The Bible of Bibles; Or, Twenty-Seven "Divine" Revelations

by Kersey Graves; Lydia M. Graves

CHAPTER XXXI.—CHARACTER OF THE JEWISH PROPHETS.

It is a circumstance indicative of the natural moral defects of the Jewish character, that their most "holy men," who were assumed to be familiar with the counsels of Infinite Wisdom, and on terms of daily intercourse with Jehovah, yet were, according to their own history, men of such defective moral habits and moral character as to be unreliable either as examples of moral rectitude, or with respect to their prophetic utterances. We will here present a brief sketch of the character of the principal prophets, drawn from their own "inspired writings:"—

The leading prophet Isaiah says, "The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink. They are swallowed up of wine. They are out of the way through strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment" (Isa. xxiv. 7).

Here is a sweeping charge against all the prophets,—not one of them excepted. If they err in vision (of course he means spiritual vision), then what reliance can be placed in their prophecies, especially if it is true, as he declares in chap. ix., that "the prophets teach lies"? Then we can not confide implicitly in any thing they say. This conclusion, and also the foregoing portraiture of their character, is confirmed by Hosea. 2; who says, in chap. ix., that "the Lord will punish the prophets for their sins and their iniquities;" also, "The prophet is a snare in all his ways; the prophet is a fool," &c. (Hos. ix. 7, 9). Micah says that they divined for money, and made the people err. What confidence, we ask, can be placed in men, either for truthfulness or as moral teachers, who are thus represented by their own historians and their own friends to be almost destitute of moral principle? Each one denounces all the others. The implied meaning in each case seems to be, "Take my pills, and beware of counterfeits." Zechariah, who was one of them, declared the Lord would drive them all out of the land with the unclean spirits (Zech. xiii. 2). We should not, however, be surprised to find them possessing such a character, when their God, Jehovah, is represented as being no better, and is on the same moral plane. They, in fact, make him responsible for all their moral derelictions and sinful acts by representing him as being the author or instigator. "If a prophet be deceived,... I the Lord have deceived that prophet" (Ezek. xiv. 9).

Here the word prophet is used in a general sense, so as to imply that none are excepted. Jeremiah takes God at his word when he exclaims, "O Lord, thou hast deceived me" (Jer. xx. 7).

Here, it will be observed, the moral character of Jehovah and his prophets were all cast in the same imperfect mold.

That superstition reigned supreme in the very highest order of the Jewish minds, to the exclusion of science, is shown by some of the wild, superstitious freaks of the prophets. Isaiah traveled through Egypt and Ethiopia three years stark naked (Isa. xx. 3). Such a disgusting exhibition, if attempted in this age of civilization, would terminate in a few hours by the lodgment of the lunatic in the calaboose. Jehovah, it appears, first prompted the act, and afterwards spoke approving of it by saying it was performed by "my servant Isaiah" (Isa. xx. 3).

Ezekiel and Habakkuk both would have us believe that God seized them by the hair of the head, and carried them,—the former, the distance of eight miles; and the latter, three hundred, miles. How Jehovah himself traveled while performing this feat of carrying the prophets is not explained. It must have been rather an unpleasant way of traveling, and must have caused some serious perturbation of mind lest the hair-hold should slip, and precipitate them to the ground. If this mode of travel could have been continued, it would have superseded the necessity of railroads.

Ezekiel, we are told, lay three hundred and ninety days on his left side, and forty days on his right side; and then, having swallowed a roll of parchment with the aid of Jehovah (Ezek. iii. 1), he was prepared for business. We are not told what was the object in swallowing such a formidable document, or how he managed to get into his stomach an article having a diameter four times that of his throat. Jeremiah wore cords around his neck, and a yoke on his back (rather a singular place for a yoke). Hosea claimed that God commanded him twice to go and marry a whore (Hos. i. Z). This looks like a connivance at, if not a tacit indorsement of, whoredom. Ezekiel relates a "story" about being carried by "the hand of the Lord," and set down among some old dry bones, which he proceeded to invest with human flesh and sinews, and then drew skins over them to hold the flesh and bones together (Ezek. xxx vii.). Having thus manufactured a new supply of the genus homo, he invoked the four winds to inflate their bodies with breath, when, lo! there "stood upon their feet an exceeding great army." We use his own language. Here is a story that casts all the wild and weird tales of heathen mythology in the shade. There would have been no necessity for drafting soldiers in the recent Rebellion if the country could have been blessed with such a creative genius as Ezekiel. Such stories set all logic at defiance. If the first commandment, "Multiply and replenish the earth," had been neglected so as to render it necessary to adopt another process for increasing the number of human beings, certainly a more rational and decent mode might have been invented. We will not relate any more of the curious capers of these "inspired men of God."

Some Christian writers have disposed of such erratic conduct, and such wild freaks of fancy, by assuming them to be the garb or metaphor of some great spiritual truth. This is explained by the proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention;" but the common mind knows nothing of these inventions of the priesthood to save the credit of the Bible. Hence, whether true or false, such an explanation does not destroy the demoralizing influence of such ideas and language upon the public mind; and then it is derogatory to the character of God to assume he would do such senseless and unrighteous things as are related in some of the above cases. We insist that it would be a serious calamity upon the country to make a book containing such moral lessons, or rather immoral lessons, "the fountain of our laws and the supreme rule of our conduct," as urged by the Evangelical Alliance; and it is a sorrowful and deplorable circumstance that such a book is circulated among the heathen by the thousand as guides for their moral conduct. We wish they would refuse to accept it, as the Japanese have done in the past.