Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon.

Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.

Date:: 1860

Credit: Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

661/800 (page 605)

605 is cecity, if not worse. We pass over, therefore, the extraordinary circumstance how Josiah could find a “ grove ” in a house, unless that grove was very small, or the house very large, which Solomon’s temple, only ninety feet by thirty, was assuredly not — and how he could carry about and break up with facility an entire “ grove” seems inexplicable. Not so when we read — “ And he dragged the (wooden statue of) VENUS (AS/teRaH) (114) out of the house of IeHOuaH:”—a proceeding which begins to reveal to us, what some “teologastri” have ventured recently to doubt, (115) viz., the infamous atrocities of ancient Jewish templar worship ; that we propose to lay bare in another place. “ Ex abundantia, ’ we give a correct but modest restoration of verse 7 of the same chapter, which intelligent readers can compare with the blundering performance of the forty-seven: — “ And he Josiah) broke down the little chapels of the shameless priests that were in the house of fellOuall, where the women spread perfumes before the niches of VENUS” — for, says verse 5 — the Jews “ had burned incense to Baal, to Shems, to the Moon, and to the Signs of the Zodiac, and to all the Asterisms of Heaven! ” It was the discovery (about 620 b. c.), to say the least, of the “Book of the Law” of Moses, (116) lost and forgotten for some 700 years, which instigated the reforming Josiah to these vigorous measures: but pious iconoclasts had been shocked at similar abominations before; as the following text clearly exhibits; while it also relieves poor Joash, the worthy father of the valiant Gideon, from the accusation of idolatry that forty-seven men stimulate “simple believers” to hurl at his innocent head. Y. — Judges vi. 25, 26. “ And it came to pass the same night, that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it:—And build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of the rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down.” Decency forbids that we should explain the sculptural obscenities that Gideon’s ejres beheld. Orientalists, whose studies may have led them into antique pornography, will com- prehend us and the exactitude of the venerable Lanci’s translation, (117) of which we submit a close but softened paraphrase: — “And it was in that night that IeHOuaH said to him [Gideon]: ‘Take the young bullock of thy father, and another bullock of seven years, and thou shalt fell, with the altar [supporter] of Baal [the obscene God] that [bullock] which is thy father’s; afterwards thou shalt break down the VENUS [Ashera, the foul goddess] which was above it. Then thou shalt build up, in regular proportion [i. e., according to Mosaic rules], an altar to IeHOuaH, thy Ebon, on the summit of that [yonder] rock; and, taking the second bullock, thou shalt burn it in holocaust with the wood of the VENUS by thee broken up.’ ” We may now inquire of the reader, in all good faith, whether, in every instance laid hitherto before his acumen, our emendations have not made plain sense of that which was utter nonsense; and whether the Bible, properly translated, is not a much loftier book, far grander, as regards mere literary excellence, than the version, “authorized” exactly 250 years ago, has ever made it appear ? If such be his candid opinion, he will feel a high gratification at the revisal, through the application of pure grammar and philology, of that imaginary text, on the authority of which the Copernican system was traduced by ecclesiastical ignorance; while the tele- scopic discoveries of the immortal Galileo, a. d. 1615, condemned, as “absurd, false in philosophy, and formally heretical, being contrary to the express word of God.” nearly brought him to those fagots whereupon, only fifteen years before, Giordano Bruno’s living (114) Caiiex preserves “Asehera ” in his translation (viii. p. 190, Ac.); accurately remarking that, if the Rabbis bestowed more attention on “Antiquitcs bibliques” — “ there would not be then less respect for the sacred writ- ings, but they would no longer be regarded as the Pillars of Hercules of all civilization” (p. 205). (115) Inter alios, the Rev. Dr. Smythe of Charleston, S. C.: Unity; p. 112, note. (116) 2 Kings xxii. 8; and 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14.

Licence and re-use

Contents