The Creation of God - Jacob Hartmann (readict TXT) 📗

Saul’s jealousies, his quarrels with David, and all his misdeeds, as well as bravery, may be read by those that feel an interest in the matter. He finally committed suicide by falling on his own sword, and the next day the Philistines cut his and his sons’ heads off, and deposited them before their idols, Dagon, etc.

Where was God? Can it be possible that our Christian neighbors believe that the life and conduct of Saul was directed by any supreme power? That God directed Saul to do so many foolish, barbarous, and murderous acts?

We shall probably be more interested in David, the man after God’s own heart.

David, like Saul, was judiciously selected by Samuel. David’s acts and David’s conduct were no different from the acts and conduct of any other man in his position and possessing his characteristics. He combined a good deal of philosophy with his bravery; if the Psalms were written by him we have before us a higher type of brain culture, a mind that has undergone some training, is capable of analyzing its own feelings and giving expression to them. His comparisons never extend beyond that—beyond what he knows. He appeals to the higher qualities of men—their good acts, their virtues, their just conduct, their self-restraint, their passions, emotions, faults, and weaknesses. He recognizes them in others, and sees them reflected clearly in himself. His distress and his fears, his gladness and his joys, his trust in an unseen power, are all poetic, some sweet and sentimental. He speaks of his Lord, of his God, as of the pleasant recollections of a dream. Jehova had long since lost the stern reality of Moses, and had changed with the changes the nation had undergone. The formalities had been kept up, the priestly luxuries had increased, the ceremonies were more formal and business-like, but the central power, the centralized government of the people, the mantle of authority, had been shifted from high priest to king.

The God, Jehova, was no longer the guide, the power it had been. For twenty-two years after the death of Samuel, Saul had conducted his government and fought his battles without God, ark, or priest, and sought advice and counsel from other and human sources.

Skeptics even at this early period began to doubt the existence of a God, “The fool saith in his heart, There is no God” (Ps. xiv, 1).

The theocratic period of 395 years from Exodus to Saul had already developed corruption in the church and licentiousness in the Temple. The priestly power received a terrible blow at the hands of Saul when he slaughtered the priest, Abimelech, and his family, thus showing that the representative of God no longer inspired terror; that the priest was nothing more than any other man; that neither God, Jehova, ark, nor any other sanctified paraphernalia could protect him, nor miracle interfere for his preservation.

Opinions were freely expressed, discussion arose, and arguments were not wanting to sustain the doubts that had arisen as to the genuineness, the truth, of the God they had adopted. Neighboring nations had their gods. How was it, if their gods were not more potent, that they should win so many battles, and enslave the nation of the true God?

The same or similar arguments that Abraham brought to bear on the Chaldean gods were now beginning to be used against Jehova.

David, besides being an excellent soldier, a brave general, was a dreamer, a man of imagination. God was to him a sublime vision, a reflected glory of the past. To him, an intense admirer of the beautiful, trees, hills, and valleys, and the phenomena of nature in general, were the wonders of his imaginary God. He was a musician, a poet, a dreamer, in his moments of leisure. Everything he beheld courted, kindled his admiration, awoke new feeling in his sensitive nature, from a pretty flower to a beautiful woman.

The conversations which he holds with his visionary God are the simplest and most confidential. He pours out his grievances and his delight to him. “Thou hast put gladness in my heart.… I will both lay me down in peace and sleep” (Ps. iv, 8, 9).

That Christian translators of the Bible presume to interpret certain passages and words to mean, to foretell, things or events that occurred one thousand years later, is an assumption, and warrantable neither by the text nor by the actions of the persons writing them.

David is supposed to have written the Psalms. When he speaks he refers mainly to himself, addresses himself personally to his Lord. He, David, is himself interested. Then again he speaks of man and things in general, without ever alluding to any one thing or body in the coming future.

David’s Psalm ii is headed “The Kingdom of Christ.” The writer had no more idea of Christ than he had of Peter the Great at the time that that Psalm was written.

David wrote one hundred and fifty Psalms as printed in the Bible. In the headings, the superscriptions, the solicitude of Christian believers, trying to torture meanings and significations out of sentences or expressions, led them to commit gross errors, as false as they are ridiculous. Judge for yourself:

Psalm ii, 1—The Kingdom of Christ.

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?” Verse 10: “Be wise, now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed ye judges of the earth.”

Psalm xlv, 1—The majesty and Grace of Christ’s Kingdom.

“My heart is inditing a good matter; I speak of the things which I have made touching the king; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.”

Verse 10—The Duty of the Church, etc.

“Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house.”

Psalm xlvi, 1—Confidence Which the Church, etc.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Psalm xlvii—The Nations are Exhorted Cheerfully to Entertain the Kingdom of Christ.

Psalm xlviii—The Ornaments and Privileges of the Church.

In not one of these Psalms is there the slightest allusion to a church. It is the extravagant language of an exuberant mind, the outcome of an overwrought imagination upon the subject he was thinking about.

Psalm l, 1—The Majesty of God in the Church.

Psalm li, 18—He Prayeth for the Church.

Psalm lxviii, 7—For His Care of the Church.

Psalm lxxii, 1—David Praying for Solomon, etc.; and The Truth of Christ’s Kingdom.

Psalm xciii—The Majesty and Power of Christ’s Kingdom.

Psalm cxviii, 19—Coming of Christ’s Kingdom, etc.

The passage referred to, viz., verse 19, is: “Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord.”

The absurdity of the interpretation is evident from the fact that out of one hundred and fifty Psalms the Christian Bible-makers were able to find only five that could be twisted to make allusion to Christ—the ii, xlv, lxxii, xcviii, and cxviii, and from these certain sentences were selected, and these verses have as much connection with Christ or his kingdom as they have with the man in the moon. Six of all the chapters are supposed to allude to the church; those are above cited.

David had not the remotest notion what would or could happen at any time during his life, or at any time after his death. He was a child of circumstances like Saul, and like many other men after and before them. The same may be said of Moses and Abraham. Opportunity makes the man, if the man is fitting, able, to seize the opportunity when it occurs. No supernatural power had anything to do with any one of these men, or any man that figured in the Bible, any more than God had to do with men that played prominent parts as leaders, rulers, kings, or governors of other nations. Whatever power, skill, intellect, or imagination was developed, it was the proper sum-total of the experience, observation, and instruction of the world’s progress.

The Hebrews perhaps had special advantages in some respects over other nations, through their migratory instinct or inclination. The contact with so many other nations gave them the advantage of a broader experience and a greater variety of culture.

David had enjoyed special advantages. After his first heroic action, he became the leader of a band of desperadoes. And Saul himself unwittingly helped him, by making the bargain with David that if he, David, brought him one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, Saul would give him his daughter Michal for wife. David with his band of chosen men brought him two hundred, and thus obtained his wife Michal. Henceforth David leads a kind of bandit’s life, with his six hundred brave followers, evading Saul, who is in hot pursuit of him, and meantime fighting other nations, Philistines, Amalekites, etc.; levying contributions, making conquests, whenever and wherever there was a chance; falling in love easily and gracefully as the most expert leader of a gallant band. The pretty, attractive face of Abigail, the wife of Nabal, was an irresistible temptation. Nabal died from fright, it is said. Later in life when he happened to cast his eyes upon the beautiful nude figure of Bathsheba, he immediately fell in love. Since he was a man of action he satisfied his passion almost immediately, and poor Uriah, a captain of his, was sent to the war to be killed.

He was a shrewd and bold warrior, a great lover of woman, a philosopher and a poet. His Psalms bear witness of his acts, deeds, and thoughts. In consequence of his overindulgence with women he contracted a disease, a disease of which he complains most bitterly. Psalm iv: His bones are vexed, he is weary with groaning—“All night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears” (verse 6). Psalm xxxviii: He is in a sad plight: verse 3: “There is no soundness in my flesh;” verse 5: “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness;” verse 7: “For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease; and there is no soundness in my flesh,” etc. The gentleman in all probability was afflicted with a disease known as syphilis in its tertiary stage. There is more of it.

A sober reading of these psalms will find them full of indications of human nature with its frailties, weaknesses, impulses, mixed with superstitious fear,