A CENTURY AFTER HIS DEATH, A NEW
SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY IS RELEASED
FAUX
NEWS RELEASE: A restricted document by
Dr. John H. Watson, MD (1859-1930) was made available today by the British
Museum. It was written about January 1910 and donated to the Museum in 1915
shortly after Holmes’s death in August 1914.
Of all the cases that I witnessed
in Sherlock Holmes’s illustrious career, there is only one that I have penned that
has been restricted and it resides in the vault of the British Museum. Holmes’s cases involved clients and events
between 1880 and 1914. Soon after his
death in August 1914, I placed this account in the British Museum and restricted
access for 100 years. I call this “The
Curious Case of the Death of God.” I
think you will agree with me that publishing this then would have tarnished
Holmes’s reputation and created considerable grief, especially if I had done so
shortly after the Great War began, only a few days after Holmes’s passing. As a military man myself, I recognize the
importance of religion to those who enter battle and will certainly face death
from an enemy of equal will and skill. I
personally share with Thomas Henry Huxley an agnostic’s attitude toward
religion. As a proper Victorian,
however, I was raised to respect the Church of England even though not raised
in that faith, so I kept those sentiments to myself. Only Sherlock Holmes knew my religious
feelings and those came out in 1900 when the world was welcoming a new
twentieth century and saying its goodbyes to the nineteenth.
Holmes and I were relaxing at
221B Baker Street after the conclusion
of “The Case of the Six Napoleons” which won the plaudits of Inspector Lestrade
of Scotland Yard. Mrs. Hudson knocked at
our study and introduced our unexpected visitor. “Mr. Holmes, may I introduce Reverend Earnest
Thomas, who comes with some urgency and insists I allow him to plead his case
to you”. Holmes and I introduced
ourselves and asked Reverend Thomas to sit down. Thomas was about 40 years old, clean shaven,
thin but not gaunt, with a worried look. He wore his clerical collar and
conveyed to us the comfort of being seen as a minister. His eyes, however, showed signs of sorrow and
he fussed with some papers he held in his hands.
“And what,” said Holmes,
“is so urgent, that it requires our immediate attention?”
“I am losing my faith in the existence of God.” This struck Holmes and me as a curious
conclusion for a man of faith.
“Why do you come to me when faith is a matter of personal
persuasion?” Holmes continued.
“Mr. Holmes, you have great powers of inference and your
analytical mind is, I believe, unrivalled in British society today.”
“I thank you for your kind words. Why are you losing your faith?”
Reverend Thomas shuffled his papers and held them in front
of Holmes. “These are notes I have taken
from reading the new Biblical criticism from German scholars. If they are
correct the scriptural basis for our Anglican faith is doubtful.”
“And if they are correct, what course of action will you
take?” I asked.
“Dr. Watson, I shall change my field, possibly becoming an
alienist, like Dr. Sigmund Freud, and spend my life healing broken minds like
mine.”
Mrs. Hudson brought us some tea and scones and we let the
topic percolate in our minds. I suggested
we begin by making a short statement of what we do believe. I went first.
“I was raised in a non-conforming Church that had its roots in Joseph
Priestley’s Unitarian ministry in Birmingham.
Priestley was sympathetic to the Deists of the French Enlightenment and
he was a member of the Lunar Society with Erasmus Darwin and Josiah
Wedgwood. Popular outcry over his views
led to a mob action. His home, church,
and laboratory were burned to the ground and he and his family had to flee to
the newly established United States of America where he encouraged his friend,
Thomas Jefferson, to prepare The
Jefferson Bible. As you probably know, Jefferson’s Bible is
stripped of the supernatural. In my
career as physician, I had many pious patients. If I had to listen to their
relatives read from Scripture or pray, I never considered the King James Bible
as the word of God. I believe it was
inspired by a deep faith of the Jews who wrote the Torah, the Jews who wrote
the other books of the Hebrew Bible, and the dissident Jews who wrote the
Gospels of our New Testament. I consider
Jesus to be human, and not divine, and a prophet like Isaiah. Like Thomas
Huxley, I am inclined to be an agnostic when it comes to the God of most Christians
and Jews.”
Reverend
Thomas spoke next. “I was raised
Anglican. It is our state religion. My parents were faithful and took me to
church each Sunday. We enjoyed the holidays and I felt both comfort and
pleasure seeing our minister and his family helping others in times of grief
and struggle. They were role models for
me and I chose a career in the ministry to be like them. I accepted all 39 of our articles of
faith. When I turned thirty I began to
develop doubts. They came from reading
magazines, books, and newspaper articles.
I read Darwin’s On the Origin of
Species and found his arguments overwhelming that the earth is far older
than most of my fellow clergy believe. I
was much disturbed by his account of evolution by natural selection leading to
the millions of species, including ours, which inhabit the earth. I cannot dispute its scientific
validity. The German “higher criticism”
as it is sometimes called also made me doubt the Bible as a dictated set of
books put on paper and collated by inspired Jewish scribes.”
Holmes
listened to our views. His remarks were
brief. “My brother Mycroft and I were
raised in the Anglican faith and both of us dropped an interest in religion
when we hit our teens. It added nothing to our values or the careers we
entered. Despite this absence of feeling
for religion, I chose to read widely in it, especially when I saw how analytic
approaches could be used to solve crimes. Knowing the religious practices and
motivations of those who commit crimes (sometimes justifying them on religious
grounds) greatly assists my investigations.”
After a short
pause, Holmes resumed his opening line of inquiry. “I would like to ask you several questions, Reverend
Thomas. May I have your permission to
begin?”
Thomas
was happy to do so.
“Let us
begin with the creation of the universe as given in the first two chapters of
the Book of Genesis. You say you have
read German higher criticism. What is
their consensus on who wrote these two opening chapters?”
“They
claim that there were two versions about six or seven thousand years before the
start of the Christian era. One version they
call the Priestly version and the other they call the Jahwist version.”
“How do
they differ?” Holmes asked.
“The
Priestly version gives the six days of creation with the seventh day as one of
rest although why a God of infinite power needs rest is an inconsistency to
me. The Jahwist version gives the Adam and Eve in
the Garden of Eden episdoe. German
scholars believe the Jahwist version is older and based on Mesopotamian
polytheistic accounts, such as the Gilgamesh epic, of the creation of the
universe that were modified for the monotheistic religion of the early Jews.
The Priestly account is believed to be a more rational account stripped of
Babylonian myths.”
Holmes suggested we begin with the Priestly version and
follow it day by day.
“What happened on the first day?”
Thomas did not need to pull out a Bible. He was familiar with much of its text. “There is a general statement that the
heavens and earth are created but the earth is described as formless and empty
except for a “surface on the deep” and it is not clear what that deep refers
to. It could be water or it could be
like a deep hole in an abyss. But the
major creation is stressed as the formation of light (called day) and darkness
(called night). The full day is
described as a night time followed by a day time, which is still the Jewish way
to describe a day.
Holmes asked Thomas, “Does it say anything about the sun,
moon, planets, or stars on day one?”
“No.”
“Then let us see what day two provides.”
“Yes. Day two
describes the formation of a vault or firmament between two masses of water
-- the water above the vault and water
below the vault.” The firmament is also described as Heaven or the heavens.
Biblical writing can appear muddled when it comes to using single or plural
descriptions or names.
“Please note,” said Holmes, “that on day two, Jews some 9,
000 years believed there were waters above and below the ‘firmament.’ I can
see why. When I was visiting Salvador,
in Brazil, which is near the equator, it used to rain about noon each day. The downpour was impressive and people stood
in doorways or under awnings of shops to stay dry. The shower lasted about five minutes and then
abruptly stopped. If we went back to the
Middle East some 9,000 years ago this might have been a daily occurrence,
too. In the absence of science one would
wonder where the waters above came from. There was no science of thermodynamics
to argue that warm moist air near the land encounters dry cold air above and
clouds form as the moisture chills and droplets of rain begin to merge and
fall. In the absence of science is it
not plausible that there is a reserve of water that dribbles down from the
skies? In the absence of science, is it
not plausible that those events we cannot explain we would attribute to
supernatural agents?”
Day three was plausible to Holmes. Reverend Thomas told us that dry land was
separated from the waters which were gathered into seas. The land was described
as bearing grasses and fruit trees with seeds.
For Holmes this meant that the early Jews were trying to work out a
sequence of creations that was logical.
So far there was a chaos or void that became the barren earth followed
by light and day followed by the sky between the waters above and below. Now on
Day three there is dry land and seas with fruit trees and vegetation as the
first life mentioned.
“Day four turns out to be very disturbing to reason.” Holmes
said. “Reverend Thomas tells us that on
day four two special lights are introduced.
A greater light (presumably the sun) is placed during the day and a
lesser light (presumably the moon) is placed for the night time. Then God
sprinkles the vault or sky between the waters with the stars and planets. God also tells the Jews that he is giving
signs (presumable to mark the seasons or calendar and to enable astrologers to
interpret signs from the heavens)”.
I saw where Holmes was going. “The Priestly version is shifting from
interpretations based on plausibility to supernatural explanations or wild
guesses. Is that what you fear Reverend Thomas?”
“Exactly so. I have read a lot of science. It is difficult for me to believe that the
myriad of stars, the planets, the sun and the moon were all placed in the sky
or firmament between the waters on the fourth day.”
Holmes agreed. “It implies that the Jews did not know the
light they saw was caused by the sun.
One can see daylight without the sun appearing on a cloudy day. One can see the night sky with or without the
moon, but when the moon is present we today would say it reflects the sun’s
light. To the Jews some 9,000 years ago
that thought is absent. They see the sun assigned by God to rule or reside in
the daytime and the moon to reside in the night sky. They have no idea that the sun is a
star. They have a false impression that
the “waters above” are above the
earth’s atmosphere and an equally false impression that the stars are in the earth’s atmosphere. Even more appalling they have the stars and
planets appearing in the skies after
the formation of plant life! That plant life consists of angiosperms or
flowering plants and I am sure Dr. Watson would agree that angiosperms are much
younger than other plant life on an evolutionary scale and yet they are the
first life to be described appearing on day three!”
“It is preposterous to both
astronomers and biologists.” I concurred.
“That leaves us with two more days
of biblical creation,” Holmes noted. “What
happens, Reverend Thomas on those two days?”
“On the fifth day the seas teem
with life and skies fill with birds.”
Holmes paused a moment to
think. “Does it say what type of life
was in the seas? It only mentions by
name whales which are mammals. And for
the skies it does not mention bats which are not birds but which do fly in
large numbers. Please note, Reverend
Thomas, that whales are mammals and mammals in evolutionary studies appeared
long after amphibians, reptiles, and fish were abundant on earth.”
When Reverend Thomas acknowledged
that bats are not specified and that whales were created before land animals of
all types, Holmes commented on the inconsistencies. “It suggests that the ancient Jews of that
era were selective in choosing the most well known or familiar examples”.
“What is introduced on day six?” I
asked.
“Livestock and land animals are
stressed. Humans, male and female, are
described as being created in God’s image.
They are told to rule the earth and use the rest of life for what they
can eat or use for their needs”.
Holmes hastened to add his
comments. “Note once again what is
absent in the Priestly version of creation. There is no Garden of Eden. There is no making of Adam from dust. There is no making of Eve from Adam’s
rib. There is no tree of life or tree of
moral knowledge. Note also that God says his creations of the first six days
are ‘good’ and the life he creates he blesses or urges to be fruitful and
multiply. There is no mention of God forming parasites, microbial diseases, or
suffering on a vast scale as predators eat prey. There is no mention of natural disasters –
earthquakes, floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, or long term
climate change. Humans are just urged to rule and to use the earth for its
wants. God also does not specifically
tell humans to have a stewardship or concern for the resources or living
creatures on earth”. I told Holmes he
was being harsh on the Jews who wrote down what they believed was God’s version
of creation. “After all, this isn’t a text book or an encyclopedia. It’s just a brief account.”
“I agree, Watson. But shouldn’t we expect some sort of
consistency or timeless interpretation if God is the author of the first two
chapters of Genesis? Instead we get
contradictions. Flowering plants created
before the sun, moon, planets, and stars?
How can that interpretation be taken seriously today? "
Reverend Thomas spoke out. “Let me try to defend God despite the weight
of scientific evidence against the chronological view given in Genesis. I would
say that only a minority of my fellow clerics would describe the Bible as a
literal view of history or scientific chronology. In seminary we had many discussions and most
of our teachers felt that the Bible is an inspired document that uses allegory,
metaphor, and storytelling to guide humans to better behavior. It uses an
indirect path to get us to feel holy. That is what I now lean on because I cannot
defend Genesis chapters one and two as a scientific account or historical
account of creation. What is wrong with that?”
Holmes stood up and paced the floor in
his reply. He was not agitated, but felt
more comfortable thinking on his feet as he spoke. “The Priestly account for days one through
five omits moral judgment. God likes
what he has done but remember he created but does not mention ascaris worms and
other parasites that can infest vital organs.
He created bacteria and other pathogens. He gave poisonous toxins to
some spiders, scorpions, snakes, and lizards. He made poison ivy and poisonous mushrooms.
He made volcanoes and fault lines in earthquake regions. Is he blessing these harmful agents as
well? If so, God is a Darwinist and
believes in natural selection as his mode of life evolving. If not, what is the source of creation for
these harmful things and events in the living world? He does not mention Satan in Genesis
one. If we are to infer that Satan made
these bad things, why does God say it is ‘Good’ each day of creation? Are we to infer that Satan too can create
living organisms and bring about earthquakes and other natural disasters? Nor do the Jews who recorded this Priestly
account of creation reflect on this problem.
We can assume, I believe, that it just did not occur to them that there
were inconsistencies in their account.”
Reverend Thomas also got up as Holmes
resumed his seat. “Please, Mr. Holmes,
the real value of the Bible isn’t how accurate the creation stories are in
Genesis. It is the moral lessons, the
spiritual uplift as we reflect on the characters of Biblical heroes, prophets,
and God’s gift of the ten commandments and his protection of the Jews from the
tyrannies of their enemies. Isn’t that
worthy of worship or at least respect for those who embrace God?”
“No,” Holmes responded. “The biblical
God is not worthy of devotion because he responds irrationally to Adam and Eve
in the second creation account. This is
the Jahwist version. We are told that God creates a world teeming with life and
decides to make Adam from dust. For an
unspecified period of time Adam is allowed to roam the Garden of Eden. We are led to infer that there are no pathogens,
no parasites, no poisons, or other dangers in this perfect world. But Adam feels lonesome and lacks
companionship. God then takes a rib and
makes Eve. How strange. We are just
learning that male and female insects differ by sex chromosomes. Why was this clonal
origin different? Why didn’t Adam have a twin brother from his twin? Where did the Y chromosome go? Where did the second X come from? No doubt one could make a tortuous explanation
for such an origin. But one way or the other we have the first act of incest in
the works because unlike the other living creations who are told to be
fruitful, Adam and Eve are not. Instead
they are deliberately tempted by both the presence of the trees of knowledge
and life but also by the snake who appears (presumably one of God’s creations)
and tells Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and in turn she tells
Adam to eat it too. It’s both bad science and bad moral
instruction. Adam is doomed to hard work and difficult circumstance not only
for himself but for all his sons and male descendants in perpetuity. Eve is doomed to painful labor in child birth
and submission to male brutality not only for herself but for all her daughters
and female descendants in perpetuity.
This is a cruel God and not worthy of veneration.”
I was stunned. I could see by the
twitching of Reverend Thomas’s lips that he was feeling defeated and his faith
eroding. I tried to blunt Holmes’s
attack. “Surely, Holmes, God was testing
Adam and Eve. He created them in his
image. Isn’t it reasonable that he also
created Satan and his angels in his image?
He created Satan specifically for testing humans. God provided a paradise on earth and there
was a rent to pay. The rent was obedience to God. Every parent feels this need
for gratitude from their children. One
doesn’t become a parent to have children who are disobedient on matters of
survival. You punish them if they don’t
abide by rules. Stealing is wrong.
Hurting others is wrong. Telling lies is wrong. The only moral issue for
Adam and Eve at that time was obedience to their maker. He made the request and they were to abide by
it.”
“Fair enough, Watson. But would you punish your children, their
children, and all their descendants for eternity for one bite of the fruit of
knowledge? Isn’t that petulant or excessive?
They are not even born and they are doomed to sin, pain, and suffering? Women are to be bonded in perpetuity to the
whims of their husbands? No that goes
beyond ‘hastening and chastening His will to be done.’ And if Eve did not take that first bite,
would there have been sex and children and civilizations? Would not every day
be alike in a Garden in which Adam and Eve lived and never thought of sex? What sort of God is that? He is certainly different from the God of the
Priestly version of creation where humans are produced and given opportunities
to use and rule the resources of the world.”
“Halt this line of questioning, Mr.
Holmes,” pleaded Reverend Thomas. “I
concede that the Old Testament God can be angry, vengeful, spiteful, and
inconsistent. I can rationalize that this is what he really meant when he
wanted humans to be in his image! Tell
me why an inscrutable God should not be worthy of worship? Did not Job grovel before God when he was
innocent of wrongdoing?”
“Very well,” said Holmes. “One can obey a God out of fear and not love
or admiration. That is also true for
deities who competed for the same Jews and their neighbors some 9,000 years
ago. Those gods could be monstrous in their demands for human sacrifice, their
genocidal armies, and their spite when they felt disobeyed. Ministers who preach hellfire sermons use
fear as a way to sway their congregations.
Obeying the God of the Old Testament is thus arbitrary when it is based
on fear. Either you favor a god who deserves respect or you submit to a god out
of fear. It is difficult to know which
of many gods who use fear is the one you should worship. It is much easier to
worship a god whose message is one of love, justice, and opportunity. Isn’t that the reason for the success of
Christianity?”
Holmes paused a moment as he readied a
different view to conclude his remarks.
“If the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the triune God of
Christians, then that God has some sort of split personality. The Christ aspect of the Trinity is a loving
one; the Old Testament God is inscrutable; and the Holy Ghost is a philosophic
puzzle too distant from human needs to be worshipped. I can see, Watson, why your forbears chose
to be Unitarian and demoted Jesus to a human prophet and shifted his
personality into the Old Testament God.
Christians are stuck with a wish to be monotheistic when their God is
really an oscillating threesome. I can
see, Reverend Thomas, why your faith is collapsing. Among possible choices, you will run into
lots of contradictions. You could choose
to be a Universalist. They have
virtually disappeared in Great Britain but they are reasonably successful in
North America. They believe in a loving
God and reject the idea of a Hell or eternal damnation. But they still use the Old Testament and New
Testament as their scriptural source for their faith. There’s a lot of meanness
of God they have to gloss over. God was
genocidal against numerous tribes competing with Jews for land in the Middle
East. He told the Jews to kill their Amalekite enemies, even their women and
children. God was homicidal against humanity allowing only Noah and a handful
of others to survive his mass murder of humans and nearly all life on
earth. If you believe God is all
powerful or all merciful, how then do we explain his hands off policy for evil
and disasters that have cost the lives of thousands or millions of those who
worship him. To avoid confronting that realization,
we rationalize that God is inscrutable.
Once again we go back to fear as the reason for worshipping him. It’s not an uplifting message. We are sometimes
taught that virtue is its own reward. I
too share that view. Seeking rewards for
good behavior is selfish and shallow. Avoiding punishment as a basis for good
behavior is also shallow.”
“Stop, stop.” I cut Holmes short in his blast at organized
religion. If we reject God as a failed
concept, how should we live? What ideals
and values do we choose? How do they
differ from those given to us by the best of what religion has to offer?”
“Here, here!” Thomas echoed my
sentiment. “What do you believe Mr.
Holmes?”
“I am not a nihilist. Life is worth living. Whatever may motivate
people who harm others, I feel society has a duty to seek some type of
justice. It may be fines, disgrace, imprisonment,
and shunning for those who lie, injure others, steal, cheat, or deceive. I have dedicated my career to finding
wrongdoers, preventing evil acts from being realized, and restoring honor,
belongings, or even trust in my clients who come to me in times of need. I do not blame God for many calamities that
we cannot avoid like floods, droughts, earthquakes, or monstrous storms. Nor do I blame a devil who manipulates
nature. Nature is uncertain and science
can protect us sometimes but not always from its disasters. I would rather seek public health measures
and immunizations against infectious diseases than pray to God to spare my
neighborhood from pestilence. I prefer
science to work its way into the regulation of society so we can trust the
foods we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink. I believe we should atone for our errors and
wrongdoing if not to the person we harmed then to others who are in need. I
believe in teaching compassion to our children.
We humans are very dependent on each other. We may never imitate those
we think of as saints but there are many good people who have lived and who
have inspired and helped others. We can
learn from them how to live.”
We went out to dinner and spoke some
more on our return. Holmes was concerned
about the direction of Reverend Thomas’s career. Holmes asked, “Are you sure you want to
become an alienist if you abandon the clergy?
Why can’t you continue your ministry without voicing your skepticism
about the existence of God?”
“It would be living a lie. I know that is often the case with those who
pour out their sorrows to me. It is sad
to listen to stories of guilt, wrong-doing, failure, insecurity, betrayal, loss
of confidence, fear, worry, and hopelessness.
Some of my parishioners are suicidal.
Some are terrible parents. Some have lost the capacity to love, forgive,
or rebound from adversity. They see me
as a comfort. They believe my prayers
are worth more than theirs. Can you imagine how they would feel if I told them
I was an agnostic or an atheist? How in
good conscience could I pretend to be the minister they think I am?”
Holmes was very moved by Reverend Thomas’s
assessment.
“My world shares some of the disturbing
encounters that you describe. I see the deceived, the fearful, the vengeful,
the greedy, the victims and the perpetrators of monstrous acts. What little pleasure
I get from my work is in the semblance of justice when the innocent are
released from suspicion and when the criminals and the insensitive or
unthinking persons I encounter are unmasked. I admire you for your integrity
and wish that you could find a ministry that does not rely on a conflicted or contradictory
God."
I endorsed Holmes remarks. “I also deal with unhappy people. The sick and the dying are often in denial or
feel cheated by fate. I comfort them as
well as I can. My life is one of small
victories and inevitable defeat because we all die. But it is wonderful to bring a baby into the
world, to see a sick child return to good health, to mend broken bones, to
staunch the bleeding and bind the wounds of the injured. I hope, Reverend Thomas, that in your new
career you will make use of your ministerial skills of empathy and insight to
heal the troubled minds you will encounter.”
Reverend Thomas felt more enlightened
when he left than when he came. He told
us that his belief in God died that night, but he felt reborn as a human who
would seek to help others, especially those with what he still called troubled
souls. It would not be by citing God but
by citing good people, good deeds, and encouraging others that he will work. “I will leave the clergy,” he said, “I will
use my ministerial skills in this new field of counseling others.”
I asked him if Holmes killed his belief
in God. “No, I did it,” he said with an
expression that seemed half smile and half regret. “I demoted my God. Old Gods never die, they become myths.”
Submitted by Dr Watson’s admirer, Elof
Axel Carlson
I wrote this story after attending a
somewhat spiritual sermon on the theme of faith at the Unitarian-Universalist
Church of Bloomington, Indiana, followed by a Freethinkers discussion in that
same church that included a reaction to the spirituality stress of contemporary
Unitarian-Universalist congregations (or their ministers). I have read the history of Unitarian and
Universalist history in some detail and its views oscillate from the Deism,
agnosticism, atheism, justice seeking,
Humanism of the mid 20th century to a spirituality, New Age,
inward-reflecting, neo-Transcendentalism that appeals to a younger more
contemporary culture. These shifts in emphasis seem to involve 50 year swings. I thought a Sherlock Holmes type of reflection
on this tension and shifting of belief might be useful.
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