It is blasphemy to deny that “the eyes of the Lord are in every place;” it is also blasphemy to assert that the eyes of the Lord were in the special place wherein Adam and his wife “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees” (Gen. iii., 8). The only way to reconcile these contradictions is to believe that Adam and his wife and the trees behind which they hid themselves were nowhere, and to believe this comes perilously near the blasphemy of denying the whole story.
It is blasphemy to deny that god cursed the serpent— who had unfortunately lost the power of speech just at the time at which he most required it—for being the helpless tool of Satan, and condemned him to go on his belly and to eat dust. Divine authority does not say how snakes went about before this literal fall, whether on their heads or their tails, so that the method of their locomotion is not of faith.
It is blasphemy to deny that god made coats of skins for Adam and Eve, although coat-making seems rather a curious employment for a deity, and scarcely as dignified as world-making. We are not told what became of the animals whom god deprived of their skins for this purpose; nor whether he killed them first. If he did, then death first entered into the world by god’s immediate act. As it is blasphemy to deny that death entered into the world by sin (Rom. v., 12), it is difficult to avoid identifying god with sin, and this, again, is, I fear me, blasphemy.
If in any other old eastern book we read about trees the eating of the fruit of which gave knowledge, serpents which talked, gods who walked in gardens and who made coats, we should at once understand that we were reading old myths, and should never dream of regarding them as a record of historical facts. If we apply the same reasoning to the Bible, Justice North will send us to pick oakum here, and we shall be burned for ever hereafter.
It is blasphemy not to believe that “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. iv., 16)—whom it is blasphemy to deny is everywhere present—and that god put a mark on him lest any one—there being only in existence his own family—“finding him should kill him” (Gen. iv., 15). It is blasphemy not to believe that having a wife, who was also his sister, and who bare him a son, he “builded a city” (Gen. iv., 17) for himself, his wife and child. How many houses there were in the city, and whether each of the three inhabitants lived in a separate house, or the trio moved from house to house, so as to inhabit “the city,” these things are not revealed by divine authority.