Phase 3: Trying on an Investigative Lens--Besant, option 2

In Annie Besant's "Is the Bible Indictable," she addresses two main topics: social injustice and the unfair constraints placed on medical writers. She focuses less on social injustice, but this can be seen in the fact that the "common people" (i.e. the poor) are unable to purchase any medical books that would be useful to them, since the medical books that are allowed to be circulated are very expensive. As Besant critiques, "...wealthier people, who want knowledge less, are to be protected by the law in their purchases of medical works, but if poor people in sore need, finding an 'undoubted physician' ready to aid them venture to ask for his work...the law strikes down those who sell them health and happiness." The majority of this pamphlet, however, consists of a critique against the ruling of the present Chief Lord Justice that any book that can excite its reader is indictable, regardless of the good intentions of the author. Besant's argument draws strength from the way it is organized. She begins her essay by laying out the ground rules for what qualifies a book as obscene. These factors include the price of the book (only cheap books are deemed obscene) and whether "the affect of some of its passages is to excite and create demoralizing thoughts." Once she has established the criteria for a book to be considered obscene, she advances her argument by showing how the bible could be prosecuted under these same conditions. She then proceeds to list numerous passage from the bible that could corrupt a young person's mind. Finally she ties together her argument by stating that she does not wish to prosecute the bible. Rather, she wants the Christians community to help abolish a law used against medical writers that could also be used to condemn the bible.

Two prominent rhetorical strategies Besant uses in this work is an appeal to time as a crisis and an appeal to kairos, or shared values. The crisis she identifies is that, under current law, beloved and cherished books can be condemned. For example, she writes that much of Shakespeare's work causes excitement and could thus be identified as immoral. Also, by showing that even books as sacred as the bible could be prosecuted under the present ruling of the Chief Lord Justice, she maintains that no one, not even Christians, are safe and that they must join together to fight the rule that any material that could excite its reader is obscene. Besant's use of kairos enables her to unite her audience and gain support for her cause. On such evidence of this is the quote, "and I call on those who love freedom and desire knowledge to join with us in over-ruling by statute the new judge-made laws." Clearly, someone reading this would want to consider himself to be a freedom-loving, knowledge-desiring citizen, which requires that he accept Besant's claims.

In "Is the Bible Indictable" it appears that Besant is in a debate over whether the bible can be deemed obscene. However, her use of irony helps more fully explain her stance. Besant does not really wish to condemn the bible so much as she wants to demonstrate to the reader how ridiculous the current law being used to keep medical documents from circulating is. This idea is supported by Besant's use of sarcasm. For example, she writes, "as to the motives of the writers, we need not trouble about them. The law now says that intention is nothing, and no desire to do good is any excuse for obscenity." Based on the context of this statement, it can be assumed that Besant really means the opposite. She think that the intentions of the author are important and should be taken into consideration when determining whether a book is obscene. Rather than attacking Christians and the bible, she wishes to bring the Christian community over to the side of medical writers by demonstrating how easy it would be to prosecute the bible. In this way, she establishes medical writers and christians as a unit "we" against the "them"--anyone who supports a law that would go so far as to condemn the bible. Thus, it can be concluded that Besant does not intend to prosecute the bible, but is more interested in gaining support from the Christian community for the publication of medical documents.