Part 1 (1/2)

Bible Studies

by Joseph M Wheeler

PREFACE

My old friend Mr Wheeler asks reat 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 the the sixteen years of my friend's collaboration with ht and the destruction of Superstition, he has written a vast variety of articles, all possessing distinctive merit, and some extre 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 illustrations in theion

Literary and scientific criticism of the Old Testaiven to a different study of the older half of the Bible He is bent on shohat it really contains; what religious ideas, rites, and custo 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 suested mass 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 sa as the brain is rich or poor in facts and principles Even the great, strong ical knowledge before he could see theof 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 viehose 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 volu 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 feho really study and reflect, it will be stiestive Greater praise the author would not desire; so iven with sincerity

G W Foote

PHALLIC WORshi+P 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 chastity, is aexclusively, as Sir G Staunton reious rites of various nations, by the drawings on the walls of Poes”--C Darwin, ”Descent of Man” pt 1, chap

iv, vol i, p 182; 1888

The study of religions is a departy, and nowhere is it an Terence, _homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto_ It is i across a deal of ht as justly be terrowths of earth, not gifts fro in

The Contemporary Review for June 1888, says (p 804) ”when Lord Dalhousie passed an Act intended to repress obscenity (in India), a special clause in it exeious emblems from its operation”

I am not one of those who find in phallicis phenoht and darkness, sun and moon, the terrors of the thunderstorether with his own dreainations--contributed to evoke the wonder and superstition of early ion shows it often nucleated around the phenoion concerns the production of things Man's own body was always nearer to hi not in words but in things, had to express the very idea of creation or production in terypt, where the syn of life, and of regeneration and resurrection It was so in Babylonia and assyria, 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 lustful concupiscence of such as came for devotion, kept wenches of purpose in their teion to deale with them before one went to prayers _Nimirum propter continentiauitur_: 'Belike weis 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 worshi+p maybe best studied at the present day The worshi+ppers of Siva identify their great God, Maha Deva, with the linga, and wear on their left ara and yoni The rival sect of followers of Vishnu have also a phallic significance in their sy 1) is indeed one of the coious symbols in India Its use extends fro says the ordinary Maha Deva of Northern India is the si 2, in which we see ”as 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 hats or river ferries, or crossings of any streaa Purana tells us that the linga was a pillar of fire in which Siva was present This re as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night

[Illustration: Fig 1--The Hindu Maha Deva, or Linga-Yoni]

So astounded have been many writers at the phenoht 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 in of phallic worshi+p with obscenity Early s, it was to him no perversion to mentally associate 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 worshi+p was indeed both natural and inevitable in the evolution of ery When, however, phallic worshi+p 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

[Illustration: Fig 2--Rural Hindu Lingam]