1911

When I seriously believe a thing, I say so in a few words, leaving the reader to determine what my belief is worth. But I do not choose to temper down every expression of personal opinion into courteous generalities. Let us learn to speak plainly and intelligibly first, and, if it may be, gracefully afterwards.—John Ruskin.

TO make it possible for a man to be as honest in his religion as he would like to be in his business; to make him as unafraid in church as he aims to be anywhere else, and to help make him as impatient of a lie on Sunday as he is on any other day of the week, is the object of these studies on the bible. I wish to be able to kindle in the breast of every free citizen of this free country the love of truth, irrespective of whether it helps or hurts; I wish to shame cowardice and cant out of every man and woman who speaks the English language.

CONTENTS

[ An Extraordinary Book ]

[ A Word with the Reader—Protestant and Catholic ]

[ A Word with the Jews ]

[ PART I. ]

[ I. The Neglected Book ]

[ What Makes a Book Inspired? ]

[ The Sects and Their Bibles ]

[ Catholic and Protestant Bibles ]

[ Catholics Make Their Own Bible ]

[ PART II. ]

[ I. The Tercentenary of the English Bible ]

[ Some Lay Defenders of the Bible—Bryan's Challenge ]

[ Bryan's Defense of the Bible ]

[ II. Roosevelt on the Bible ]

[ III. "Let Them Produce It" ]

[ What Is the Best Thing That Can Be Said in Favor of the Bible? ]

[ IV. How to Test a Book ]

[ Speak According to Knowledge ]

[ PART III. ]

[ I. The First Chapter of the Bible ]

[ The First Verse of the Bible ]

[ Theologians Discover That Six Days Means Six Periods ]

[ The Great Tragedy ]

[ II. Taboo and Totem. ]

[ The Totem ]

[ III. The Bible and Magic ]

[ The Unbelievable in the Bible ]

[ IV. The Strangest Story in the Bible ]

[ PART IV. ]

[ I. God and His Book ]

[ The Deity Demands Human Flesh ]

[ II. The Portrait of God in the Bible ]

[ A Bible Saint ]

[ III. The Bible and Judaism ]

[ IV. Bible and Talmud ]

[ V. The Masterpiece of the Bible—Solomon's Temple ]

[ PART V. ]

[ Contradictions in the Bible ]

[ Serious Discrepancies in the Story of Jesus ]

[ One Writer Makes Jesus Affirm What Another Made Him Deny ]

[ PART VI. ]

[ I. What Was The Bible Meant to Teach? ]

[ II. The Bible and Religion ]

[ III. Does the Bible Teach Morality? ]

[ IV. Righteousness in the Bible ]

[ V. The Ten Commandments ]

[ VI. The Commandments Broken ]

[ VII. Thou Shalt Despise Women ]

[ VIII. The Sermon on the Mount ]

[ IX. The Parables of Jesus ]

[ PART VII. ]

[ I. A Better Bible ]

[ Conclusion. The Book of God and the Book of Man ]