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LETTER III

After what I have observed above, it will be useless to say much as to your third letter, in which you examine minutely the passages Thomas Paine has pointed out to prove the Pentateuch not genuine. First, As to the objection taken from the name of Dan, I never thought it specious. This is not the case with the very next one, which is of very great weight. The writer, after enumerating a number of Arabian names, concludes in these words, "These are the kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." Contrary to my expectations, you acknowledge this to have been written after the Jews had kings. Many of your brethren have attempted to deny it by quibbles! but you say that this does not invalidate the authority of the book: wonderful! if your alma-mater taught you, that an evident lie or contradiction in any book, particularly of remote antiquity, and relating histories unsupported by impartial authors, does not create a suspicion, which approaches to certainty, that the book is not authentic; if you think so, I must give up arguing with you. It may be an interpolation, you observe. How did you learn this? You will at least leave, me the right to suppose, and you cannot deny that the presumption is against you, an absurdity in a book is a reason for distrusting the rest. I have probability on my side; for the Jew who forged this passage, either from piety or ignorance, might have forged the whole book, or so interpolated it, as to destroy its credibility. At any rate, the detection of falsehood in a history, is not a motive to suppose it true. It requires an excess of piety to break through all the rules of logic and common sense. How does it happen, that the Lord Jahovah does not provide better against such mistakes creeping into the book of the law of his favourite people? It could seem as if he had done it on purpose to create incredulity, and enjoy the pleasure of punishing unbelievers, as of old, he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he might have a pretext to inflict calamities on him and his people.

My Lord, what credit would we give to a history of William the Conqueror that had the following sentence, after naming different persons, And these were the names of the Kings of England before George the Third came to the throne; for what purpose could any person insert such a passage? He must have been absolutely mad. It could only get into the work from its being compiled during the reign of George the Third, and arising from a forgetfulness of the writer, or ignorance of the transcriber: in no case could it be inserted in a book, which you say was kept in the public records, and over whose purity the whole Jewish learned men would watch; you must either give up your argument from the public records of this people, and no longer deem them great authority; or, if you persist in it, I leave you to reconcile the most palpable interpolations and forgeries with the scrupulous attention with which you suppose the Jews preserved the word of God. But what is most curious in this passage is, that we find it verbatim in 2 Chronicles, chap. i. ver. 43, and you seem to glory in discovering this similarity of the passages. "Why might not," you say at the end of your fourth letter, "the author of the book of Chronicles have taken them, (meaning the names of the kings of Edom, &c.), as he has taken many other genealogies, supposing them to have been written in the book of Genesis by Samuel?" Another acknowledgment of more interpolations in Genesis.

But, Sir, who gave you the right, you who exclaim so much against the unsupported assertions of Thomas Paine, to suppose that the author of Chronicles copied an interpolation from Genesis, knowing, as he must have done, that it was interpolated by Samuel?

Would he not rather, to make the book consistent, expunge it? Could he be so ignorant as not to see the contradiction? What is more strange, how came Samuel to introduce such a passage? The tendency of it could only be to weaken the authority of Genesis; but, allowing all your groundless suppositions to be true, do you not see that they only prove the ignorance of Samuel and of the Jewish history writers, and at once destroy the superstructure you have in your following letters raised upon the supposed accurate records of the Jews? The supposition of Samuel being the author of the interpolation, is like an historian, who, to the history of Charles the First, should add some accounts, concluding with observing, that all this took place before George the Second, or should even venture further, and instruct us in some prominent features of the French revolution: yet this is the case with the passage in question; for it is unquestionable that the Jews had never a king till the time of Saul; that, under Moses and the Judges, they held kings in detestation. The fact is very plain. In Chronicles, the passage has an obvious and clear sense; for there an account of the kings of Israel is given, and the sentence now under consideration precedes it. Indeed, the whole chapter xxxvi. of Genesis is almost literally the same with chapter first of Chronicles; and every unbiassed man will conclude, that the former is copied from the latter. That little concluding expression, before there reigned any king over Israel, certainly marks its date; and there is nothing more probable, than that when Esdras and the scribes compiled these books, they should insert in Genesis the posterity of Esau, as far as the history of Genesis went, and that this unlucky passage should by mistake be copied too. I acknowledge, that an interpolation, when we can prove the period of its insertion, does not destroy the validity of a book, if the rest of the facts are consistent, and supported by collateral proofs; but the Bible is an unconnected rhapsody, written by we know not whom, without order, arrangement, or a shadow of method. Besides, it is the word of God; and what, in a profane writer, would be a slight error, is here a most material fault; if our future happiness depends, as you suppose, on our believing this book, which certainly can never take place while such reasons for scepticism remain. In proportion to the importance of an event, so we must be careful in examining the grounds upon which it stands, or else we must be like those whimsical men, who will require the best evidence for the truth of a trifling report, but find no repugnance in crediting the most marvellous events upon trust.

Mr. Paine properly concludes, that Genesis is a book of stories, fables, traditions, or invented absurdities, or downright lies; and this I not only affirm with him, but will prove to my readers, that it is in no respect deserving of more credit than the fabulous and early history of all nations. Next follows your rhapsody upon the beauty of the Bible and the truth of it. Pardon me if I think it like a madman's reveries. Even the men of your profession have long ago given up such a ridiculous conceit. Whoever has read eastern literature, or the late translation from the Shanscrit, will find that the same style with that of the Bible pervades all eastern compositions. In all of them we find the frequent use of allegory, and a quaint and formal manner of expression. Divest the Bible of its Oriental garb, and put it into common language, you will find, except the episode of Joseph, and two or three other passages, it is absolutely illegible. I have already shown the Pentateuch to have been a very modern work, and the Jews to have borrowed every thing from other nations. No wonder then that the Abram should resemble the Brama of the Hindoos, or that a few names in the supposed genealogies of the Jews should be like those of the Assyrians, Medes, &c. Genesis gives a description of creation truly beautiful! We did not spring from grasshoppers, nor the world from an egg; but the wise Moses informs us, that we were made of clay and a little breath. This may be sublime to you; but the philosopher is never elated by fables so absurd. It is not true that Genesis is the oldest, nor a very old book. Sanchoniato, the Hindoo books, those of the Egyptians and Chinese, are of much higher antiquity than Moses. In vain has Mr. Maurice struggled to dazzle our understandings with his incoherent suppositions, to prove that the Hindoos borrowed their religion from the Jews, from a set of Arabian hordes, from the slaves of the Egyptians, from a petty nation, who, as Julian says, never produced a single work, and whose credulity has ever been proverbial. The astronomical records of the Chinese prove, that there were men and astronomers in that country at the time when the wretched Jews would make us believe the world was inundated from the windows of heaven, and no creatures existing but Noah, his family, and the beasts in the ark. Further, Souciet mentions an eclipse of the sun recorded in the Chinese history, which happened 2155 years before Christ, which is but 236 years after the Deluge; a time when, the Bible informs us, the earth was only inhabited by the sons of Noah, while Egypt was then so peopled, that 90,000 cities could not contain the inhabitants, and China was not less so. The Hindoo astronomical observations, as far as they have been examined by the most learned astronomers of the age, such as Baillie, Le Gentil, and others, carry their antiquity between four and five thousands beyond our æra; for a proof of which, I refer you to Mr. Playfair's excellent paper, in the second volume of the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions. The Hindoo religious books contain, besides, a great many of the ideas afterwards adopted by the Jews. The long lives of antedeluvians, in particular, are the exact copy of the Iogues of the Indians. The Dwapaar Iogue, the latter part of which answers to the period of Noah, was when men's lives were limited to a thousand years; and Methuselah we know did not live so long. They have, too, their mythological deluge, or the incarnation of Vishnu into a fish. For an account of which I refer my readers to Volney, and to Mr. Maurice himself. The former gentleman is a good judge of ancient literature; he pretends that he can prove, that most of the chapters of Genesis, supposed to contain names of persons, are mythological: the posterity of Noah is, according to Volney, no more than a geography of the world as known to the Jews. I have not read Mr. Volney's memoir which I understand he has published on this subject; but, when I consider the late period when Genesis and the other books were composed, and how much the Jews borrowed from the Egyptians and Babylonians, how much the deluge of Noah and his ark resemble the emblems of Osiris; in short, when I reflect on the unintelligibility and apparent absurdity of Genesis, on the impossibility of the Deluge, and of the not less absurdity of the population of the world so soon after that calamity, I confess I am much inclined to despise the whole performance. There have been various suppositions upon the meaning of the names mentioned in Genesis. Adam has been said to signify, in many parts of Asia, the first day of the week; and Enoch, the seventh successor of Adam, to be the same with Saturn, or the seventh day. Thus Assur, Elam, Lud, Madai, Javan, and Tiras, which are said to be the founders of the Assyrians, the Elamites, the Lydians, the Medes, the Ionians, and the Thracians, may very probably be nothing else than the enunciation of the names of these countries; for, between Assur and Assyria, or Lud and Lydia, there is not a very great difference. We know that Egypt is by the Arabs called Masr, which has the same consonants with the Hebrew Misraim, whose plural termination implies properly the inhabitants of Egypt. In the Bible, Misraim is called the founder of that kingdom. We also know, that Syria is called Barr-el-sham, or the country to the left. The inhabitants of Thebaid are called the sons of Cush. Again, we find several names of towns very much resembling those of the supposed founders of these monarchies; Sur, or Tyre, is not unlike Assur. These are conjectures; I pretend to found nothing upon them; but, at least, they are probable. Your Genesis, on the contrary, as it is commonly explained, contains palpable lies. It supposes a deluge, which neither did nor could take place; it destroys the human race, when we know that nations were then in existence. Lastly, it talks of the founders of nations, which existed long before that period. But, even had Genesis been written at the time of Moses, it might be worth while to inquire into the import of his genealogies; but, being a very modern compilation, collected by an ignorant people, partly from tradition, partly from scattered and mutilated records, it does not deserve the serious attention of the philosopher.

You next attempt to justify the conduct of God towards the Canaanites, whose great crime was to defend their own country, and to adore their own gods instead of the God of the Jews. When a man makes an apology for such conduct, we only can answer by an appeal to the feelings of men, from which alone we derive notions of humanity. It was natural for the adorers of a Phenician Jehovah to be the enemies of the Babylonish Baal: both these gods sprang from the wild fancies of men. The jealous God of the Jews, the all-wise, omnipotent, and benevolent, could not convert the worshippers of another god, without exterminating whole nations, even to the little children; but this barbarous mandate came from the priests, who have in all countries, and all systems of Religion, adopted this method of conversion. You state, that Moses "gave an order that the boys and women should be put to death; but, that the young maidens should be kept alive for themselves;" and, that you "see nothing in the proceeding, but good policy combined with mercy. The young men might have become dangerous avengers of what they would esteem their country's wrongs; the mothers might have again allured the Israelites to the love of licentious pleasures, and the practice of idolatry, and brought another plague upon the congregation; but the young maidens, not being polluted by the flagitious habits of their mothers, not likely to create disturbance by rebellion, were kept alive: " and you add, that "the women children were not reserved for the purposes of debauchery, but of slavery; a custom (you acknowledge) abhorrent from our manners, but every where practised in former times, and still preserved in countries where the benignity of the Christian religion has not softened the ferocity of human nature." Is extermination an example of the mercy of priests and their gods, "whose justice is subservient to mercy," "whose punishments originate in his abhorrence to sin," – and whose commands to massacre, to butcher, and to exterminate, "are only benevolent warnings?" – You dare Mr. Paine to prove, that the young women were kept for debauchery; and you triumphantly add, "that if he does, you will allow Moses to be the horrid monster he describes him, and the Bible a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy." Do you think, that consigning to slavery thirty-two thousand maids, is consistent with the benignity of God? I do not hesitate to consider this worse than merely making them the partners of licentious pleasures. But, in what consisted the wonted wisdom of a God, whom you describe as ever solicitous to lessen the influence of sin? Let me ask you, if the young women were not as liable to incite the passions of the Jews as their mothers, and whether their slavery would not increase the opportunities for debauchery? Could it be consistent with humanity, much less with the mercy of an all powerful God, to put to death all the boys of a nation, merely because they might in time revenge the insolent invaders of their country? Were all the male children already polluted from their birth? It would have been easy for them to convert them to another religion, but to your God it was impossible. The bloody invaders of America pursued not another plan, even after "the benignity of the Christian religion softened the ferocity of human nature." Have these Christian invaders any where respected the chastity of women when they made them slaves? And have the Jews, God's chosen nation, at any period, either while under his protection, or since he abandoned them, shown themselves more virtuously inclined than other people; were they ever prevented by the striking manifestations of his mercy, his power, and his justice, from going away to adore other gods, and falling into all sorts of wickedness? In short, if the Bishop rests his defence of Moses and the Bible upon this passage, I am willing to appeal to the judgement of all mankind. If any person can believe it consistent with the benevolence of omnipotence, to sacrifice whole nations to be massacred and plundered by a few hordes of bloody Jews; if he can think this to be part of a grand scheme for the good of mankind, he must give up all pretensions to reason, common sense, and humanity. But it is time the world should see, that this holy book the Bible, "which, in weight of authority, and extent of utility, exceeds all the libraries of the philosophers," contains pretences for all bad actions, and stifles the laws of humanity and morality. Upon this book have inquisitors, crusaders, and religious men, founded pretences for the most diabolical persecutions, avowedly undertaken for the express purpose of unrooting infidelity, and for the glory of the Lord. Every man who reads the word of God is warranted to reason thus: God has ordered murder and robbery; he has instigated his favourite people to exterminate whole nations; therefore I can do no better than to imitate the Almighty; and every crusader may pretend to have the same authority from God as Moses; and miracles are never wanting to prove it. Because Abraham was a pimp, and his wife a prostitute, so may any person be, without losing the patronage of the God of Abraham. Every man, in short, may imitate the meek Moses, the humane David, without fearing to incur the displeasure of the Almighty. Thus Ravaillac thought he was doing as holy a deed, when he attempted the life of Henry; as Dominic, or Torquemada, when butchering the wretched heretics, who had the misfortune to fall a prey to their bloody zeal. The whole Old Testament is so filled with barbarous stories, that if they did not excite laughter by their improbability, they would freeze the blood in, the veins of any man endowed with humanity. What an irksome task have those undertaken, who have attempted to reconcile the horrible crimes of the Jews with the mercy and wisdom of the Creator? Has ferocity forsaken Christians as you insinuate? Have the modern religious fanatics yielded in cruelty to the Jews? Those two religions have successively inundated the earth with the blood of innocent victims. Have not the followers of Christ constantly preached passive obedience to the church, have they not frequently relieved the people of their oaths, and have they not fomented most of the civil wars that laid waste all Europe? It is well that priests have not been able to persuade mankind of late, that the minister was the oracle of God. The pride and foolishness of science has put this out of their power; they cannot lead nations as they did the Jews; we are not so easily persuaded of the immediate manifestations of God's commands to the priest. We know science too well to believe that the pillar of fire that went before the Israelites was God himself. We might have shown the people, that a pan with red-hot substances would have the appearance of a fire by night, and a cloud of smoke by day, a custom practised, from time immemorial, by the caravans. Although, my Lord, the wisdom of God may be foolishness to man, I acknowledge I am neither fond of crediting absurdities, nor have I so much faith as to take the work of priests for supernatural mandates of Providence; when they speak in their usual senseless and unintelligible language, I conclude that it is either to dazzle the ignorant multitude, or I look upon their dreams as the consequence of dire superstition, the first effect of which is to make us unacquainted with ourselves, under the imposing aspect of familiarising us with imaginary beings. At the conclusion of my remarks upon the Old Testament, I shall give a few extracts from those books, wherein my readers may see the character of the Jews and their God in glaring colours, and judge whether any honest man would not tremble at the thoughts of having done as much injustice, and committed such atrocities as this Jehovah.