Some Mistakes of Moses

Introduction

The following is drawn from Ingersoll's celebrated lecture first delivered in 1879. It became one of his most widely read and reprinted works — a careful, often humorous examination of the books attributed to Moses in light of modern science, history, and ethics.

The Purpose of This Lecture

I have examined the Old Testament. I have read it carefully. And I am obliged to say that it seems to me to contain much that is not true, much that is not moral, and much that is, from the standpoint of civilization, positively barbarous.

I speak not from disrespect. I speak as a man who has read these books carefully, who has thought about them seriously, and who feels that the truth requires an honest examination of what is actually in them, rather than what we have been told is in them.

On the First Chapter of Genesis

The first chapter of Genesis is a poem — a magnificent poem. It was written in an age when men did not know the shape of the earth, when astronomy was in its infancy, when geology did not exist. It is not a scientific treatise; it was never intended to be. When we read it as poetry, it is beautiful. When we read it as a textbook of science, it becomes — I have to say it — absurd.

The world was not made in six days. Science has demonstrated, beyond any possibility of reasonable doubt, that the earth is thousands of millions of years old. Every stratum of rock, every fossil, every particle of light reaching us from distant stars testifies to this.

The sun was not created after the light. The earth was not created before the stars. These things are not opinions; they are established facts.

On the Flood

Let us examine the story of Noah's Flood with the same care we would give to any historical account.

We are told that the flood covered the entire earth — "even the highest mountains." We are told that every creature that breathed air perished, except those in the ark. We are told that Noah built an ark sufficient to contain at least two of every species of creature on earth.

Consider the task. There are estimated to be at least one million species of animals on this earth. Allowing two of each — and seven of the "clean" animals — we would need accommodation for several million creatures. We would need food for forty days for each of them. We would need adequate ventilation. We would need staff sufficient to feed and care for them all.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood began. His three sons were his assistants. Four men to care for millions of creatures. I leave the mathematics to you.

Then consider: after the flood, the animals return to their various continents. The kangaroos go back to Australia. The polar bears go back to the Arctic. The penguins go back to the Antarctic. How? Who arranged their transportation?

I am not trying to be unkind. I am trying to be honest.

On Morality

It is not only the science of the Bible that troubles me. It is sometimes the morality.

I believe it immoral to threaten children with eternal punishment for honest doubt. I believe it immoral to tell a man that his highest duty is to believe something he cannot believe, and that his deepest sin is to follow the evidence of his reason.

I believe that the God depicted in certain passages of the Old Testament — who commands the massacre of entire peoples, who demands the death of sons who strike their fathers, who hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he may then punish him for the hardness — I believe this portrait of divinity to be morally inferior to the conduct of countless ordinary human beings.

I do not say this to wound. I say it because I think it is true, and because I think the truth requires to be said.

The Bible and Science

The Bible was written by men who did not know that the earth moved. They did not know that the sun was a star. They did not know the age of the earth. They did not know about germs, or bacteria, or electricity, or the conservation of energy.

They were human beings, with the knowledge of their time. That is not a condemnation; it is simply a statement of fact. But it does mean that we cannot ask this book to teach us science — any more than we would ask a textbook of modern physics to teach us morality.

The Bible is a very human book. It contains much that is beautiful, much that is wise, much that reflects the genuine spiritual insight of its writers. But it also contains much that is clearly not true, and some things that are clearly not good.

A religion that cannot face honest examination is not worthy of our allegiance.

The Freethinker's Position

I believe in the perfectibility of man. I believe that humanity is on a long road upward — that we are slowly, painfully, but genuinely becoming better. I believe that the tools of this progress are reason, education, science, and honest moral inquiry.

I do not believe that any book, written in any age, can be the final word on any of these subjects. I believe that every honest inquiry adds something to human knowledge, and that every honest doubt is a step toward truth.

"The man who does not doubt is on the road to becoming the greatest enemy of his fellow man."

Moses made mistakes. So have all of us. The question is whether we are willing to acknowledge them.

The complete text of "Some Mistakes of Moses" runs to considerable length and is available at Project Gutenberg. The above contains selected passages.