JOSHUA TO REVELATION
"OH! Rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run.
And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun."
--The Parish Register.
1898.
The Bible in its teachings degrades Woman from Genesis to Revelations.
REVISING COMMITTEE.
"We took sweet counsel together."-Ps. Iv., 14.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Clara Bewick Colby, Rev. Augusta Chapin, Ursula N. Gestefeld, Mary Seymour Howell, Josephine K. Henry, Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll, Sarah A. Underwood, Ellen Battelle Dietrick,[FN#4]
Lillie Devereux Blake, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Rev. Olympia Brown, Frances Ellen Burr, Clara B. Neyman, Helen H. Gardener, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, Lucinda B. Chandler, Catharine F. Stebbins, Louisa Southworth.
[FN#4] Deceased.
FOREIGN MEMBERS.
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, Finland,
Ursula M. Bright, England,
Irma Von Troll-Borostyani, Austria,
Priscilla Bright Mclaren, Scotland,
Isabelle Bogelot, France.
COMMENTS ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS
FROM
JOSHUA TO REVELATION, BY
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Louisa Southworth, Lucinda B. Chandler, Anonymous,
Matilda Joslyn Gage, Frances Ellen Burr, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Clara B. Neyman.
APPENDIX.
LETTERS AND COMMENTS BY
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Josephine K. Henry, Frances E. Willard, Eva A.
Ingersoll, Mary A. Livermore, Irma von Troll-Borostyani, Mrs. Jacob Bright, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Anonymous, Rev. Phebe A.
Hanaford, Ednah D. Cheney, Sarah A. Underwood, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Ursula N. Gestefeld, E. M., Matilda Joslyn Gage, Sarah M. Perkins, and Catharine F. Stebbins.
Resolution
Of
National-American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation repudiating "The Woman"s Bible," and Speech of Susan B. Anthony.
Dedicated To The Memory Of
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,
In Whose Death We Lost The Ablest Member Of Our Revising Committee.
PREFACE TO PART II.
The criticisms on "The Woman"s Bible" are as varied as they are unreasonable. Both friend and foe object to the t.i.tle. When John Stuart Mill wrote his "Subjection of Woman" there was a great outcry against that t.i.tle. He said that proved it to be a good one. The critics said: "It will suggest to women that they are in subjection and make them rebellious." "That," said he, "is just the effect I wish to produce."
Rider Haggard"s "She" was denounced so universally that every one read it to see who "She" was. Thus the t.i.tle in both cases called attention to the book.
The critics say that our t.i.tle should have been "Commentaries on the Bible." That would have been misleading, as the book simply contains short comments on the pa.s.sages referring to woman. Some say that it should have been "The Women of the Bible;" but several books with that t.i.tle have already been published. The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage says: "You might as well have a "Shoemakers" Bible"; the Scriptures apply to women as we"ll as to men." As the Bible treats women as of a different cla.s.s, inferior to man or in subjection to him, which is not the case with shoemakers, Mr. Talmage"s criticism has no significance.