Is the Bible Indictable?: Being an Enquiry whether the Bible Comes within the Ruling of the Lord Chief Justice as to Obscene LiteratureBesant, Annie
Religion
Is the Bible Indictable?: Being an Enquiry whether the Bible Comes within the Ruling of the Lord Chief Justice as to Obscene Literature
Besant, Annie
Bible -- Examinations, questions, etc.; Bible -- Miscellanea; Pornography -- Law and legislation
leaving his garment with Potiphar's wife is a picture often seen in
Sunday schools. Thus twelve out of the fifty chapters of Genesis are
undeniably obscene, and if there is any justice in England, Genesis
ought to be suppressed. We pass to Exodus. Ex. i., 15-19 is surely
indecent. I am not dealing with immoral teaching, or God's blessing on
the falsehood of the midwives (20, 21) would need comment. Ex. iv.,
24-26, is very coarse; so also Ex. xxii., 16, 17, 19. Leviticus is
coarse throughout, but is especially so in chaps. v., 3; xii.; xv.;
xviii., 6-23; xx., 10-21; xxii., 3-5. The trial of jealousy is most
revolting in Numb. v., 12-29. Numb. xxv., 6-8 is hardly a nice story for
a child, nor is that of Numb. xxxi., 17, 18. Deut. xxi., 10-14 is not
pure teaching for soldiers. Deut. xxii., 13-21 is extremely coarse; the
remainder of the chapter comes also within the Chief's ruling, as do
also chaps. xxiii., 1, 10, 11; xxv., 11, 12; xxvii., 20, 22, 23;
xxviii., 57. The fault of the book of Joshua lies chiefly in its
exceeding brutality and bloodthirstiness, but it, also, does not quite
escape the charge of obscenity, as may be seen by referring to the
following passage: chap. v., 2-8. Judges is occasionally very foul, and
is utterly unfit for general reading, according to the late definition;
Ehud and Eglon, Judges, iii., 15-25, would not bear reading aloud, and
the story might have been told equally well in decent language. Or take
the horribly disgusting tale of the Levite and his concubine (Judges
xix.), and then judge whether a book containing such stories is fit for
use in schools. Dr. Carpenter's book may do good there, because, with
all its plain speaking, it conveys useful information; but what
good--mental, physical, or moral--can be done to a young girl by reading
Judges xix.? And the harm done is intensified by the fact that the
ignorance in which girls are kept surrounds such a story with
unwholesome interest, as giving a glimpse into what is, to them, the
great mystery of sex. The story of Ruth iii. 3-14 is one which we should
not like to see repeated by our daughters; for the virtue of a woman who
should wait until a man was drunk, and then go alone at night and lie
down at his feet, would, in our days, be regarded as problematical. 1
Sam. ii. 22, and v. 9 are both obscene; so are 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27 and
xxi. 4, 5. 1 Sam. xxv. 22, 34 are disgustingly coarse, and there are
many similar coarse passages to be found in "holy" writ. 2 Sam. vi. 14,
16, 20, is a little over-suggestive, as is also 2 Sam. x. 4. The story
of David dancing is told in 1 Chron. xv. 27-29 without anything
offensive in its tone. The story of David and Bathsheba is only too well
known, and as told in 2 Sam. xi. 2-13 is far more calculated to arouse
the passions than is anything in Knowlton. The prophecy in 2 Sam. xii.
11, 12, fulfilled in xvi. 21, 22, is repulsive in the extreme, more
especially when we are told that the shameful counsel was given by
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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