The Womans Bible | Page 3

women to issue a Woman's Bible, that we might have
women's commentaries on women's position in the Old and New Testaments. It was
agreed on by several leading women in England and America and the work was begun,
but from various causes it has been delayed, until now the idea is received with renewed
enthusiasm, and a large committee has been formed, and we hope to complete the work
within a year.
Those who have undertaken the labor are desirous to have some Hebrew and Greek
scholars, versed in Biblical criticism, to gild our pages with their learning. Several
distinguished women have been urged to do so, but they are afraid that their high

reputation and scholarly attainments might be compromised by taking part in an
enterprise that for a time may prove very unpopular. Hence we may not be able to get
help from that class.
Others fear that they might compromise their evangelical faith by affiliating with those of
more liberal views, who do not regard the Bible as the "Word of God," but like any other
book, to be judged by its merits. If the Bible teaches the equality of Woman, why does
the church refuse to ordain women to preach the gospel, to fill the offices of deacons and
elders, and to administer the Sacraments, or to admit them as delegates to the Synods,
General Assemblies and Conferences of the different denominations? They have never
yet invited a woman to join one of their Revising Committees, nor tried to mitigate the
sentence pronounced on her by changing one count in the indictment served on her in
Paradise.
The large number of letters received, highly appreciative of the undertaking, is very
encouraging to those who have inaugurated the movement, and indicate a growing
self-respect and self-assertion in the women of this generation. But we have the usual
array of objectors to meet and answer. One correspondent conjures us to suspend the
work, as it is "ridiculous" for "women to attempt the revision of the Scriptures." I wonder
if any man wrote to the late revising committee of Divines to stop their work on the
ground that it was ridiculous for men to revise the Bible. Why is it more ridiculous for
women to protest against her present status in the Old and New Testament, in the
ordinances and discipline of the church, than in the statutes and constitution of the state?
Why is it more ridiculous to arraign ecclesiastics for their false teaching and acts of
injustice to women, than members of Congress and the House of Commons? Why is it
more audacious to review Moses than Blackstone, the Jewish code of laws, than the
English system of jurisprudence? Women have compelled their legislators in every state
in this Union to so modify their statutes for women that the old common law is now
almost a dead letter. Why not compel Bishops and Revising Committees to modify their
creeds and dogmas? Forty years ago it seemed as ridiculous to timid, time-serving and
retrograde folk for women to demand an expurgated edition of the laws, as it now does to
demand an expurgated edition of the Liturgies and the Scriptures. Come, come, my
conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.
Whatever your views may be as to the importance of the proposed work, your political
and social degradation are but an outgrowth of your status in the Bible. When you
express your aversion, based on a blind feeling of reverence in which reason has no
control, to the revision of the Scriptures, you do but echo Cowper, who, when asked to
read Paine's "Rights of Man," exclaimed "No man shall convince me that I am
improperly governed while I feel the contrary."
Others say it is not politic to rouse religious opposition.
This much-lauded policy is but another word for cowardice. How can woman's position
be changed from that of a subordinate to an equal, without opposition, without the
broadest discussion of all the questions involved in her present degradation? For so
far-reaching and momentous a reform as her complete independence, an entire revolution
in all existing institutions is inevitable.

Let us remember that all reforms are interdependent, and that whatever is done to
establish one principle on a solid basis, strengthens all. Reformers who are always
compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand
upon. The object of an individual life is not to carry one fragmentary measure in human
progress, but to utter the highest truth clearly seen in all directions, and thus to round out
and perfect a well balanced character. Was not the sum of influence exerted by John
Stuart Mill on political, religious and social questions far greater than