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THE WOMAN'S BIBLE.
PART I.
Comments on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
"In every soul there is bound up some truth and some error, and each
gives to the world of thought what no other one possesses."--Cousin.
1898.
By
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
REVISING COMMITTEE.
"We took sweet counsel together."--Ps. Iv., 14.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Lillie Devereux Blake,
Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford,
Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Clara Bewick Colby,
Rev. Olympia Brown,
Rev. Augusta Chapin,
Frances Ellen Burr,
Ursula N. Gestefeld,
Clara B. Neyman,
Mary Seymour Howell,
Helen H. Gardener,
Josephine K. Henry,
Charlotte Beebe: Wilbour,
Mrs. Robert G. Ingersoll,
Lucinda B. Chandler,
Sarah A. Underwood,
Catharine F. Stebbins,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,[FN#1]
Louisa Southworth.
[FN#1] Deceased.
FOREIGN MEMBERS.
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, Finland,
Ursula M. Bright, England,
Irma Von Troll-Borostyant, Austria,
Priscilla Bright Mclaren, Scotland,
Isabelle Bogelot, France
COMMENTS
ON
GENESIS, EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS AND DEUTERONOMY,
By
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Lillie Devereux Blake,
Rev. Phebe Hanaford,
Clara Bewick Colby,
Ellen Battelle Dietrick,
Ursula N. Gestefeld,
Mrs. Louisa Southworth,
Frances Ellen Burr.
PREFACE.
So many letters are daily received asking questions about the Woman's
Bible,--as to the extent of the revision, and the standpoint from which
it will be conducted--that it seems best, though every detail is not as
yet matured, to state the plan, as concisely as possible, upon which
those who have been in consultation during the summer, propose to do
the work.
I. The object is to revise only those texts and chapters directly
referring to women, and those also in which women are made prominent by
exclusion. As all such passages combined form but one-tenth of the
Scriptures, the undertaking will not be so laborious as, at the first
thought, one would imagine. These texts, with the commentaries, can
easily be compressed into a duodecimo volume of about four hundred
pages.
II. The commentaries will be of a threefold character, the writers in
the different branches being selected according to their special
aptitude for the work:
1. Two or three Greek and Hebrew scholars will devote themselves to
the translation and the meaning of particular words and texts in the
original.
2. Others will devote themselves to Biblical history, old manuscripts,
to the new version, and to the latest theories as to the occult meaning
of certain texts and parables.
3. For the commentaries on the plain English version a committee of
some thirty members has been formed. These are women of earnestness and
liberal ideas, quick to see the real purport of the Bible as regards
their sex. Among them the various books of the Old and New Testament
will be distributed for comment.
III. There will be two or more editors to bring the work of the
various committees into one consistent whole.
IV. The completed work will be submitted to an advisory committee
assembled at some central point, as London, New York, or Chicago, to
sit in final judgment on "The Woman's Bible."
As to the manner of doing the practical work:
Those who have been engaged this summer have adopted the following
plan, which may be suggestive to new members of the committee. Each
person purchased two Bibles, ran through them from Genesis to
Revelations, marking all the texts that concerned women. The passages
were cut out, and pasted in a blank book, and the commentaries then
written underneath.
Those not having time to read all the books can confine their labors
to the particular ones they propose to review.
It is thought best to publish the different parts as soon as prepared
so that the Committee may have all in print in a compact form before
the final revision.
E. C. S.
August 1st, 1895.
INTRODUCTION.
From the inauguration of the movement for woman's emancipation the
Bible has been used to hold her in the "divinely ordained sphere,"
prescribed in the Old and New Testaments.
The canon and civil law; church and state; priests and legislators;
all political parties and religious denominations have alike taught
that woman was made after man, of man, and for man, an inferior being,
subject to man. Creeds, codes, Scriptures and statutes, are all based
on this idea. The fashions, forms, ceremonies and customs of society,
church ordinances and discipline all grow out of this idea.
Of the old English common law, responsible for woman's civil and
political status, Lord Brougham said, "it is a disgrace to the
civilization and Christianity of the Nineteenth Century." Of the canon
law, which is responsible for woman's status in the church, Charles
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