasoning, this would seem to have been an excellent opportunity for the Chosen to have taken French leave under cover of the darkness; and this would have rendered unnecessary the fearful massacre of the first-born to soften Pharaoh's heart so often hardened by Yahveh to prevent him from letting the people go. This fatal climax of plagues is indeed terrible to contemplate. The angel of Yahveh, God of heaven, swept through the land of Egypt with a flaming sword dripping human and animal blood, and slaughtered the first-born of every family of Egypt, from the palace of the Pharaoh to the very prisons (Ex. xii, 29). And what is more curious, the angel slaughtered also the first-born of all cattle, although the cattle were already dead of the murrain (ix, 6), of the boils and blains (ix, 10), and of the hail (ix, 19-25). But wonders were as plentiful as black-berries in those days. One may well wonder why it was that after each terrible plague the God of the Hebrews "hardened Pharaoh's heart," even when he was very eager to let the people go; and why this God, "long-suffering and plenteous in mercy," did not use his influence to soften the Pharaoh's heart to let the children go in peace and in a hurry; for several times, after a peculiarly harrowing plague, the Pharaoh urged Moses and Aaron: "Go, and serve your God"; but every time the God said: "I have hardened his heart, that I might shew these my signs before him." After the plague of darkness and a stormy passage between Pharaoh and Moses and Aaron (Ex. x, 24-29) the latter doughty plague-invokers left the presence of the Pharaoh with a direful threat of what was to come (Ex. xi), and went forth to prepare for the great massacre of the first-born and for the exodus of the people from blood-stricken Egypt...But this is not all of this bit of Scripture, given for our instruction. That same night "at midnight Yahveh smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, and the firstborn of the cattle," of the Egyptians (Ex. xii, 29), though these same cattle had already been killed by each of several prior plagues: "all the cattle of Egypt died" of the murrain (Ex, ix, 6); then these dead cattle had boils (ix, 9); then they were all killed over again by the hail (ix, 25).

[The “rape” of Midian] 12,000 wonderful soldiers of Yahveh took, according to the inspired account, about 100,000 human captives, women and children, over 675,000 sheep, more than 72,000 beeves, and over 61,000 asses (xxxi, 32-34), 9, total of over 808,000 head of live animals, and brought them all across the deserts, "where there was no water," for some three hundred miles to the sacred camp. Yet with this addition of live-stock to their already great flocks and herds, "until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan" (Ex. xvi, 35), "we have nought save this manna" (Num. xi, 6). When the meek and holy man of God saw the multitude of female captives alive, "Moses was wroth with the officers of the host," and in his holy wrath he demanded: "Have ye saved all the women alive?" (Num. xxxi, 14, 15). Then, in the name of his God, the Merciful, he gave this bloody order, which if given by an Apache war-chief crazed by Christian fire-water, would have damned him and his tribe and the "Great Spirit" of his tribe to execration forever: "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves" (xxxi, 17)! So records the Holy Word of Yahveh, writ by "holy men of old as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The Chosen of Yahveh, to the eternal glory of God, straightway put into pious execution this holy command, and butchered some 68,000 women and young children; then these "peculiar treasures unto Yahveh" took the remaining 32,000 young virgins to glut their hallowed lusts upon in God-ordained rape! Verily, as the Psalmist sings, "the commandment of Yahveh is pure, enlightening the eyes" (Ps. xix, 8). And Yahveh got his fair share of the accursed booty, human and animal alike (Num. xxxi, 36-42).

[War with Canaan:] Then, Arad, King of the Canaanites, made a foray against Israel, and took some prisoners (Num. xxi, 1). Israel made a vow to Yahveh that if he would deliver the Canaanites into their hand, "then I will utterly destroy their cities" (xxi, 2); Yahveh accepted the bloody bargain, and Israel warred against the Canaanites, "and utterly destroyed them and their cities" (xxi, 3). This, as we shall soon see, is not true; for all through their sacred history we find Israel at war with the Canaanites: in Judges iii, after the "conquest," it is expressly stated: "Now these are the nations which Yahveh left, to prove Israel by them [although he had repeatedly declared he would destroy them all]: ... namely, ... all the Canaanites; ... and the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites" (Judges iii, 1, 3, 5).

[Poor Balaam:] "God [Elohim] came unto Balaam at night," and told him in a dream: "If the men [who were spending the night in town before returning] come to call thee, rise up, and go with them" (Numbers xxii, 20). So Balaam, taking God at his word, "rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab" (xxii, 21); "and Elohim's anger was kindled because he went" (xxii, 22) -- a strange caprice for a just God "in whom there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning."

[The law given to Moses:] All this was the work of Infinite Wisdom for forty days -- instead of teaching these holy ones civilization and humanity, and common decency and honesty, and, most of all, to tell the truth, instead of the atrocious things they say about God in what they presumptuously call his Holy Word. Four times amid the awful fires and thunders of Sinai the fateful injunction was reiterated by the God: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk"; and reams of stone tablets, or whatever other writing material was used, were covered with childish medicine-man hocus-pocus for telling whether a poor victim had leprosy, or some other loathsome infection, with maudlin incantations for his "purification," if by chance he recovered from it, all alone and unattended, in the filthy lazaretto outside the holy camp; but there is never a single word from the All-Wise God, the "Great Physician," who calls himself "the Lord who healeth thee," about how to cure leprosy and other diseases, or how to prevent them; nor a word anywhere of hygiene, sanitation, useful sciences, or any of the common humanities. If a few of these things had been laid down for the Chosen, they might have been, to their lasting advantage, somewhat less of a "peculiar people" and have escaped the ravages of some of the plagues which have devastated their promised land from that time to the present time.

[The people knew no better:] While Moses dallied forty-six days on the "Mount of the Gods" conning all those precious revelations of Yahweh's holy will, the Chosen got restless, and "wot not what has become" of Moses, and they demanded of Brother Aaron that he "make us Gods, which shall go before us" (Ex. xxxii, 1). Aaron took their jewelry, probably that stolen from the Egyptians several months before with their Yahweh's help, and melted it up and made the celebrated golden calf, designed no doubt after the sacred bull Apis of the Egyptians. And Aaron, high priest of Yahweh, proclaimed: "These be thy Gods [Elohim], O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (xxxii, 4); and said: "To-morrow is a feast to Yahweh" (xxxii, 5) -- proving that the calf represented Yahweh, and was celebrated by naked Baal-orgies to Yahweh (xxxii, 25). Yahweh, looking down from the Mount of the Gods, saw this and got very angry, and said to Moses: "Now let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them." But Moses cajoled the Lord Yahweh, saying that the Egyptians would mock Yahweh about it; and he reminded Yahweh of his promise, and asked him to "repent of this evil against thy people" (xxxii, 12). So Yahweh, who "is not a man that he should repent", thereupon “repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people" (xxxii, 14). Moses rushed down the mountain into the camp, and in his own righteous wrath willfully threw down and broke his two tables of stone (first edition), and smashed up the golden calf, ground it to powder, mixed the gold dust with water (where he got the water in the wilderness not being revealed), and made the 2,414,000 Chosen drink the very diluted mixture (xxxii, 15-20). The breaking of the two tables "written by the finger of God" is the greatest loss to humanity which all history records; the only specimen of the very handwriting of God ever in existence -- the most wonderful treasure of archaeology -- was irretrievably lost to mankind by this one peevish act of Moses. Yahweh next commanded the sons of Levi to "consecrate yourselves this day to Yahweh, that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day" (xxxii, 29), and to take their swords, and "slay every man his brother, his companion, and his neighbor" (xxxii, 27), throughout the camp and 3000 [The Vulgate reads: "about 23,000."] of the naked Chosen (xxxii, 25, 28) were murdered. This is the second wholesale massacre attributed to the God "whose name is Jealous" (Ex. xxxiv, 14). This fearful punishment was inflicted for the pretended offense of making a "graven image" of Yahweh himself, as to which there was as yet no law if we accept the tables of stone as containing the "ten commandments"; for Moses, according to that theory, was yet on Sinai receiving the law, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," when the golden calf was set up; and he rushed down from the mount and broke his tables of stone containing that very law before he had promulgated it. This was a case, therefore, not only of ignorantia juris on the part of the people, but of lex post facto on the part of the God. And, as we have seen, this was not a case of idolatry to "other gods before me," for the golden calf expressly represented the great Yahweh, whom the whole people, naked as in Baal worship, proclaimed: "These be thy Gods [Elohim], O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (xxxii, 4); and "Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to Yahweh" (xxxii, 5), proving their belief that they were worshipping their Rescuer from Egypt, and that they had no idea that Yahweh was any different from any other god, either in identity or in his form of worship.

[The Worth of a Slave:] If a child of Yahweh kills his slave, "he shall not be punished, for he is his money" (Exodus xxi, 21).

[Do Witches exist?] The "law of God" superstitiously and wickedly commands the murder of harmless old women: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ex. xxii, 18), though God knows there was no such thing as a witch! Countless cruel priestly and judicial murders have resulted through the ages from this "inspired" Bible mandate. This one sentence alone totally discredits the whole Hebrew Bible as the "Word of God."

[The “finding” of the law:] In 2 Kings xxii is the relation of a…notorious discovery. In the eighteenth year of the "good king" of Judah, Josiah, while repairs were being made in the temple, Hilkiah, the high priest, of a sudden "found the book of the law of Yahweh given by Moses," and by him ordered to be preserved in the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. xxxi, 24-26). Hilkiah announced his "discovery" to Shaphan the scribe, and they took the great "find" to Josiah the king. This remarkable "discovery" was made in the year 623, B.C., 828 years after the death of Moses. So the first proof that this "Book of the Law" never existed until it was "found" by the priest is that for 828 years nobody had ever heard of it, nor is it once mentioned in Hebrew Holy Writ, and not one of its many holy laws and commands had ever been observed, by priest, king, prophet, or people of Yahweh. While the deadly Ark was at Beth-shemesh, the whole town peeked into it, and evidently did not find the sacred relics, Aaron's conjuring rod, the pot of manna, the two tables of stone, or the Book of the Law. Yahweh murdered 50,070 of the citizens "because they looked into the ark of Yahweh" (1 Sam. vi, 19). But the book evidently did not exist...Huldah the priestess, who was consulted, reported that Yahweh was very angry, "because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods" (xxii, 17), exactly as they had done during their whole history. This is highly significant; it never once occurred to this female prophet, nor to any of the many inspired prophets who infested all the history of Israel, to prophesy that the Book of Law was laid away in the holy Ark, and could be found for the looking!

[The Hebrew Heathens:] When Rachel died, in pious grief "Jacob set up a pillar [mazzebah] upon her grave: that is the mazzebah of Rachel's grave unto this day" (Gen. xxxv, 20). Moses, when he came down from flaming Sinai, where he is said to have received the fearful law of Yahveh, straightway, in celebration, "builded an altar under the hill, and twelve mazzeboth [plural], according to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Ex. xxiv, 4). This proves that Moses did not receive the law there, for, but a few verses before, that law expressly declares: "Thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their mazzeboth" (xxiii, 24). But this evidently means the mazzeboth of the other peoples, the seven nations named in verse 23, not those of Yahveh, which were not then prohibited, as Moses' act in erecting the twelve pillars (mazzeboth) would indicate. So all through the Hebrew Scriptures occurs mention of this popular phallic practice as perfectly proper and orthodox. A thousand years later the raptured vision of the great prophet Isaiah foresaw the glory of Yahveh in the heathen lands, and this is his ideal of the supreme emblem of that glory: "In that day shall there be an altar to Yahveh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a mazzebah at the border thereof to Yahveh" (Isa. xix, 19). This is a further proof that there was yet no "law" of Yahveh condemning this phallic cult of the mazzebah, which Yahveh is quoted as having so fearfully denounced through Moses: "Neither shalt thou set thee up any mazzebah; which Yahveh thy God hateth" (Deut. xvi, 22).

[Yahweh and Baal: two names for the same person:] David's son Beeliada (i Chron. xiv, 7) elsewhere appears as Eliada (2 Sam. v, 16), showing that El [plural Elohim], God, was regarded as the equivalent of Baal; as also clearly appears in the name Bealiah, meaning "Yahveh is Baal," or Lord (1 Chron. xii 5). Crowning proof is the name given by David as a token of victory to a place where, he said: "Yahveh hath broken forth upon mine enemies ... Therefore he called the name of that place Baal-perazim" -- that is, "Baal, the lord of breaches" (2 Sam v, 20). El-Yahveh-Baal was all one and the same, in those good old Hebrew Bible days. [See the dictionary of Bible proper names in any well-edited Bible for scores of corroboratory Instances.]

[Many “other Gods” acknowledged:] "Thou shalt not bow down to their gods [elohim], nor serve them, nor do after their work; ... ye shall serve Yahveh thy God" (Ex. xxiii, 24). Never once in the law of Sinai, nor for a thousand years after, is there avowal or hint that "there is no other god"; but "other gods" galore are confessed. In the face of the commands of the "jealous God," his holy Chosen "feared Yahveh, and served their own gods" (2 Icings xvii, 33, et seq.)...Ahaz "sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him. ... But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel" (2 Chron. xxviii, 23). Yahveh threatened: "I will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt; and against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment" (Ex. xii, 12). This he did (Num. xxxiii, 4), proving that they existed to be smitten... All through the Old Testament the two names El and Yahveh appear, some preferring one, and some the other; and both inextricably connected with the Canaanitish form "Baal." The names of the Bible worthies are the clearest proof of this preference and combination of titles of their deity. The votaries of El bore his name: Israel, soldier of El; Reuel, friend of El; Samuel, Daniel, Ezekiel, Emmanuel, Elisha, Elihu, Elizabeth. The adorers of Yahveh or Jehovah chose his name: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joshua, Jehoahaz, Jehoshaphat, Jehu. Such names as Elijah and Joel combined the two. The names of Baal and Bel shared the same honors: Gideon was nick-named Jerub-baal, which seems to combine Jehovah and Baal. The name of Abimelech, a son of Gideon, who set himself up briefly, during the days of the judges, as first king over Israel, means "Moloch is my father." One of the sons of Saul was named Eshbaal, "son of Baal"; one of the sons of David was Beeliada, "whom Baal has known" (1 Chron. xiv, 7), and whose name is also given under the form Eliada (2 Sam. v, 16), showing that El and Baal were interchangeable names. This is also shown in the name of one of the "mighty men" of David, Beal-iah, "Yahveh is Baal" or Lord, and in Jezebel, both perfect combinations of the two heathen (Israelite and Canaanite) names for "Lord." That Baal, Bel, and El were equivalent terms for "Lord," but that Yahveh preferred the figurative term "my husband" to the more formal "Lord," and that a customary name for Yahveh was "Baal," he himself is quoted as declaring: "And it shall be at that day, saith Yahveh, that thou shalt call me Ishi [my husband]; and shalt call me no more Baali [my Lord]" (Hosea ii, 16).

[Strong stuff:] This Hebrew El-Elohe-Yishra-el, as he is dubbed by Jacob (Gen. xxxiii, 20), is beyond all odds the most hateful and execrable character in all literature, sacred or profane, according to the attributes of his Godhead ascribed to him by his own inspired biographers. The pagan gods of Greece are sung by Pope as

"Gods partial, vengeful, changeable, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, and lust"

The Hebrew-pagan God Yahveh has all the gods of Greece and of every known theogony paled into innocuous shades of villainy by comparison. Yahveh, to credit his inspired biography, is the greatest criminal on record; he reeks with the blood of murders unnumbered, and is personally a murderer and an assassin, by stealth and treachery; a pitiless monster of bloody vengeances; a relentless persecutor of guilty and innocent alike; the most raging and terrifying bully; fickle and changeable as chameleon Fortune; a synonym for partiality and injustice; a vain braggart; a false promiser; an arrant and shameless liar "and the father of it." He has repeated fornications and adulteries to his credit, besides being a shameless procurer. Of every commandment except the self- glorifying first he is a chronic breaker...from "In the beginning" of Genesis, to the closing blast, "Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse," of Malachi, there is not to be found -- I challenge its production -- one single good, honest, true, faithful, decent, or righteous action which it is even alleged that this Hebrew Yahveh ever did or thought of doing. If the Veiled Prophet could make publicly the confession quoted above, may not a Christian, when now he has come to know his God, in contrition confess to himself:

"What a thrice-doubled dupe was I
To take this Ogre for a God
And worship this foul fiend!"

[E.G.:] And "again the anger of Yahveh was kindled against Israel,"for what reason I cannot clearly gather, "and he moved David to number Israel and Judah," and because David did so, Yahveh sent his only angel and murdered 70,000 of his Chosen, from Dan to Beersheba, in one day (2 Sam. xxiv, 15).

[Prophecies of Christ:] Ample stores of alleged "prophecy of Messiah" were at hand, in the Scriptures. Of these prophecies the most curious feature, betraying a blood-relationship to Delphic oracles, is their utter meaninglessness, or their capacity to mean anything or everything according to the necessities of the person invoking them to serve selfish purposes or the cause he seeks to promote. One would think, it may be remarked in passing, that an All-wise God, intent upon revealing his awful purposes for the future of his Chosen People and in the instance of the Christ, for the redemption of all the human race -- would speak, not in "dark sayings," but in plain, intelligible Hebrew, so that everyone might understand the prophecy and recognize clearly its wonderful fulfillment. Thus only, one would think, could Yahveh's own test of true prophecy be intelligently and certainly applied when a question arose: "If the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Yahveh hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously" (Deut. xviii, 22).

[Genealogies of Jesus:] Matthew records twenty-eight generations between David and Joseph; Luke records forty-three generations, every name but three between David at one end and Joseph at the other being totally different. Matthew derives Joseph from David through Solomon and Bathsheba, and through Roboam, son of Solomon, down to "Joseph the son of Jacob." Luke derives the ancestry from David through "Nathan, the son of David," down to "Joseph, the son of Heli." But in either event Jesus could not be the son of Joseph, and hence of David, if the angel spoke true, whom Matthew quotes as having said to Joseph in a dream: "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost...And thou shalt call his name Jesus." (Matt. i, 20, 21) For as "Joseph, thou son of David" was not, according to this dream, the father of Jesus, either line of descent from David, whether Matthew's or Luke's, was broken, and the rather attenuated blood of David did not at all pass into Jesus.

[Son of God or son of man?] Paul, the most dogmatic theologian of them all, admits that Jesus Christ was altogether human in origin, for he "was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. i, 3), and was simply "declared to be the Son of God [Yahveh] with power, according to the spirit of holiness" (i, 4). Paul admits the manhood of the Christ: "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. ii, 5). The Christ of Peter and Paul was not a god, but a mere man, "approved of God," and endowed with divine gifts, but yet a mere human being. Mark, the earliest of the gospel biographers, mentions no miraculous or virgin birth at all, either of Jesus or of John; Mark is therefore a potent witness 'ab silentio' against the controverted fact...There in the temple, when the Child was found, Mary herself positively denies the divine paternity of her Child, and rightly calls Joseph its father; for when she found the Child, she said: "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father [Joseph] and I have sought thee sorrowing" (ii, 48). Jesus here seems to deny the paternity of Joseph, saying: "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (ii, 49) or, as the Revised Version honestly translates: "I must be in my Father's house." But both Joseph and Mary "understood not the saying which he spake unto them" (ii, 50) -- thus proving that they knew him for their own flesh-and-blood Child, and had no thought or knowledge of the dogma of divine paternity.

[Out of Egypt:] We have already examined the so-called "Out of Egypt" prophecy of Hosea (Hos. xi, 1), and have seen that it meant nothing whatever about Jesus. It is pleasing to know from Luke that we are right on this point. For Luke goes inspiredly into the young life of the Child, and relates it in no little detail. We see Luke's shepherds find the Babe in his manger (Luke ii, 16); then, still there, eight days afterwards the Child is circumcised and named Jesus (ii, 21); and then the Virgin Mother, dogmatized as immaculate and ever-pure, remained there for another thirty-three days, purging herself for her "purification according to the law of Moses" (ii, 22; Lev. xii, 2-4). Then followed the several visits of Simeon (ii, 25-35) and of Anna (ii, 36-38), how long they lasted being unrevealed. Before either of the visits, however we have at least forty days in which the Child remained in his lowly Bethlehem manger, instead of flitting to Egypt the night of the visit of the Magi. All this time, too, the Immaculate Mother of God was "unclean" by the holy law, and could not so much as touch her own Holy Child (Lev. xii, 4) -- a truly godly prohibition to a mother with a new born babe. And then, Luke assures us: "When they had performed all things according to the law of Yahveh, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth" (ii, 39). So they did not flee into Egypt, as Matthew records. For upon returning directly to their home in Nazareth (Luke ii, 39), there they remained throughout the childhood and youth of their son Jesus, and there "the child grew, and waxed strong" (ii, 40), never leaving home except once a year to go to Jerusalem with his parents.

[When was Jesus anointed?] Matthew states that two days before the Passover (at which he was to be betrayed) "Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper"; and "there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat"; whereat "his disciples ... had indignation" for the waste (Matt. xxvi, 6-8). Mark's account is the same, in substance (Mark xiv, 1-4), but he specifies that the box of ointment was "of spikenard, very precious" (xiv, 3), and that only "some" of the disciples were annoyed at the waste. Both lay the scene, as we have seen, two days before the last Passover at which Jesus was ever present, just before his betrayal and death and after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and in the house of Simon the leper. But Luke (chapter vii) makes a very different story of it: the time was early in Jesus' ministry, just after John the Baptist had sent two of his disciples to Jesus, in the earliest days, to inquire: "Art thou he that should come? Or look we for another?" (vii, 19, 20). Then "one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house [in "a city called Nain" (vii, 11)], and sat down to meat" (vii, 36). Now and here it was that "behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner" came in with the alabaster box of ointment; and she washed "his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them [his feet] with the ointment" (vii, 37, 38). Nobody said anything about the waste -- the disciples were not even invited to the dinner. The Pharisee is here called Simon, but could not have been the leper, for lepers were "unclean," and no one would have eaten with them. Moreover this dinner was two years before the last Passover; and the feet, not the head, were anointed. But the greatest surprise comes from the inspired record of John (chapter xii). The event takes place "six days before the Passover," and before the entry into Jerusalem and in the house of Lazarus "which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair" (xii, 8). It was "one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot" (xii, 4), who alone complained about the waste, and said that the ointment should have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor (xii, 5). In chapter xi, John tells of a sick man named Lazarus and of "Mary and her sister Martha" (xi, 1); and makes the positive identification: "It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair" (xi, 2) -- though the story of her doing it is deferred until the next chapter. We are pardonably surprised to learn that it was this friend of Jesus who was the "woman of the city, which was a sinner" (Luke vii, 37), for we had not previously suspected her virtue, and had thought it was Mary Magdalene, the "soiled dove" out of whom he had "cast seven devils" (Mark xvi, 9; Luke viii, 2). Inspiration is here again seriously at odds.

[The resurrection:] The contradictions here are very glaring, and are of the highest importance. Matthew avers that, after the two Marys arrived at the sepulchre, a lightning-faced angel descended before their eyes, accompanied by an earthquake, and rolled away the stone and sat on it outside the sepulchre. This second "great earthquake," which none of the others saw or felt or mention, leaves the armed Roman guard stretched out like dead men; the angel speaks to the scared women; neither of Matthew's two women enters the sepulchre; but the angel announces the resurrection and sends them away to tell the news. Mark's three women see that the stone is already rolled away, and they enter into the sepulchre and find one young man sitting on the right side. Luke's whole trompe of women find the stone removed, and they all enter into the sepulchre, and find two men standing by. John, who was there himself after Mary Magdalene called him, states that Mary Magdalene went alone to the sepulchre, and found the stone taken away; but no angel of Yahveh, nor one young man sitting, nor two men standing by are mentioned. Mary Magdalene calls Peter and John, and they find the sepulchre empty except for the grave-clothes. When Peter and John had found nothing and gone home, then the Magdalene looked in and saw two angels, one at each end of the place where the body had been. But none of these saw a guard of keepers scared by a great earthquake. Mark (xvi, 5) and Luke (xxiv, 5) say that it was the women who were affrighted; Mark says that "they went out quickly, and fled" (xvi, 8); according to Luke, they "bowed down their faces to the earth" (xxiv, 5). Matthew's angel announces the resurrection as he sits outside on the stone, and sends the two women to tell the disciples, adding that Jesus had gone ahead into Galilee, where he would see them; and the women ran to bring the disciples word. Mark has his young man, sitting inside, make the announcement, and direct the three women to go tell the disciples; but being afraid they told no man. Luke says his two men, standing by, told the troupe of women that Jesus was risen, and they went, without being instructed and told all the disciples; and Peter alone went and looked in, did not enter the sepulchre, and went away wondering. John says that Mary Magdalene alone went to the sepulchre, found it empty and saw no one, and then went and told him and Peter, and both went running, looked in, entered, and found only the linen clothes and saw no one, and went home. Then it was that Mary Magdalene a second time looked in, and saw two angels, who spoke to her, asking what she sought. But they did not announce the resurrection.

[Sound familiar?] Of Christian sects or denominations, each founded upon chosen texts, there are in fact a much greater number, some hundreds, each quite out of harmony with all the others. Each by its sectarian votaries is fondly held to be the sole inheritor of saving truth, and can point with pride to the inerrant texts where the legacy of truth is made to it alone. But every other sect disputes this reading, and with equal assurance and no less pride can point to yet other texts of the true Testament which nullify the pretensions of all the others and leave itself the sole and universal heir to saving truth. The trouble with the dogma of inspired infallible truth is in the utter riot of diversity of truth in the sacred book, each truth inferentially and necessarily discounting or discrediting all the others. For is it not true that of two or more contradictory dogmas or doctrines, while none may be true, not more than one can possibly be? "All scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. iii, 16). The truth of this inspired dogma, and of the papal complements to it, above quoted, is so easily tested and proved -- or disproved -- by the simplest and most infallible of tests, that an honest mind can but candidly apply the test. The simple expedient of pairing off Bible texts one against another, or, as it were, "matching inspirations," is an infallible way of testing the truth and harmony of inerrant inspiration -- and its revelations will be found astounding. No single dogmatic doctrine or inspired truth will be found in all the New Testament which is not contradicted, denied, refuted, repudiated, and made ridiculous by some equally inspired truth uttered by the same, or by some other equally inspired, dogmatist.

[The Second coming:] The most unequivocal and positive of the teachings of Jesus and of his several apostles alike is the immediate visible "second coming" of Christ, the end of the world, the final judgment, and the prompt establishment of the Messianic Kingdom of Yahveh and David on the new earth -- all this being the most potent propaganda of the new religion. The Master commanded: "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. x, 7) The immediacy of the coming is proclaimed by him in the most positive and unmistakable terms repeatedly: “Verily, I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." (Matt. xxvi, 28) He adds reassurance to make assurance of the coming and the kingdom doubly sure: "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." (Matt. xxiv, 34; Mark xiii, 80) The same doctrine, in almost identical words, is repeated in Mark ix, 1 and Luke ix, 27, and is implied in the remark of Jesus after the jealous altercation between Peter and John: "Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me." (John xxi, 22) The end should come so quickly that the disciples should not have covered even the little territory of Palestine: "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." (Matt. x, 23) But why, then, one wonders, should they be again commanded: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark xvi, 1.5) The assurance of the speedy fulfillment of the prophesied end of all things is reaffirmed, somewhat tardily, in the Revelation -- written some 100 years after Christ: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: ... for the time is at hand." (Rev. i, 1, 3) And again: "Behold, I come quickly." (Rev. iii, 11) The notion is repeated by Paul: "For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." (Heb. x, 37) And reiterated by John: "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time." (i John ii, 18) Paul declares that the great day is so close at hand that he enjoins total carnal abstinence as a sort of preparatory purification: "But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none," etc. (1 Cor. vii, 29) And he tells the same Corinthians, who were evidently getting impatient, that the coming was to be during the very lives of themselves; that they would not die, but should hear the fateful trump sound in their living ears; that those already dead should be promptly resurrected, and the yet living would be "changed": "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we [the yet living] shall be changed." (1 Cor. xv, 51, 52) The Master again preaches preparedness for his early advent: "Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not." (Luke xii, 40) Peter joins in the refrain of watchful waiting: "But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." (1 Peter iv, 7) He paints a lurid picture of how it is to happen: "But the day of Yahveh will come as a thief in the night; in the the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." (2 Peter iii, 10) Paul, with his chronic cocksureness about everything which he is totally ignorant of, also tells us explicitly and fully just how it is going to happen: "For the Lord [Yahveh] shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thess. iv, 16-18) But as the brethren, despite all these assurances of quick dividends of glory, were apparently getting restless for the grand catastrophe and spectacle which was so tardy, James, own brother of Jesus, cajoles them: "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." (James v, 7, 8) Paul also finds himself under the necessity of preaching patience in order to save his own reputation as an inspired prophet: "And the Lord direct your hearts ... into the patient waiting for Christ." (2 Thess. iii, 5) And yet again, he coaxes those of the Hebrews who had fallen into the faith and were chafing at its unfulfilled promises: "For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." (Heb. x, 36, 37) But the clamor for fulfillment of these promises of the "second coming" became louder and more insistent, threatening the total discredit of the inspired promisers; the disappointment of the saints over the non-fulfillment of the reiterated assurances, promises, and prophecies, and the nature of their taunts, being voiced with very pertinent directness by those whom the crafty Peter dubs "scoffers": "And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (2 Peter iii, 4) This same crafty Peter, first pope of the new faith, himself makes a shifty pretended answer to these "scoffers," whereby he tries to squirm out of the situation created by the palpable failure of all the inspired predictions by himself and his confreres of the immediate end of all things: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter iii, 8) This, however, does not seem at all disingenuous and honest, and hardly meets the positive repeated assurances that "some standing here shall not taste of death" before the "second coming" -- that "this generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished," when "we that are alive" shall be "caught up" into glory. There seems to be a sad want of inspired truth, and even of common honesty, in solemnly declaring such awful events, which scared thousands into belief, and then deceived their terrified expectation. And it may be wondered how any of them ever persisted in their new faith after such patent deception. If inspiration is so out of joint with truth in this most positive of the declarations of Christ and his propagandists, the whole of their preachings and predictions may well be subject to some discount, if not entire discredit.

[The True Fruits of Christianity:] When, under the influence of the inspired and contrary preachments above dinned, coaxed, and threatened into one, one forswears his reason and becomes so like a little child as to believe, these are among the pious duties and obligations to which he is devoted, by the Master's own avowal, and for his own sweet sake and that of the holy Christian religion: "The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." (Matt. x,21) A Christian ideal realized untold times during the long dark ages of faith, which to-day still flourishes, dividing the Christian world into hostile camps of bigoted and intolerant factions. And the promise of reward for so great inhumanity is very incentive to those who believe it: "Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." (Matt. xix, 29) In countless homes and hearts, blighting the tenderest love, the curse of the inspired ban has been felt: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for ... what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" (2 Cor. vi, 14, 15) Of all the inspired words which we have quoted and commented on, the only provable ones which have proved true are those of the last few paragraphs, and the sinister, cruel, and fearful sentences of the Man of Nazareth, fondly called the "Prince of Peace" -- words which have borne the bitterest harvest of blood, and blight, and hell-on-earth through all the ages since they were uttered: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matt. x, 34-37; Luke xii, 51-53)

[Saved or not?] The culminating doctrine of the whole series, perfectly typical of untruth of it all, is Paul's astonishing assertion: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse" (Gal. iii, 13). Let us apply a moment's thought to this dogma of Paul and the priests. According to the infamy imputed to Yahveh, he damned all future humanity into hell for the sin of the fabled first man. Awful, if true; all babes, however innocent; all men and women, however nobly good and virtuous in life -- all damned in hell irretrievably because of One; for "in Adam all men die" (1 Cor. xv, 22), "and so death passed upon all men" (Rom. v, 12). But after four thousand years Yahveh, who had done this, relenting, sent his "only begotten Son" to die and so save the world from this curse. Christ died that all might live; he redeemed us from the curse. This is just and righteous, however tardy, if true. As all were damned, whether they knew it or not, whether they believed it or not, whether they had sinned or not, surely, in righting the wrong, all should be saved quite as universally and effectively. But no; the Christian plan of salvation does not work that way. Its terms and conditions are: "Believe and ye shall be saved; believe not, and ye are damned already" (Mark xvi, 16; John iii, 18). Damned nolens volens: undamned only volens and credulous. Be born and be damned; believe unbelievable things and be saved, or remain damned: such is the "sacred science of Christianity."

[What now?] The Christ, in the text on salt of lost savor, quoted above, was inveighing against the superstitious old Hebrew law, in himself now fulfilled, and said to have been handed down by word of mouth from his own putative Father, Yahveh God of Israel. In the entire Bible there is no Christian God but Yahveh, and the Christ is his Son. The description and condemnation thus voiced by the Christ are found to fit perfectly the ancient fables and superstitions both of the old and the new "revelations." The theories, long and fondly held, of the divine revelation, inspiration, and inerrant truth of these old Jewish books as the unimpeachable "Word of God" have lost their savor, and must be cast out. The most and worst that follows from the discovery that the Bible is not the "Word of God" -- merely Jewish fables of Yahveh and his Son -- is that God has not seen fit to deliver any written "word" or "law," either to the ancient Hebrews, or to the Christians, or to anybody else. Possibly the Supreme Architect of the universe, who framed all this wonder of the world and established its immutable laws, could, and would if he so pleased and saw fit, find some way and means to make written revelation of himself and of his will for the behoof of the human race. But he who ordered the harmony of the worlds and ordained their divine laws, would in such event, we may do him credit to believe, so reveal and state his will and laws to man that man would know veritably two things: that the God made the revelation, and what he said and meant. It would be certain and unmistakable, so that it could be known for sure to all men. It would be as simple, too, as two and two are four; so simple and sure that the wayfaring man, though a fool, could not err therein. There would be no danger of losing one's soul through the impossibility of understanding the revelation; no occasion for "heresies," and schisms, and sects, with different and discordant interpretations of it, as with present revelations of Yahveh and Son by the mouth of priests and clergy. A God who could not or would not reveal his awful will for the eternal destiny of man better and more truly than in these "inspired revelations" of Bible and theology is not fit to be a God or to be entrusted with the fate of a human soul. A man's last will and testament, so dubiously authenticated, would never be admitted to probate; and with such darkened and contradictory dispositions, would by any competent court be held "void for uncertainty," and the testator declared intestate, if not insane. Since, evidently, the true, all-wise Creator God has not revealed thus autobiographically his Word, his creature man is evidently in need of no such revelation and is none the worse off without it…To relegate angels, devils, witches, and miracles to the limbo of childish fancy along with Santa Claus yet leaves place -- freer, better place -- in the hearts and lives of men for truth, honor, and justice, by freeing their minds from "complete paralysis of the intelligence, resulting from irrational surrender to the blight of theological dogma" …The sum total and golden substance of truth of them all is synthesized by a creedless modern seer in the tocsin couplet of the Kasidah:

"Do good, for good is good to do:
Spurn bribe of heaven and threat of hell."