The Womans Bible | Page 4

that of any
statesman or reformer who has sedulously limited his sympathies and activities to
carrying one specific measure? We have many women abundantly endowed with
capabilities to understand and revise what men have thus far written. But they are all
suffering from inherited ideas of their inferiority; they do not perceive it, yet such is the
true explanation of their solicitude, lest they should seem to be too self- asserting.
Again there are some who write us that our work is a useless expenditure of force over a
book that has lost its hold on the human mind. Most intelligent women, they say, regard it
simply as the history of a rude people in a barbarous age, and have no more reverence for
the Scriptures than any other work. So long as tens of thousands of Bibles are printed
every year, and circulated over the whole habitable globe, and the masses in all
English-speaking nations revere it as the word of God, it is vain to belittle its influence.
The sentimental feelings we all have for those things we were educated to believe sacred,
do not readily yield to pure reason. I distinctly remember the shudder that passed over me
on seeing a mother take our family Bible to make a high seat for her child at table. It
seemed such a desecration. I was tempted to protest against its use for such a purpose,
and this, too, long after my reason had repudiated its divine authority.
To women still believing in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, we say give us by
all means your exegesis in the light of the higher criticism learned men are now making,
and illumine the Woman's Bible, with your inspiration.
Bible historians claim special inspiration for the Old and New Testaments containing
most contradictory records of the same events, of miracles opposed to all known laws, of
customs that degrade the female sex of all human and animal life, stated in most
questionable language that could not be read in a promiscuous assembly, and call all this
"The Word of God."
The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe
that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic
code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the
face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign
her, her emancipation is impossible. Whatever the Bible may be made to do in Hebrew or
Greek, in plain English it does not exalt and dignify woman. My standpoint for criticism
is the revised edition of 1888. 1 will so far honor the revising committee of wise men
who have given us the best exegesis they can according to their ability, although Disraeli
said the last one before he died, contained 150,000 blunders in the Hebrew, and 7,000 in
the Greek.
But the verbal criticism in regard to woman's position amounts to little. The spirit is the

same in all periods and languages, hostile to her as an equal.
There are some general principles in the holy books of all religions that teach love,
charity, liberty, justice and equality for all the human family, there are many grand and
beautiful passages, the golden rule has been echoed and re-echoed around the world.
There are lofty examples of good and true men and women, all worthy our acceptance
and imitation whose lustre cannot be dimmed by the false sentiments and vicious
characters bound up in the same volume. The Bible cannot be accepted or rejected as a
whole, its teachings are varied and its lessons differ widely from each other. In criticising
the peccadilloes of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, we would not shadow the virtues of
Deborah, Huldah and Vashti. In criticising the Mosaic code, we would not question the
wisdom of the golden rule and the fifth Commandment. Again the church claims special
consecration for its cathedrals and priesthood, parts of these aristocratic churches are too
holy for women to enter, boys were early introduced into the choirs for this reason,
woman singing in an obscure corner closely veiled. A few of the more democratic
denominations accord women some privileges, but invidious discriminations of sex are
found in all religious organizations, and the most bitter outspoken enemies of woman are
found among clergymen and bishops of the Protestant religion.[FN#2]

[FN#2] See the address of Bishop Doane, June 7th, 1895, in the closing exercises of St.
Agnes School, Albany.

The canon law, the Scriptures, the creeds and codes and church discipline of the leading
religions bear the impress of fallible man, and not of our ideal great first cause, "the Spirit