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

by Kersey Graves; Lydia M. Graves

We will now proceed to present what is presumed and assumed to be the scriptural exposition of man's original condition and fall.

We are told in the first chapter of Genesis, that, when God had completed the work of creation, he pronounced it all, not only good, but "very good," which indicates a state of perfection; but it appears the words were hardly out of his mouth till a very bad being, called a serpent, came crawling into the garden on his back, to furnish practical evidence that Moses' God was mistaken in having pronounced every thing so very "good." We have to assume that he came into the garden of paradise on his back, because the reverse mode of traveling was not adopted until after the fall; that is, till after he was doomed to that mode of travel as a punishment for having tempted and beguiled Mother Eve to try her new molars and incisors on some fruit (supposed to be pippins) hanging on a tree, which, it appears, underwent the rapid process of blossoming, and bearing fruit that ripened in a few hours after it was planted. And thus the serpent, although a senseless reptile, committed the first sin,—the first violation of moral law. The first question that naturally arises here is, Why was not the fence around the garden of paradise made snake-proof, so as to keep his snakeship out? Or shall we presume the gate was left open, and that he entered in that way? This, however, would indicate a blundering carelessness on the part of Jehovah, which we dare not assume. Another question arising here is, Why was not the angel with the flaming sword, which, we are told, was placed over the door or gateway to guard it from intruders,—why was he not placed there sooner? Why was he not placed there before the fall, instead of after, so as to bruise the serpent's head, or behead him, on his attempting to enter? To place a guard over the gate after the Devil had entered, and caused the effectual downfall and ruin of the human race, and thus perpetrated all the mischief he could, looks very much like "locking the stable-door after the horse is stolen." And the query also arises here, Are we not compelled to conclude that Moses' God was a little short-sighted, and rather hasty in his conclusion that every thing was so "very good" when the serpent proved to be so very bad? The only way to escape this dilemma is to assume that God did not make him, and that consequently he was not included in the original invoice of goods and chattels which were pronounced "very good;" but, in adopting this expedient, we only leap "from the frying-pan into the fire:" for the assumption does not do away with the difficulty, because it is declared that God made every thing that was made.

Hence it is evident that, if he were made at all, the God of Moses made him; and, if he were not made, then it follows that he is a self-created or self-existent being, and invested with all the attributes, powers, and prerogatives of God Almighty himself. And thus we would place two omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent beings on the throne of the universe; which is not only a moral contradiction, but a moral impossibility. We will assume, then, for the sake of the argument, that God did create the Devil,—an assumption, however, which brings us into still greater difficulty. Christ says, by way of illustrating human character, that "a tree is known by its fruit. A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." In this case God the Creator is the tree, and the Devil the fruit; and one is good, and the other evil. Here, then, is a good tree bearing evil fruit, which seems to furnish the most positive proof that Christ's moral axiom, "A good tree can not bear evil fruit," is false. There is evidently something wrong somewhere in this moral picture. Either Christ was mistaken, or the Christian world is wrong in assuming the existence of this omnipotent and independent being of an opposite character. It presents us with a moral paradox which no theologian in Christendom has yet been able to solve. We are compelled to assume that both beings are good, or both evil, and that they co-operate and act in harmony; or that a good God made a wicked Devil,—i.e., "a good tree brought forth evil fruit;" or else we must reject the Christian system of salvation, and assume the existence of but one invisible and Almighty Being, who orders every thing for the best. The absurdity we have just noticed is but one of many, both of a moral and of a scientific nature, equally senseless and foolish, which we find involved in the Christian plan of salvation. We will notice a few others. According to Christian theology and Christian logic, all evil or sin that is committed is prompted by an evil tempter. Scientists and Harmonialists account for such actions by tracing them to the abnormal or perverted action of natural faculties, powers, and propensities, which, in their healthy state, are productive of good alone, and not evil; and thus making them the product of the mind itself in its unhealthy condition. But Christian theologians tell us it is a separate, evil genius operating in the "inner man" which does all the mischief, and prompts the possessor to the commission of sin. But this assumption gives rise to endless difficulties, some of which we will state in the form of questions. We would ask, then, in the first place, if all sin or evil is prompted by an evil tempter, how came the original tempter himself to fall victim to sin? Who put him up to it, seeing there was no tempter in existence but himself? In such a dilemma, we must either assume that Divine Goodness was his tempter, or that he tempted himself. To make him his own tempter would involve us in an egregious absurdity, equal to that of Guy Faux lifting himself by the straps of his boots; and to make God the tempter would relieve his Satanic Majesty of all responsibility in the case, and make God alone accountable for the sin, and also the author of sin. This, however, they do by other assumptions. Books enough have been written to form a library by orthodox writers in the attempt to rescue their God from the odium and responsibility' of being the author of sin; but, under their system of theology, he can not escape the stigma. No sensible construction of any orthodox system can save God from the authorship and responsibility of sin. They all teach that God created man, and man committed sin. This makes God the author of sin, either directly or indirectly, in spite of all the logic and lore that ever has been, or ever can be, made use of to escape the conclusion; for even if it could be successfully shown that God did not implant in man the desire or inclination to commit sin, and he derived this inclination from the Devil, it can not be denied that God is responsible for allowing the Devil to exist, or, if this could be denied, would still be responsible for leaving man so morally weak as to be overcome by the Devil. If he is infinite in goodness and infinite in power, as they teach, then, if he did not fortify man with sufficient moral strength to resist all temptation to sin, the act of sinning becomes his own. No logic and no sophistry can resist this conclusion. It is now a settled principle in moral ethics, that what any being does through an agent he does himself, and is as responsible for it as if he performed the act with his own hands de facto. If, then, God created the Devil, and he turned out to be the agent of evil or sin, it was only a roundabout and indirect mode of performing the act himself. This is a logical syllogism which defies the ingenuity of the orthodox world to overturn. The most plausible plea in the case is, that the Devil was originally a good being, but fell from grace. According to several Bibles, he is a fallen angel; but it is evident that he could not fall unless he possessed some inherent moral weakness that caused him to fall. A perfect being could not fall. It is, then, self-evident that inherent moral weakness was implanted in him by his Creator. This would make his Creator responsible for his moral weakness, which caused him to fall. And thus the question is settled logically, philosophically, and morally.

We will now proceed to examine the nature of the diabolical act which caused the downfall of the human race,—"the original sin," as it is called. We are told it consisted in eating some fruit which grew on a tree God himself had planted in the Garden of Eden, and forbidden to be used. Why it was interdicted from use is not explained in the Christian Bible; but it is rendered plain by the relation of the same story in other Bibles. In the Persian version it is stated that the tree bore the twelve apples of immortality, and that the Devil, in the shape of a monkey, guarded the tree, to prevent the genus homo from partaking of the fruit; as tradition had taught them, that, by so doing, man would become immortal like the Gods, and live forever. This the Gods deprecated, as they allowed no other beings to become equal to them, and hence had the tree guarded to save the immortal fruit. But the Christian Bible is entirely silent as to the purpose of planting the tree, or forbidding its fruit to be eaten. It cuts short many stories which we find more amplified and in fuller detail in older Bibles. No reflecting or unbiased mind can see any wisdom or any sense in permitting or causing a tree to bear fruit, and then decreeing that it shall all go to waste by interdicting it from being used, as Jehovah is represented as having done. Certainly no sensible God would act thus. And if Adam and Eve were "very good," as he himself declared them to be, must we not consider it an ungodly and a tantalizing act to place fruit within their reach, and then forbid them to touch or taste it? It looks more like the act of a fiend than that of a kind and loving father, who we would naturally suppose, would be so pleased with his newly made children that he would do every thing possible to please them and make them happy. If the fruit was an improper article of diet, it should have been placed out of sight, or rendered unpalatable, so that they should not desire to eat it. If Adam and Eve were very good beings, and God both infinitely good and infinitely wise, he could and should have placed them in a condition from which they could not fall, and in which they would have possessed no inclination to do any thing wrong. I can see no possible benefit to arise from surrounding them with temptations to commit an act that would ruin them eternally, and their posterity after them. The plea is sometimes urged that it was morally necessary for the original progenitors of the race to possess the power and liability to sin, in order to make them free agents. Free agents, indeed! That is certainly a novel kind of free agency, which not only makes a man free to commit an act which it is known will lead to his own destruction and the ruin of the entire human race, but implants in him the inclination to do it. This is free agency run mad.

We will illustrate the principle. A mother sees her little child approaching an open well, and turns heedlessly away, and lets the child rush into the jaws of death; and, when reproved for the act, she raises the plea, "Oh, I did not want to interfere with its free agency!" Here is the Christian logic of free agency put in practice. God is represented as setting traps around the human family, knowing they will be caught; and this is called moral freedom or free agency. The rat enjoys the same kind of moral freedom when he creeps beneath the deadfall in quest of food, and takes the chance of misplacing the triggers. There is no free agency in any rational sense in furnishing a man with a rope to hang himself, knowing that it would be used for that purpose; and this the orthodox God has done for the whole human family, so that we are all now suspended on the gallows of total depravity and moral death.

THE FALL AND CURSE.

We will now notice some of the awful consequences said to have resulted from eating the forbidden fruit,—"the worldwide curse" pronounced upon the human race as the penalty for that act. Several distinct effects are enumerated as consequences of the deed. But a critical investigation of the matter in the light of the present age will show, that instead of being curses, they are blessings, and have added greatly to the enjoyment and happiness of the human family; and, consequently, we should now be in a more deplorable condition than we are if "our primitive parents" had heeded the divine interdiction, and let the fruit alone. We will look briefly at some of the consequences, and observe whether they have really turned out to be curses, or not. The first effect produced by the act of Father Adam and Mother Eve eating the forbidden fruit appears to have been that of opening their eyes so that they could see and distinguish objects around them. It certainly was a very singular way of cursing human beings to grant them the glorious boon of vision, and thus relieve them from the necessity of groping their way through life. As to the gift of sight being a curse, there are thousands of human beings now in the world who would like to be cursed in that way—those who were born blind, or have lost their sight. "The rest of mankind" would consider it to be a great misfortune or curse to be placed in the original condition of Adam and Eve in this respect. We must admit, then, that this curse turned out to be a blessing, and that we are indebted to the serpent-devil for it; and, consequently, he should not have been doomed to dine on dust as a penalty for conferring this blessing upon the human race.

The second consequence growing out of the act of eating the interdicted fruit appears to have been the acquisition of a knowledge of good and evil; that is, the power of distinguishing between good and evil. But this, so far from being a curse, was an inestimable and indispensable blessing; for, without the attainment of this knowledge, they could not have known that any act was evil, and hence would have been liable to plunge into all manner of crime, pillage, debauchery, murder, &c., until they effected the entire extinction of the human race. The acquisition, then, of the knowledge of the moral difference between good and evil was an invaluable blessing, and no curse at all; and, having been brought about through the agency of the serpent-devil, he should have the credit of it.

The third effect produced by plucking and eating the prescribed fruit was the discovery that they were naked. Why they had not made the discovery before is a mystery of godliness. The people of the present age, although presumed to be in a state of degeneracy, if not total depravity, do not require the use of their eyes to know when they are naked; but it seems, that, before the fall in a state of moral perfection, such knowledge could only be acquired through the optic nerves. Hence "the perfection of our first parents," so often spoken of and lauded by the orthodox world, must simply have been the perfection of ignorance; and it is true, if their history is true, that they were most consummately ignorant until they were enlightened by the serpent. They were too ignorant to clothe themselves. God Almighty had to forsake the throne of heaven, and come down to earth, to make garments of goatskins for them, before they could be sufficiently habilitated to go abroad, or admit company. Their two sons, however, were the only company they were permitted to enjoy at that time. And one of these turned out to be a murderer; and, having killed his only brother, he fled to the land of Nod, and married a wife, although, according to the "inspired account," his mother was the only woman then living. It seems strange, under such circumstances, that he should marry a wife when there were no women to make wives of. After he had killed his brother, and repented of it, a mark was set upon him, that "whosoever found him should not slay him." But how could this "whosoever" know what the mark meant? And who was this "whosoever," when he himself had killed off the whole human race, excepting his father and mother? And we presume they would not be likely to slay their own and only son if there were no mark set upon him to prevent it. Up to this period the conduct of the serpent-devil had been very respectful, and every act performed had resulted in a direct benefit to the human family. Even his conduct towards Mother Eve seems to have been marked by politeness; for he served her with fruit before partaking of it himself. For these good acts he deserved the use of his legs, which, we must presume, he lost by the fall, when he transgressed, fell, and was cursed; and a part of this curse consisted in taking his legs from him, and compelling him to crawl. But it appears his legs were afterwards restored to him; for, when he came with the sons of God to attend a picnic at the house of Job, and was asked where he came from, replied, "From walking to and fro in the earth." This feat of walking he could not very well have performed without legs. Hence we naturally conclude they had grown out again, or had been restored to him in some way, notwithstanding it had been decreed he should "crawl on his belly all the days of his life." The whole story of the serpent, as presented in Genesis, is a borrowed and laughable fiction; and the reader will excuse us for presenting it in that light.

We have shown that the violation of the command of Jehovah to Adam and Eve not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, so far from being attended with any evil result, gave rise to several important benefits, and was therefore a praiseworthy act. And if they had carried the act of disobedience a little further, and plucked and eaten of the fruit from the "tree of life" also, it would, according to the context, have produced results still more important, as it would have immortalized their physical bodies, and prevented the ingress of death into the world; and we should have been spared that dreadful calamity. But a worse calamity would have overtaken us; for it is easily seen, that, in the course of a few centuries, our planet would be overstocked with inhabitants. And, as a part of Adam's curse consisted in being doomed to eat the ground (see Gen. iii. 17), it follows, that, if none of his posterity had died, they would have become so numerous in the course of time as to have eaten up all the ground (there being nothing else for them to eat), and leave not a mole-hill of terra firma for a living being to stand upon. The conception is really ludicrous, and yet a legitimate inference from the story which presents us with a series of laughable ideas from beginning to end.