IX. THE CRIMES OF TREACHERY AND ASSASSINATION.
In the fourth chapter of Judges we find a case of barbarity related, comprising the double crime of treachery and murder, for which a parallel can scarcely be found in the annals of any heathen nation, and which appears to have received the approval of the Jewish Jehovah. It is exhibited in the history of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. We read, that as a poor fugitive by the name of Sisera was fleeing from "the Lord's holy people," who were pursuing him with uplifted swords with the determination to kill him, not for any crime whatever, but because he professed a different religion, and refused to worship their cruel God (for they seemed to consider themselves authorized by their God to exterminate all nations who dissented from their creed),—as this fugitive was flying from the swords of the worshipers of Jehovah, Jael went out to meet him (Sisera), and said unto him, "Turn in, my lord: turn in to me. Fear not." And, when he had turned in unto her in the tent, she covered him with a mantle, and feigned much pity for him; and, when he asked for a little water, she gave him milk: but, as soon as he had fallen asleep, "she took a nail of the tent and a hammer, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temple, and fastened it into the ground." Who can read this deed of treachery and cruelty without emotions of horror, and thrilling chilly sensations at the heart? And yet Jehovah, the God of Israel, is represented as saying, "Blessed above women shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, be" (Judg. v. 24). Now, what is this but a premium offered for treachery and cold-blooded murder? I believe, with Lord Bacon, that "it is better to believe in no God than to believe in one possessing dishonorable traits of character;" and I can not see how it would be possible to ascribe more dishonorable traits of character to any being than are ascribed to the Jewish Jehovah. And this is the God the orthodox world wants put into the Constitution of the United States; but most unfortunate for our progress in morals and civilization would it be to adopt such a measure. And this is the book which the churches are constantly appealing to the people for aid to circulate among the heathen as necessary to improve their morals, and save their souls; but no other book could be put into their hands so completely calculated to deaden and obliterate every feeling of humanity, every natural impulse of justice and mercy, and kindle feelings of murder and revenge. Such a book should not be admitted into their families to corrupt their natural sense of right and justice.
I will cite another case evincing the same spirit, and teaching the same kind of moral lesson. We are told in Judges (chap. iii.) that the Lord sent a man by the name of Ehud to murder Eglon, King of Moab, and sent him with a lie upon his lips. As he came near to the king, he said unto him, "I have a message from God unto thee" (Judg. iii. 20, 21). And, while conversing with him under the guise of a friend, he drew out a dagger which he had concealed under his garments, and plunged it into his body, and killed him. And the Lord, "the God of Israel," is represented as raising up the bloody-minded Ehud for the special purpose of perpetrating this shocking deed of murder. To circulate a book among the heathen, detailing such revolting deeds of cruelty as consistent with sound morality, and approved by a just and righteous God, is an evil of no small magnitude.
I will cite one other case illustrative of Bible intolerance. It is found in the history of the godly Phinehas, related in the twenty-fifth chapter of Numbers. He was one of "The Lord's peculiar people," who were such violent sectarians that they showed no mercy towards any nation or any individual who dissented from their creed. Hence, when it was reported to Moses and his God that Zimri and his wife Cozbi had become converts to the Baal-peor religion, they sent Phinehas after them with deadly weapons to slay them for heresy; and he chased them into their tents, and slew them with a javelin upon their own hearthstone for no crime whatever against the moral law, but for simply exercising their God-given right to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. It was a feeling of sectarianism, intolerance, and bitter animosity which prompted the act. We can not wonder, therefore, that Christian Bible believers, who have chosen this book as "the supreme rule of their conduct," should have written their history in blood, and that the whole pathway of their pilgrimage is strewn with the bones of their murdered victims, who were slain for being true to their consciences, and for believing in and worshiping God according to their convictions of right and duty.
In addition to the long list of crimes already enumerated as being sanctioned by the Bible, we will name a few others:—
Lying.—We find that nearly all the leading characters who figure in Bible history, and who are held up as moral exemplars of the human race, were guilty of lying either directly or indirectly. We will cite a few cases:—
It is shown that Abraham and his wife (Gen. xx.), and Isaac (Gen. xxvi.), and Jacob (Gen. xxxi.), were all guilty of falsehood; also Rachel, Jacob's wife (Gen. xxxi.), Jacob's sons (Gen. xxxvii.), and Samson (Judg. xvi.), and Elisha (2 Kings), and four hundred prophets (1 Kings xxii.). And Jeremiah makes out all the prophets were virtual liars (Jer. vi. 13). Peter lied three times in about seventy-five minutes (Luke xxii.). And Paul justifies lying (Rom. iii—7). With so many examples of lying by "inspired and holy men of old," the custom became popular among the early Christians, and was upheld and justified by them, as stated by the popular Christian writer, Mosheim. And some of "the heathen nations," for this reason, were accustomed to calling the Jews "the sons of falsehood." Now, we appeal to the moral consciousness of every honest reader to decide in his own mind whether it is possible for a book containing such defective moral inculcations to be calculated to promote true virtue, or a love of truth, in either Christian or heathen nations, and whether it should not, on this account, be kept out of the hands of the heathen, as being calculated to weaken their natural appreciation of truth.
Swearing.—Let the reader turn to his Bible concordance, and observe the hundreds of cases in which God and his people are represented as swearing. He can then understand why profanity is now more prevalent in Christian than in heathen countries. God himself is several times represented as swearing in his wrath (Ps. xcv. 11). It should therefore be expected to be prevalent amongst Christian Bible believers.
As a Christian missionary was recently returning from India on board a British vessel, observing a Christian professor frequently swearing, he stepped to him, and observed, "Here, sir, is my son, twenty-one years old, born and raised in a heathen land, and to-day is the first time he ever heard a profane oath." Rather a withering lesson for a Christian professor. There are obviously two causes for the great prevalency of profane swearing in all Christian countries. One is its frequent indorsement in the Bible, and the other is the common custom of the priesthood apparently indulging in the practice in the pulpit. In their godly zeal to convert sinners, they exclaim, "God will damn you." The boys in the congregation catch the refrain, run into the street, and repeat the oath (dropping one word), "God damn you." Before we can expect this foolish and demoralizing practice to be abandoned, we must have a different Bible and different religious teachers; and also before we can prevent the heathen who read our Bible from imitating our example in swearing, or using profane language.
Cursing.—The numerous cases of cursing recorded in the Bible-from Jehovah to Elisha, who cursed the sportive, saucy boys, and then destroyed them with bears, are calculated to engender and foster the worst and most malignant passions of the human mind. The very name of the Jews' God, Jehovah (Elohim), is derived from a root which signifies "to curse and to swear." And the immoral practice of cursing is continued from the Old Testament through the New.
Murder.—We have spoken of murders perpetrated by the Jews under the authority of a theocratic government. We will now cite some cases of a more private character: Cain, the first man born into the world, was a murderer; and, instead of being punished for it, he appears to have been honored. He went into the land Nod, and built a great city. "The man after God's own heart" (David) indirectly killed Uriah; Judith cut off the head of Holofernes while in bed with him,—a most shocking case; Jehoiada, the priest, murdered his queen at the high gate in cold blood; Jael, the wife of Heber, murdered the flying fugitive Sisera by driving a nail though his head; Ehud murdered the King of Eglon under the guise of friendship; Absalom murdered Ammon; Joab murdered Absalom; Solomon murdered his brother Adonijah; Baasha murdered Nadab; Zimri murdered Elah; Omri murdered Zimri Ahab murdered Naboth; Jehu murdered Ahab and Joram. Shallum murdered Zachariah; Hoshea murdered Pekah. Numerous other cases might be cited. Some of these murderers were leading men among the Jews,—men whose life and character exercised great influence; and consequently such examples were very pernicious, and the moral lesson they impart to Bible readers must be corrupting to their moral feelings, if not their moral conduct.
Flogging.—The practice of flogging is regarded as a relic of barbarism by all modern writers on moral ethics. We find it was prescribed by law under the Hebrew monarchy. Forty lashes, in some cases, while the victim was tied or held down was the penalty for certain crimes. (See Deut. xxv.) If they were schooled in the councils of infinite wisdom as they claimed to be, their God should have taught them a less severe and more enlightened method of treating offenders.
Witchcraft.—"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exod. xxii. 18) has been the watchword and the authority for the slaughter of great numbers of human beings. Figures can not compute the tortures, the shocking cruelties, and the heart-crushing sufferings which have been endured as the legitimate fruit of this superstitious, barbarous law of "God's holy people." It was continued in force to a late period, and has been more extensively practiced by Christians than by Jews.
The number of victims in Christian England alone amounts to hundreds of thousands. A large portion of them were tied hand and foot, and thrown into the water. If they sank, that terminated the case, guilty or not guilty; if they swam or floated, that was regarded as an evidence of guilt, and they were taken out, and burned or hanged. During its reign in England, thirty thousand harmless women were burned as witches, mostly poor women who had no means of self-defense.
Even the learned Sir Matthew Hale, one of England's most enlightened Christian jurists, sentenced a "number of poor women to be hanged in 1664 as witches;" and the reason he assigned for it was, that "the Bible leaves no doubt as to the reality of witchcraft, and the duty of putting its subjects to death." Thus we have an illustration of the enormous evils which have grown out of Bible superstitions, perpetuated by those who were so ignorant as to accept the book as authority. Witchcraft, which was believed by Bible writers and Bible Christians to be the work of the Devil or of evil spirits, is now well understood in the light of modern science as to its causes, of which Bible revelation was ignorant.
As the want of space will permit no farther exposition or enumeration of Bible crimes, we will sum up the whole thus:
Murder, theft, robbery, war, slavery, intemperance, polygamy, concubinage, fornication, rape, piracy, lying, assassination, treachery, tyranny, revenge, persecution for religious opinions, vagabondism, degradation and enslavement of women, hypocrisy, breach of faith, suicide, vulgarity or obscenity, witchcraft, flogging, cursing, swearing, &c.
We have cited texts and examples in proof of the statement that all these crimes, and others not here enumerated, are sanctioned by God's "holy word," and were perpetrated by God's "holy people," as they are called. And yet a Christian writer declares, "The Lord kept his people pure, holy, and upright through every period of their history." A statement could hardly be made that would be farther from the truth. It is another evidence of the blinding effect of a false religion.
Again we ask, should a book, lending its sanction to the long catalogue of crimes herein enumerated, and which represents them as being in accordance with the will of a holy and a righteous God, be placed in the hands of the illiterate and credulous heathen as a guide for their moral conduct? Most certainly it must have a deleterious effect upon their morals; and yet hundreds of thousands are distributed amongst them every year by the Christian churches and missionary societies. And then think of making such a book "the fountain of our laws, and the supreme rule of our conduct," as urged by the Evangelical Alliance and the orthodox churches. We almost tremble at the thought of such a step toward barbarism and demoralization.