dr. farrar takes the position that "the bible is not homogeneous in its morality." there is a higher and a lower; and, to adopt the fine but paradoxical metaphor of milton, within the lowest deep a lower deep still opens its dreadful abyss of crime and brutality. the same admission is made by professor bruce,* of the free church of scotland; but this gentleman is more subtle than dr. farrar, and tries to save the reputation of the bible by a notable piece of cauistical special-pleading. he does not allow, though he does not expressly deny, that the bible contains any immorality. what he does is to draw a distinction between high morality and low morality. immorality is sinning against your conscience. high morality is acting right up to its noblest dictates. low morality is conduct in honest conformity to the low standard of a conscience but half-enlightened. when the prophetess deborah sings triumphantly over the infamous exploit of jael, who invited the fugitive sisera into her tent, and assassinated him while he slept in the confidence of her hospitality, we must not say that either of these precious females was guilty of immorality. they were simply carrying out a low morality. and the same applies to deborah's exclamation: "to every man a damsel or two"—meaning that the jewish soldiers slew their male enemies and dragged home a brace of maidens each for themselves. such conduct would be highly improper now, but it was all right then; at least it was as right as they knew; and we must not judge the actors by later ethical standards. so says professor bruce, and it would be true enough if the bible were not put forward as a divine book, or if it ever reprehended the infamies of god's chosen people. but it does nothing of the kind; it mentions jael and deborah in terms of absolute approval.
* christian apologetics, p. 309.
dr. farrar severely denounces the jewish wars of extermination in palestine, regardless of the fact—which is as true as any other religious fact in the bible—that these atrocities were expressly commanded by jehovah. divines have defended the massacre of the midianites, for instance, and the appropriation of their unmarried women; but dr. farrar calls their arguments "miserable pleas," and adds that if such "guilty and horrible" doings were "recorded without blame," it only shows that "the moral views of the desert tribes on such subjects were in this respect very rudimentary." these desert tribes were the chosen people of god; their prophets spoke under divine inspiration; yet even jeremiah, in denouncing moab, cries: "cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." according to dr. farrar, this proves how "slow" was the "development of the religious consciousness of mankind." but how did it happen that the jews, with all the advantage of special inspiration, were just as slow in this respect as any other nation in the world's history? what is the use of "inspiration" if it does not appreciably quicken the natural development of the human conscience?
many of the bible heroes are fit for a distinguished place in the newgate calendar. dr. farrar himself cannot stomach "some details" in the lives of abraham, jacob, jephthah, and david. still, he urges that "the use made of them in the sceptical propaganda is often illegitimate." these worthies were not "faultless." it is their "general faithfulness" which is "rightly held up to admiration as our example." faithfulness to what? simply to their own greed and ambition, first of all, and secondly to the dominance of their tribal god jehovah, who by such instruments triumphed over his rival dieties, and became at last the sole lord god of israel.
dr. farrar allows no palliating plea for the cursing psalms. he cites a few of the very worst passages, black with hatred and red with blood, and asks: "can the casuistry be anything but gross which would palm off such passages as the very utterance of god?" moses was "a great lawgiver and a great prophet," but dr. farrar will not "defend the divinity of passages so morally indefensible" as that, for instance, which gives the slave-owner impunity in killing his slave, provided he does not slay him on the spot, but beats him so that he dies "in a day or two." nor is there "divinity" in the order to the jews to refrain from eating bad meat, but to sell it to the gentiles. neither is there "divinity" in the order (deut. xxi. 10-14) to take a wife for a month on trial. these things are parts of an ostensibly divine code, but lawgivers and people were alike mistaken. inspiration did not guide them aright, but somehow or other it enables dr. farrar to correct their blunders three thousand years afterwards; which is merely saying, after all, that inspiration does not pioneer but follow the march of human progress.
during the reign of david a dreadful incident occurred. there had been a three years' famine, and david "inquired of the lord." the answer was, "blood upon saul and upon his house!" seven of saul's sons were hung up "unto the lord," and the famine was stopped. dr. farrar tells of an intelligent artisan who got up at a meeting and asked "whether it was not meant to imply that god was pacified by the blood of innocent human victims?" but he does not give the answer; and it either means this or it means nothing at all. in the same way, the story of jephthah, who offered his daughter as a burnt-offering to the lord, takes such an immolation for granted as a religious act of perfect propriety. jephthah is mentioned as a hero of faith in the new testament, and no hint is given that he acted wrongly in sacrificing his daughter on the altar of jehovah.
we have said enough on this subject to give the reader a fair idea of dr. farrar's position. let us now pass from bible morals to bible manners.
"the bible," says dr. farrar, "is assailed on the ground that it contains coarse and unedifying stories." take the story of lot and his daughters, to say nothing of the bestial attempt on the angels in sodom. could anything be more repulsive? is there any excuse for putting such abominable feculence into the hands of children? after a lot of talk about it, and about, dr. farrar offers us the following most sapient observation: "the story of lot wears a very different complexion if we regard it as an exhibition of unknown traditions about the connection between the israelites and the tribes of moab and ammon." but what does this mean? the moabites and ammonites, according to the bible, were hereditary enemies of the jews, and it was impossible to exterminate them. they were evidently near of kin to the chosen people. now, if these two facts are put together, it is easy to see the purpose of this story of lot and his daughters. the jews traced their own descent, in a perfectly honorable way, from abraham and his legitimate wife sarah, who are doubtless legendary characters. on the other hand, they traced the descent of the moabites and ammonites, their cousins and enemies, through the no less legendary lot and his two daughters, thus throwing the aspersion of incest upon the cradle of both those races. this is the adequate and satisfactory explanation of the story. it is an exhibition of dirty and unscrupulous hatred; and, as such, it is a curious fragment of "the word of god."
take next what dr. farrar calls "the pathetic story of hosea," the prophet who was ordered by god to marry a prostitute—not to use the more downright language of the english bible. dr. farrar suggests that there is some doubt as to the meaning of the original. hosea's wife may have turned out a baggage after the nuptials, instead of being one before. "it was the anguish caused by her infidelity," he says, "that first woke hosea to the sense of israel's infidelity to jehovah." and read in the light of this "modern criticism" the story of hosea is "in the highest degree pure and noble." how pretty! all that remains for dr. farrar to do is to explain away as equally "pure and noble" the imagery of ezekiel in reference to aholah and aholibah. there is no reason why "modern criticism" in the hands of gentlemen like dr. farrar should not transform priapus into a sunday-school teacher.
not only are there very gross stories in the bible, many of which are too beastly to dwell upon, but its language is often gratuitously disgusting. and every scholar knows that the hebrew text is sometimes far more "purple" than our english version. dr. farrar admits that if the "exact meaning" of certain passages were understood, they "could not be read without a blush." "happily," he says, they are "disguised by the euphemisms of translations." that is to say, the inspired bible writers, or penmen of the holy ghost, as old divines called them, were often indecent and sometimes positively obscene. dr. farrar's explanation is, that "ancient and eastern readers" were not easily shocked, and that our modern "sensibility" is of "recent growth." but this proves again that "inspiration" is in no sense the cause of progress, and does not anticipate it in the slightest degree.
