Bible Studies Part 1

Bible Studies.

by Joseph M. Wheeler.

PREFACE.

My old friend Mr. Wheeler asks me to launch this little craft, and I do so with great pleasure. She is not a thunderous ironclad, nor a gigantic ocean liner; but she is stoutly built, well fitted, and calculated to weather all the storms of criticism. My only fear is that she will not encounter them.

During the sixteen years of my friend's collaboration with me in many enterprises for the spread of Freethought and the destruction of Superst.i.tion, he has written a vast variety of articles, all possessing distinctive merit, and some extremely valuable. From these he and I have made the following selection. The articles included deal with the Bible from a special standpoint; the standpoint of an Evolutionist, who reads the Jewish Scriptures in the light of anthropology, and finds infinite ill.u.s.trations in them of the savage origin of religion.

Literary and scientific criticism of the Old Testament have their numerous votaries. Mr. Wheeler's mind is given to a different study of the older half of the Bible. He is bent on showing what it really contains; what religious ideas, rites, and customs prevailed among the ancient Jews and find expression in their Scriptures. This is a fruitful method, especially in _our_ country, if it be true, as Dr. Tylor observes, that "the English mind, not readily swayed by rhetoric, moves freely under the pressure of facts."

Careful readers of this little book will find it full of precious information. Mr. Wheeler has a peculiarly wide acquaintance with the literature of these subjects. He has gathered from far and wide, like the summer bee, and what he yields is not an undigested ma.s.s of facts, but the pure honey of truth.

Many readers will be astonished at what Mr. Wheeler tells them. We have read the Bible, they will say, and never saw these things. That is because they read it without knowledge, or without attention. Reading is not done with the eyes only, but also with the brain; and the same sentences will make various impressions, according as the brain is rich or poor in facts and principles. Even the great, strong mind of Darwin had to be plentifully stored with biological knowledge before he could see the meaning of certain simple facts, and discover the wonderful law of Natural Selection.

Those who have studied the works of Spencer, Tylor, Lubbock, Frazer, and such authors, will _not_ be astonished at the contents of this volume.

But they will probably find some points they had overlooked; some familiar points presented with new force; and some fresh views, whose novelty is not their only virtue: for Mr. Wheeler is not a slavish follower of even the greatest teachers, he thinks for himself, and shows others what he has seen with his own eyes.

I hope this little volume will find many readers. Its doing so will please the author, for every writer wishes to be read; why else, indeed, should he write? Only less will be the pleasure of his friend who pens this Preface. I am sure the book will be instructive to most of those into whose hands it falls; to the rest, the few who really study and reflect, it will be stimulating and suggestive. Greater praise the author would not desire; so much praise cannot often be given with sincerity.

G. W. Foote.

PHALLIC WORSHIP AMONG THE JEWS.

"The hatred of indecency, which appears to us so natural as to be thought innate, and which is so valuable an aid to chast.i.ty, is a modern virtue, appertaining exclusively, as Sir G. Staunton remarks, to civilised life. This is shown by the ancient religious rites of various nations, by the drawings on the walls of Pompeii, and by the practices of many savages."--C. Darwin, "Descent of Man" pt. 1, chap.

iv., vol. i., p. 182; 1888.

The study of religions is a department of anthropology, and nowhere is it more important to remember the maxim of the pagan Terence, _h.o.m.o sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto_. It is impossible to dive deep into any ancient faiths without coming across a deal of mud. Man has often been defined as a religious animal. He might as justly be termed a dirty and foolish animal. His religions have been growths of earth, not gifts from heaven, and they usually bear strong marks of their clayey origin.*

* The Contemporary Review for June 1888, says (p. 804) "when Lord Dalhousie pa.s.sed an Act intended to repress obscenity (in India), a special clause in it exempted all temples and religious emblems from its operation."

I am not one of those who find in phallicism the key to all the mysteries of mythology. All the striking phenomena of nature--the alternations of light and darkness, sun and moon, the terrors of the thunderstorm, and of pain, disease and death, together with his own dreams and imaginations--contributed to evoke the wonder and superst.i.tion of early man. But investigation of early religion shows it often nucleated around the phenomena of generation. The first and final problem of religion concerns the production of things. Man's own body was always nearer to him than sun, moon, and stars; and early man, thinking not in words but in things, had to express the very idea of creation or production in terms of his own body. It was so in Egypt, where the symbol, from being the sign of production, became also the sign of life, and of regeneration and resurrection. It was so in Babylonia and a.s.syria, as in ancient Greece and Troy, and is so till this day in India.

Montaigne says:

"Fifty severall deities were in times past allotted to this office. And there hath beene a nation found which to allay and coole the l.u.s.tful concupiscence of such as came for devotion, kept wenches of purpose in their temples to be used; for it was a point of religion to deale with them before one went to prayers. _Nimirum propter continentiam incontinentia neces-saria est, incendium ignibus extinguitur_: 'Belike we must be incontinent that we may be continent, burning is quenched by fire.' In most places of the world that part of our body was deified.

In that same province some flead it to offer, and consecrated a peece thereof; others offered and consecrated their seed."

It is in India that this early worship maybe best studied at the present day. The worshippers of Siva identify their great G.o.d, Maha Deva, with the linga, and wear on their left arm a bracelet containing the linga and yoni. The rival sect of followers of Vishnu have also a phallic significance in their symbolism. The linga yoni (fig. 1) is indeed one of the commonest of religious symbols in India. Its use extends from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Major-General Forlong says the ordinary Maha Deva of Northern India is the simple arrangement shown in fig. 2, in which we see "what was I suspect the first Delphic tripod supporting a vase of water over the Linga in Yona. Such may be counted by scores in a day's march over Northern India, and especially at ghats or river ferries, or crossings of any streams or roads; for are they not Hermae?"

The Linga Purana tells us that the linga was a pillar of fire in which Siva was present. This reminds one of Jahveh appearing as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1.--The Hindu Maha Deva, or Linga-Yoni]

So astounded have been many writers at the phenomena presented by phallic worship that they have sought to explain it, not only by the story of the fall and the belief in original sin, but by the direct agency of devils.* Yet it may be wrong to a.s.sociate the origin of phallic worship with obscenity. Early man was rather unmoral than immoral. Obliged to think in things, it was to him no perversion to mentally a.s.sociate with his own person the awe of the mysterious power of production. The sense of pleasure and the desire for progeny of course contributed. The worship was indeed both natural and inevitable in the evolution of man from savagery. When, however, phallic worship was established, it naturally led to practices such as those which Herodotus, Diodorus, and Lucian tell us took place in the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Syrian religions.

* See Gougenot des Mousseaux's curious work Dieu et les Dieux, Paris, 1854. When the Luxor monument was erected in Rome, Pope Sixtus V. deliberately exorcised the devils out of possession of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2.--Rural Hindu Lingam.]

Hume's observation that polytheism invariably preceded monotheism has been confirmed by all subsequent investigation. The belief in one G.o.d or supreme spirit springs out of the belief in many G.o.ds or spirits. That this was so with the Jews there is sufficient evidence in the Bible, despite the fact that the doc.u.ments so called have been frequently "redacted," that is corrected, and the evidence in large part erased.

An instance of this falsification may be found in Judges xviii. 30 (see Revised Version), where "Mana.s.seh" has been piously subst.i.tuted for Moses, in order to conceal the fact that the direct descendants of Moses were image worshippers down till the time of the captivity. The Rabbis gave what Milton calls "this insulse rule out of their Talmud; 'That all words, which in the Law are written obscenely, must be changed to more civil words.' Fools who would teach men to read more decently than G.o.d thought good to write."* Instances of euphemisms may be traced in the case of the "feet" (Judges iii. 24, Song v. 3, Isaiah vii* 20); "thigh"

(Num. v. 24); "heel" (Gen, iii. 15); "heels" (Jer. xiii. 22); and "hand"

(Isaiah lvii. 7). This last verse is translated by Dr. Cheyne, "and behind the door and the post hast thou placed thy memorial, for apart from me thou hast uncovered and gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and obtained a contract from them (?); thou hast loved their bed; thou hast beheld the phallus." In his note Dr. Cheyne gives the view of the Targum and Jerome "that 'memorial' = idol (or rather idolatrous symbol--the phallus)."

* "Apology for Smectymnus," Works, p.84.

The priests, whose policy it was to keep the nation isolated, did their best to destroy the evidence that the Jews shared in the idolatrous beliefs and practices of the nations around them. In particular the cult of Baal and Asherah, which we shall see was a form of phallic worship, became obnoxious, and the evidence of its existence was sought to be obliterated. The worship, moreover, became an esoteric one, known only to the priestly caste, as it still is among Roman Catholic initiates, and the priestly caste were naturally desirous that the ordinary worshipper should not become "as one of us."

It is unquestionable that in the earliest times the Hebrews worshipped Baal. In proof there is the direct a.s.sertion of Jahveh himself (Hosea ii. 16) that "thou shalt call me _Ishi_ [my husband] and shalt call me no more _Baali_." The evidence of names, too, is decisive. Gideon's other name, Jerubbaal (Jud. vi. 32, and 1 Sam. xii. 11), was evidently the true one, for in 2 Sam. xi. 21, the name Jerubbesheth is subst.i.tuted. Eshbaal (1 Chron. viii. 33) is called Ishbosheth (2 Sam.

ii. 8, 10). Meribbaal (1 Chron. viii. 34) is Mephibosheth (2 Sam. iv.

4).* Now _bosheth_ means v "shame," or "shameful thing," and as Dr.

Donaldson points out, in especial, "s.e.xual shame," as in Gen. ii. 25.

In the Septuagint version of 1 Kings xviii. 25, the prophets of Baal are called "the prophets of that shame." Hosea ix. 10 says "they went to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to Bosheth and became abominable like that they loved." Micah i. 11 "having thy Bosheth naked." Jeremiah xi. 5, "For according to the number of thy cities were thy G.o.ds, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to Bosheth, altars to burn incense unto Baal."

* So Baaljadah [1 Chron. xiv. 7] is Eliada [2 Sam. v. 161.]

In 1 Chron. xii. 6, we have the curious combination, Baaljah, i.e. Baal is Jah, as the name of one of David's heroes.

The place where the ark stood, known afterwards as Kirjath-jearim, was formerly named Baalah, or place of Baal (I Chron. xiii. 6). The change of name took place after David's time, since the writer of 2 Sam. vi. 2 says merely that David went with the ark from "Baale of Judah."* Colenso notices that when the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal are said to have been destroyed by Elijah, nothing is said of the four hundred prophets of the Asherah. "Also these same '400 prophets,' apparently, are called together by Ahab as prophets of JHVH, and they reply in the name of JHVH, 1 Kings xxii. 5-6."

That phallicism was an important element in Baal and Asherah worship is well known to scholars, and will be made clear to discerning readers.

The frequent allusion to "groves" in the Authorised Version must have puzzled many a simple student. The natural but erroneous suggestion of "tree worship" does not fit in very well with the important statement (2 Kings xxiii. 6) that Josiah "brought out the grove from the house of the Lord."** A reference to the Revised Version will show that this misleading word is intended to conceal the real nature of the worship of Asherah. The door of life, the conventional form of the Asherah with its thirteen flowers or measurements of time, is given in fig. 3.

* The "Baal" was afterwards taken out of all such names of places, and instead of Baal Peor, Baal Meon, Baal Tamar, Baal Shalisha, etc., we find Beth Peor, Beth Meon, Beth Tamar, etc.

** Verse vii. says, "he brake down the houses of the sodomites that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove." A reference to the Revised Version shows that it was "in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings [or tents] for the Asherah." See also Ezek. xvi. 16.

This worship certainly lasted from the earliest historic times until the seventeenth year of Josiah, B.C. 624. We read how in the days of the Judges they "served Baalim and the groves" (R.V., "the Asheroth"; Judges iii, 7; see ii. 12, "Baal and Ash-taroth.) We find that Solomon himself "went after Ashtoreth (1 Kings xi. 5) and that he builded the mount of corruption (margin, i.e., the mount of Olives) for that "abomination of the Zidonians" (2 Kings xxiii. 13). All the distinctive features of Solomon's Temple were Phoenician in character. What the Phoenician temples were like Lucian tells us in his treatise on the G.o.ddess of Syria. The great pillars Jachin, "the establisher," and Boaz, "strength"; the ornamentation of palm trees, pomegranates, and lotus work; are all Phoenician and all phallic. The bells and pomegranates on the priests' garment were emblematic of the paps and full womb.

The palm-tree, which appears both in Solomon's temple and in Ezekiel's vision, was symbolical, as may be seen in the a.s.syrian monument (fig.

4), and which finds a place in Eastern Christian symbolism, with the mystic alpha and omega (fig. 5).

The worship of Astoreth, the a.s.syrian Ishtar, and Greek Astarte, was widespread. The Phoenicians took it with them to Cyprus and Carthage. In the days of Abraham there was a town called after her (Gen. xiv. 5), and to this day her name is preserved in Esther.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3.--Asherah.]

It is she who is called the Queen of Heaven, to whom the women made moon-shaped cakes and poured libations (Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 17.) Baal represented the generative, Astoreth the productive power. The pillars and asherah, so often alluded to in the Bible, were the palm-tree, with male and female animals frolicking around the tree of life, the female near the fleur de lis and the male near the yoni. Tall and straight trees, especially the palm, were reverenced as symbols. Palm branches carried in procession were signs of fruitfulness and joy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 4.--From Layard, Culte de Venus, plate I, fig. 20, depicts the mystic signs of their worship, and Dr. Oort* says of the name Ashera, "This word expressed originally a pillar on, or near--not only the altars of Baal--but also the altars of JHVH."]

Bishop Colenso in his notes to Dr. Oort's work remarks, "It seems plain that the Ashera (from _ashar_, be straight, erect) was in reality a phallus, like the _Linga_ or _Lingam_ of the Hindoos, the sign of the male organ of generation."**

* The Worship of Baalim and Israel, p. 46.

** Asher was the tutelary G.o.d of a.s.syria. His emblem was the winged circle.