Text:God's Word to Women:Lesson 1
FUNDAMENTAL.
1. The object of these lessons is at least three-fold:
(1) To point out to women the fallacies in the "Scriptural" argument for the supremacy of the male sex.
(2) To show the true position of women in the economy of God.
(3) To show women their need of knowing the Bible in its original tongues, in order the better to equip themselves to confute these fallacies, and also to show that such a knowledge of the Bible would have great influence for good on the progress of the Church and womanhood.
2. Our argument assumes that the Bible is all that it claims for itself. It is (1) Inspired, 2 Timothy 3:16;[1] (2) Infallible, Isaiah 40:8; and (3) Inviolable, John 10:35. Indeed, no other basis of procedure is available for us. However freely certain male scholars of the present day manipulate the text, no confidence would be placed in the results thus obtained by a woman, at once, she would be faced with the charge that she had manipulated the text to suit her argument. But a manipulation of the text is unnecessary, even if we thought it lawful under any circumstances.
3. The assumption that the text needs amending, to any great extent, is very erroneous. A candid acceptance of the testimony as to its history proves that the original text has been preserved in manuscripts with scarcely an important change. It is known that the Scribes wrote out their copy with immense care, as to the Hebrew Old Testament. They copied even supposed errors, calling attention to seeming irregularities by slight marks, but not venturing to correct. They have left records to show that when copying they counted each consonant and vowel-letter in each line, and kept records of the same, in order to verify their finished work. Superstition alone was enough to cause the Jews to preserve their Scripture text inviolable, they prized the letter beyond the spirit of the Word. The Apostle Paul speaks in direct testimony of their faithful preservation of the Hebrew text, since had it been otherwise, the Jews would have been less in favor with God, Romans 3:1-2. Jesus Christ strongly denounced the misinterpretation of the Scriptures by the "traditions" of the Jews, Mark 7:9-13, etc., but He never accused the Jews of corrupting the text of their Scriptures.
4. The Lord Jesus said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." The "jot" (letter j), is nearly like our single quotation mark ( ‘ ), in form and size; the "tittle" is not a letter, but the distinguishing point of difference between one Hebrew letter and another much like it. For instance, the Jewish rabbis, who taught also the infallibility of the text, in a treatise called Vayikra Rabba (s.19) declare:
1. "Should anyone, in Deut. 6:4, change he would ruin the world." (d) to (r)
2. "Should anyone, in Ex. 34:14, change he would ruin the world." (r) to (d)
3. "Should anyone, in Lev. 22:32, change he would ruin the world." (ch) to (h)
4. "Should anyone, in Psa. 150:6, change he would ruin the world." (h) to (ch)
5. "Should anyone, in Jer. 5:12, change he would ruin the world." (b) to (k)
6. "Should anyone, in 1 Sam. 2:2, change he would ruin the world." (k) to (b)
Because these passages would then mean respectively,
1. "Hear, O Israel; the Lord is a false Lord."
2. "Thou shalt not worship the one true God."
3. "Neither shall ye praise [for "profane"] My Holy name."
4. "Let everything that hath breath profane [for "praise"] the Lord."
5. "They have lied like [for "belied"] the Lord."
6. "There is no holiness in [for "none holy as"] the Lord."
5. But when we speak of the Bible as inspired, infallible and inviolable, we do not refer to our English version, or any mere version, but to the original text. Prof. Deissmann has well said, "All translation implies some, if only a slight, alteration of the sense of the original." Now we must explain more precisely what "the original text" really implies, and how much it includes. The original Hebrew of the Old Testament was written without any spaces between words in totally different looking letters from those we call "Hebrew” at the present time; and the language as first written contained no vowels, as though the English of Genesis 1:1 were written:
No distinction existed between small and capital letters, and doubled letters were often written only once, as we have indicated in the word, "beginning."
6. Hebrew ceased to be spoken by the common people during the Babylonian captivity. It was practically a "dead language" as early as B.C. 250. In the absence of expressed vowels, its pronunciation was likely to become lost. So the Scribes took four consonants, "a h w and j," and inserted them into the text to indicate the vowel sounds. While this device helped to some extent, in the end it led to confusion, often raising the question: "Is this letter a consonant, belonging to the original, or is it a vowel-letter, added by the Scribes?" Moreover the insertion of these vowel-letters did not prove sufficient; then, as late as 600-800 A.D., a whole system of vowel-signs was added, most elaborately indicating the vowels of each word as tradition had preserved it. These vowel-signs were interlinear, and therefore did not confuse the text, as did the vowel-letters. With vowel-signs we might indicate the pronunciation of Genesis 1:1, as given above, something like this (separating the words):
7. We understand, now that the Hebrew text may have mistakes which we are free (with due respect for the scholarship which has given to it its present form, and due reverence for God's Word), to amend, so far as the vowel-letters and the vowel-signs are concerned, for no one claims that the Scribes who made these additions to the text in comparatively recent times did "inspired" work, as did the original authors.
8. And then, women must never forget that all this addition to the text was not only the work of men exclusively, but of men who, in their day, were, as Jews, bitter opponents of the teachings and of the spirit of Christianity. Furthermore, if we may judge from the spirit of the teachings of the Talmud on the "woman question" (for the Talmud was then in the ascendancy, and the sayings of the rabbis considered more authoritative than Scripture itself), these amenders of the original text, as a class, held women in utter contempt. Dr. Paul Isaac Hershon (to quote one of the many witnesses to this statement) says: "The rabbis, over and over again, teach the utter inferiority of woman: they put a definite seal as it were on the degraded life of the female sex which for ages has been lived by women in the East as in the West." A certain Rabbi Yochanan, we are told, quotes the Mishnic (the Mishna is the most ancient and important part of the Talmud) rabbis as teaching that a man may do as he pleases with his wife: "It is like a piece of meat brought from the shambles, which one may eat, salt, roast, partially or wholly cooked." A woman once complained before Rav (a great rabbi) of bad treatment from her husband. He replied: "What is the difference between thee and a fish, which one may eat either broiled or cooked?" But Jews alone did not hold women in contempt at that time in human history. It was an unfortunate time, as regards women, for fixing the sense of the Holy Scriptures.
Footnotes
[1] We shall use the Authorized Version of the Bible throughout these Lessons, unless we indicate the Revised by "R. V." In this place (2 Tim. 3:16) the R.V.is both incorrect and misleading.
[2] The dash (-) before three words takes the place of a needed consonant, -since no word in the Hebrew begins with a vowel. The ēē sound is always indicated by the "jot, "additionally,—so we introduce this "jot" three times.
See Also
God's Word to Women | Table of Contents | Foreword to the 1943 edition published by Ray Munson | Foreword to the 2005 edition published by God's Word to Women | Author's Note | Lesson 1 | Lesson 2 | Lesson 3 | Lesson 4 | Lesson 5 | Lesson 6 | Lesson 7 | Lesson 8 | Lesson 9 | Lesson 10 | Lesson 11 | Lesson 12 | Lesson 13 | Lesson 14 | Lesson 15 | Lesson 16 | Lesson 17 | Lesson 18 | Lesson 19 | Lesson 20 | Lesson 21 | Lesson 22 | Lesson 23 | Lesson 24 | Lesson 25 | Lesson 26 | Lesson 27 | Lesson 28 | Lesson 29 | Lesson 30 | Lesson 31 | Lesson 32 | Lesson 33 | Lesson 34 | Lesson 35 | Lesson 36 | Lesson 37 | Lesson 38 | Lesson 39 | Lesson 40 | Lesson 41 | Lesson 42 | Lesson 43 | Lesson 44 | Lesson 45 | Lesson 46 | Lesson 47 | Lesson 48 | Lesson 49 | Lesson 50 | Lesson 51 | Lesson 52 | Lesson 53 | Lesson 54 | Lesson 55 | Lesson 56 | Lesson 57 | Lesson 58 | Lesson 59 | Lesson 60 | Lesson 61 | Lesson 62 | Lesson 63 | Lesson 64 | Lesson 65 | Lesson 66 | Lesson 67 | Lesson 68 | Lesson 69 | Lesson 70 | Lesson 71 | Lesson 72 | Lesson 73 | Lesson 74 | Lesson 75 | Lesson 76 | Lesson 77 | Lesson 78 | Lesson 79 | Lesson 80 | Lesson 81 | Lesson 82 | Lesson 83 | Lesson 84 | Lesson 85 | Lesson 86 | Lesson 87 | Lesson 88 | Lesson 89 | Lesson 90 | Lesson 91 | Lesson 92 | Lesson 93 | Lesson 94 | Lesson 95 | Lesson 96 | Lesson 97 | Lesson 98 | Lesson 99 | Lesson 100 | Index of Scripture Texts | Dictionary
