It has often been said that any thing may be proved from the Bible;
but before any thing can be admitted as proved by Bible, the Bible
itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or
the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and cannot
be admitted as proof of any thing.
It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible,
and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on
the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have
disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the
supposeable meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has
said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another
that it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant
neither one nor the other, but something different from both; and
this they have called understanding the Bible.
It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen to the former
part of 'The Age of Reason' have been written by priests: and these
pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, and
understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each
understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling
their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not.
Now instead of wasting their time, and heating themselves in
fractious disputations about doctrinal points drawn from the Bible,
these men ought to know, and if they do not it is civility to inform
them, that the first thing to be understood is, whether there is
sufficient authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God,
or whether there is not?
There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express
command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every idea
we have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre, by
Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English government in
the East Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. When we
read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., that they (the
Israelites) came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the
history itself shews, had given them no offence; that they put all
those nations to the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy;
that they utterly destroyed men, women and children; that they left
not a soul to breathe; expressions that are repeated over and over
again in those books, and that too with exulting ferocity; are we
sure these things are facts? are we sure that the Creator of man
commissioned those things to be done? Are we sure that the books that
tell us so were written by his authority?
It is not the antiquity of a tale that is an evidence of its truth;
on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous; for the more
ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has the resemblance
of a fable. The origin of every nation is buried in fabulous
tradition, and that of the Jews is as much to be suspected as any
other.
To charger the commission of things upon the Almighty, which in their
own nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes, as all
assassination is, and more especially the assassination of infants,
is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us, that those
assassinations were done by the express command of God. To believe
therefore the Bible to be true, we must unbelieve all our belief in
the moral justice of God; for wherein could crying or smiling infants
offend? And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo every
thing that is tender, sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of
man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence that the Bible
is fabulous, than the sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true,
that alone would be sufficient to determine my choice.
But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I will,
in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence as even a
priest cannot deny; and show, from that evidence, that the Bible is
not entitled to credit, as being the word of God.
But, before I proceed to this examination, I will show wherein the
Bible differs from all other ancient writings with respect to the
nature of the evidence necessary to establish its authenticity; and
this is is the more proper to be done, because the advocates of the
Bible, in their answers to the former part of 'The Age of Reason,'
undertake to say, and they put some stress thereon, that the
authenticity of the Bible is as well established as that of any other
ancient book: as if our belief of the one could become any rule for
our belief of the other.
I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively
challenges universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's
Elements of Geometry; [Euclid, according to chronological history,
lived three hundred years before Christ, and about one hundred before
Archimedes; he was of the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. -- Author.]
and the reason is, because it is a book of self-evident
demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and of every thing
relating to time, place, and circumstance. The matters contained in
that book would have the same authority they now have, had they been
written by any other person, or had the work been anonymous, or had
the author never been known; for the identical certainty of who was
the author makes no part of our belief of the matters contained in
the book. But it is quite otherwise with respect to the books
ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, etc.: those are books of
testimony, and they testify of things naturally incredible; and
therefore the whole of our belief, as to the authenticity of those
books, rests, in the first place, upon the certainty that they were
written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel; secondly, upon the credit we
give to their testimony. We may believe the first, that is, may
believe the certainty of the authorship, and yet not the testimony;
in the same manner that we may believe that a certain person gave
evidence upon a case, and yet not believe the evidence that he gave.
But if it should be found that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua,
and Samuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part
of the authority and authenticity of those books is gone at once; for
there can be no such thing as forged or invented testimony; neither
can there be anonymous testimony, more especially as to things
naturally incredible; such as that of talking with God face to face,
or that of the sun and moon standing still at the command of a man.
The greatest part of the other ancient books are works of genius; of
which kind are those ascribed to Homer, to Plato, to Aristotle, to
Demosthenes, to Cicero, etc. Here again the author is not an
essential in the credit we give to any of those works; for as works
of genius they would have the same merit they have now, were they
anonymous. Nobody believes the Trojan story, as related by Homer, to
be true; for it is the poet only that is admired, and the merit of
the poet will remain, though the story be fabulous. But if we
disbelieve the matters related by the Bible authors (Moses for
instance) as we disbelieve the things related by Homer, there remains
nothing of Moses in our estimation, but an imposter. As to the
ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far
as they relate things probable and credible, and no further: for if
we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus relates were
performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man, and a blind man,
in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ
by his historians. We must also believe the miracles cited by
Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and
his army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles
are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do
not believe them; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to
establish our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the
Bible or elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief
to natural and probable things; and therefore the advocates for the
Bible have no claim to our belief of the Bible because that we
believe things stated in other ancient writings; since that we
believe the things stated in those writings no further than they are
probable and credible, or because they are self-evident, like Euclid;
or admire them because they are elegant, like Homer; or approve them
because they are sedate, like Plato; or judicious, like Aristotle.
Having premised these things, I proceed to examine the authenticity
of the Bible; and I begin with what are called the five books of
Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. My
intention is to shew that those books are spurious, and that Moses is
not the author of them; and still further, that they were not written
in the time of Moses nor till several hundred years afterwards; that
they are no other than an attempted history of the life of Moses, and
of the times in which he is said to have lived, and also of the times
prior thereto, written by some very ignorant and stupid pretenders to
authorship, several hundred years after the death of Moses; as men
now write histories of things that happened, or are supposed to have
happened, several hundred or several thousand years ago.
The evidence that I shall produce in this case is from the books
themselves; and I will confine myself to this evidence only. Were I
to refer for proofs to any of the ancient authors, whom the advocates
of the Bible call prophane authors, they would controvert that
authority, as I controvert theirs: I will therefore meet them on
their own ground, and oppose them with their own weapon, the Bible.
In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that Moses is
the author of those books; and that he is the author, is altogether
an unfounded opinion, got abroad nobody knows how. The style and
manner in which those books are written give no room to believe, or
even to suppose, they were written by Moses; for it is altogether the
style and manner of another person speaking of Moses. In Exodus,
Leviticus and Numbers, (for every thing in Genesis is prior to the
times of Moses and not the least allusion is made to him therein,)
the whole, I say, of these books is in the third person; it is
always, the Lord said unto Moses, or Moses said unto the Lord; or
Moses said unto the people, or the people said unto Moses; and this
is the style and manner that historians use in speaking of the person
whose lives and actions they are writing. It may be said, that a man
may speak of himself in the third person, and, therefore, it may be
supposed that Moses did; but supposition proves nothing; and if the
advocates for the belief that Moses wrote those books himself have
nothing better to advance than supposition, they may as well be
silent.
But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak of himself
in the third person, because any man might speak of himself in that
manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books, that it is
Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and
absurd: -- for example, Numbers xii. 3: "Now the man Moses was very
MEEK, above all the men which were on the face of the earth." If
Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he
was one of the most vain and arrogant coxcombs; and the advocates for
those books may now take which side they please, for both sides are
against them: if Moses was not the author, the books are without
authority; and if he was the author, the author is without credit,
because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie
in sentiment.
In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks more evidently
than in the former books that Moses is not the writer. The manner
here used is dramatical; the writer opens the subject by a short
introductory discourse, and then introduces Moses as in the act of
speaking, and when he has made Moses finish his harrangue, he (the
writer) resumes his own part, and speaks till he brings Moses forward
again, and at last closes the scene with an account of the death,
funeral, and character of Moses.
This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book: from the
first verse of the first chapter, to the end of the fifth verse, it
is the writer who speaks; he then introduces Moses as in the act of
making his harrangue, and this continues to the end of the 40th verse
of the fourth chapter; here the writer drops Moses, and speaks
historically of what was done in consequence of what Moses, when
living, is supposed to have said, and which the writer has
dramatically rehearsed.
The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of the fifth
chapter, though it is only by saying that Moses called the people of
Isracl together; he then introduces Moses as before, and continues
him as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 26th chapter. He
does the same thing at the beginning of the 27th chapter; and
continues Moses as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 28th
chapter. At the 29th chapter the writer speaks again through the
whole of the first verse, and the first line of the second verse,
where he introduces Moses for the last time, and continues him as in
the act of speaking, to the end of the 33d chapter.
The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of Moses,
comes forward, and speaks through the whole of the last chapter: he
begins by telling the reader, that Moses went up to the top of
Pisgah, that he saw from thence the land which (the writer says) had
been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that he, Moses, died
there in the land of Moab, that he buried him in a valley in the land
of Moab, but that no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day, that
is unto the time in which the writer lived who wrote the book of
Deuteronomy. The writer then tells us, that Moses was one hundred and
ten years of age when he died -- that his eye was not dim, nor his
natural force abated; and he concludes by saying, that there arose
not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom, says this
anonymous writer, the Lord knew face to face.
Having thus shewn, as far as grammatical evidence implies, that Moses
was not the writer of those books, I will, after making a few
observations on the inconsistencies of the writer of the book of
Deuteronomy, proceed to shew, from the historical and chronological
evidence contained in those books, that Moses was not, because he
could not be, the writer of them; and consequently, that there is no
authority for believing that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of
men, women, and children, told of in those books, were done, as those
books say they were, at the command of God. It is a duty incumbent on
every true deist, that he vindicates the moral justice of God against
the calumnies of the Bible.
The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, for it is an
anonymous work, is obscure, and also contradictory with himself in
the account he has given of Moses.
After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it does not
appear from any account that he ever came down again) he tells us,
that Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he buried him in
a valley in the land of Moab; but as there is no antecedent to the
pronoun he, there is no knowing who he was, that did bury him. If the
writer meant that he (God) buried him, how should he (the writer)
know it? or why should we (the readers) believe him? since we know
not who the writer was that tells us so, for certainly Moses could
not himself tell where he was buried.
The writer also tells us, that no man knoweth where the sepulchre of
Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which this writer lived;
how then should he know that Moses was buried in a valley in the land
of Moab? for as the writer lived long after the time of Moses, as is
evident from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a
great length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly was not
at his funeral; and on the other hand, it is impossible that Moses
himself could say that no man knoweth where the sepulchre is unto
this day. To make Moses the speaker, would be an improvement on the
play of a child that hides himself and cries nobody can find me;
nobody can find Moses.
This writer has no where told us how he came by the speeches which he
has put into the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore we have a
right to conclude that he either composed them himself, or wrote them
from oral tradition. One or other of these is the more probable,
since he has given, in the fifth chapter, a table of commandments, in
which that called the fourth commandment is different from the fourth
commandment in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. In that of Exodus,
the reason given for keeping the seventh day is, because (says the
commandment) God made the heavens and the earth in six days, and
rested on the seventh; but in that of Deuteronomy, the reason given
is, that it was the day on which the children of Israel came out of
Egypt, and therefore, says this commandment, the Lord thy God
commanded thee to kee the sabbath-day This makes no mention of the
creation, nor that of the coming out of Egypt. There are also many
things given as laws of Moses in this book, that are not to be found
in any of the other books; among which is that inhuman and brutal
law, xxi. 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorizes parents, the father and
the mother, to bring their own children to have them stoned to death
for what it pleased them to call stubbornness. -- But priests have
always been fond of preaching up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy
preaches up tythes; and it is from this book, xxv. 4, they have taken
the phrase, and applied it to tything, that "thou shalt not muzzle
the ox when he treadeth Out the corn:" and that this might not escape
observation, they have noted it in the table of contents at the head
of the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than two
lines. O priests! priests! ye are willing to be compared to an ox,
for the sake of tythes. [An elegant pocket edition of Paine's
Theological Works (London. R. Carlile, 1822) has in its title a
picture of Paine, as a Moses in evening dress, unfolding the two
tables of his "Age of Reason" to a farmer from whom the Bishop of
Llandaff (who replied to this work) has taken a sheaf and a lamb
which he is carrying to a church at the summit of a well stocked
hill. -- Editor.] -- Though it is impossible for us to know
identically who the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to
discover him professionally, that he was some Jewish priest, who
lived, as I shall shew in the course of this work, at least three
hundred and fifty years after the time of Moses.
I come now to speak of the historical and chronological evidence. The
chronology that I shall use is the Bible chronology; for I mean not
to go out of the Bible for evidence of any thing, but to make the
Bible itself prove historically and chronologically that Moses is not
the author of the books ascribed to him. It is therefore proper that
I inform the readers (such an one at least as may not have the
opportunity of knowing it) that in the larger Bibles, and also in
some smaller ones, there is a series of chronology printed in the
margin of every page for the purpose of shawing how long the
historical matters stated in each page happened, or are supposed to
have happened, before Christ, and consequently the distance of time
between one historical circumstance and another.
I begin with the book of Genesis. -- In Genesis xiv., the writer
gives an account of Lot being taken prisoner in a battle between the
four kings against five, and carried off; and that when the account
of Lot being taken came to Abraham, that he armed all his household
and marched to rescue Lot from the captors; and that he pursued them
unto Dan. (ver. 14.)
To shew in what manner this expression of Pursuing them unto Dan
applies to the case in question, I will refer to two circumstances,
the one in America, the other in France. The city now called New
York, in America, was originally New Amsterdam; and the town in
France, lately called Havre Marat, was before called Havre-de-Grace.
New Amsterdam was changed to New York in the year 1664;
Havre-de-Grace to Havre Marat in the year 1793. Should, therefore,
any writing be found, though without date, in which the name of
New-York should be mentioned, it would be certain evidence that such
a writing could not have been written before, and must have been
written after New Amsterdam was changed to New York, and consequently
not till after the year 1664, or at least during the course of that
year. And in like manner, any dateless writing, with the name of
Havre Marat, would be certain evidence that such a writing must have
been written after Havre-de-Grace became Havre Marat, and
consequently not till after the year 1793, or at least during the
course of that year.
I now come to the application of those cases, and to show that there
was no such place as Dan till many years after the death of Moses;
and consequently, that Moses could not be the writer of the book of
Genesis, where this account of pursuing them unto Dan is given.
The place that is called Dan in the Bible was originally a town of
the Gentiles, called Laish; and when the tribe of Dan seized upon
this town, they changed its name to Dan, in commemoration of Dan, who
was the father of that tribe, and the great grandson of Abraham.
To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from Genesis to
chapter xviii. of the book called the Book of judges. It is there
said (ver. 27) that "they (the Danites) came unto Laish to a people
that were quiet and secure, and they smote them with the edge of the
sword [the Bible is filled with murder] and burned the city with
fire; and they built a city, (ver. 28,) and dwelt therein, and [ver.
29,] they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan,
their father; howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first."
This account of the Danites taking possession of Laish and changing
it to Dan, is placed in the book of Judges immediately after the
death of Samson. The death of Samson is said to have happened B.C.
1120 and that of Moses B.C. 1451; and, therefore, according to the
historical arrangement, the place was not called Dan till 331 years
after the death of Moses.
There is a striking confusion between the historical and the
chronological arrangement in the book of judges. The last five
chapters, as they stand in the book, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, are put
chronologically before all the preceding chapters; they are made to
be 28 years before the 16th chapter, 266 before the 15th, 245 before
the 13th, 195 before the 9th, go before the 4th, and 15 years before
the 1st chapter. This shews the uncertain and fabulous state of the
Bible. According to the chronological arrangement, the taking of
Laish, and giving it the name of Dan, is made to be twenty years
after the death of Joshua, who was the successor of Moses; and by the
historical order, as it stands in the book, it is made to be 306
years after the death of Joshua, and 331 after that of Moses; but
they both exclude Moses from being the writer of Genesis, because,
according to either of the statements, no such a place as Dan existed
in the time of Moses; and therefore the writer of Genesis must have
been some person who lived after the town of Laish had the name of
Dan; and who that person was nobody knows, and consequently the book
of Genesis is anonymous, and without authority.
I come now to state another point of historical and chronological
evidence, and to show therefrom, as in the preceding case, that Moses
is not the author of the book of Genesis.
In Genesis xxxvi. there is given a genealogy of the sons and
descendants of Esau, who are called Edomites, and also a list by name
of the kings of Edom; in enumerating of which, it is said, verse 31,
"And these are the kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned
any king over the children of Israel."
Now, were any dateless writing to be found, in which, speaking of any
past events, the writer should say, these things happened before
there was any Congress in America, or before there was any Convention
in France, it would be evidence that such writing could not have been
written before, and could only be written after there was a Congress
in America or a Convention in France, as the case might be; and,
consequently, that it could not be written by any person who died
before there was a Congress in the one country, or a Convention in
the other.
Nothing is more frequent, as well in history as in conversation, than
to refer to a fact in the room of a date: it is most natural so to
do, because a fact fixes itself in the memory better than a date;
secondly, because the fact includes the date, and serves to give two
ideas at once; and this manner of speaking by circumstances implies
as positively that the fact alluded to is past, as if it was so
expressed. When a person in speaking upon any matter, says, it was
before I was married, or before my son was born, or before I went to
America, or before I went to France, it is absolutely understood, and
intended to be understood, that he has been married, that he has had
a son, that he has been in America, or been in France. Language does
not admit of using this mode of expression in any other sense; and
whenever such an expression is found anywhere, it can only be
understood in the sense in which only it could have been used.
The passage, therefore, that I have quoted -- that "these are the
kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the
children of Israel," could only have been written after the first
king began to reign over them; and consequently that the book of
Genesis, so far from having been written by Moses, could not have
been written till the time of Saul at least. This is the positive
sense of the passage; but the expression, any king, implies more
kings than one, at least it implies two, and this will carry it to
the time of David; and, if taken in a general sense, it carries
itself through all times of the Jewish monarchy.
Had we met with this verse in any part of the Bible that professed to
have been written after kings began to reign in Israel, it would have
been impossible not to have seen the application of it. It happens
then that this is the case; the two books of Chronicles, which give a
history of all the kings of Israel, are professedly, as well as in
fact, written after the Jewish monarchy began; and this verse that I
have quoted, and all the remaining verses of Genesis xxxvi. are, word
for word, In 1 Chronicles i., beginning at the 43d verse.
It was with consistency that the writer of the Chronicles could say
as he has said, 1 Chron. i. 43, "These are the kings that reigned in
Edom, before there reigned any king ever the children of Israel,"
because he was going to give, and has given, a list of the kings that
had reigned in Israel; but as it is impossible that the same
expression could have been used before that period, it is as certain
as any thing can be proved from historical language, that this part
of Genesis is taken from Chronicles, and that Genesis is not so old
as Chronicles, and probably not so old as the book of Homer, or as
AEsop's Fables; admitting Homer to have been, as the tables of
chronology state, contemporary with David or Solomon, and AEsop to
have lived about the end of the Jewish monarchy.
Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which
only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and
there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories,
fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright
lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark,
drops to a level with the Arabian Tales, without the merit of being
entertaining, and the account of men living to eight and nine hundred
years becomes as fabulous as the immortality of the giants of the
Mythology.
Besides, the character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most
horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he was the
wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on the
pretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation,
committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in the
history of any nation. Of which I will state only one instance:
When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering and
murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows (Numbers xxxi.
13): "And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the
congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was
wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over
thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle;
and Moses said unto them, "Have ye saved all the women alive?"
behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of
Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor,
and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now
therefore, "kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-
children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for
Yourselves."
Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have
disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than
Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys,
to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters.
Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers, one
child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in the
hands of an executioner: let any daughter put herself in the
situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of
a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? It is in
vain that we attempt to impose upon nature, for nature will have her
course, and the religion that tortures all her social ties is a false
religion.
After this detestable order, follows an account of the plunder taken,
and the manner of dividing it; and here it is that the profaneings of
priestly hypocrisy increases the catalogue of crimes. Verse 37, "And
the Lord's tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and
fifteen; and the beeves were thirty and six thousand, of which the
Lord's tribute was threescore and twelve; and the asses were thirty
thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was threescore and one; and the
persons were sixteen thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was thirty
and two." In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as
in many other parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to
read, or for decency to hear; for it appears, from the 35th verse of
this chapter, that the number of women-children consigned to
debauchery by the order of Moses was thirty-two thousand.
People in general know not what wickedness there is in this pretended
word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for
granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit
themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of
the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been
taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! it is
quite another thing, it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy;
for what can be greater blasphemy, than to ascribe the wickedness of
man to the orders of the Almighty!
But to return to my subject, that of showing that Moses is not the
author of the books ascribed to him, and that the Bible is spurious.
The two instances I have already given would be sufficient, without
any additional evidence, to invalidate the authenticity of any book
that pretended to be four or five hundred years more ancient than the
matters it speaks of, refers to, them as facts; for in the case of
pursuing them unto Dan, and of the kings that reigned over the
children of Israel; not even the flimsy pretence of prophecy can be
pleaded. The expressions are in the preter tense, and it would be
downright idiotism to say that a man could prophecy in the preter
tense.
But there are many other passages scattered throughout those books
that unite in the same point of evidence. It is said in Exodus,
(another of the books ascribed to Moses,) xvi. 35: "And the children
of Israel did eat manna until they came to a land inhabited; they did
eat manna until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan."
Whether the children of Israel ate manna or not, or what manna was,
or whether it was anything more than a kind of fungus or small
mushroom, or other vegetable substance common to that part of the
country, makes no part of my argument; all that I mean to show is,
that it is not Moses that could write this account, because the
account extends itself beyond the life time of Moses. Moses,
according to the Bible, (but it is such a book of lies and
contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe, or whether
any) died in the wilderness, and never came upon the borders of 'the
land of Canaan; and consequently, it could not be he that said what
the children of Israel did, or what they ate when they came there.
This account of eating manna, which they tell us was written by
Moses, extends itself to the time of Joshua, the successor of Moses,
as appears by the account given in the book of Joshua, after the
children of Israel had passed the river Jordan, and came into the
borders of the land of Canaan. Joshua, v. 12: "And the manna ceased
on the morrow, after they had eaten of the old corn of the land;
neither had the children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat
of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year."
But a more remarkable instance than this occurs in Deuteronomy;
which, while it shows that Moses could not be the writer of that
book, shows also the fabulous notions that prevailed at that time
about giants' In Deuteronomy iii. 11, among the conquests said to be
made by Moses, is an account of the taking of Og, king of Bashan:
"For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the race of giants; behold,
his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the
children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four
cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." A cubit is 1
foot 9 888/1000 inches; the length therefore of the bed was 16 feet 4
inches, and the breadth 7 feet 4 inches: thus much for this giant's
bed. Now for the historical part, which, though the evidence is not
so direct and positive as in the former cases, is nevertheless very
presumable and corroborating evidence, and is better than the best
evidence on the contrary side.
The writer, by way of proving the existence of this giant, refers to
his bed, as an ancient relick, and says, is it not in Rabbath (or
Rabbah) of the children of Ammon? meaning that it is; for such is
frequently the bible method of affirming a thing. But it could not be
Moses that said this, because Moses could know nothing about Rabbah,
nor of what was in it. Rabbah was not a city belonging to this giant
king, nor was it one of the cities that Moses took. The knowledge
therefore that this bed was at Rabbah, and of the particulars of its
dimensions, must be referred to the time when Rabbah was taken, and
this was not till four hundred years after the death of Moses; for
which, see 2 Sam. xii. 26: "And Joab [David's general] fought against
Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and took the royal city," etc.
As I am not undertaking to point out all the contradictions in time,
place, and circumstance that abound in the books ascribed to Moses,
and which prove to demonstration that those books could not be
written by Moses, nor in the time of Moses, I proceed to the book of
Joshua, and to shew that Joshua is not the author of that book, and
that it is anonymous and without authority. The evidence I shall
produce is contained in the book itself: I will not go out of the
Bible for proof against the supposed authenticity of the Bible. False
testimony is always good against itself.
Joshua, according to Joshua i., was the immediate successor of Moses;
he was, moreover, a military man, which Moses was not; and he
continued as chief of the people of Israel twenty-five years; that
is, from the time that Moses died, which, according to the Bible
chronology, was B.C. 1451, until B.C. 1426, when, according to the
same chronology, Joshua died. If, therefore, we find in this book,
said to have been written by Joshua, references to facts done after
the death of Joshua, it is evidence that Joshua could not be the
author; and also that the book could not have been written till after
the time of the latest fact which it records. As to the character of
the book, it is horrid; it is a military history of rapine and
murder, as savage and brutal as those recorded of his predecessor in
villainy and hypocrisy, Moses; and the blasphemy consists, as in the
former books, in ascribing those deeds to the orders of the Almighty.
In the first place, the book of Joshua, as is the case in the
preceding books, is written in the third person; it is the historian
of Joshua that speaks, for it would have been absurd and vainglorious
that Joshua should say of himself, as is said of him in the last
verse of the sixth chapter, that "his fame was noised throughout all
the country." -- I now come more immediately to the proof.
In Joshua xxiv. 31, it is said "And Israel served the Lord all the
days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over-lived
Joshua." Now, in the name of common sense, can it be Joshua that
relates what people had done after he was dead? This account must not
only have been written by some historian that lived after Joshua, but
that lived also after the elders that out-lived Joshua.
There are several passages of a general meaning with respect to time,
scattered throughout the book of Joshua, that carries the time in
which the book was written to a distance from the time of Joshua, but
without marking by exclusion any particular time, as in the passage
above quoted. In that passage, the time that intervened between the
death of Joshua and the death of the elders is excluded descriptively
and absolutely, and the evidence substantiates that the book could
not have been written till after the death of the last.
But though the passages to which I allude, and which I am going to
quote, do not designate any particular time by exclusion, they imply
a time far more distant from the days of Joshua than is contained
between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders. Such is the
passage, x. 14, where, after giving an account that the sun stood
still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, at the
command of Joshua, (a tale only fit to amuse children) [NOTE: This
tale of the sun standing still upon Motint Gibeon, and the moon in
the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself.
Such a circumstance could not have happened without being known all
over the world. One half would have wondered why the sun did not
rise, and the other why it did not set; and the tradition of it would
be universal; whereas there is not a nation in the world that knows
anything about it. But why must the moon stand still? What occasion
could there be for moonlight in the daytime, and that too whilst the
sun shined? As a poetical figure, the whole is well enough; it is
akin to that in the song of Deborah and Barak, The stars in their
courses fought against Sisera; but it is inferior to the figurative
declaration of Mahomet to the persons who came to expostulate with
him on his goings on, Wert thou, said he, to come to me with the sun
in thy right hand and the moon in thy left, it should not alter my
career. For Joshua to have exceeded Mahomet, he should have put the
sun and moon, one in each pocket, and carried them as Guy Faux
carried his dark lanthorn, and taken them out to shine as he might
happen to want them. The sublime and the ridiculous are often so
nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One
step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the
ridiculous makes the sublime again; the account, however, abstracted
from the poetical fancy, shews the ignorance of Joshua, for he should
have commanded the earth to have stood still. -- Author.] the passage
says: "And there was no day like that, before it, nor after it, that
the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man."
The time implied by the expression after it, that is, after that day,
being put in comparison with all the time that passed before it,
must, in order to give any expressive signification to the passage,
mean a great length of time: -- for example, it would have been
ridiculous to have said so the next day, or the next week, or the
next month, or the next year; to give therefore meaning to the
passage, comparative with the wonder it relates, and the prior time
it alludes to, it must mean centuries of years; less however than one
would be trifling, and less than two would be barely admissible.
A distant, but general time is also expressed in chapter viii.;
where, after giving an account of the taking the city of Ai, it is
said, ver. 28th, "And Joshua burned Ai, and made it an heap for ever,
a desolation unto this day;" and again, ver. 29, where speaking of
the king of Ai, whom Joshua had hanged, and buried at the entering of
the gate, it is said, "And he raised thereon a great heap of stones,
which remaineth unto this day," that is, unto the day or time in
which the writer of the book of Joshua lived. And again, in chapter
x. where, after speaking of the five kings whom Joshua had hanged on
five trees, and then thrown in a cave, it is said, "And he laid great
stones on the cave's mouth, which remain unto this very day."
In enumerating the several exploits of Joshua, and of the tribes, and
of the places which they conquered or attempted, it is said, xv. 63,
"As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of
Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the
children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day." The question upon this
passage is, At what time did the Jebusites and the children of Judah
dwell together at Jerusalem? As this matter occurs again in judges i.
I shall reserve my observations till I come to that part.
Having thus shewn from the book of Joshua itself, without any
auxiliary evidence whatever, that Joshua is not the author of that
book, and that it is anonymous, and consequently without authority, I
proceed, as before-mentioned, to the book of Judges.
The book of Judges is anonymous on the face of it; and, therefore,
even the pretence is wanting to call it the word of God; it has not
so much as a nominal voucher; it is altogether fatherless.
This book begins with the same expression as the book of Joshua. That
of Joshua begins, chap i. 1, Now after the death of Moses, etc., and
this of the Judges begins, Now after the death of Joshua, etc. This,
and the similarity of stile between the two books, indicate that they
are the work of the same author; but who he was, is altogether
unknown; the only point that the book proves is that the author lived
long after the time of Joshua; for though it begins as if it followed
immediately after his death, the second chapter is an epitome or
abstract of the whole book, which, according to the Bible chronology,
extends its history through a space of 306 years; that is, from the
death of Joshua, B.C. 1426 to the death of Samson, B.C. 1120, and
only 25 years before Saul went to seek his father's asses, and was
made king. But there is good reason to believe, that it was not
written till the time of David, at least, and that the book of Joshua
was not written before the same time.
In Judges i., the writer, after announcing the death of Joshua,
proceeds to tell what happened between the children of Judah and the
native inhabitants of the land of Canaan. In this statement the
writer, having abruptly mentioned Jerusalem in the 7th verse, says
immediately after, in the 8th verse, by way of explanation, "Now the
children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and taken it;"
consequently this book could not have been written before Jerusalem
had been taken. The reader will recollect the quotation I have just
before made from Joshua xv. 63, where it said that the Jebusites
dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem at this day; meaning
the time when the book of Joshua was written.
The evidence I have already produced to prove that the books I have
hitherto treated of were not written by the persons to whom they are
ascribed, nor till many years after their death, if such persons ever
lived, is already so abundant, that I can afford to admit this
passage with less weight than I am entitled to draw from it. For the
case is, that so far as the Bible can be credited as an history, the
city of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of David; and
consequently, that the book of Joshua, and of Judges, were not
written till after the commencement of the reign of David, which was
370 years after the death of Joshua.
The name of the city that was afterward called Jerusalem was
originally Jebus, or Jebusi, and was the capital of the Jebusites.
The account of David's taking this city is given in 2 Samuel, v. 4,
etc.; also in 1 Chron. xiv. 4, etc. There is no mention in any part
of the Bible that it was ever taken before, nor any account that
favours such an opinion. It is not said, either in Samuel or in
Chronicles, that they "utterly destroyed men, women and children,
that they left not a soul to breathe," as is said of their other
conquests; and the silence here observed implies that it was taken by
capitulation; and that the Jebusites, the native inhabitants,
continued to live in the place after it was taken. The account
therefore, given in Joshua, that "the Jebusites dwell with the
children of Judah" at Jerusalem at this day, corresponds to no other
time than after taking the city by David.
Having now shown that every book in the Bible, from Genesis to
Judges, is without authenticity, I come to the book of Ruth, an idle,
bungling story, foolishly told, nobody knows by whom, about a
strolling country-girl creeping slily to bed to her cousin Boaz. [The
text of Ruth does not imply the unpleasant sense Paine's words are
likely to convey. -- Editor.] Pretty stuff indeed to be called the
word of God. It is, however, one of the best books in the Bible, for
it is free from murder and rapine.
I come next to the two books of Samuel, and to shew that those books
were not written by Samuel, nor till a great length of time after the
death of Samuel; and that they are, like all the former books,
anonymous, and without authority.
To be convinced that these books have been written much later than
the time of Samuel, and consequently not by him, it is only necessary
to read the account which the writer gives of Saul going to seek his
father's asses, and of his interview with Samuel, of whom Saul went
to enquire about those lost asses, as foolish people nowa-days go to
a conjuror to enquire after lost things.
The writer, in relating this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses,
does not tell it as a thing that had just then happened, but as an
ancient story in the time this writer lived; for he tells it in the
language or terms used at the time that Samuel lived, which obliges
the writer to explain the story in the terms or language used in the
time the writer lived.
Samuel, in the account given of him in the first of those books,
chap. ix. 13 called the seer; and it is by this term that Saul
enquires after him, ver. 11, "And as they [Saul and his servant] went
up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw
water; and they said unto them, Is the seer here?" Saul then went
according to the direction of these maidens, and met Samuel without
knowing him, and said unto him, ver. 18, "Tell me, I pray thee, where
the seer's house is? and Samuel answered Saul, and said, I am the
seer."
As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these questions and
answers, in the language or manner of speaking used in the time they
are said to have been spoken, and as that manner of speaking was out
of use when this author wrote, he found it necessary, in order to
make the story understood, to explain the terms in which these
questions and answers are spoken; and he does this in the 9th verse,
where he says, "Before-tune in Israel, when a man went to enquire of
God, thus he spake, Come let us go to the seer; for he that is now
called a prophet, was before-time called a seer." This proves, as I
have before said, that this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, was
an ancient story at the time the book of Samuel was written, and
consequently that Samuel did not write it, and that the book is
without authenticity,
But if we go further into those books the evidence is still more
positive that Samuel is not the writer of them; for they relate
things that did not happen till several years after the death of
Samuel. Samuel died before Saul; for i Samuel, xxviii. tells, that
Saul and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up after he was dead; yet
the history of matters contained in those books is extended through
the remaining part of Saul's life, and to the latter end of the life
of David, who succeded Saul. The account of the death and burial of
Samuel (a thing which he could not write himself) is related in i
Samuel xxv.; and the chronology affixed to this chapter makes this to
be B.C. 1060; yet the history of this first book is brought down to
B.C. 1056, that is, to the death of Saul, which was not till four
years after the death of Samuel.
The second book of Samuel begins with an account of things that did
not happen till four years after Samuel was dead; for it begins with
the reign of David, who succeeded Saul, and it goes on to the end of
David's reign, which was forty-three years after the death of Samuel;
and, therefore, the books are in themselves positive evidence that
they were not written by Samuel.
I have now gone through all the books in the first part of the Bible,
to which the names of persons are affixed, as being the authors of
those books, and which the church, styling itself the Christian
church, have imposed upon the world as the writings of Moses, Joshua
and Samuel; and I have detected and proved the falsehood of this
imposition. -- And now ye priests, of every description, who have
preached and written against the former part of the 'Age of Reason,'
what have ye to say? Will ye with all this mass of evidence against
you, and staring you in the face, still have the assurance to march
into your pulpits, and continue to impose these books on your
congregations, as the works of inspired penmen and the word of God?
when it is as evident as demonstration can make truth appear, that
the persons who ye say are the authors, are not the authors, and that
ye know not who the authors are. What shadow of pretence have ye now
to produce for continuing the blasphemous fraud? What have ye still
to offer against the pure and moral religion of deism, in support of
your system of falsehood, idolatry, and pretended revelation? Had the
cruel and murdering orders, with which the Bible is filled, and the
numberless torturing executions of men, women, and children, in
consequence of those orders, been ascribed to some friend, whose
memory you revered, you would have glowed with satisfaction at
detecting the falsehood of the charge, and gloried in defending his
injured fame. It is because ye are sunk in the cruelty of
superstition, or feel no interest in the honour of your Creator, that
ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous
indifference. The evidence I have produced, and shall still produce
in the course of this work, to prove that the Bible is without
authority, will, whilst it wounds the stubbornness of a priest,
relieve and tranquillize the minds of millions: it will free them
from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which priestcraft and
the Bible had infused into their minds, and which stood in
everlasting opposition to all their ideas of his moral justice and
benevolence.
I come now to the two books of Kings, and the two books of
Chronicles. -- Those books are altogether historical, and are chiefly
confined to the lives and actions of the Jewish kings, who in general
were a parcel of rascals: but these are matters with which we have no
more concern than we have with the Roman emperors, or Homer's account
of the Trojan war. Besides which, as those books are anonymous, and
as we know nothing of the writer, or of his character, it is
impossible for us to know what degree of credit to give to the
matters related therein. Like all other ancient histories, they
appear to be a jumble of fable and of fact, and of probable and of
improbable things, but which distance of time and place, and change
of circumstances in the world, have rendered obsolete and
uninteresting.
The chief use I shall make of those books will be that of comparing
them with each other, and with other parts of the Bible, to show the
confusion, contradiction, and cruelty in this pretended word of God.
The first book of Kings begins with the reign of Solomon, which,
according to the Bible chronology, was B.C. 1015; and the second book
ends B.C. 588, being a little after the reign of Zedekiah, whom
Nebuchadnezzar, after taking Jerusalem and conquering the Jews,
carried captive to Babylon. The two books include a space of 427
years.
The two books of Chroniclcs are an history of the same times, and in
general of the same persons, by another author; for it would be
absurd to suppose that the same author wrote the history twice over.
The first book of Chronicles (after giving the genealogy from Adam to
Saul, which takes up the first nine chapters) begins with the reign
of David; and the last book ends, as in the last book of Kings, soon,
after the reign of Zedekiah, about B.C. 588. The last two verses of
the last chapter bring the history 52 years more forward, that is, to
536. But these verses do not belong to the book, as I shall show when
I come to speak of the book of Ezra.
The two books of Kings, besides the history of Saul, David, and
Solomon, who reigned over all Israel, contain an abstract of the
lives of seventeen kings, and one queen, who are stiled kings of
Judah; and of nineteen, who are stiled kings of Israel; for the
Jewish nation, immediately on the death of Solomon, split into two
parties, who chose separate kings, and who carried on most rancorous
wars against each other.
These two books are little more than a history of assassinations,
treachery, and wars. The cruelties that the Jews had accustomed
themselves to practise on the Canaanites, whose country they had
savagely invaded, under a pretended gift from God, they afterwards
practised as furiously on each other. Scarcely half their kings died
a natural death, and in some instances whole families were destroyed
to secure possession to the successor, who, after a few years, and
sometimes only a few months, or less, shared the same fate. In 2
Kings x., an account is given of two baskets full of children's
heads, seventy in number, being exposed at the entrance of the city;
they were the children of Ahab, and were murdered by the orders of
Jehu, whom Elisha, the pretended man of God, had anointed to be king
over Israel, on purpose to commit this bloody deed, and assassinate
his predecessor. And in the account of the reign of Menahem, one of
the kings of Israel who had murdered Shallum, who had reigned but one
month, it is said, 2 Kings xv. 16, that Menahem smote the city of
Tiphsah, because they opened not the city to him, and all the women
therein that were with child he ripped up.
Could we permit ourselves to suppose that the Almighty would
distinguish any nation of people by the name of his chosen people, we
must suppose that people to have been an example to all the rest of
the world of the purest piety and humanity, and not such a nation of
ruffians and cut-throats as the ancient Jews were, -- a people who,
corrupted by and copying after such monsters and imposters as Moses
and Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, and David, had distinguished themselves
above all others on the face of the known earth for barbarity and
wickedness. If we will not stubbornly shut our eyes and steel our
hearts it is impossible not to see, in spite of all that
long-established superstition imposes upon the mind, that the
flattering appellation of his chosen people is no other than a lie
which the priests and leaders of the Jews had invented to cover the
baseness of their own characters; and which Christian priests
sometimes as corrupt, and often as cruel, have professed to believe.
The two books of Chronicles are a repetition of the same crimes; but
the history is broken in several places, by the author leaving out
the reign of some of their kings; and in this, as well as in that of
Kings, there is such a frequent transition from kings of Judah to
kings of Israel, and from kings of Israel to kings of Judah, that the
narrative is obscure in the reading. In the same book the history
sometimes contradicts itself: for example, in 2 Kings, i. 17, we are
told, but in rather ambiguous terms, that after the death of Ahaziah,
king of Israel, Jehoram, or Joram, (who was of the house of Ahab),
reigned in his stead in the second Year of Jehoram, or Joram, son of
Jehoshaphat, king of Judah; and in viii. 16, of the same book, it is
said, "And in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of
Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram, the son of
Jehoshaphat king of judah, began to reign." That is, one chapter says
Joram of Judah began to reign in the second year of Joram of Israel;
and the other chapter says, that Joram of Israel began to reign in
the fifth year of Joram of Judah.
Several of the most extraordinary matters related in one history, as
having happened during the reign of such or such of their kings, are
not to be found in the other, in relating the reign of the same king:
for example, the two first rival kings, after the death of Solomon,
were Rehoboam and Jeroboam; and in i Kings xii. and xiii. an account
is given of Jeroboam making an offering of burnt incense, and that a
man, who is there called a man of God, cried out against the altar
(xiii. 2): "O altar, altar! thus saith the Lord: Behold, a child
shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee
shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon
thee, and men's bones shall be burned upon thee." Verse 4: "And it
came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God,
which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his
hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him; and his hand which he
put out against him dried up so that he could not pull it again to
him."
One would think that such an extraordinary case as this, (which is
spoken of as a judgement,) happening to the chief of one of the
parties, and that at the first moment of the separation of the
Israelites into two nations, would, if it,. had been true, have been
recorded in both histories. But though men, in later times, have
believed all that the prophets have said unto them, it does appear
that those prophets, or historians, disbelieved each other: they knew
each other too well.
A long account also is given in Kings about Elijah. It runs through
several chapters, and concludes with telling, 2 Kings ii. 11, "And it
came to pass, as they (Elijah and Elisha) still went on, and talked,
that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire,
and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into
heaven." Hum! this the author of Chronicles, miraculous as the story
is, makes no mention of, though he mentions Elijah by name; neither
does he say anything of the story related in the second chapter of
the same book of Kings, of a parcel of children calling Elisha bald
head; and that this man of God (ver. 24) "turned back, and looked
upon them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord; and there came
forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children
of them." He also passes over in silence the story told, 2 Kings
xiii., that when they were burying a man in the sepulchre where
Elisha had been buried, it happened that the dead man, as they were
letting him down, (ver. 21) "touched the bones of Elisha, and he (the
dead man) revived, and stood up on his feet." The story does not tell
us whether they buried the man, notwithstanding he revived and stood
upon his feet, or drew him up again. Upon all these stories the
writer of the Chronicles is as silent as any writer of the present
day, who did not chose to be accused of lying, or at least of
romancing, would be about stories of the same kind.
But, however these two historians may differ from each other with
respect to the tales related by either, they are silent alike with
respect to those men styled prophets whose writings fill up the
latter part of the Bible. Isaiah, who lived in the time of Hezekiab,
is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when these histories
are speaking of that reign; but except in one or two instances at
most, and those very slightly, none of the rest are so much as spoken
of, or even their existence hinted at; though, according to the Bible
chronology, they lived within the time those histories were written;
and some of them long before. If those prophets, as they are called,
were men of such importance in their day, as the compilers of the
Bible, and priests and commentators have since represented them to
be, how can it be accounted for that not one of those histories
should say anything about them?
The history in the books of Kings and of Chronicles is brought
forward, as I have already said, to the year B.C. 588; it will,
therefore, be proper to examine which of these prophets lived before
that period.
Here follows a table of all the prophets, with the times in which
they lived before Christ, according to the chronology affixed to the
first chapter of each of the books of the prophets; and also of the
number of years they lived before the books of Kings and Chronicles
were written:
Table of the Prophets, with the time in which they lived before
Christ, and also before the books of Kings and Chronicles were
written:
Years Years before
NAMES. before Kings and Observations.
Christ. Chronicles.
Isaiah.............. 760 172 mentioned.
(mentioned only in
Jeremiah............. 629 41 the last [two] chapters
of Chronicles.
Ezekiel.............. 595 7 not mentioned.
Daniel............... 607 19 not mentioned.
Hosea................ 785 97 not mentioned.
Joel................. 800 212 not mentioned.
Amos................. 789 199 not mentioned.
Obadiah.............. 789 199 not mentioned.
Jonah................ 862 274 see the note.
Micah................ 750 162 not mentioned.
Nahum............... 713 125 not mentioned.
Habakkuk............. 620 38 not mentioned.
Zepbaniah............ 630 42 not mentioned.
Haggai
Zechariah all three after the year 588
Mdachi
[NOTE In 2 Kings xiv. 25, the name of Jonah is mentioned on account
of the restoration of a tract of land by Jeroboam; but nothing
further is said of him, nor is any allusion made to the book of
Jonah, nor to his expedition to Nineveh, nor to his encounter with
the whale. -- Author.]
This table is either not very honourable for the Bible historians, or
not very honourable for the Bible prophets; and I leave to priests
and commentators, who are very learned in little things, to settle
the point of etiquette between the two; and to assign a reason, why
the authors of Kings and of Chronicles have treated those prophets,
whom, in the former part of the 'Age of Reason,' I have considered as
poets, with as much degrading silence as any historian of the present
day would treat Peter Pindar.
I have one more observation to make on the book of Chronicles; after
which I shall pass on to review the remaining books of the Bible.
In my observations on the book of Genesis, I have quoted a passage
from xxxvi. 31, which evidently refers to a time, after that kings
began to reign over the children of Israel; and I have shown that as
this verse is verbatim the same as in 1 Chronicles i. 43, where it
stands consistently with the order of history, which in Genesis it
does not, that the verse in Genesis, and a great part of the 36th
chapter, have been taken from Chronicles; and that the book of
Genesis, though it is placed first in the Bible, and ascribed to
Moses, has been manufactured by some unknown person, after the book
of Chronicles was written, which was not until at least eight hundred
and sixty years after the time of Moses.
The evidence I proceed by to substantiate this, is regular, and has
in it but two stages. First, as I have already stated, that the
passage in Genesis refers itself for time to Chronicles; secondly,
that the book of Chronicles, to which this passage refers itself, was
not begun to be written until at least eight hundred and sixty years
after the time of Moses. To prove this, we have only to look into 1
Chronicles iii. 15, where the writer, in giving the genealogy of the
descendants of David, mentions Zedekiah; and it was in the time of
Zedekiah that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, B.C. 588, and
consequently more than 860 years after Moses. Those who have
superstitiously boasted of the antiquity of the Bible, and
particularly of the books ascribed to Moses, have done it without
examination, and without any other authority than that of one
credulous man telling it to another: for, so far as historical and
chronological evidence applies, the very first book in the Bible is
not so ancient as the book of Homer, by more than three hundred
years, and is about the same age with AEsop's Fables.
I am not contending for the morality of Homer; on the contrary, I
think it a book of false glory, and tending to inspire immoral and
mischievous notions of honour; and with respect to AEsop, though the
moral is in general just, the fable is often cruel; and the cruelty
of the fable does more injury to the heart, especially in a child,
than the moral does good to the judgment.
Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to the next in
course, the book of Ezra.
As one proof, among others I shall produce to shew the disorder in
which this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been put together,
and the uncertainty of who the authors were, we have only to look at
the first three verses in Ezra, and the last two in 2 Chronicles; for
by what kind of cutting and shuffling has it been that the first
three verses in Ezra should be the last two verses in 2 Chronicles,
or that the last two in 2 Chronicles should be the first three in
Ezra? Either the authors did not know their own works or the
compilers did not know the authors.
Last Two Verses of 2 Chronicles.
Ver. 22. Now in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, that the
word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be
accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of
Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and
put it also in writing, saying.
earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to
build him an house in Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is there among
you of all his people? the Lord his God be with him, and let him go
up. ***
First Three Verses of Ezra.
Ver. 1. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word
of the Lord, by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be fulfilled, the Lord
stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a
proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing,
saying.
2. Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath
given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to
build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
3. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and
let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of
the Lord God of Israel (he is the God) which is in Jerusalem.
*** The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and ends in the
middle of the phrase with the word 'up' without signifying to what
place. This abrupt break, and the appearance of the same verses in
different books, show as I have already said, the disorder and
ignorance in which the Bible has been put together, and that the
compilers of it had no authority for what they were doing, nor we any
authority for believing what they have done. [NOTE I observed, as I
passed along, several broken and senseless passages in the Bible,
without thinking them of consequence enough to be introduced in the
body of the work; such as that, 1 Samuel xiii. 1, where it is said,
"Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over
Israel, Saul chose him three thousand men," &c. The first part of the
verse, that Saul reigned one year has no sense, since it does not
tell us what Saul did, nor say any thing of what happened at the end
of that one year; and it is, besides, mere absurdity to say he
reigned one year, when the very next phrase says he had reigned two
for if he had reigned two, it was impossible not to have reigned one.
Another instance occurs in Joshua v. where the writer tells us a
story of an angel (for such the table of contents at the head of the
chapter calls him) appearing unto Joshua; and the story ends
abruptly, and without any conclusion. The story is as follows: --
Ver. 13. "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he
lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there stood a man over
against him with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went unto
him and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?"
Verse 14, "And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord
am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did
worship and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?"
Verse 15, "And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Josbua, Loose
thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standeth is
holy. And Joshua did so." -- And what then? nothing: for here the
story ends, and the chapter too.
Either this story is broken off in the middle, or it is a story told
by some Jewish humourist in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission
from God, and the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving the design
of the story, have told it as a serious matter. As a story of humour
and ridicule it has a great deal of point; for it pompously
introduces an angel in the figure of a man, with a drawn sword in his
hand, before whom Joshua falls on his face to the earth, and worships
(which is contrary to their second commandment;) and then, this most
important embassy from heaven ends in telling Joshua to pull off his
shoe. It might as well have told him to pull up his breeches.
It is certain, however, that the Jews did not credit every thing
their leaders told them, as appears from the cavalier manner in which
they speak of Moses, when he was gone into the mount. As for this
Moses, say they, we wot not what is become of him. Exod. xxxii. 1. --
Author.]
The only thing that has any appearance of certainty in the book of
Ezra is the time in which it was written, which was immediately after
the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about B.C. 536.
Ezra (who, according to the Jewish commentators, is the same person
as is called Esdras in the Apocrypha) was one of the persons who
returned, and who, it is probable, wrote the account of that affair.
Nebemiah, whose book follows next to Ezra, was another of the
returned persons; and who, it is also probable, wrote the account of
the same affair, in the book that bears his name. But those accounts
are nothing to us, nor to any other person, unless it be to the Jews,
as a part of the history of their nation; and there is just as much
of the word of God in those books as there is in any of the histories
of France, or Rapin's history of England, or the history of any other
country.
But even in matters of historical record, neither of those writers
are to be depended upon. In Ezra ii., the writer gives a list of the
tribes and families, and of the precise number of souls of each, that
returned from Babylon to Jerusalem; and this enrolment of the persons
so returned appears to have been one of the principal objects for
writing the book; but in this there is an error that destroys the
intention of the undertaking.
The writer begins his enrolment in the following manner (ii. 3): "The
children of Parosh, two thousand one hundred seventy and four." Ver.
4, "The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two." And
in this manner he proceeds through all the families; and in the 64th
verse, he makes a total, and says, the whole congregation together
was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore.
But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the several
particulars, will find that the total is but 29,818; so that the
error is 12,542. What certainty then can there be in the Bible for
any thing?
[Here Mr. Paine includes the long list of numbers from the Bible of
all the children listed and the total thereof. This can be had
directly from the Bible.]
Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list of the returned families, and
of the number of each family. He begins as in Ezra, by saying (vii.
8): "The children of Parosh, two thousand three hundred and
seventy-two;" and so on through all the families. (The list differs
in several of the particulars from that of Ezra.) In ver. 66,
Nehemiah makes a total, and says, as Ezra had said, "The whole
congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and
threescore." But the particulars of this list make a total but of
31,089, so that the error here is 11,271. These writers may do well
enough for Bible-makers, but not for any thing where truth and
exactness is necessary.
The next book in course is the book of Esther. If Madam Esther
thought it any honour to offer herself as a kept mistress to
Ahasuerus, or as a rival to Queen Vashti, who had refused to come to
a drunken king in the midst of a drunken company, to be made a show
of, (for the account says, they had been drinking seven days, and
were merry,) let Esther and Mordecai look to that, it is no business
of ours, at least it is none of mine; besides which, the story has a
great deal the appearance of being fabulous, and is also anonymous. I
pass on to the book of Job.
The book of Job differs in character from all the books we have
hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of this book;
it is the meditations of a mind strongly impressed with the
vicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, and
struggling against the pressure. It is a highly wrought composition,
between willing submission and involuntary discontent; and shows man,
as he sometimes is, more disposed to be resigned than he is capable
of being. Patience has but a small share in the character of the
person of whom the book treats; on the contrary, his grief is often
impetuous; but he still endeavours to keep a guard upon it, and seems
determined, in the midst of accumulating ills, to impose upon himself
the hard duty of contentment.
I have spoken in a respectful manner of the book of Job in the former
part of the 'Age of Reason,' but without knowing at that time what I
have learned since; which is, that from all the evidence that can be
collected, the book of Job does not belong to the Bible.
I have seen the opinion of two Hebrew commentators, Abenezra and
Spinoza, upon this subject; they both say that the book of Job
carries no internal evidence of being an Hebrew book; that the genius
of the composition, and the drama of the piece, are not Hebrew; that
it has been translated from another language into Hebrew, and that
the author of the book was a Gentile; that the character represented
under the name of Satan (which is the first and only time this name
is mentioned in the Bible) [In a later work Paine notes that in "the
Bible" (by which be always means the Old Testament alone) the word
Satan occurs also in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, and remarks that the action
there ascribed to Satan is in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, attributed to Jehovah
("Essay on Dreams"). In these places, however, and in Ps. cix. 6,
Satan means "adversary," and is so translated (A.S. version) in 2
Sam. xix. 22, and 1 Kings v. 4, xi. 25. As a proper name, with the
article, Satan appears in the Old Testament only in Job and in Zech.
iii. 1, 2. But the authenticity of the passage in Zechariah has been
questioned, and it may be that in finding the proper name of Satan in
Job alone, Paine was following some opinion met with in one of the
authorities whose comments are condensed in his paragraph. --
Editor.] does not correspond to any Hebrew idea; and that the two
convocations which the Deity is supposed to have made of those whom
the poem calls sons of God, and the familiarity which this supposed
Satan is stated to have with the Deity, are in the same case.
It may also be observed, that the book shows itself to be the
production of a mind cultivated in science, which the Jews, so far
from being famous for, were very ignorant of. The allusions to
objects of natural philosophy are frequent and strong, and are of a
different cast to any thing in the books known to be Hebrew. The
astronomical names, Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, are Greek and not
Hebrew names, and it does not appear from any thing that is to be
found in the Bible that the Jews knew any thing of astronomy, or that
they studied it, they had no translation of those names into their
own language, but adopted the names as they found them in the poem.
[Paine's Jewish critic, David Levi, fastened on this slip ("Detence
of the Old Testament," 1797, p. 152). In the original the names are
Ash (Arcturus), Kesil' (Orion), Kimah' (Pleiades), though the
identifications of the constellations in the A.S.V. have been
questioned. -- Editor.]
That the Jews did translate the literary productions of the Gentile
nations into the Hebrew language, and mix them with their own, is not
a matter of doubt; Proverbs xxxi. i, is an evidence of this: it is
there said, The word of king Lemuel, the prophecy which his mother
taught him. This verse stands as a preface to the proverbs that
follow, and which are not the proverbs of Solomon, but of Lemuel; and
this Lemuel was not one of the kings of Israel, nor of Judah, but of
some other country, and consequently a Gentile. The Jews however have
adopted his proverbs; and as they cannot give any account who the
author of the book of Job was, nor how they came by the book, and as
it differs in character from the Hebrew writings, and stands totally
unconnected with every other book and chapter in the Bible before it
and after it, it has all the circumstantial evidence of being
originally a book of the Gentiles. [The prayer known by the name of
Agur's Prayer, in Proverbs xxx., -- immediately preceding the
proverbs of Lemuel, -- and which is the only sensible,
well-conceived, and well-expressed prayer in the Bible, has much the
appearance of being a prayer taken from the Gentiles. The name of
Agur occurs on no other occasion than this; and he is introduced,
together with the prayer ascribed to him, in the same manner, and
nearly in the same words, that Lemuel and his proverbs are introduced
in the chapter that follows. The first verse says, "The words of
Agur, the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy:" here the word prophecy is
used with the same application it has in the following chapter of
Lemuel, unconnected with anything of prediction. The prayer of Agur
is in the 8th and 9th verses, "Remove far from me vanity and lies;
give me neither riches nor poverty, but feed me with food convenient
for me; lest I be full and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord? or
lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." This
has not any of the marks of being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never
prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for anything but
victory, vengeance, or riches. -- Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi. 1,
the word "prophecy" in these verses is translated "oracle" or
"burden" (marg.) in the revised version. -- The prayer of Agur was
quoted by Paine in his plea for the officers of Excise, 1772. --
Editor.]
The Bible-makers, and those regulators of time, the Bible
chronologists, appear to have been at a loss where to place and how
to dispose of the book of Job; for it contains no one historical
circumstance, nor allusion to any, that might serve to determine its
place in the Bible. But it would not have answered the purpose of
these men to have informed the world of their ignorance; and,
therefore, they have affixed it to the aera of B.C. 1520, which is
during the time the Israelites were in Egypt, and for which they have
just as much authority and no more than I should have for saying it
was a thousand years before that period. The probability however is,
that it is older than any book in the Bible; and it is the only one
that can be read without indignation or disgust.
We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it is called)
was before the time of the Jews, whose practice has been to
calumniate and blacken the character of all other nations; and it is
from the Jewish accounts that we have learned to call them heathens.
But, as far as we know to the contrary, they were a just and moral
people, and not addicted, like the Jews, to cruelty and revenge, but
of whose profession of faith we are unacquainted. It appears to have
been their custom to personify both virtue and vice by statues and
images, as is done now-a-days both by statuary and by painting; but
it does not follow from this that they worshipped them any more than
we do. -- I pass on to the book of,
Psalms, of which it is not necessary to make much observation. Some
of them are moral, and others are very revengeful; and the greater
part relates to certain local circumstances of the Jewish nation at
the time they were written, with which we have nothing to do. It is,
however, an error or an imposition to call them the Psalms of David;
they are a collection, as song-books are now-a- days, from different
song-writers, who lived at different times. The 137th Psalm could not
have been written till more than 400 years after the time of David,
because it is written in commemoration of an event, the captivity of
the Jews in Babylon, which did not happen till that distance of time.
"By the rivers of Babylon we sat down; yea, we wept when we
remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst
thereof; for there they that carried us away cartive required of us a
song, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion." As a man would say
to an American, or to a Frenchman, or to an Englishman, sing us one
of your American songs, or your French songs, or your English songs.
This remark, with respect to the time this psalm was written, is of
no other use than to show (among others already mentioned) the
general imposition the world has been under with respect to the
authors of the Bible. No regard has been paid to time, place, and
circumstance; and the names of persons have been affixed to the
several books which it was as impossible they should write, as that a
man should walk in procession at his own funeral.
The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a collection, and
that from authors belonging to other nations than those of the Jewish
nation, as I have shewn in the observations upon the book of Job;
besides which, some of the Proverbs ascribed to Solomon did not
appear till two hundred and fifty years after the death of Solomon;
for it is said in xxv. i, "These are also proverbs of Solomon which
the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out." It was two hundred
and fifty years from the time of Solomon to the time of Hezekiah.
When a man is famous and his name is abroad he is made the putative
father of things he never said or did; and this, most probably, has
been the case with Solomon. It appears to have been the fashion of
that day to make proverbs, as it is now to make jest-books, and
father them upon those who never saw them. [A "Tom Paine's Jest Book"
had appeared in London with little or nothing of Paine in it. --
Editor.]
The book of Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, is also ascribed to
Solomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is written
as the solitary reflections of a worn-out debauchee, such as Solomon
was, who looking back on scenes he can no longer enjoy, cries out All
is Vanity! A great deal of the metaphor and of the sentiment is
obscure, most probably by translation; but enough is left to show
they were strongly pointed in the original. [Those that look out of
the window shall be darkened, is an obscure figure in translation for
loss of sight. -- Author.] From what is transmitted to us of the
character of Solomon, he was witty, ostentatious, dissolute, and at
last melancholy. He lived fast, and died, tired of the world, at the
age of fifty-eight years.
Seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, are worse than
none; and, however it may carry with it the appearance of heightened
enjoyment, it defeats all the felicity of affection, by leaving it no
point to fix upon; divided love is never happy. This was the case
with Solomon; and if he could not, with all his pretensions to
wisdom, discover it beforehand, he merited, unpitied, the
mortification he afterwards endured. In this point of view, his
preaching is unnecessary, because, to know the consequences, it is
only necessary to know the cause. Seven hundred wives, and three
hundred concubines would have stood in place of the whole book. It
was needless after this to say that all was vanity and vexation of
spirit; for it is impossible to derive happiness from the company of
those whom we deprive of happiness.
To be happy in old age it is necessary that we accustom ourselves to
objects that can accompany the mind all the way through life, and
that we take the rest as good in their day. The mere man of pleasure
is miserable in old age; and the mere drudge in business is but
little better: whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and
mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and
in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests, and of superstition, the
study of those things is the study of the true theology; it teaches
man to know and to admire the Creator, for the principles of science
are in the creation, and are unchangeable, and of divine origin.
Those who knew Benjaman Franklin will recollect, that his mind was
ever young; his temper ever serene; science, that never grows grey,
was always his mistress. He was never without an object; for when we
cease to have an object we become like an invalid in an hospital
waiting for death.
Solomon's Songs, amorous and foolish enough, but which wrinkled
fanaticism has called divine. -- The compilers of the Bible have
placed these songs after the book of Ecclesiastes; and the
chronologists have affixed to them the aera of B.C. 1O14, at which
time Solomon, according to the same chronology, was nineteen years of
age, and was then forming his seraglio of wives and concubines. The
Bible-makers and the chronologists should have managed this matter a
little better, and either have said nothing about the time, or chosen
a time less inconsistent with the supposed divinity of those songs;
for Solomon was then in the honey-moon of one thousand debaucheries.
It should also have occurred to them, that as he wrote, if he did
write, the book of Ecclesiastes, long after these songs, and in which
he exclaims that all is vanity and vexation of spirit, that he
included those songs in that description. This is the more probable,
because he says, or somebody for him, Ecclesiastes ii. 8, I got me
men-singers, and women-singers (most probably to sing those songs],
and musical instruments of all sores; and behold (Ver. ii), "all was
vanity and vexation of spirit." The compilers however have done their
work but by halves; for as they have given us the songs they should
have given us the tunes, that we might sing them.
The books called the books of the Prophets fill up all the remaining
part of the Bible; they are sixteen in number, beginning with Isaiah
and ending with Malachi, of which I have given a list in the
observations upon Chronicles. Of these sixteen prophets, all of whom
except the last three lived within the time the books of Kings and
Chronicles were written, two only, Isaiah and Jeremiah, are mentioned
in the history of those books. I shall begin with those two,
reserving, what I have to say on the general character of the men
called prophets to another part of the work.
Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed to Isaiah,
will find it one of the most wild and disorderly compositions ever
put together; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; and, except
a short historical part, and a few sketches of history in the first
two or three chapters, is one continued incoherent, bombastical rant,
full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of
meaning; a school-boy would scarcely have been excusable for writing
such stuff; it is (at least in translation) that kind of composition
and false taste that is properly called prose run mad.
The historical part begins at chapter xxxvi., and is continued to the
end of chapter xxxix. It relates some matters that are said to have
passed during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, at which time
Isaiah lived. This fragment of history begins and ends abruptly; it
has not the least connection with the chapter that precedes it, nor
with that which follows it, nor with any other in the book. It is
probable that Isaiah wrote this fragment himself, because he was an
actor in the circumstances it treats of; but except this part there
are scarcely two chapters that have any connection with each other.
One is entitled, at the beginning of the first verse, the burden of
Babylon; another, the burden of Moab; another, the burden of
Damascus; another, the burden of Egypt; another, the burden of the
Desert of the Sea; another, the burden of the Valley of Vision: as
you would say the story of the Knight of the Burning Mountain, the
story of Cinderella, or the glassen slipper, the story of the
Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, etc., etc.
I have already shown, in the instance of the last two verses of 2
Chronicles, and the first three in Ezra, that the compilers of the
Bible mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with
each other; which alone, were there no other cause, is sufficient to
destroy the authenticity of an compilation, because it is more than
presumptive evidence that the compilers are ignorant who the authors
were. A very glaring instance of this occurs in the book ascribed to
Isaiah: the latter part of the 44th chapter, and the beginning of the
45th, so far from having been written by Isaiah, could only have been
written by some person who lived at least an hundred and fifty years
after Isaiah was dead.
These chapters are a compliment to Cyrus, who permitted the Jews to
return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity, to rebuild
Jerusalem and the temple, as is stated in Ezra. The last verse of the
44th chapter, and the beginning of the 45th [Isaiah] are in the
following words: "That saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and shall
perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be
built; and to the temple thy foundations shall be laid: thus saith
the Lord to his enointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to
subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings to
open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be
shut; I will go before thee," etc.
What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to impose this
book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah, when Isaiah, according
to their own chronology, died soon after the death of Hezekiah, which
was B.C. 698; and the decree of Cyrus, in favour of the Jews
returning to Jerusalem, was, according to the same chronology, B.C.
536; which is a distance of time between the two of 162 years. I do
not suppose that the compilers of the Bible made these books, but
rather that they picked up some loose, anonymous essays, and put them
together under the names of such authors as best suited their
purpose. They have encouraged the imposition, which is next to
inventing it; for it was impossible but they must have observed it.
When we see the studied craft of the scripture-makers, in making
every part of this romantic book of school-boy's eloquence bend to
the monstrous idea of a Son of God, begotten by a ghost on the body
of a virgin, there is no imposition we are not justified in
suspecting them of. Every phrase and circumstance are marked with the
barbarous hand of superstitious torture, and forced into meanings it
was impossible they could have. The head of every chapter, and the
top of every page, are blazoned with the names of Christ and the
Church, that the unwary reader might suck in the error before he
began to read.
Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son (Isa. vii. I4), has
been interpreted to mean the person called Jesus Christ, and his
mother Mary, and has been echoed through christendom for more than a
thousand years; and such has been the rage of this opinion, that
scarcely a spot in it but has been stained with blood and marked with
desolation in consequence of it. Though it is not my intention to
enter into controversy on subjects of this kind, but to confine
myself to show that the Bible is spurious, -- and thus, by taking
away the foundation, to overthrow at once the whole structure of
superstition raised thereon, -- I will however stop a moment to
expose the fallacious application of this passage.
Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of Judah, to whom
this passage is spoken, is no business of mine; I mean only to show
the misapplication of the passage, and that it has no more reference
to Christ and his mother, than it has to me and my mother. The story
is simply this:
The king of Syria and the king of Israel (I have already mentioned
that the Jews were split into two nations, one of which was called
Judah, the capital of which was Jerusalem, and the other Israel) made
war jointly against Ahaz, king of Judah, and marched their armies
towards Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became alarmed, and the
account says (Is. vii. 2), Their hearts were moved as the trees of
the wood are moved with the wind.
In this situation of things, Isaiah addresses himself to Ahaz, and
assures him in the name of the Lord (the cant phrase of all the
prophets) that these two kings should not succeed against him; and to
satisfy Ahaz that this should be the case, tells him to ask a sign.
This, the account says, Ahaz declined doing; giving as a reason that
he would not tempt the Lord; upon which Isaiah, who is the speaker,
says, ver. 14, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son;" and the 16th verse
says, "And before this child shall know to refuse the evil, and
choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest or dreadest [meaning
Syria and the kingdom of Israel] shall be forsaken of both her
kings." Here then was the sign, and the time limited for the
completion of the assurance or promise; namely, before this child
shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good.
Isaiah having committed himself thus far, it became necessary to him,
in order to avoid the imputation of being a false prophet, and the
consequences thereof, to take measures to make this sign appear. It
certainly was not a difficult thing, in any time of the world, to
find a girl with child, or to make her so; and perhaps Isaiah knew of
one beforehand; for I do not suppose that the prophets of that day
were any more to be trusted than the priests of this: be that,
however, as it may, he says in the next chapter, ver. 2, "And I took
unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah
the son of Jeberechiah, and I went unto the prophetess, and she
conceived and bare a son."
Here then is the whole story, foolish as it is, of this child and
this virgin; and it is upon the barefaced perversion of this story
that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and sordid interest of
priests in later times, have founded a theory, which they call the
gospel; and have applied this story to signify the person they call
Jesus Christ; begotten, they say, by a ghost, whom they call holy, on
the body of a woman engaged in marriage, and afterwards married, whom
they call a virgin, seven hundred years after this foolish story was
told; a theory which, speaking for myself, I hesitate not to believe,
and to say, is as fabulous and as false as God is true. [In Is. vii.
14, it is said that the child should be called Immanuel; but this
name was not given to either of the children, otherwise than as a
character, which the word signifies. That of the prophetess was
called Maher-shalalhash- baz, and that of Mary was called Jesus. --
Author.]
But to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah we have only to
attend to the sequel of this story; which, though it is passed over
in silence in the book of Isaiah, is related in 2 Chronicles, xxviii;
and which is, that instead of these two kings failing in their
attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah, as Isaiah had pretended to
foretel in the name of the Lord, they succeeded: Ahaz was defeated
and destroyed; an hundred and twenty thousand of his people were
slaughtered; Jerusalem was plundered, and two hundred thousand women
and sons and daughters carried into captivity. Thus much for this
lying prophet and imposter Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods that
bears his name. I pass on to the book of Jeremiah. This prophet,
as he is called, lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar besieged
Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah; and the
suspicion was strong against him that he was a traitor in the interest
of Nebuchadnezzar. Every thing relating to Jeremiah shows him to have
been a man of an equivocal character: in his metaphor of the potter
and the clay, (ch. xviii.) he guards his prognostications in such a
crafty manner as always to leave himself a door to escape by, in case
the event should be contrary to what he had predicted. In the 7th and
8th verses he makes the Almighty to say, "At what instant I shall speak
concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull
down, and destroy it, if that nation, against whom I have pronounced,
turn from their evil, I will repent me of the evil that I thought to
do unto them." Here was a proviso against one side of the case: now
for the other side. Verses 9 and 10, "At what instant I shall speak
concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant
it, if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will
repent me of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them." Here is
a proviso against the other side; and, according to this plan of
prophesying, a prophet could never be wrong, however mistaken the
Almighty might be. This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this manner
of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent
with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible.
As to the authenticity of the book, it is only necessary to read it
in order to decide positively that, though some passages recorded
therein may have been spoken by Jeremiah, he is not the author of the
book. The historical parts, if they can be called by that name, are
in the most confused condition; the same events are several times
repeated, and that in a manner different, and sometimes in
contradiction to each other; and this disorder runs even to the last
chapter, where the history, upon which the greater part of the book
has been employed, begins anew, and ends abruptly. The book has all
the appearance of being a medley of unconnected anecdotes respecting
persons and things of that time, collected together in the same rude
manner as if the various and contradictory accounts that are to be
found in a bundle of newspapers, respecting persons and things of the
present day, were put together without date, order, or explanation. I
will give two or three examples of this kind.
It appears, from the account of chapter xxxvii. that the army of
Nebuchadnezzer, which is called the army of the Chaldeans, had
besieged Jerusalem some time; and on their hearing that the army of
Pharaoh of Egypt was marching against them, they raised the siege and
retreated for a time. It may here be proper to mention, in order to
understand this confused history, that Nebuchadnezzar had besieged
and taken Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoakim, the redecessor of
Zedekiah; and that it was Nebuchadnezzar who had make Zedekiah king,
or rather viceroy; and that this second siege, of which the book of
Jeremiah treats, was in consequence of the revolt of Zedekiah against
Nebuchadnezzar. This will in some measure account for the suspicion
that affixes itself to Jeremiah of being a traitor, and in the
interest of Nebuchadnezzar, -- whom Jeremiah calls, xliii. 10, the
servant of God.
Chapter xxxvii. 11-13, says, "And it came to pass, that, when the
army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem, for fear of
Pharaoh's army, that Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem, to go (as
this account states) into the land of Benjamin, to separate himself
thence in the midst of the people; and when he was in the gate of
Benjamin a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah ...
and he took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the
Chaldeans; then Jeremiah said, It is false; I fall not away to the
Chaldeans." Jeremiah being thus stopt and accused, was, after being
examined, committed to prison, on suspicion of being a traitor, where
he remained, as is stated in the last verse of this chapter.
But the next chapter gives an account of the imprisonment of
Jeremiah, which has no connection with this account, but ascribes his
imprisonment to another circumstance, and for which we must go back
to chapter xxi. It is there stated, ver. 1, that Zedekiah sent Pashur
the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, to
Jeremiah, to enquire of him concerning Nebuchadnezzar, whose army was
then before Jerusalem; and Jeremiah said to them, ver. 8, "Thus saith
the Lord, Behold I set before you the way of life, and the way of
death; he that abideth in this city shall die by the sword and by the
famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth out and falleth to
the Clialdeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be
unto him for a prey."
This interview and conference breaks off abruptly at the end of the
10th verse of chapter xxi.; and such is the disorder of this book
that we have to pass over sixteen chapters upon various subjects, in
order to come at the continuation and event of this conference; and
this brings us to the first verse of chapter xxxviii., as I have just
mentioned. The chapter opens with saying, "Then Shaphatiah, the son
of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jucal the son of
Shelemiah, and Pashur the son of Malchiah, (here are more persons
mentioned than in chapter xxi.) heard the words that Jeremiah spoke
unto all the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, He that remaineth
in this city, shall die by the sword, by famine, and by the
pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live; for
he shall have his life for a prey, and shall live"; [which are the
words of the conference;] therefore, (say they to Zedekiah,) "We
beseech thee, let this man be put to death, for thus he weakeneth the
hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of
all the people, in speaking such words unto them; for this man
seeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt:" and at the 6th
verse it is said, "Then they took Jeremiah, and put him into the
dungeon of Malchiah."
These two accounts are different and contradictory. The one ascribes
his imprisonment to his attempt to escape out of the city; the other
to his preaching and prophesying in the city; the one to his being
seized by the guard at the gate; the other to his being accused
before Zedekiah by the conferees. [I observed two chapters in I
Samuel (xvi. and xvii.) that contradict each other with respect to
David, and the manner he became acquainted with Saul; as Jeremiah
xxxvii. and xxxviii. contradict each other with respect to the cause
of Jeremiah's imprisonment.
In 1 Samuel, xvi., it is said, that an evil spirit of God troubled
Saul, and that his servants advised him (as a remedy) "to seek out a
man who was a cunning player upon the harp." And Saul said, ver. 17,
"Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. Then
answered one of his servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of
Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty
man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person,
and the Lord is with him; wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse,
and said, Send me David, thy son. And (verse 21) David came to Saul,
and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his
armour-bearer; and when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul,
(verse 23) David took his harp, and played with his hand, and Saul
was refreshed, and was well."
But the next chapter (xvii.) gives an account, all different to this,
of the manner that Saul and David became acquainted. Here it is
ascribed to David's encounter with Goliah, when David was sent by his
father to carry provision to his brethren in the camp. In the 55th
verse of this chapter it is said, "And when Saul saw David go forth
against the Philistine (Goliah) he said to Abner, the captain of the
host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy soul
liveth, 0 king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Enquire thou whose
son the stripling is. And as David returned from the slaughter of the
Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head
of the Philistine in his hand; and Saul said unto him, Whose son art
thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thy
servant, Jesse, the Betblehemite," These two accounts belie each
other, because each of them supposes Saul and David not to have known
each other before. This book, the Bible, is too ridiculous for
criticism. -- Author.]
In the next chapter (Jer. xxxix.) we have another instance of the
disordered state of this book; for notwithstanding the siege of the
city by Nebuchadnezzar has been the subject of several of the
preceding chapters, particularly xxxvii. and xxxviii., chapter xxxix.
begins as if not a word had been said upon the subject, and as if the
reader was still to be informed of every particular respecting it;
for it begins with saying, ver. 1, "In the ninth year of Zedekiah
king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon, and all his army, against Jerusalem, and besieged it," etc.
But the instance in the last chapter (lii.) is still more glaring;
for though the story has been told over and over again, this chapter
still supposes the reader not to know anything of it, for it begins
by saying, ver. i, "Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he
began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, and his
mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah." (Ver.
4,) "And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth
month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army,
against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against
it," etc.
It is not possible that any one man, and more particularly Jeremiah,
could have been the writer of this book. The errors are such as could
not have been committed by any person sitting down to compose a work.
Were I, or any other man, to write in such a disordered manner, no
body would read what was written, and every body would suppose that
the writer was in a state of insanity. The only way, therefore, to
account for the disorder is, that the book is a medley of detached
unauthenticated anecdotes, put together by some stupid book-maker,
under the name of Jeremiah; because many of them refer to him, and to
the circumstances of the times he lived in.
Of the duplicity, and of the false predictions of Jeremiah, I shall
mention two instances, and then proceed to review the remainder of
the Bible.
It appears from chapter xxxviii. that when Jeremiah was in prison,
Zedekiah sent for him, and at this interview, which was private,
Jeremiah pressed it strongly on Zedekiah to surrender himself to the
enemy. "If," says he, (ver. 17,) thou wilt assuredly go forth unto
the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live," etc.
Zedekiah was apprehensive that what passed at this conference should
be known; and he said to Jeremiah, (ver. 25,) "If the princes
[meaning those of Judah] hear that I have talked with thee, and they
come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now what thou hast
said unto the king; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to
death; and also what the king said unto thee; then thou shalt say
unto them, I presented my supplication before the king that he would
not cause me to return to Jonathan's house, to die there. Then came
all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him, and "he told them
according to all the words the king had commanded." Thus, this man
of God, as he is called, could tell a lie, or very strongly
prevaricate, when he supposed it would answer his purpose; for
certainly he did not go to Zedekiah to make this supplication,
neither did he make it; he went because he was sent for, and he
employed that opportunity to advise Zedekiah to surrender himself to
Nebuchadnezzar.
In chapter xxxiv. 2-5, is a prophecy of Jeremiah to Zedekiah in these
words: "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give this city into the
hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire; and thou
shalt not escape out of his hand, but thou shalt surely be taken, and
delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the
king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and
thou shalt go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of the Lord; O Zedekiah,
king, of Judah, thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not die by the sword,
but thou shalt die in Peace; and with the burnings of thy fathers,
the former kings that were before thee, so shall they burn odours for
thee, and they will lament thee, saying, Ah, Lord! for I have
pronounced the word, saith the Lord."
Now, instead of Zedekiah beholding the eyes of the king of Babylon,
and speaking with him mouth to mouth, and dying in peace, and with
the burning of odours, as at the funeral of his fathers, (as Jeremiah
had declared the Lord himself had pronounced,) the reverse, according
to chapter Iii., 10, 11 was the case; it is there said, that the king
of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: then he put out
the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, and carried him to
Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.
What then can we say of these prophets, but that they are impostors
and liars?
As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of those evils. He was taken
into favour by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in charge to the captain
of the guard (xxxix, 12), "Take him (said he) and look well to him,
and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee."
Jeremiah joined himself afterwards to Nebuchadnezzar, and went about
prophesying for him against the Egyptians, who had marched to the
relief of Jerusalem while it was besieged. Thus much for another of
the lying prophets, and the book that bears his name.
I have been the more particular in treating of the books ascribed to
Isaiah and Jeremiah, because those two are spoken of in the books of
Kings and Chronicles, which the others are not. The remainder of the
books ascribed to the men called prophets I shall not trouble myself
much about; but take them collectively into the observations I shall
offer on the character of the men styled prophets.
In the former part of the 'Age of Reason,' I have said that the word
prophet was the Bible-word for poet, and that the flights and
metaphors of Jewish poets have been foolishly erected into what are
now called prophecies. I am sufficiently justified in this opinion,
not only because the books called the prophecies are written in
poetical language, but because there is no word in the Bible, except
it be the word prophet, that describes what we mean by a poet. I have
also said, that the word signified a performer upon musical
instruments, of which I have given some instances; such as that of a
company of prophets, prophesying with psalteries, with tabrets, with
pipes, with harps, etc., and that Saul prophesied with them, 1 Sam.
x., 5. It appears from this passage, and from other parts in the book
of Samuel, that the word prophet was confined to signify poetry and
music; for the person who was supposed to have a visionary insight
into concealed things, was not a prophet but a seer, [I know not what
is the Hebrew word that corresponds to the word seer in English; but
I observe it is translated into French by Le Voyant, from the verb
voir to see, and which means the person who sees, or the seer. --
Author.
The Hebrew word for Seer, in 1 Samuel ix., transliterated, is chozeh,
the gazer, it is translated in Is. xlvii. 13, "the stargazers." --
Editor.] (i Sam, ix. 9;) and it was not till after the word seer went
out of use (which most probably was when Saul banished those he
called wizards) that the profession of the seer, or the art of
seeing, became incorporated into the word prophet.
According to the modern meaning of the word prophet and prophesying,
it signifies foretelling events to a great distance of time; and it
became necessary to the inventors of the gospel to give it this
latitude of meaning, in order to apply or to stretch what they call
the prophecies of the Old Testament, to the times of the New. But
according to the Old Testament, the prophesying of the seer, and
afterwards of the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word "seer"
was incorporated into that of prophet, had reference only to things
of the time then passing, or very closely connected with it; such as
the event of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a journey,
or of any enterprise they were going to undertake, or of any
circumstance then pending, or of any difficulty they were then in;
all of which had immediate reference to themselves (as in the case
already mentioned of Ahaz and Isaiah with respect to the expression,
Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,) and not to any
distant future time. It was that kind of prophesying that corresponds
to what we call fortune-telling; such as casting nativities,
predicting riches, fortunate or unfortunate marriages, conjuring for
lost goods, etc.; and it is the fraud of the Christian church, not
that of the Jews, and the ignorance and the superstition of modern,
not that of ancient times, that elevated those poetical, musical,
conjuring, dreaming, strolling gentry, into the rank they have since
had.
But, besides this general character of all the prophets, they had
also a particular character. They were in parties, and they
prophesied for or against, according to the party they were with; as
the poetical and political writers of the present day write in
defence of the party they associate with against the other.
After the Jews were divided into two nations, that of Judah and that
of Israel, each party had its prophets, who abused and accused each
other of being false prophets, lying prophets, impostors, etc.
The prophets of the party of Judah prophesied against the prophets of
the party of Israel; and those of the party of Israel against those
of Judah. This party prophesying showed itself immediately on the
separation under the first two rival kings, Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
The prophet that cursed, or prophesied against the altar that
Jeroboam had built in Bethel, was of the party of Judah, where
Rehoboam was king; and he was way-laid on his return home by a
prophet of the party of Israel, who said unto him (i Kings xiii.)
"Art thou the man of God that came from Judah? and he said, I am."
Then the prophet of the party of Israel said to him "I am a prophet
also, as thou art, [signifying of Judah,] and an angel spake unto me
by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee unto thine
house, that he may eat bread and drink water; but (says the 18th
verse) he lied unto him." The event, however, according to the story,
is, that the prophet of Judah never got back to Judah; for he was
found dead on the road by the contrivance of the prophet of Israel,
who no doubt was called a true prophet by his own party, and the
prophet of Judah a lying prophet.
In 2 Kings, iii., a story is related of prophesying or conjuring that
shews, in several particulars, the character of a prophet.
Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and Joram king of Israel, had for a while
ceased their party animosity, and entered into an alliance; and these
two, together with the king of Edom, engaged in a war against the
king of Moab. After uniting and marching their armies, the story
says, they were in great distress for water, upon which Jehoshaphat
said, "Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire
of the Lord by him? and one of the servants of the king of Israel
said here is Elisha. [Elisha was of the party of Judah.] And
Jehoshaphat the king of Judah said, The word of the Lord is with
him." The story then says, that these three kings went down to
Elisha; and when Elisha [who, as I have said, was a Judahmite
prophet] saw the King of Israel, he said unto him, "What have I to do
with thee, get thee to the prophets of thy father and the prophets of
thy mother. Nay but, said the king of Israel, the Lord hath called
these three kings together, to deliver them into the hands of the
king of Moab," (meaning because of the distress they were in for
water;) upon which Elisha said, "As the Lord of hosts liveth before
whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of
Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, I would not look towards thee nor see
thee." Here is all the venom and vulgarity of a party prophet. We are
now to see the performance, or manner of prophesying.
Ver. 15. "Bring me," (said Elisha), "a minstrel; and it came to pass,
when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him."
Here is the farce of the conjurer. Now for the prophecy: "And Elisha
said, [singing most probably to the tune he was playing], Thus saith
the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches; "which was just telling
them what every countryman could have told them without either fiddle
or farce, that the way to get water was to dig for it.
But as every conjuror is not famous alike for the same thing, so
neither were those prophets; for though all of them, at least those I
have spoken of, were famous for lying, some of them excelled in
cursing. Elisha, whom I have just mentioned, was a chief in this
branch of prophesying; it was he that cursed the forty-two children
in the name of the Lord, whom the two she-bears came and devoured. We
are to suppose that those children were of the party of Israel; but
as those who will curse will lie, there is just as much credit to be
given to this story of Elisha's two she- bears as there is to that of
the Dragon of Wantley, of whom it is said:
Poor children three devoured be,
That could not with him grapple;
And at one sup he eat them up,
As a man would eat an apple.
There was another description of men called prophets, that amused
themselves with dreams and visions; but whether by night or by day we
know not. These, if they were not quite harmless, were but little
mischievous. Of this class are
EZEKIEL and DANIEL; and the first question upon these books, as upon
all the others, is, Are they genuine? that is, were they written by
Ezekiel and Daniel?
Of this there is no proof; but so far as my own opinion goes, I am
more inclined to believe they were, than that they were not. My
reasons for this opinion are as follows: First, Because those books
do not contain internal evidence to prove they were not written by
Ezekiel and Daniel, as the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel,
etc., prove they were not written by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, etc.
Secondly, Because they were not written till after the Babylonish
captivity began; and there is good reason to believe that not any
book in the bible was written before that period; at least it is
proveable, from the books themselves, as I have already shown, that
they were not written till after the commencement of the Jewish
monarchy.
Thirdly, Because the manner in which the books ascribed to Ezekiel
and Daniel are written, agrees with the condition these men were in
at the time of writing them.
Had the numerous commentators and priests, who have foolishly
employed or wasted their time in pretending to expound and unriddle
those books, been carred into captivity, as Ezekiel and Daniel were,
it would greatly have improved their intellects in comprehending the
reason for this mode of writing, and have saved them the trouble of
racking their invention, as they have done to no purpose; for they
would have found that themselves would be obliged to write whatever
they had to write, respecting their own affairs, or those of their
friends, or of their country, in a concealed manner, as those men
have done.
These two books differ from all the rest; for it is only these that
are filled with accounts of dreams and visions: and this difference
arose from the situation the writers were in as prisoners of war, or
prisoners of state, in a foreign country, which obliged them to
convey even the most trifling information to each other, and all
their political projects or opinions, in obscure and metaphorical
terms. They pretend to have dreamed dreams, and seen visions, because
it was unsafe for them to speak facts or plain language. We ought,
however, to suppose, that the persons to whom they wrote understood
what they meant, and that it was not intended anybody else should.
But these busy commentators and priests have been puzzling their wits
to find out what it was not intended they should know, and with which
they have nothing to do.
Ezekiel and Daniel were carried prisoners to Babylon, under the first
captivity, in the time of Jehoiakim, nine years before the second
captivity in the time of Zedekiah. The Jews were then still numerous,
and had considerable force at Jerusalem; and as it is natural to
suppose that men in the situation of Ezekiel and Daniel would be
meditating the recovery of their country, and their own deliverance,
it is reasonable to suppose that the accounts of dreams and visions
with which these books are filled, are no other than a disguised mode
of correspondence to facilitate those objects: it served them as a
cypher, or secret alphabet. If they are not this, they are tales,
reveries, and nonsense; or at least a fanciful way of wearing off the
wearisomeness of captivity; but the presumption is, they are the
former.
Ezekiel begins his book by speaking of a vision of cherubims, and of
a wheel within a wheel, which he says he saw by the river Chebar, in
the land of his captivity. Is it not reasonable to suppose that by
the cherubims he meant the temple at Jerusalem, where they had
figures of cherubims? and by a wheel within a wheel (which as a
figure has always been understood to signify political contrivance)
the project or means of recovering Jerusalem? In the latter part of
his book he supposes himself transported to Jerusalem, and into the
temple; and he refers back to the vision on the river Chebar, and
says, (xliii- 3,) that this last vision was like the vision on the
river Chebar; which indicates that those pretended dreams and visions
had for their object the recovery of Jerusalem, and nothing further.
As to the romantic interpretations and applications, wild as the
dreams and visions they undertake to explain, which commentators and
priests have made of those books, that of converting them into things
which they call prophecies, and making them bend to times and
circumstances as far remote even as the present day, it shows the
fraud or the extreme folly to which credulity or priestcraft can go.
Scarcely anything can be more absurd than to suppose that men
situated as Ezekiel and Daniel were, whose country was over-run, and
in the possession of the enemy, all their friends and relations in
captivity abroad, or in slavery at home, or massacred, or in
continual danger of it; scarcely any thing, I say, can be more absurd
than to suppose that such men should find nothing to do but that of
employing their time and their thoughts about what was to happen to
other nations a thousand or two thousand years after they were dead;
at the same time nothing more natural than that they should meditate
the recovery of Jerusalem, and their own deliverance; and that this
was the sole object of all the obscure and apparently frantic writing
contained in those books.
In this sense the mode of writing used in those two books being
forced by necessity, and not adopted by choice, is not irrational;
but, if we are to use the books as prophecies, they are false. In
Ezekiel xxix. 11., speaking of Egypt, it is said, "No foot of man
shall pass through it, nor foot of beast pass through it; neither
shall it be inhabited for forty years." This is what never came to
pass, and consequently it is false, as all the books I have already
reviewed are. -- I here close this part of the subject.
In the former part of 'The Age of Reason' I have spoken of Jonah, and
of the story of him and the whale. -- A fit story for ridicule, if it
was written to be believed; or of laughter, if it was intended to try
what credulity could swallow; for, if it could swallow Jonah and the
whale it could swallow anything.
But, as is already shown in the observations on the book of Job and
of Proverbs, it is not always certain which of the books in the Bible
are originally Hebrew, or only translations from the books of the
Gentiles into Hebrew; and, as the book of Jonah, so far from treating
of the affairs of the Jews, says nothing upon that subject, but
treats altogether of the Gentiles, it is more probable that it is a
book of the Gentiles than of the Jews, [I have read in an ancient
Persian poem (Saadi, I believe, but have mislaid the reference) this
phrase: "And now the whale swallowed Jonah: the sun set." -- Editor.]
and that it has been written as a fable to expose the nonsense, and
satyrize the vicious and malignant character, of a Bible-prophet, or
a predicting priest.
Jonah is represented, first as a disobedient prophet, running away
from his mission, and taking shelter aboard a vessel of the Gentiles,
bound from Joppa to Tarshish; as if he ignorantly supposed, by such a
paltry contrivance, he could hide himself where God could not find
him. The vessel is overtaken by a storm at sea; and the mariners, all
of whom are Gentiles, believing it to be a judgement on account of
some one on board who had committed a crime, agreed to cast lots to
discover the offender; and the lot fell upon Jonah. But before this
they had cast all their wares and merchandise over-board to lighten
the vessel, while Jonah, like a stupid fellow, was fast asleep in the
hold.
After the lot had designated Jonah to be the offender, they
questioned him to know who and what he was? and he told them he was
an Hebrew; and the story implies that he confessed himself to be
guilty. But these Gentiles, instead of sacrificing him at once
without pity or mercy, as a company of Bible-prophets or priests
would have done by a Gentile in the same case, and as it is related
Samuel had done by Agag, and Moses by the women and children, they
endeavoured to save him, though at the risk of their own lives: for
the account says, "Nevertheless [that is, though Jonah was a Jew and
a foreigner, and the cause of all their misfortunes, and the loss of
their cargo] the men rowed hard to bring the boat to land, but they
could not, for the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them."
Still however they were unwilling to put the fate of the lot into
execution; and they cried, says the account, unto the Lord, saying,
"We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and
lay not upon us innocent blood; for thou, O Lord, hast done as it
pleased thee." Meaning thereby, that they did not presume to judge
Jonah guilty, since that he might be innocent; but that they
considered the lot that had fallen upon him as a decree of God, or as
it pleased God. The address of this prayer shows that the Gentiles
worshipped one Supreme Being, and that they were not idolaters as the
Jews represented them to be. But the storm still continuing, and the
danger encreasing, they put the fate of the lot into execution, and
cast Jonah in the sea; where, according to the story, a great fish
swallowed him up whole and alive!
We have now to consider Jonah securely housed from the storm in the
fish's belly. Here we are told that he prayed; but the prayer is a
made-up prayer, taken from various parts of the Psalms, without
connection or consistency, and adapted to the distress, but not at
all to the condition that Jonah was in. It is such a prayer as a
Gentile, who might know something of the Psalms, could copy out for
him. This circumstance alone, were there no other, is sufficient to
indicate that the whole is a made-up story. The prayer, however, is
supposed to have answered the purpose, and the story goes on,
(taking-off at the same time the cant language of a Bible-prophet,)
saying, "The Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon
dry land."
Jonah then received a second mission to Nineveh, with which he sets
out; and we have now to consider him as a preacher. The distress he
is represented to have suffered, the remembrance of his own
disobedience as the cause of it, and the miraculous escape he is
supposed to have had, were sufficient, one would conceive, to have
impressed him with sympathy and benevolence in the execution of his
mission; but, instead of this, he enters the city with denunciation
and malediction in his mouth, crying, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be overthrown."
We have now to consider this supposed missionary in the last act of
his mission; and here it is that the malevolent spirit of a
Bible-prophet, or of a predicting priest, appears in all that
blackness of character that men ascribe to the being they call the
devil.
Having published his predictions, he withdrew, says the story, to the
east side of the city. -- But for what? not to contemplate in
retirement the mercy of his Creator to himself or to others, but to
wait, with malignant impatience, the destruction of Nineveh. It came
to pass, however, as the story relates, that the Ninevites reformed,
and that God, according to the Bible phrase, repented him of the evil
he had said he would do unto them, and did it not. This, saith the
first verse of the last chapter, displeased Jonah exceedingly and he
was very angry. His obdurate heart would rather that all Nineveh
should be destroyed, and every soul, young and old, perish in its
ruins, than that his prediction should not be fulfilled. To expose
the character of a prophet still more, a gourd is made to grow up in
the night, that promises him an agreeable shelter from the heat of
the sun, in the place to which he is retired; and the next morning it
dies.
Here the rage of the prophet becomes excessive, and he is ready to
destroy himself. "It is better, said he, for me to die than to live."
This brings on a supposed expostulation between the Almighty and the
prophet; in which the former says, "Doest thou well to be angry for
the gourd? And Jonah said, I do well to be angry even unto death.
Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou
hast not laboured, neither madest it to grow, which came up in a
night, and perished in a night; and should not I spare Nineveh, that
great city, in which are more than threescore thousand persons, that
cannot discern between their right hand and their left?"
Here is both the winding up of the satire, and the moral of the
fable. As a satire, it strikes against the character of all the
Bible-prophets, and against all the indiscriminate judgements upon
men, women and children, with which this lying book, the bible, is
crowded; such as Noah's flood, the destruction of the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah, the extirpation of the Canaanites, even to suckling
infants, and women with child; because the same reflection 'that
there are more than threescore thousand persons that cannot discern
between their right hand and their left,' meaning young children,
applies to all their cases. It satirizes also the supposed partiality
of the Creator for one nation more than for another.
As a moral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit of prediction;
for as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to wish
it. The pride of having his judgment right hardens his heart, till at
last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disappointment, the
accomplishment or the failure of his predictions. -- This book ends
with the same kind of strong and well-directed point against
prophets, prophecies and indiscriminate judgements, as the chapter
that Benjamin Franklin made for the Bible, about Abraham and the
stranger, ends against the intolerant spirit of religious
persecutions -- Thus much for the book Jonah. [The story of Abraham
and the Fire-worshipper, ascribed to Franklin, is from Saadi. (See my
"Sacred Anthology," p. 61.) Paine has often been called a "mere
scoffer," but he seems to have been among the first to treat with
dignity the book of Jonah, so especially liable to the ridicule of
superficial readers, and discern in it the highest conception of
Deity known to the Old Testament. -- Editor.]
Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies, I
have spoken in the former part of 'The Age of Reason,' and already in
this, where I have said that the word for prophet is the Bible-word
for Poet, and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many of
which have become obscure by the lapse of time and the change of
circumstances, have been ridiculously erected into things called
prophecies, and applied to purposes the writers never thought of.
When a priest quotes any of those passages, he unriddles it agreeably
to his own views, and imposes that explanation upon his congregation
as the meaning of the writer. The whore of Babylon has been the
common whore of all the priests, and each has accused the other of
keeping the strumpet; so well do they agree in their explanations.
There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the
lesser prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are
impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little
ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests,
and both be forgotten together.
I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through a wood
with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie; and the
priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, perhaps, stick them
in the ground, but they will never make them grow. -- I pass on to
the books of the New Testament. |