Bob
Ingersoll very cleverly limited the scope of his attack: rather than launching
a broad Jeremiad against all religious belief, he focused on the easiest
target, namely the follies, fallacies and sheer cruelty in the Christian Bible.
“You say that I desire to deprive mankind of their faith in God, in Christ and
in the Bible. I do not, and have not, endeavored to destroy the faith of any
man in a good, in a just, in a merciful God, or in a reasonable, natural, human
Christ, or in any truth that the Bible may contain. I have endeavored -- and
with some degree of success -- to destroy the faith of man in the Jehovah of
the Jews, and in the idea that Christ was in fact the God of this universe. I
have also endeavored to show that there are many things in the Bible ignorant
and cruel -- that the book was produced by barbarians and by savages, and that
its influence on the world has been bad.”
He proceeded to dismantle the Bible page by page. “What is the oldest manuscript of the Bible we have in Hebrew? The oldest manuscript we have in Hebrew was written in the 10th century after Christ. The oldest pretended copy we have of the Septuagint written in Greek was made in the 5th century after Christ. If the Bible was divinely inspired, if it was the actual word of God, we have no authenticated copy. The original has been lost and we are left in the darkness of Nature.” He pointed out that the Catholics voted on the sacred nature of the books of the Bible in the manner of political meetings and that Protestants were still haggling over which books were inspired by God in the 17th century.
And he attacked the issue of authorship. “Students of the Bible in England and Germany had been examining the inspired Scriptures. They had been trying to find when and by whom the books of the Bible were written. They found that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses; that the authors of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, and Job were not known; that the Psalms were not written by David; that Solomon had nothing to do with Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, or the Songs; that Isaiah was the work of at least three authors; that the prophecies of Daniel were written after the happening of the events prophesied. They found many mistakes and contradictions, and some of them went so far as to assert that the Hebrews had never been slaves in Egypt -- that the story of the plagues, the exodus, and the pursuit was only a myth….The New Testament fared no better than the Old. These critics found that nearly all of the books of the New Testament had been written by unknown men; that it was impossible to fix the time when they were written; that many of the miracles were absurd and childish, and that in addition to all of this, the gospels were found filled with mistakes, with interpolations and contradictions; that the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not understand the Christian religion as it was understood by the author of the gospel according to John.”
And then the death blows: “We have not a word about Christ written by any human being who lived in the time of Christ.” And…”Were the authors of these four gospels inspired? If they were inspired, then the four gospels must be true. If they are true, they must agree. The four gospels do not agree.”
He also attacked an obvious weak point in the Bible, the miracles. “Hume took the ground that a miracle could not be used as evidence until the fact that it had happened was established. But how can a miracle be established? Take any miracle recorded in the Bible, and how could it be established now? You may say: Upon the testimony of those who wrote the account. Who were they? No one knows. Where are the witnesses? Who, upon the whole earth, has the slightest knowledge upon this subject?”
He stressed the obvious fact that the miracles described in the Bible didn’t seem to have any inspirational effect on the alleged witnesses thereto. “Jehovah, according to the Scriptures, wrought hundreds of miracles for the benefit of the Jews. With many miracles he rescued them from slavery, guided them on their journey with a miraculous cloud by day and a miraculous pillar of fire by night -- divided the sea that they might escape from the Egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and supernatural quails, raised up hornets to attack their enemies, caused water to follow them wherever they wandered and in countless ways manifested his power, and yet the Jews cared nothing for these wonders. Not one of them seems to have been convinced that Jehovah had done anything for the people. In spite of all these miracles, the Jews had more confidence in a golden calf, made by themselves, than in Jehovah. The reason of this is, that the miracles were never performed, and never invented until hundreds of years after those, who had wandered over the desert of Sinai, were dust.” He also points out that the Pharaoh was singularly unimpressed by the miracles of Moses.
“The miracles attributed to Christ had no effect. No human being seems to have been convinced by them. Those whom he raised front the dead, cured of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. Not one of them appeared at his trial. Not one offered to bear witness of his miraculous power. To this there is but one explanation: The miracles were never performed. These stories were the growth of centuries. The casting out of devils, the changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few loaves and fishes, resisting the devil, using a fish for a pocketbook, curing the blind with clay and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the water, the resurrection and ascension, happened and only happened, in the imaginations of men, who were not born until several generations after Christ was dead.”
He proceeded to dismantle the Bible page by page. “What is the oldest manuscript of the Bible we have in Hebrew? The oldest manuscript we have in Hebrew was written in the 10th century after Christ. The oldest pretended copy we have of the Septuagint written in Greek was made in the 5th century after Christ. If the Bible was divinely inspired, if it was the actual word of God, we have no authenticated copy. The original has been lost and we are left in the darkness of Nature.” He pointed out that the Catholics voted on the sacred nature of the books of the Bible in the manner of political meetings and that Protestants were still haggling over which books were inspired by God in the 17th century.
And he attacked the issue of authorship. “Students of the Bible in England and Germany had been examining the inspired Scriptures. They had been trying to find when and by whom the books of the Bible were written. They found that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses; that the authors of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, and Job were not known; that the Psalms were not written by David; that Solomon had nothing to do with Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, or the Songs; that Isaiah was the work of at least three authors; that the prophecies of Daniel were written after the happening of the events prophesied. They found many mistakes and contradictions, and some of them went so far as to assert that the Hebrews had never been slaves in Egypt -- that the story of the plagues, the exodus, and the pursuit was only a myth….The New Testament fared no better than the Old. These critics found that nearly all of the books of the New Testament had been written by unknown men; that it was impossible to fix the time when they were written; that many of the miracles were absurd and childish, and that in addition to all of this, the gospels were found filled with mistakes, with interpolations and contradictions; that the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not understand the Christian religion as it was understood by the author of the gospel according to John.”
And then the death blows: “We have not a word about Christ written by any human being who lived in the time of Christ.” And…”Were the authors of these four gospels inspired? If they were inspired, then the four gospels must be true. If they are true, they must agree. The four gospels do not agree.”
He also attacked an obvious weak point in the Bible, the miracles. “Hume took the ground that a miracle could not be used as evidence until the fact that it had happened was established. But how can a miracle be established? Take any miracle recorded in the Bible, and how could it be established now? You may say: Upon the testimony of those who wrote the account. Who were they? No one knows. Where are the witnesses? Who, upon the whole earth, has the slightest knowledge upon this subject?”
He stressed the obvious fact that the miracles described in the Bible didn’t seem to have any inspirational effect on the alleged witnesses thereto. “Jehovah, according to the Scriptures, wrought hundreds of miracles for the benefit of the Jews. With many miracles he rescued them from slavery, guided them on their journey with a miraculous cloud by day and a miraculous pillar of fire by night -- divided the sea that they might escape from the Egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and supernatural quails, raised up hornets to attack their enemies, caused water to follow them wherever they wandered and in countless ways manifested his power, and yet the Jews cared nothing for these wonders. Not one of them seems to have been convinced that Jehovah had done anything for the people. In spite of all these miracles, the Jews had more confidence in a golden calf, made by themselves, than in Jehovah. The reason of this is, that the miracles were never performed, and never invented until hundreds of years after those, who had wandered over the desert of Sinai, were dust.” He also points out that the Pharaoh was singularly unimpressed by the miracles of Moses.
“The miracles attributed to Christ had no effect. No human being seems to have been convinced by them. Those whom he raised front the dead, cured of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. Not one of them appeared at his trial. Not one offered to bear witness of his miraculous power. To this there is but one explanation: The miracles were never performed. These stories were the growth of centuries. The casting out of devils, the changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few loaves and fishes, resisting the devil, using a fish for a pocketbook, curing the blind with clay and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the water, the resurrection and ascension, happened and only happened, in the imaginations of men, who were not born until several generations after Christ was dead.”
He took, of course, the same stance regarding the divinity of Jesus. “How was it possible for any one of the four Evangelists to know that Christ was the Son of God, or that he was God? His mother wrote nothing on the subject. Matthew says that an angel of the Lord told Joseph in a dream, but Joseph never wrote an account of this wonderful vision. Luke tells us that the angel had a conversation with Mary, and that Mary told Elizabeth, but Elizabeth never wrote a word. There is no account of Mary or Joseph or Elizabeth or the angel, having had any conversation with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John in which one word was said about the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. The persons who knew did not write, so that the account is nothing but hearsay. Does Mr. Black pretend that such statements would be admitted as evidence in any court? But how do we know that the disciples of Christ wrote a word of the gospels? How did it happen that Christ wrote nothing? How do we know that the writers of the gospels "were men of unimpeachable character"?”
He also wondered why the evangelists worked to establish the lineage of Jesus through David, when in fact the true paternity was later claimed to be the Holy Ghost.
Bob Ingersoll teed off against the first fable of the Bible, the Creation. “The magnificent Psalm of Praise to the Creator with which Genesis opens is filled with magnificent mistakes, and is utterly absurd. Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent. The church tells [us] how much nobler it is to come from mud than from monkeys; that they were made from mud.”
He pointed out that Genesis tells the creation story twice, alternately claiming that man was created after the plant life, and then claiming the plants came after Adam. He wondered how Jehovah, Adam and Eve – and the serpent – were all instantly able to converse in the same language. And he points out the disturbing notion that God originally wasn’t going to make women at all: he originally wanted Adam to have animals as his companions – “He thought at one time to avoid the necessity of making a woman, and he caused all the animals to pass before Adam, to see what he would call them, and to see whether a fit companion could be found for him. Among them all, not one suited Adam, and Jehovah immediately saw that he would have to make an help-meet on purpose.” Ingersoll railed against the cruelty of Jehovah, who added to the agonies of motherhood, and expelled Adam and Eve from Eden not because of their sin, but because he feared that eating from the tree of life would allow them to live forever; and above all for cutting Man off from the tree of knowledge. He said that Diderot, one of his heroes, “wished to drive from the gate of the Garden of Eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the child of Adam might return to eat once more the fruit of the tree of knowledge…Banish me from Eden when you will but first let me eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.”
Then, like a lawyer seeking to impose liability for an accident, he took Jehovah to task for two crimes: for creating the Devil….”Why did Adam and Eve disobey? Why, they were tempted. By whom? The devil. Who made the devil? God. Why God made the devil? If he is going to put an end to him why did he start him? Was it not a waste of raw material to make him? Why did he not have his flood first, and drown the devil, before he made a man and woman? Why did he not tell them of the existence of Satan? Why were they not put upon their guard against the serpent? Instead of turning them out, why did he not keep him from getting in? Why did he not watch the devil, instead of watching Adam and Eve? Why did not God make his appearance just before the sin, instead of just after? Why did he not play the role of a Savior instead of that of a detective? Was it not unfair to let this devil, so powerful, so cunning, so attractive, into the Garden of Eden, and put Adam and Eve, who were then scarcely half dry, within his power, and not only Adam and Eve within his power, but their descendants, so that the slime of the serpent has been on every babe, and so that, in consequence of what happened in the Garden of Eden, flames will surround countless millions in the presence of the most merciful God? This God, waiting around Eden -- knowing all the while what would happen -- having made them on purpose so that it would happen, then does what? Holds all of us responsible, and we were not there. Why did he not allow Adam and Eve to perish in accordance with natural law, then kill the devil, and make a new pair?”
…And for creating the tree of knowledge in the first place. “Why did he put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden? For what reason did he place temptation in the way of his children? Was it kind, was it just, was it noble, was it worthy of a good God? If I did not want a man to eat my fruit, I would not put him in my orchard. No wonder Christ put into his prayer: Lead us not into temptation.”
Ingersoll on the divinity of Jesus: “I cannot believe in the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. I believe he was the son of Joseph and Mary; that Joseph and Mary had been duly and legally married; that he was the legitimate offspring of that union. Nobody ever believed the contrary until he had been dead at least one hundred and fifty years. Neither Matthew, Mark, nor Luke ever dreamed that he was of divine origin. He did not say to either Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or to any one in their hearing, that he was the Son of God, or that he was miraculously conceived. He did not say it. It may be asserted that he said it to John, but John did not write the gospel that bears his name.”
Ingersoll was also skeptical about Jesus’ trial and execution: “Is it not wonderful that no one at the trial of Christ said one word about the miracles he had wrought? Nothing about the sick he had healed, nor the dead he had raised? Did the Jews believe that Christ was clothed with miraculous power? Would they have dared to crucify a man who had the power to clothe the dead with life? Do you think anyone would wish to crucify him? Do you not rather believe that everyone who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon their knees, and beg him to give back their dead. Do you believe that any man was ever crucified who was the master of death? It is infinitely absurd to say that a man who cured the sick, the halt and blind, raised the dead, cast out devils, controlled the winds and waves, created food and held obedient to his will the forces of the world, was put to death by men who knew his superhuman power and who had seen his wondrous works.”
And alternatively, “Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used it.”
Ingersoll points out another logical loop: “If Jehovah was in fact God, and if that God took upon himself flesh and came among the Jews, and preached what the Jews understood to be blasphemy; and if the Jews in accordance with the laws given by this same Jehovah to Moses, crucified him, then I say, and I say it with infinite reverence, he reaped what he had sown. He became the victim of his own injustice.”
Ingersoll points out that Jesus was capable of error – he believed in devils and chose Judas as his right-hand man -- and then committed the biggest error of all. “For the man Christ, I feel only admiration and respect. I think he was in many things mistaken. His reliance upon the goodness of God was perfect. He seemed to believe that his father in heaven would protect him. He thought that if God clothed the lilies of the field in beauty, if he provided for the sparrows, he would surely protect a perfectly just and loving man. In this he was mistaken; and in the darkness of death, overwhelmed, he cried out -- Why hast thou forsaken me?" Thus proving also that he did not intend to die.
This issue was particularly irksome to Ingersoll, because many of his would-be tormentors taunted him with the notion that atheists would invariably repent and beg for God on their deathbeds. “Suppose that Voltaire and Thomas Paine and Volney and Hume and Hobbes had cried out when dying "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" what would the clergymen of this city then have said?”
Another irksome logical flaw: “If he was, in fact, God, he knew there was no such thing as death. He knew that what we called death was but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to face a death that was eternal life.” Ingersoll undermines the Biblical account even further by pointing out that the gospels differ on what Christ’s last words were, and that only one gospel claims that soldiers were bribed to lie about Jesus’ body being stolen.
Ingersoll was of course skeptical about the resurrection. “If the dead Christ rose from the grave, why did he not appear to his enemies? Why did he not visit Pontius Pilate? Why did he not call upon Caiaphas, the high priest? upon Herod? Why did he not again enter the temple and end the old dispute with demonstration? Why did he not confront the Roman soldiers who had taken money to falsely swear that his body had been stolen by his friends? Why did he not make another triumphal entry into Jerusalem? Why did he not say to the multitude: Here are the wounds in my feet, and in my hands, and in my side. I am the one you endeavored to kill, but Death is my slave?”
And then his questions become much more pointed: “After his resurrection, why did not some one of his disciples ask him where he had been? Why did he not tell them what world he had visited? There was the opportunity to bring life and immortality to light. And yet he was as silent as the grave that he had left -- speechless as the stone that angels had rolled away…. The resurrection is a myth. It makes no difference with his teachings. They are just as good whether he wrought miracles or not. Twice two are four: that needs no miracle. Twice two are five -- a miracle cannot help that. Christ's teachings are worth their effect upon the human race. It makes no difference about miracle or wonder.”
Ingersoll pointed out that two of the gospels make no mention of the Jesus’ ascension into heaven, and that a third, the gospel of Mark, mentions it only in text which was clearly tacked onto the end of the gospel many years afterward. “Luke testifies that Christ ascended on the very day of his resurrection. John deposes that eight days after the resurrection Christ appeared to the disciples and convinced Thomas. In the Acts we are told that Christ remained on earth for forty days after his resurrection. These "depositions" do not agree (neither do Matthew and Luke agree in their histories of the infancy of Christ). It is impossible for both to be true. One of these "witnesses" must have been mistaken….I cannot believe in the miracle of the ascension, in the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ. In the light shed upon this question by the telescope, I again ask, where was he going? The New Jerusalem is not above us. The abode of the gods is not there. What did he do with his body? How high did he go? In what way did he overcome the intense cold? The nearest station is the moon, two hundred and forty thousand miles away. It may be said that his body was "spiritual." Then what became of the body that died? Just before his ascension we are told that he partook of broiled fish with his disciples. Was the fish "spiritual?" Who saw this miracle?”
And again his questions got to the point: “If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret. in a corner? It was a miracle that could have been seen by a vast multitude—a miracle that could not be simulated—one that would have convinced hundreds of thousands. After the story of the Resurrection, the Ascension became a necessity. They had to dispose of the body.”
Bob Ingersoll ridiculed those who argued the necessity of Christianity – the notion that without Jesus, the world would have lost much wisdom. “By Christianity I do not mean morality, kindness, forgiveness, justice. Those virtues are not distinctively Christian. They are claimed by Mohammedans and Buddhists, by Infidels and Atheists -- and practiced by some of all classes. Christianity consists in the miraculous, the marvelous, and the impossible….So Dr. Plumb says that this man [Jesus] "spake as never man spake." Did the Doctor ever read Zeno? Zeno, who denounced human slavery many years before Christ was born? Did he ever read Epicurus, one of the greatest of the Greeks? Has he read anything from Buddha? Has he read the dialogues between Ariuna and Krishna? If he has, he knows that every great and splendid utterance of Christ was uttered centuries before he lived. Did he ever read Lao-tsze? If he did -- and this man lived many centuries before the coming of our Lord -- he knows that Lao-tsze said "we should render benefits for injuries. We should love our enemies, and we should not resist evil." Did he come to give a rule of action? Zoroaster had done this long before "Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it." So it will hardly do now to say that Christ spake as never man spake, because he repeated the very things that other men had said.” Ingersoll pointed out that morality, justice and mercy would have existed if Jesus had never been born.
He was particularly incensed by the notion that Christians led the world in morality and charity. “Probably a majority of the people in this country suppose that there was no charity in the world until the Christian religion was founded. Great men have repeated this falsehood, until ignorance and thoughtlessness believe it. There were orphan asylums in China, in India, and in Egypt thousands of years before Christ was born; and there certainly never was a time in the history of the whole world when there was less charity in Europe than during the centuries when the Church of Christ had absolute power. There were hundreds of Mohammedan asylums before Christianity had built ten in the entire world.”
He also undermined the notion of Christian immortality, wondering why other cultures said so much about immortality, and Jesus so little (most of the arguments for salvation and heaven came from John and Paul, who didn’t get it from Jesus). “Did he come to tell us of another world? The immortality of the soul had been taught by the Hindoos, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans hundreds of years before he was born. What argument did he make in favor of immortality? What facts did he furnish? What star of hope did he put above the darkness of this world?”
Ingersoll pointed out that even Christian ceremony was second-hand. “For all of our festivals you will find corresponding pagan festivals. For instance, take the eucharist, the communion, where persons partake of the body and blood of the Deity. This is an exceedingly old custom. Among the ancients they ate cakes made of corn, in honor of Ceres and they called these cakes the flesh of the goddess, and they drank wine in honor of Bacchus, and called this the blood of their god.”
Ingersoll demolished the argument that the world would have plunged into darkness without the illumination of Christ’s ministry, and he pointed out the great advances made by civilizations without Jesus. “They tell me that there never would have been any civilization if it had not been for this Bible. The Jews had a Bible; the Romans had not. Which had the greater and the grander government? Let us be honest. Which of those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? Rome had no Bible. God cared nothing for the Roman Empire. His time was taken up with the Jewish people. And yet Rome conquered the world, including the chosen people of God. The people who had the Bible were defeated by the people who had not. How was it possible for Lucretius to get along without the Bible? -- how did the great and glorious of that empire? And what shall we say of Greece? No Bible. Compare Athens with Jerusalem. From Athens come the beauty and intellectual grace of the world. Compare the mythology of Greece with the mythology of Judea; one covering the earth with beauty, and the other filling heaven with hatred and injustice ….The foundations of our civilization were laid centuries before Christianity was known. The intelligence of courage, of self-government, of energy, of industry, that uniting made the civilization of this century, did not come alone from Judea, but from every nation of the ancient world.”
And he described medieval Islam in terms which would be maddening to today’s Muslim-hating evangelicals. “In the 10th century after Christ the Saracens governors of a vast empire -- established colleges in Mongolia, Tartary, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Morocco, Fez and in Spain. The region owned by the Saracens was greater than the Roman Empire. They had not only college -- but observatories. The sciences were taught. They introduced the ten numerals – taught algebra and trigonometry -- understood cubic equations -- knew the art of surveying -- they made catalogues and maps of the stars -- gave the great stars the names they still bear -- they ascertained the size of the earth -- determined the obliquity of the ecliptic and fixed the length of the year. They calculated eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets and occultations of stars. They constructed astronomical instruments. They made clocks of various kinds and were the inventors of the pendulum. They originated chemistry -- discovered sulfuric and nitric acid and alcohol. They were the first to publish pharmacopeias and dispensatories. In mechanics they determined the laws of falling bodies. They understood the mechanical powers, and the attraction of gravitation. They taught hydrostatics and determined the specific gravities of bodies. In optics they discovered that a ray of light did not proceed from the eye to an object -- but from the object to the eye. They were manufacturers of cotton, leather, paper and steel. They gave us the game of chess. They produced romances and novels and essays on many subjects. In their schools they taught the modern doctrines of evolution and development. They anticipated Darwin and Spencer.
“These people were not Christians. They were the followers, for the most part, of an impostor -- of a pretended prophet of a false God. And yet while the true Christians, the men selected by the true God and filled with the Holy Ghost were tearing out the tongues of heretics, these wretches were irreverently tracing the orbits of the stars. While the true believers were flaying philosophers and extinguishing the eyes of thinkers, these godless followers of Mohammed were founding colleges, collecting manuscripts, investigating the facts of nature and giving their attention to science. We are indebted to the Moors – to the followers of Mohammed -- for having laid the foundations of modern science. It is well to know that we are not indebted to the church, to Christianity, for any useful fact.”
He found the Bible itself entirely dispensible. “People ask me, if I take away the Bible what are we going to do? How can we get along without the revelation that no one understands? What are we going to do if we have no Bible to quarrel about? What are we to do without hell? What are we going to do with our enemies? What are we going to do with the people we love but don't like?”
Years ago a theater critic told a director that there was material in his new show that was original, and material that was good – but the original material wasn’t good, and the good material wasn’t original. Ingersoll made the same argument about the Bible: he argued that once you strip away the ideas and advances which other cultures already had, and just looked at the contributions which were unique and original to the Jews who wrote them, one is left with work which is clearly manmade, and not inspired. “Our God was made by men, sculptured by savages who did the best they could. They made our God somewhat like themselves, and gave to him their passions, their ideas of right and wrong. There is certainly nothing in the Old or the New Testament that could not have been written by uninspired human beings. Ought not the work of a God to be vastly superior to that of a man? ….I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the work of an uninspired man. If there are mistakes in the Bible, certainly they were made by man. If there is anything contrary to nature, it was written by man. If there is anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was never written by a being worthy of the adoration of mankind.”
Ingersoll stated that the Bible was clearly the work, not only of men, but rather ignorant men. “But if the Bible had given us scientific truths; if the ignorant Jews had given us the true theory of our solar system; if from, Moses we had learned the nature of light and heat; if from Joshua we had learned something of electricity; if the minor prophets had given us the distances to other planets; if the orbits of the stars had been marked by the barbarians of that day, we might have admitted that they must have been inspired. If they had said anything in advance of their day: if they had plucked from the night of ignorance one star of truth, we might have admitted the claim of inspiration; but the Scriptures did not rise above their source, did not rise above their ignorant authors -- above the people who believed in wars of extermination, in polygamy, in concubinage, in slavery, and who taught these things in their sacred Scriptures….Now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains have not been paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of creation was written by an ignorant savage. The story is inconsistent with all known facts, and every star shining in the heavens testifies that its author was an uninspired barbarian….According to that Holy Book, Jehovah was a believer in witchcraft, and said to his chosen people: thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. This one commandment -- this simple line -- demonstrates that Jehovah was not only not God, but that he was a poor, ignorant, superstitious savage. This one line proves beyond all possible doubt that the Old Testament was written by men, by barbarians. John Wesley was right when he said that to give up a belief in witchcraft was to give up the Bible.”
Ingersoll pointed out that the science of the Bible couldn’t even keep up with the science of men in other ancient cultures. “The view of Moses was acquiesced in by the Jewish people and by the Christian world for thousands of years. It is supposed that Moses lived about fifteen hundred years before Christ, and although he was "inspired," and obtained his information directly from God, he did not know as much about our solar system as the Chinese did a thousand years before he was born. The Emperor Chwenhio adopted as an epoch, a conjunction of the planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which has been shown by M. Bailly to have occurred no less than 2449 years before Christ. The ancient Chinese knew not only the motions of the planets, but they could calculate eclipses. In the reign of the Emperor Chow-Kang, the chief astronomers, Ho and Hi were condemned to death for neglecting to announce a solar eclipse which took place 2169 B.C., a clear proof that the prediction of eclipses was a part of the duty of the imperial astronomers. Is it not strange that a Chinaman should find out by his own exertions more about the material universe than Moses could when assisted by its Creator?”
Likewise he saw the Bible as morally backward. “Most nations, at the time the Old Testament was written, believed in slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution; and it is not wonderful that the book contained nothing contrary to such belief. The fact that it was in exact accord with the morality of its time proves that it was not the product of any being superior to man. The inspired writers ordered the slaughter of women and babes. They also visited the most trivial offenses with the punishment of death. In these particulars they were in exact accord with their barbarian neighbors. They were utterly ignorant of geology and astronomy, and knew no more of what had happened than of what would happen; and, so far as accuracy is concerned, their history and prophecy were about equal; in other words, they were just as ignorant as those who lived and died in nature's night.”
