God and My Neighbour

by Robert Blatchford

I have asked you to read Judges iii. 15-30, iv. 17-24, v. 24-31.
The first is the story of Ehud getting at Eglon, Israel's enemy,
by deceit, and killing him—an act followed by a great slaughter
of Moabites. The second is the story of Jael pretending to play
the friend to Sisera, and then murdering him. The third is the
eulogy of Jael for doing so, as "blessed above women," in the
so-called Song of Deborah. Here, you see, Providence is only
concerned with the fortunes of Israel; any deceit and any
cruelty is right which brings success to this people. Providence
is not concerned with morality; nor is it concerned with individuals,
except as the individual serves or opposes Israel.

In these two chapters Mr. Williams shows that the early conception of God was a very low one, and that it underwent considerable change. In fact, he says, with great candour and courage, that the early Bible conception of God is one which we cannot now accept.

With this I entirely agree. We cannot accept as the God of Creation this savage idol of an obscure tribe, and we have renounced Him, and are ashamed of Him, not because of any later divine revelation, but because mankind have become too enlightened, too humane, and too honourable to tolerate Jehovah.

And yet the Christian religion adopted Jehovah, and called upon its followers to worship and believe Him, on pain of torture, or death, or excommunication in this world, and of hell-fire in the world to come. It is astounding.

But lest the evidence offered by Mr. Williams should not be considered sufficient, I shall quote from another very useful book, The Evolution of the Idea of God, by the late Grant Allen. In this book Mr. Allen clearly traces the origins of the various ideas of God, and we hear of Jehovah again, as a kind of tribal stone idol, carried about in a box or ark. I will quote as fully as space permits:

But Jahweh was an object of portable size, for, omitting for
the present the descriptions in the Pentateuch—which seem
likely to be of later date, and not too trustworthy, through
their strenuous Jehovistic editing—he was carried from Shiloh
in his ark to the front during the great battle with the
Philistines at Ebenezer; and the Philistines were afraid, for
they said, "A god is come into the camp." But when the Philistines
captured the ark, the rival god, Dagon, fell down and broke in
pieces—so Hebrew legend declared—before the face of Jahweh.
After the Philistines restored the sacred object, it rested for
a time at Kirjath-jearim till David, on the capture of Jerusalem
from the Jebusites, went down to that place to bring up from
thence the ark of the god; and as it went, on a new cart, they
"played before Jahweh on all manner of instruments," and David
himself "danced before Jahweh."... The children of Israel in
early times carried about with them a tribal god, Jahweh, whose
presence in their midst was intimately connected with a certain
ark or chest containing a stone object or objects. This chest
was readily portable, and could be carried to the front in case
of warfare. They did not know the origin of the object in the
ark with certainty; but they regarded it emphatically as "Jahweh
their god, which led them out of the land of Egypt."...
I do not see, therefore, how we can easily avoid the obvious
inference that Jahweh the god of the Hebrews, who later became
sublimated and etherealised into the God of Christianity, was,
in his origin, nothing more nor less than the ancestral sacred
stone of the people of Israel, however sculptured, and, perhaps,
in the very last resort of all, the unhewn monumental pillar of
some early Semitic sheikh or chieftain.

It was, indeed, as the Rev. C. E. Beeby says, in his book Creed and Life, a sad mistake of St. Augustine to tack this tribal fetish in his box on to the Christian religion as the All-Father, and Creator of the Universe. For Jehovah was a savage war-god, and, as such, was impotent to save the tribe who worshipped him.

But let us look further into the accounts of this original God of the Christians, and see how he comported himself, and let us put our examples under separate heads; thus:

Jehovah's Anger

Jahweh's bad temper is constantly displayed in the Bible. Jahweh made a man, whom he supposed to be perfect. When the man turned bad on his hands, Jahweh was angry, and cursed him and his seed for thousands of years. This vindictive act is accepted by the Apostle Paul as a natural thing for a God of Love to do.