Sojourner Truth's mode of Biblical comprehension impresses me with its simplicity, sincerity, perspicacity.
For example:
"As soon as Isabella saw God as an all-powerful, all-pervading spirit, she became desirous of hearing all that had been written of him , and listened to the account of the creation of the world and its first inhabitants as contained in the first chapters of Genesis with particular interest. For some time she received it all literally, though it appeared strange to her that 'God worked by the day and got tired, and stopped to rest...' But after a little time, she began to reason upon it, thus --'Why if God works by the day, and one day's work tires him, and he is obliged to rest, either from weariness or on account of darkness, or if he waited for the 'cool of the day to walk in the garden,' because he was inconvenienced by the heat of the sun, why then it seems that God cannot do as much as I can ; for I can bear the sun at noon, and work several days and nights in succession without being much tired. Or if he rested nights because of the darkness, it is very queer that he should make the night so dark that he cannot see himself. If I had been God, I would have made the night light enough for my own convenience, surely.' But the moment she placed this idea of God by the side of the impression she had once so suddenly received of his inconceivable greatness and entire spirituality, that moment she exclaimed mentally, 'No God does not stop to rest, for he is a spirit and cannot tire; he cannot want for light, for he hath all light within himself. And if 'God is all in all', and 'worketh all in all,' as I have heard them read, then it is impossible he should rest at all; for if he did, every other thing would stop and rest too; the waters would not flow, and the fishes could not swim; and all motion must cease. God could have no pauses in his work, and he needed no Sabbaths of rest. Men might need them, and he should take them when he needed them, whenever he required rest. As it regarded the worship of God, he was to be worshipped at all times and at all places; one portion of time never seemed to her to be holier than the another....
"She wished to compare the teaching of the Bible with the witness within her; and she came to the conclusion, that the spirit of truth spoke in those records, but the recorders of those truths had intermingled with them ideas and suppositions of their own. This is one among the many proofs of her energy and independence of character."
P.99-100, "Some of her Views and Reasonings," NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (1850, 2013), as recorded by Olive Gilbert

Saturday, November 18, 2017
SOJOURNER TRUTH ON THE BIBLE
Sojourner Truth's mode of Biblical comprehension impresses me with its simplicity, sincerity, perspicacity.
For example:
"As soon as Isabella saw God as an all-powerful, all-pervading spirit, she became desirous of hearing all that had been written of him , and listened to the account of the creation of the world and its first inhabitants as contained in the first chapters of Genesis with particular interest. For some time she received it all literally, though it appeared strange to her that 'God worked by the day and got tired, and stopped to rest...' But after a little time, she began to reason upon it, thus --'Why if God works by the day, and one day's work tires him, and he is obliged to rest, either from weariness or on account of darkness, or if he waited for the 'cool of the day to walk in the garden,' because he was inconvenienced by the heat of the sun, why then it seems that God cannot do as much as I can ; for I can bear the sun at noon, and work several days and nights in succession without being much tired. Or if he rested nights because of the darkness, it is very queer that he should make the night so dark that he cannot see himself. If I had been God, I would have made the night light enough for my own convenience, surely.' But the moment she placed this idea of God by the side of the impression she had once so suddenly received of his inconceivable greatness and entire spirituality, that moment she exclaimed mentally, 'No God does not stop to rest, for he is a spirit and cannot tire; he cannot want for light, for he hath all light within himself. And if 'God is all in all', and 'worketh all in all,' as I have heard them read, then it is impossible he should rest at all; for if he did, every other thing would stop and rest too; the waters would not flow, and the fishes could not swim; and all motion must cease. God could have no pauses in his work, and he needed no Sabbaths of rest. Men might need them, and he should take them when he needed them, whenever he required rest. As it regarded the worship of God, he was to be worshipped at all times and at all places; one portion of time never seemed to her to be holier than the another....
"She wished to compare the teaching of the Bible with the witness within her; and she came to the conclusion, that the spirit of truth spoke in those records, but the recorders of those truths had intermingled with them ideas and suppositions of their own. This is one among the many proofs of her energy and independence of character."
P.99-100, "Some of her Views and Reasonings," NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (1850, 2013), as recorded by Olive Gilbert

