The historical books of the Old Testament are largely pernicious, and often obscene. These books describe, without disapproval, polygamy, slavery, concubinage, lying and deceit, treachery, incest, murder, wars of plunder, wars of conquest, massacre of prisoners of war, massacre of women and of children, cruelty to animals; and such immoral, dishonest, shameful, or dastardly deeds as those of Solomon, David, Abraham, Jacob, and Lot.
The ethical code of the Old Testament does not teach the sacredness of truth, does not teach religious tolerance, nor humanity, nor human brotherhood, nor peace.
Its morality is crude. Much that is noblest in modern thought has no place in the "Book of Books." For example, take these words of Herbert Spencer's:
Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such way
that pain shall not be inflicted.
There is nothing so comprehensive, nothing so deep as that in the Bible. That covers all the moralities of the Ten Commandments, and all the Ethics of the Law and the Prophets, in one short sentence, and leaves a handsome surplus over.
Note next this, from Kant:
What are the aims which are at the same time duties? They
are the perfecting of ourselves, and the happiness of others.
I do not know a Bible sentence so purely moral as that. And in what part of the Bible shall we find a parallel to the following sentence, from an Agnostic newspaper:
Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of action are
helps to the children of men in their search for wisdom.
Tom Paine left Moses and Isaiah centuries behind when he wrote: