Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
Why so many different revising committees of bishops and clergymen
should have retained this book as holy and inspiring to the ordinary
reader, is a mystery. It does not seem possible that the Divine John
could have painted these dark pictures of the struggles of humanity
with the Spirit of Evil. Verily, we need an expurgated edition of the
Old and the New Testaments before they are fit to be placed in the
hands of our youth to be read in the public schools and in theological
seminaries, especially if we wish to inspire our children with proper
love and respect for the Mothers of the Race.
E. C. S.
APPENDIX.
"Ignorance is the mother of devotion."--Jeremy Taylor.
The following letters and comments are in answer to the questions:
1. Have the teachings of the Bible advanced or retarded the
emancipation of women?
2. Have they dignified or degraded the Mothers of the Race?
Dear Mrs. Stanton:--I believe, as you said in your birthday address,
that "women ought to demand that the Canon law, the Mosaic code, the
Scriptures, prayer-books and liturgies be purged of all invidious
distinctions of sex, of all false teaching as to woman's origin,
character and destiny." I believe that the Bible needs explanation and
comment on many statements therein which tend to degrade woman. Christ
taught the equality of the sexes, and Paul said: "There is neither male
nor female; ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Hence I welcome "The
Woman's Bible" as a needed commentary in regard to woman's position.
Phebe A. Hanaford.
If the suggestions and teachings of the various books of our Bible,
concerning women, are compared with the times in which severally they
probably were written, in general they are certainly in advance of most
contemporary opinion. The hurtful blunder of later eras has been the
setting up of early, cruder standards touching the relations of men and
of women, as moulding influences and guides to broader civilizations.
They cannot be authoritative.
I believe that the Bible's Golden Rule has been the real substratum of
all religions, when fairly applied from their own point of view. But
the broader and more discriminating applications of the rule
theoretically both to men and to women in every relation of life have
made, and necessarily must have made, most of the earlier practical
regulations and teachings, beneficent perhaps in their day, pernicious
in ours when regarded as still authoritative. Interpreted by its
fundamental principles, in the light of its time--not in the fast
increasing light of ours, which, as I understand it, is your
searchlight and that of your collaborators--I have very little quarrel
with the Bible. But neither have I much quarrel with Buddhism, with
Paganism in general, or with any serious religious cult, tested in the
same way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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