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This work will be similar in style and binding to Eighty Years and More, will contain valuable editorial notes by Theodore Stanton, A. M., and will be published in January, 1899.
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton.Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford.Clara Bewick Colby.Rev. Augusta Chapin.Mary Seymour Howell.Josephine K. Henry.Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll.Sarah A. Underwood.Catharine F. Stebbins.Ellen Battelle Dietrick.Ursula N. Gestefeld.Lillie Devereux Blake.Matilda Joslyn Gage.Rev. Olympia Brown.Frances Ellen Burr.Clara B. Neyman.Helen H. Gardener.Charlotte Beebe Wilbour.Lucinda B. Chandler.Louisa Southworth.Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, Finland.Ursula M. Bright, England.Irma von Troll-Borostyani, Austria.Priscilla Bright McLaren, Scotland.Isabelle Bogelot, France.
A 12mo, 160 pp. paper. Third American and Second English Edition.Twentieth Thousand. Price 50 Cents.
It contains Comments on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, andDeuteronomy, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lillie Devereux Blake, Rev.Phebe A. Hanaford, Clara Bewick Colby, Ellen Battelle Dietrick, UrsulaN. Gestefeld, Louisa Southworth, Frances Ellen Burr.
A 12mo, 217 pp. paper. First American Edition, Ten Thousand. Price 50Cents.
It contains Comments on The Old and New Testaments from Joshua toRevelation, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Louisa Southworth, Lucinda B.Chandler, Anonymous, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, ClaraB. Neyman, Frances Ellen Burr, Ellen Battelle Dietrick, and Letters andComments in an Appendix, by Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Mary A.Livermore, Frances E. Willard, Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll, Irma von Troll-Borostyani, Mrs. Jacob Bright, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Anonymous, SusanB. Anthony, Edna D. Cheney, Sarah A. Underwood, Dr. ElizabethBlackwell, Josephine K. Henry, Ursula N. Gestefeld, Catharine F.Stebbins, Alice Stone Blackwell, Matilda Joslyn Gage, E. T. M.,Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others, and the resolution passed by theNational-American Woman Suffrage Association, repudiating "The Woman'sBible," together with the discussion thereon.
See Press Comments on The Woman's Bible on next page.
The comments are right up to date.—Cincinnati Tribune.
The most humorous book of the year.—The Hartford Seminary Record.
Of all possible books this is perhaps the most extraordinary possible.—The Week, Toronto, Canada.
A very clever analysis of passages relating to the sex.—PublicOpinion, N. Y. City.
The new Woman's Bible is one of the remarkable productions of the century.—Denver News.
A unique edition of the Scripture. An extraordinary presentment ofHoly Writ!—Denver Times.
The work is unique. Its aim is to help the cause of woman in her battle for equality.—Beacon, Akron, Ohio.
Robert G. Ingersoll is the only person on earth capable of a work equal to Mrs. Stanton's sensation, "The Woman's Bible."—Chicago Times- Herald.
The attack of the new woman on the King James Bible will be observed with interest where it does not alarm. But let "The Woman's Bible" and the truth prevail. It may be that Lot himself was turned into a pillar of salt.—Chicago Post.
It has come at last, as it was bound to come—the emancipated woman's Bible. The wonder is it has been delayed so long. This is not a blasphemous book.—The Egyptian Gazette, Alexandria, Egypt.
The "new woman" has broken out in a fresh direction and published "TheWoman's Bible." In it the conduct of Adam, the father of the race, isdescribed as "to the last degree dastardly."—Westminster Budget,London, Eng.
One of the most striking protests devised by woman for the purpose of showing her rejection of the conditions under which our mothers lived. It is evidently the mission of "The Woman's Bible" to exalt and dignify woman.—The Morning, London, Eng.
We have read some of the passages of the commentary prepared for "the Woman's Bible" by that very accomplished American woman and Biblical student, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They are a great deal more satisfactory than many of the comments upon the same texts that we have read in other and more pretentious Commentaries. Mrs. Stanton's interpretative remarks are shrewd and sensible—Editorial N. Y. Sun.
Of man-made commentaries on the Bible we have had sufficient to stock a library and yet they have left room for this commentary by women. These revisers have proved the need of an intelligent examination of the Scriptures from the woman's point of view. The lady commentators are not wanting in a sense of humor—the quality in which biblical critics of the male sex are usually unhappily deficient. There is much that is very funny and very interesting in this new commentary upon the Bible.—The Daily Chronicle, London, Eng.
The Standard says, "The Sisterhood of Advanced Women has taken a bold step towards emancipation. It has long groaned under certain implications of servitude contained in a few passages of Scripture, and has, therefore, determined to abolish these disabilities by publishing 'The Woman's Bible.'" It is not only the type that is new. New readings of old passages are given, and the volume contains suggestions to show that the verses about women's inferiority really mean the opposite of the ordinary acceptation. In it Eve is rather praised than otherwise for having eaten the apple. It is pointed out that Satan did not tempt her with an array of silks and satins, and gold watches, or even a cycling costume—the things which some people think most seductive to her descendants—but with the offer of knowledge; a man being of such a lethargic and groveling nature that a similar lofty ambition never entered his mind. Besides, if the fruit was not to be eaten, Eve should have been informed of the fact at first hand, and not through an agent.—Pall Mall Gazette, London, Eng.
The above books will be sent, mail prepaid, on receipt of price, by
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"OH! Rather give me commentators plain,Who with no deep researches vex the brain;Who from the dark and doubtful love to run.And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun."
—The Parish Register.
1898.
The Bible in its teachings degrades Woman from Genesis to Revelations.
"We took sweet counsel together."-Ps. Iv., 14.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford,Clara Bewick Colby,Rev. Augusta Chapin,Ursula N. Gestefeld,Mary Seymour Howell,Josephine K. Henry,Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll,Sarah A. Underwood,Ellen Battelle Dietrick,[FN#4]
Lillie Devereux Blake,Matilda Joslyn Gage,Rev. Olympia Brown,Frances Ellen Burr,Clara B. Neyman,Helen H. Gardener,Charlotte Beebe Wilbour,Lucinda B. Chandler,Catharine F. Stebbins,Louisa Southworth.
[FN#4] Deceased.
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, Finland,
Ursula M. Bright, England,
Irma Von Troll-Borostyani, Austria,
Priscilla Bright Mclaren, Scotland,
Isabelle Bogelot, France.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,Louisa Southworth,Lucinda B. Chandler,Anonymous,
Matilda Joslyn Gage,Frances Ellen Burr,Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford,Clara B. Neyman.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Josephine K. Henry, Frances E. Willard, Eva A.Ingersoll, Mary A. Livermore, Irma von Troll-Borostyani, Mrs. JacobBright, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Anonymous, Rev. Phebe A.Hanaford, Ednah D. Cheney, Sarah A. Underwood, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell,Alice Stone Blackwell, Ursula N. Gestefeld, E. M., Matilda Joslyn Gage,Sarah M. Perkins, and Catharine F. Stebbins.
Resolution
Of
National-American Woman Suffrage Association repudiating "The Woman'sBible," and Speech of Susan B. Anthony.
Dedicated To The Memory Of
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,
In Whose Death We Lost The Ablest Member Of Our Revising Committee.
The criticisms on "The Woman's Bible" are as varied as they are unreasonable. Both friend and foe object to the title. When John Stuart Mill wrote his "Subjection of Woman" there was a great outcry against that title. He said that proved it to be a good one. The critics said: "It will suggest to women that they are in subjection and make them rebellious." "That," said he, "is just the effect I wish to produce." Rider Haggard's "She" was denounced so universally that every one read it to see who "She" was. Thus the title in both cases called attention to the book.
The critics say that our title should have been "Commentaries on the Bible." That would have been misleading, as the book simply contains short comments on the passages referring to woman. Some say that it should have been "The Women of the Bible;" but several books with that title have already been published. The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage says: "You might as well have a 'Shoemakers' Bible'; the Scriptures apply to women as we'll as to men." As the Bible treats women as of a different class, inferior to man or in subjection to him, which is not the case with shoemakers, Mr. Talmage's criticism has no significance.
"There's nothing so becomes a man,As modest stillness and humility."
Another clergyman says: "It is the work of women, and the devil." This is a grave mistake. His Satanic Majesty was not invited to join the Revising Committee, which consists of women alone. Moreover, he has been so busy of late years attending Synods, General Assemblies and Conferences, to prevent the recognition of women delegates, that he has had no time to study the languages and "higher criticism."
Other critics say that our comments do not display a profound knowledge of Biblical history or of the Greek and Hebrew languages. As the position of woman in all religions is the same, it does not need a knowledge of either Greek, Hebrew or the works of scholars to show that the Bible degrades the Mothers of the Race. Furthermore, "The Woman's Bible" is intended for readers who do not care for, and would not be convinced by, a learned, technical work of so-called "higher criticism."
The Old Testament makes woman a mere after-thought in creation; the author of evil; cursed in her maternity; a subject in marriage; and all female life, animal and human, unclean. The Church in all ages has taught these doctrines and acted on them, claiming divine authority therefor. "As Christ is the head of the Church, so is man the head of woman." This idea of woman's subordination is reiterated times without number, from Genesis to Revelations; and this is the basis of all church action.
Parts I. and II. of "The Woman's Bible" state these dogmas in plain English, as agreeing fully with Bible teaching and church action. And yet women meet in convention and denounce "The Woman's Bible," while clinging to the Church and their Scriptures. The only difference between us is, we say that these degrading ideas of woman emanated from the brain of man, while the Church says that they came from God.
Now, to my mind, the Revising Committee of "The Woman's Bible," in denying divine inspiration for such demoralizing ideas, shows a more worshipful reverence for the great Spirit of All Good than does the Church. We have made a fetich of the Bible long enough. The time has come to read it as we do all other books, accepting the good and rejecting the evil it teaches.
"There lives more faith in honest doubt,Believe me, than in half the creeds."
Hon. Andrew D. White, formerly President of Cornell University, shows us in his great work, "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology," that the Bible, with its fables, allegories and endless contradictions, has been the great block in the way of civilization. All through the centuries scholars and scientists have been imprisoned, tortured and burned alive for some discovery which seemed to conflict with a petty text of Scripture. Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive and exalted lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.
January, 1898.
Joshua ii.
1 And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into a harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there.
2 And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in hither to-night of the children of Israel to search out the country.
3 And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country.
4 And the woman took the two men, and hid them and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were.
5 And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate when it was dark, that the men went out; whither the men went I wot not; pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them.
This book gives an account of the final entrance of the children of Israel into the Promised Land. Joshua was the successor of Moses, and performed the same miracle in parting the waters of the Jordan that Moses did to enable his people to pass through the Red Sea. He was seven years fighting his way into the land of Canaan, where he spent the closing years of his life in peace.
There is mention of two women only in this book, though a casual reference is again made to the daughters of Zelophehad, as described in a former chapter.
In saving the spies from their pursuers, Rahab made them promise that when Jericho fell into the hands of Joshua, they would save her and her kinsmen. From the text, it seems that Rahab fully understood the spirit of her time, and with keen insight and religious fervor, marked characteristics of women, she readily entered into the plans of the great general of Israel.
Rahab was supposed to have been a great sinner, her life in many respects questionable; but seeing that victory was with the Israelites, she cast her lot with them. From the text and what we know of humanity in general, it is difficult to decide Rahab's real motive, whether to serve the Lord by helping Joshua to take the land of Canaan, or to save her own life and that of her kinsmen. It is interesting to see mat in all national emergencies, leading men are quite willing to avail themselves of the craft and cunning of women, qualities uniformly condemned when used for their own advantage.
There is no more significance, as one of our critics says, in commentating on the myths of the Bible than on Aesop's fables. The difference, however, is this: that in the latter case we admit that they were written by a man; while in the former, they are claimed to have been inspired by God. Though at variance with all natural laws, it is claimed that our eternal salvation depends on believing in the plenary inspiration of the myths of the Scriptures; as the "higher criticisms," written by learned scholars and scientists, are not familiar to women, our comments in plain English may rid them of some of their superstitions.
Though the injustice to woman is the blackest page in sacred history, the distinguished Biblical writers take no note of it whatever. Even Hon. Andrew D. White, though he devotes several pages of his work to the statue of Lot's wife in salt, vouchsafes no criticism on the position of Lot's wife in the flesh, nor of Lot's outrageous treatment of his daughters. The wonder is that women themselves should either believe that such unholy proceedings were inspired by God, or make a fetich of the very book which is responsible for their civil and social degradation.
Joshua x.
11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
12 Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
13 And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the Sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.
According to the sacred fabulist, Joshua surpassed Moses in the wonders which he performed. In taking the city of Jericho, as recorded in Chapter viii., he did not use the ordinary enginery of war, but told his soldiers to blow a simultaneous blast upon their trumpets, while all the people with united shouts should produce such a violent concussion of the air as to bring down the walls of the city. He not only subsidized the atmosphere to overpower his enemies, but he commanded the sun and the moon to stand still to lengthen the day and to lighten the night until this victory was complete.
It seems that the Lord was so well pleased with Joshua's refined military tactics that he suspended the laws of the vast solar system to vindicate the superior prowess of one small tribe on the small planet called the earth. The Lord also resorted to more material and forcible means, sending down tremendous hailstones from heaven, and thus with one fell blow destroyed more of his enemies than the children of Israel did with the sword.
There are no events recorded in secular history that strain the faith of the reader to such a degree as the feats of Joshua. Moses, with his manna and pillar of light in the wilderness and his dazzling pyrotechnics on Mount Sinai, fades into insignificance before these marvellous manifestations by Joshua, with the Canaanites, Jericho, and the sun and moon under his feet. Though teaching the people that all these fables are facts, still the Church condemns prestidigitators, soothsayers, fortune tellers, Spiritualists, witches, and the assumptions of Christian Scientists.
Joshua xv.
16 And Catch said, He that smiteth Kirjathesepher and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.
17 And Othniel, the son of Kenez, the brother of Caleb, took it; and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.
18 And it came to pass, as she came unto him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wouldest thou?
19 Who answered, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.
In giving Achsah her inheritance it is evident that the judges of Israel had not forgotten the judgment of the Lord in the case of Zelophehad's daughters. He said to Moses, "When a father dies leaving no sons, the inheritance shall go to the daughters. Let this henceforth be an ordinance in Israel." Very good as far as it goes; but in case there were sons, justice demanded that daughters should have an equal share in the inheritance.
As the Lord has put it into the hearts of the women of this Republic to demand equal rights in everything and everywhere, and as He is said to be immutable and unchangeable, it is fair to infer that Moses did not fully comprehend the message, and in proclaiming it to the great assembly he gave his own interpretation, just as our judges do in this year of the Lord 1898.
Achsah's example is worthy the imitation of the women of this Republic. She did not humbly accept what was given her, but bravely asked for more. We should give to our rulers, our sires and sons no rest until all our rights—social, civil and political—are fully accorded. How are men to know what we want unless we tell them? They have no idea that our wants, material and spiritual, are the same as theirs; that we love justice, liberty and equality as well as they do; that we believe in the principles of self-government, in individual rights, individual conscience and judgment, the fundamental ideas of the Protestant religion and republican government.
Judges i.
19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain: but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
Judges ii.
6 And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land.
7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that he did for Israel.
8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old.
This book, supposed to have been written by Samuel the Prophet, covers a period of 300 years. During all of this time the children of Israel are in constant friction with the Lord and neighboring tribes, never loyal to either. When at peace with the Lord, they are fighting with their neighbors; when at peace with them, worshiping their gods and giving them their daughters in marriage, then the Lord is angry, and vents His wrath on them. Thus, they are continually between two fires; now repenting in sackcloth and ashes, and now, with the help of the Lord, blessed with victories.
Life with them was a brief period of success and defeat. It seems that the Lord, according to their ideas, had His limitations, and could not fight tribes who had iron chariots.
What could iron chariots be in the way of that Great Force which creates cyclones, hurricanes and earthquakes, or the pyrotechnics of a thunderstorm. How little these people knew of the Great Intelligence behind the laws of the universe, with whom they pretended to talk in the Hebrew language, and from whom they claimed to have received directions as to their treatment of women?
In the opening of this book Joshua still governs Israel. After his death, the Lord raised up a succession of judges, remarkable for their uprightness and wisdom; but they found it impossible to keep the chosen people in the straight and narrow path. The children of Israel did not learn wisdom by experience. They tired of a rigid code of morals, of a mystical system of theology, and of the women of their own tribe. There was a fascination in the manners and the appearance of a new type of womanhood which they could not resist. There should have been some allowance for these human proclivities. If the Jews of our day had followed this tendency of their ancestors and intermarried with other nations, there would have been by this time no peculiar people to persecute.
The most important feature of this book is the number of remarkable women herein described; six in number, Achsah, Deborah, Jael, Jephthah's daughter, Delilah, and two whose names are not mentioned— she who slew Abimelech, and the concubine of a Levite, whose fate was terrible and repulsive. There are many instances in the Old Testament where women have been thrown to the mob, like a bone to dogs, to pacify their passions; and women suffer to-day from these lessons of contempt, taught in a book so revered by the people.
The writer of the Book of judges is unknown. Professor Moore, of Andover Theological Seminary, supposes that the author used as a basis for his work an older collection of tales wherein the heroes of Israel and the varying fortunes of the people were related, and which, like all good tales, pointed a moral. In all Jewish literature is to be found the same moral—namely, that the prime cause of all of the evils which befell the Jewish people was unfaithfulness to Jehovah. "Adherence to the written law brings God's favor, while disobedience is followed by God's wrath and punishment."
It is not obedience to the inner truth of the individual soul that is made the spring of action, but obedience to an external authority, to a book, to a prophet, to a judge or to a king. In judges, to woman in various ways is given an exalted position; she is not the abject slave or unclean vessel, the drudge, the servile sinner, the nonentity, as depicted in other parts of the Bible.
Woman has at no time of the world's history maintained the high position which she commands to-day in the hearts of the best and most enlightened; but there were stages when her independence was an assured fact. With Christianity came the notion of man's dual nature; the physical was looked upon as sinful; this earth was merely preparatory for a life beyond. Woman, as the mother of the race, was not honored and revered as such, the monastic idea being considered more God-like, she was made the instrument of sin. To be born into this life was not a blessing so long as ascetism ruled supreme.
The Bible has been of service in some respects; but the time has come for us to point out the evil of many of its teachings. It now behooves us to throw the light of a new civilization upon the women who figure in the Book of judges. We begin with Achsah, a woman of good sense. Married to a hero, she must needs look out for material subsistence. Her husband being a warrior, had probably no property of his own, so that upon her devolved the necessity of providing the means of livelihood. Great men, heroic warriors, generally lack the practical virtues, so that it seems befitting in her to ask of her father the blessing of a fruitful piece of land; her husband would have been satisfied with the south land. She knew that she required the upper and the nether springs to fertilize it, so that it might yield a successful harvest.
Judges iv.
4 And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, judged Israel at that time.
5 And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Beth- el in Mount Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
6 And she sent and called Barak, the son of Abinoam, out of Kedesh- naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?
7 And I will draw unto thee, to the river Kishon, Sisera the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.
8 And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.
9 And she said, I will surely go with thee; notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.
10 And Barak called Zebulon and Naphtali to Kedesh; and he went up with ten thousand men at his feet; and Deborah went up with him.
Some commentators say that Deborah was not married to a man by the name of Lapidoth, that such a terminology is not customary to the name of a person, but of a place. They think that the text should read, Deborah of Lapidoth. Indeed, Deborah seems to have had too much independence of character, wisdom and self-reliance to have ever filled the role of the Jewish idea of a wife.
"Deborah" signifies "bee;" and by her industry, sagacity, usefulness and kindness to her friends and dependents she fully answers to her name. "Lapidoth" signifies "lamps." The Rabbis say that Deborah was employed to make wicks for the lamps in the Tabernacle; and having stooped to that humble office for God's service, she was afterward exalted as a prophetess, to special illumination and communion with God —the first woman thus honored in Scripture.
Deborah was a woman of great ability. She was consulted by the children of Israel in all matters of government, of religion and of war. Her judgment seat was under a palm tree, known ever after as "Deborah's Palm." Though she was one of the great judges of Israel for forty years, her name is not in the list, as it should have been, with Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah. Men have always been slow to confer on women the honors; which they deserve.
Deborah did not judge as a princess by any civil authority conferred upon her, but as a prophetess, as the mouthpiece of God, redressing grievances and correcting abuses. The children of Israel appealed to her, not so much to settle controversies between man and man as to learn what was amiss in their service to God; yet she did take an active part in the councils of war and spurred the generals to their duty.
The text shows Barak hesitating and lukewarm in the last eventful battle with Sisera and his host. He flatly refused to go unless Deborah would go with him. She was the divinely chosen leader; to her came the command, "Go to Mount Tabor and meet Sisera and his host." Not considering herself fit too lead an army, she chose Barak, who had already distinguished himself. He, feeling the need of her wisdom and inspiration, insisted that she accompany him; so, mounted on pure white jackasses, they started for the field of battle. The color of the jackass indicated the class to which the rider belonged. Distinguished personages were always mounted on pure white and ordinary mortals on gray or mottled animals.
As they journeyed along side by side, with wonderful insight Deborah saw what was passing in Barak's mind; he was already pluming himself on his victory over Sisera. So she told him that the victory would not be his, that the Lord would deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman. It added an extra pang to a man's death to be slain by the hand of a woman. Fortunately, poor Sisera was spared the knowledge of his humiliation. What a picture of painful contrasts his death presents—a loving mother watching and praying at her window for the return of her only son, while at the same time Jael performs her deadly deed and blasts that mother's hopes forever! What a melancholy dirge to her must have been that song of triumph, chanted by the army of Deborah and Barak, and for years after, by generation after generation.
We never hear sermons pointing women to the heroic virtues of Deborah as worthy of their imitation. Nothing is said in the pulpit to rouse their from the apathy of ages, to inspire them to do and dare great things, to intellectual and spiritual achievements, in real communion with the Great Spirit of the Universe. Oh, no! The lessons doled out to women, from the canon law, the Bible, the prayer-books and the catechisms, are meekness and self-abnegation; ever with covered heads (a badge of servitude) to do some humble service for man; that they are unfit to sit as a delegate in a Methodist conference, to be ordained to preach the Gospel, or to fill the office of elder, of deacon or of trustee, or to enter the Holy of Holies in cathedrals.
Deborah was a poetess as well as a prophetess, a judge as well as a general. She composed the famous historical poem of that period on the eventful final battle with Sisera and his hosts; and she ordered the soldiers to sing the triumphant song as they marched through the the {sic} land, that all the people might catch the strains and that generations might proclaim the victory.
Judges iv.
18 And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my Lord, turn in to me: fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.
19 And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink: for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him to drink, and covered him.
20 Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and inquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No.
21 Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.
22 And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples.
The deception and the cruelty practised on Sisera by Jael under the guise of hospitality is revolting under our code of morality. To decoy the luckless general fleeing before his enemy into her tent, pledging him safety, and with seeming tenderness ministering to his wants, with such words of sympathy and consolation lulling him to sleep, and then in cold blood driving a nail through his temples, seems more like the work of a fiend than of a woman.
The song of Deborah and Barak, in their triumph over Sisera, has been sung in cathedrals and oratorios and celebrated in all time for its beauty and pathos. The great generals did not forget in the hour of victory to place the crown of honor on the brow of Jael for what they considered a great deed of heroism. Jael imagined herself in the line of her duty and specially called by the Lord to do this service for his people.
Nations make their ideal gods like unto themselves. At this period He was the God of battles. Though He had made all the tribes, we hope, to the best of His ability; yet He hated all, the sacred fabulist tells us, but the tribe of Israel, and even they were objects of His vengeance half the time. Instead of Midianites and Philistines, in our day we have saints and sinners, orthodox and heterodox, persecuting each other, although you cannot distinguish them in the ordinary walks of life. They are governed by the same principles in the exchanges and the marts of trade.
Judges v.
Then sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, on that day, saying,
2 Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.
3 Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I will sing unto the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel.
4 Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.
5 The mountains melted from before the Lord even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel.
6 In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied and the travellers walked through byways.
7 The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I, Deborah, arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.
The woman who most attracts our attention in the Book of judges is Deborah, priestess, prophetess, poetess and judge. What woman is there in modern or in ancient history who equals in loftiness of position, in public esteem and honorable distinction this gifted and heroic Jewish creation? The writer who compiled the story of her gifts and deeds must have had women before him who inspired him with such a wonderful personality. How could Christianity teach and preach that women should be silent in the church when already among the Jews equal honor was shown to women? The truth is that Christianity has in many instances circumscribed woman's sphere of action, and has been guilty of great injustice toward the whole sex.
Deborah was, perhaps, only one of many women who held such high and honorable positions. Unlike any modern ruler, Deborah dispensed justice directly, proclaimed war, led her men to victory, and glorified the deeds of her army in immortal song. This is the most glorious tribute to woman's genius and power. If Deborah, way back in ancient Judaism, was considered wise enough to advise her people in time of need and distress, why is it that at the end of the nineteenth century, woman has to contend for equal rights and fight to regain every inch of ground she has lost since then? It is now an assured fact that not only among the Hebrews, but also among the Greeks and the Germans, women formerly maintained greater freedom and power.
The struggle of to-day among the advanced of our sex is to regain and to reaffirm what has been lost since the establishment of Christianity. Every religion, says a modern thinker, has curtailed the rights of woman, has subjected her to man's ruling; in emphasizing the life beyond, the earthly existence became a secondary consideration. We are learning the great harm which comes from this one-sided view of life; and by arousing woman to the dignity of her position we shall again have women like Deborah, honored openly and publicly for political wisdom, to whom men will come in time of need.
Genius knows no sex; and woman must again usurp her Divine prerogative as a leader in thought, song and action. The religion of the future will honor and revere motherhood, wifehood and maidenhood. Asceticism, an erroneous philosophy, church doctrines based not upon reason or the facts of life, issued out of crude imaginings; phantasms obstructed the truth, held in check the wheel of progress. Let our church women turn their gaze to such characters as Deborah, and claim the same recognition in their different congregations.
The antagonism which the Christian church has built up between the male and the female must entirely vanish. Together they will slay the enemies—ignorance, superstition and cruelty. United in every enterprise, they will win; like Deborah and Barak, they will clear the highways and restore peace and prosperity to their people. Like Deborah, woman will forever be the inspired leader, if she will have the courage to assert and maintain her power. Her aspirations must keep pace with the demands of our civilization. "New times teach new duties."
God never discriminates; it is man who has made the laws and compelled woman to obey him. The Old Testament and the New are books written by men; the coming Bible will be the result of the efforts of both, and contain the wisdom of both sexes, their combined spiritual experience. Together they will unfold the mysteries of life, and heaven will be here on earth when love and justice reign supreme.
Judges viii.
30 And Gideon had three score and ten sons: for he had many wives.
31 And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech.
Judges ix.
52 And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower to burn it with fire.
53 And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull.
54 Then he called hastily unto the young man, his armour-bearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died.
Abimelech destroyed the city of Thebez, drove all the people into a tower and then tried to set it on fire, as he had done in many places before in his war on other tribes; but here he lost his life, and at the hand of a woman, which was considered the greatest disgrace which could befall a man. Commentators say that as Sisera and Abimelech were exceptionally proud and lofty, they were thus degraded in their death. Sisera was spared the knowledge of his fate by being taken off when asleep; but Abimelech saw the stone coming and knew that it was from the hand of a woman, an added pang to his death agony. He had no thoughts of his wicked life nor his eternal welfare, but with his dying breath implored his armor-bearer to thrust him through with his sword, that it might not be said that he was slain by the hand of a woman.
Abimelech had three score and ten brethren. It is said that his mother roused his ambition to be one of the judges of Israel. To attain this he killed all his brethren but one, who escaped. He enjoyed his ill-gotten honors but a short space of time. We find many such stories in the Hebrew mythology which have no foundation in fact.
Judges xi.
30 And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
31 Then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
33 And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
35 And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou has brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.
36 And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.
37 And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.
A woman's vow, as we have already seen, could be disallowed at the pleasure of any male relative; but a man's was considered sacred even though it involved the violation of the sixth commandment, the violation of the individual rights of another human being. These loving fathers in the Old Testament, like Jephthah and Abraham, thought to make themselves specially pleasing to the Lord by sacrificing their children to Him as burnt offerings. If the ethics of their moral code had permitted suicide, they might with some show of justice have offered themselves, if they thought that the first-born kid would not do; but what right had they to offer up their sons and daughters in return for supposed favors from the Lord?
The submission of Isaac and Jephthah's daughter to this violation of their most sacred rights is truly pathetic. But, like all oppressed classes, they were ignorant of the fact that they had any natural, inalienable rights. We have such a type of womanhood even in our day. If any man had asked Jephthah's daughter if she would not like to have the Jewish law on vows so amended that she might disallow her father's vow, and thus secure to herself the right of life, she would no doubt have said, "No; I have all the rights I want," just as a class of New York women said in 1895, when it was proposed to amend the constitution of the State in their favor.
The only favor which Jephthah's daughter asks, is that she may have two months of solitude on the mountain tops to bewail the fact that she will die childless. Motherhood among the Jewish women was considered the highest honor and glory ever vouchsafed to mortals. So she was permitted for a brief period to enjoy her freedom, accompanied by young Jewish maidens who had hoped to dance at her wedding.
Commentators differ as to the probable fate of Jephthah's daughter. Some think that she was merely sequestered in some religious retreat, others that the Lord spoke to Jephthah as He did to Abraham forbidding the sacrifice. We might attribute this helpless condition of woman to the benighted state of those times if we did not see the trail of the serpent through our civil laws and church discipline.
This Jewish maiden is known in history only as Jephthah's daughter— she belongs to the no-name series. The father owns her absolutely, having her life even at his disposal. We often hear people laud the beautiful submission and the self-sacrifice of this nameless maiden. To me it is pitiful and painful. I would that this page of history were gilded with a dignified whole-souled rebellion. I would have had daughter receive the father's confession with a stern rebuke, saying: "I will not consent to such a sacrifice. Your vow must be disallowed. You may sacrifice your own life as you please, but you have no right over mine. I am on the threshold of life, the joys of youth and of middle age are all before me. You are in the sunset; you have had your blessings and your triumphs; but mine are yet to come. Life is to me full of hope and of happiness. Better that you die than I, if the God whom you worship is pleased with the sacrifice of human life. I consider that God has made me the arbiter of my own fate and all my possibilities. My first duty is to develop all the powers given to me and to make the most of myself and my own life. Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice. I demand the immediate abolition of the Jewish law on vows. Not with my consent can you fulfill yours." This would have been a position worthy of a brave woman.
The ideal womanhood portrayed by ancient writers has had by far too much sway. The prevailing type which permeates all literature is that of inferiority and subjection. In early times Oriental poets often likened woman to some clear, flawless jewel, and made them serve simply as ornaments, while, on the other hand, they were made subordinate by the legislation of barbarous minds; and men, because of their selfish passion, have inflicted woe after woe upon them. Ancient literature is wholly against the equality of the sexes or the rights of women, and subordinates them in every relation of life.
The writings of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, are no exception to this rule. The reference, "The sons of God and daughters of men," while it admits of many interpolations, legendary or mythical as it may be, portrays the real animus of the Scriptures. To what extent the sentiment of the Hebrews favored sons rather than daughters, and the injustice of this distinction is fully exemplified by the stories of Abraham and Isaac, and of Jephthah and his daughter. Abraham was commanded by his God to sacrifice his son Isaac, after the manner of the Canaanites, who often slew their children and burnt them upon their altars in honor of their deities. But when all was made ready for the sacrifice an angel of Jehovah appeared, the hand of Abraham was stayed, and a ram was made a substitute for the son of promise.
The conditions were quite different in the case of Jephthah and his daughter. The Israelites had been brought very low in their contest with the Ammonites, and they chose the famous warrior, Jephthah, to lead them against their foe, who with warlike zeal summoned the hosts to battle. The risk was enormous, the enemy powerful, and the general, burning for victory, intent on securing the assistance of the Deity, made a solemn and fatal vow.
In the first case it was a direct command of God, but means were found to revoke this explicit command with regard to a son; in the second case it was only a hasty and unwise promise of a general going to war, and the prevailing sentiment of the age felt it unnecessary to evade its fulfillment—the victim was only a girl. The unhappy father must sacrifice his daughter!
What a masculine coloring is given to the rest of the narrative: "A maiden who did not mourn her death, but wandered up and down the mountain mourning her virginity." So much glamor has been thrown by poetry and by song, over the sacrifice of this Jewish maiden, that the popular mind has become too benumbed to perceive its great injustice. The Iphigenias have been many and are still too numerous to awaken compassion. We must destroy the root of this false and pernicious teaching, and plant in its place a just and righteous doctrine.
What women have to win for the race is a theory of conduct which shall be more equitable. The unalterable subserviency of woman in her natural condition can never be overcome and social development progress so long as there is a lack of distributive justice to every living soul without discrimination of sex.