The Bible is the name by which the collection of Books beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations is commonly known. It is derived from the Greek word [———] (Books), and this name is supposed to have been first applied in the fifth century by Chrysostom, before which time those books were known as [———] holy writings, sacred writings, writings of God.

The Bible is divided into three parts: the Old Testament, containing thirty-nine books, the New Testament, containing twenty-seven books, and the Apocrypha, containing fourteen books; making in the whole eighty books. It is only the first portion, known as the Old Testament, upon which I intend to treat at present. It professes to be translated from the Hebrew, in which Language (according to the learned Parkhurst) God communicated with Adam; or, perhaps to quote the learned divine more correctly, I ought to say that 'Hebrew was the language in which God taught Adam to speak.' It has been suggested by other saintly writers that Hebrew will be the language spoken in Paradise by the Saints. It is perhaps to be regretted that God did not choose a language more copious, and less capable of being misconstrued; but I will not at present stop to question whether the fact be as above stated—it is sufficient for us to know that the original of the Old Testament is (with some slight exception) written in the Hebrew.

The Old Testament is divided by the Jews into three parts, called 1st, (the law)—this division includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; 2nd, (the Prophecies)—this portion contains the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, which are known as the former prophets, and Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi—of these, the three first are called 'the greater Prophets,' and the remaining twelve 'the lesser'; 3rd, (holy writings), comprising the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemian, and first and second Chronicles. I have given the books in their Jewish order, which differs from our own, Chronicles being the last book of the Hebrew Bible.

The earliest complete translation into English of the whole of the Bible was made in the fourteenth century by the famous John Wickliffe, who was born in 1324 and died in 1384. This translation was reprinted in 1731, and again in 1810. Wickliffe's version of the Old Testament, I believe, still remains in manuscript. Portions of the Bible had been previously translated into Saxon, and it is alleged that one John de Trevisa had completed a translation prior to Wickliffe.

The next translation appears to have been made by William Tyndale (a native of Gloucestershire, born about 1477, and cruelly murdered in September, 1536) who, in 1526, printed two editions of the New Testament, which were issued from Wittemberg; both of these were, however, bought up by the Church authorities, and committed to the flames. Tyndale, however, nothing daunted by this, continued his work of translation, in which he is said to have been assisted by Martin Luther; Tyndale at this time residing at Antwerp, to which place he had been compelled to fly in 1523, to avoid the persecution of the priests.

It is worthy of notice that the Bible, which is alleged by the priests to be God's word revealed to the people, was never revealed to the people of England in their own tongue until the fourteenth century; that it was not until fifty-two years after printing had been introduced into England that any attempt was made to print an English edition: and that the first man who was sufficiently religiously disposed to print an edition, had his work burnt by the very men who, if their doctrines are true, should have zealously guarded each copy. Not only were the Bibles burnt, but every person in whose possession they were found was subjected to severe punishment. Despite all this, the editions issued by Tyndale were eagerly bought; and efforts were then made by King Henry VIII., Cardinal Wolsey, and Sir Thomas More, to lure poor Tyndale back to England, but he was too cautious to return. His friend, John Frith, who had assisted him in translating, was more credulous; and, returning to London upon the king's promise of safety, was arrested and burnt. Tyndale was ultimately entrapped, and strangled and burnt at Vilvoord, near Antwerp.

One would now be inclined to think that the priests well knew that to place the Bible in the hands of the people would be to tear down the veil from the temple, would expose their trickeries, and would place in the hands of the mass the means of detecting their false pretence. Under the guise of preachers of a revelation from God, they had ruled the minds of the people; and they were fully aware or the danger which would accrue to themselves should the people ever examine too closely into the merits of that revelation. Sir Thomas More wrote against Tyndale in language which will startle the readers of the present day, especially when we remember that Tyndale's crime was the presenting us with a translation of the Bible admirable for its style and general accuracy. More says, 'Our Saviour will say to Tyndale, Thou art accursed, Tyndale, the son of the Devil, for neither flesh nor blood hath taught thee these heresies, but thine own Father, the devil, that is in Hell. Ah, blasphemous beast, to whose roaring and lowing no good Christian man can, without heaviness of heart, give ear.' The next published translation was by Miles Coverdale (born 1535), who partially used Tyndale's text. Coverdale appears only to have translated from the Dutch and Latin into English. It does not seem at all clear that Tyndale translated from the Greek and Hebrew direct. It is quite certain that prior to this time the monks placed great difficulties in the way of acquiring either of those languages, in fact, Erasmus tells us that to know Greek was to be suspected, and to know Hebrew would prove you heretic outright.

The next is known as Matthewe's Bible, which is supposed to have been issued in the early part of the sixteenth century, by Richard Grafton. It is merely a collation of the texts of Tyndale and Coverdale.

About the same time were issued Cranmer's and Taverner's editions of the Bible.

The Geneva edition, issued in 1560, is that which is commonly known as the 'Breeches Bible,' on account of the translation of Genesis, c. 3, v. 7. I have a copy of this in reference.

Bishop Parker's Bible was issued in 1568. This edition was completed by the aid of several learned men, and differs considerably from its predecessors.

In 1582, the Douay edition of the New Testament was issued; and, in 1609, the Old Testament also. The former was printed at Rheims, the latter at Douay; and both were issued under the superintendence of Cardinal Allen. This brings us to the period at which what is commonly known as the authorised version was issued. This being the version I have to examine, I shall quote the history of it as given in an able article which appeared in the Penny CyclopÆdia:—'Early in the reign of King James I., there was a conference of divines of different opinions, at Hampton Court, for the settling of the peace of the Church. In this conference much was said concerning the imperfection of the existing translations of the Scriptures. The king himself, who was often present at these meetings, expressed a strong opinion on that point of the debate. "I wish," said he, "some special pains were taken for an uniform translation, which should be done by the best learned in both Universities, then reviewed by the bishops, presented to the Privy Council, and, lastly, ratified by royal authority, to be read in the whole Church, and no other." Out of this speech of the king's arose the present English Bible; for the suggestion soon ripened into a resolution. As this is the Bible which has for more than two centuries been the only Bible allowed to be read in the English Church, and as it is also the Bible universally used in dissenting communities, we may be expected to give a more extended notice of it than of the former editions. Fifty-four of the persons in that age most distinguished for that particular species of learning which such a duty required, were selected for the work, according to the king's suggestion; finally, forty-seven of them undertook it. They divided themselves into six independent classes, to each of which a certain portion of the work was assigned. Each person in the class was to produce his own translation of the whole committed to them, and these several translations were to be revised at a general meeting of the class. When the class had agreed upon their version, it was to be transmitted to each of the other classes; so that no part was to come out without the sanction of the whole body.

'Two of the classes sat at Westminster, two at Oxford, and two at Cambridge. The instructions which they received from the king were, that they should adhere to the Bishops' Bible, which was then ordinarily read in the Churches, making as few deviations from it as possible. They were, however, to use the other versions, and to consult the translations which had been made into other modern languages; and they were to keep in the old ecclesiastical words, such as Church, etc. When a word had divers significations, "that should be kept which had been most commonly used by the ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the propriety of the place and the analogy of faith." No marginal notes were to be used, except for the further explication of some Greek or Hebrew word. References to parallel passages might be given. They were to call in the assistance of any learned man who was known to have made this subject his study.

'They were employed upon the work for three years, namely from 1607 to 1610; proceeding with that deliberation and care which so weighty an undertaking required. The names of the divines engaged in it, and the portions known which were committed to each class, are reserved. If we say that there are few names among them which have acquired a lasting celebrity, we are only saying of them what is the usual fete of divines. The name of Bishop Andrews is first in place and the first in celebrity. It is believed that Bancroft, then Archbishop of Canterbury, though not one of the professed translators, had much to do in the superintendence of the work. It came forth from the press of Robert Barker in 1611.'

I have a copy printed by Robert Barker before me which contains the whole eighty books. It begins with these words, 'The first book of Moses, called Genesis.' Not one word of this title is to be found in the Hebrew. The word Genesis is a Greek word, signifying production, generation, birth, origin, or formation. It seems curious that the translators should have given a Hebrew book a Greek title. In the Hebrew there is no title to the book; the first word [———] (in the beginning) is merely written in larger characters. The headings to each page and chapter are also additions made by the translators; and this is sometimes very important, as they are made to improperly govern the meaning of the text. As to Genesis being called 'the first book of Moses,' I think that grave censure should be cast on those who prefixed those words; they are entirely omitted in the Douay edition. Long since, our churchmen have been acquainted with the fact that these words, fixing the authorship on Moses, form no part of the original text, yet they allow edition after edition to be printed bearing the same title as that of 1611. Why is this? It is not that they are afraid of tampering with the authorised version, for they have actually, in the later editions, omitted the whole fourteen books of the Apocrypha, which were included in the original edition. In an edition of King James's authorised version, printed in 1630, the page containing Ezekiel, chapter 7, is headed by mistake with the word 'Apocrypha.' This mistake has been corrected in the later editions; why not also have corrected those five false statements which allege Moses as the author of the Pentateuch? There have been, also, several printers' errors corrected in the later editions, yet the words in question are allowed to stand; why is this? again I ask. The persistence in an error of so important a character would justify suspicion, and even the allegation of fraudulent intent on the part of those who issue the book. It is an attempt to give an anonymous work an undue claim on our attention. Moses himself, in no part of the five books, claims to be the author of them; and in no part of the Bible is he alleged to be the writer of the Pentateuch. It is certainly alleged that Moses wrote 'the law,' 'the book of the law,' but there is nothing whatever to show that that work outlived the destruction of Jerusalem, and there are several express declarations to the contrary (vide Letter on the Pentateuch by Thomas Cooper, M.D., and Esdras, chap, xiv., v. 21). I am aware of the texts quoted by those who allege that Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch; viz., Exodus, chap, xvii., v. 14, chap, xxiv., v. 4 and 7, chap, xxxiv., v. 27, Numbers, chap, xxxiii., v. 1 and 2, Deuteronomy, chap, i., v. 5, chap, xxxi., v. 9, 13, 22, 24, 26; but do not think that they will, even in the hands of the most partial supporter of the Mosaic hypothesis, bear on the question sufficiently to decide it in the affirmative, or even to create a presumption in its favour. That Moses was the author of the Pentateuch as it now stands is a proposition which no intelligent man in the present day will venture to support, especially after the elaborate criticisms of Aben Ezra, Spinoza, Hobbes, Peyrerius, Astruc, Pere Simon, Volney, Voltaire, Gesenius, Vater, Paine, and others. The whole of the five books abound with passages which could not have been written by Moses, or during his life time. See—Genesis, chap, xii., v. 6, also chap, xiii., v. 7; these verses must have been written at a period when the Canaanites had been expelled from the land of which they were in quiet possession during the lifetime of Moses:—

Genesis, chap, xiv., v. 14. The city of Lais, Laish, or Leshem, was not called Dan until long after the death of Moses, when the Danites possessed themselves of it and called it after Dan, their father (vide Joshua, chap, xix., v. 47, and Judges, chap, xviii., v. 29):—Genesis, chap, xiii., v. 18, chap, xxiii., v. 2 and 19, chap, xxv., v. 27, &c. These verses and several others, in which Hebron is named, cannot be from the pen of Moses, for there was no such place as Hebron in his day. Kirjath Arba was not called Hebron until given to Caleb, son of Jephunneh, long after the death of Moses (vide Joshua, chap, xiv., v. 14 and 15):—

Genesis, chap, xx., v. 16, and chap, xxiii., v. 15 and 16. Of these verses, Voltaire writes as follows; 'Learned and ingenious men, full of their own talents and acquirements, have maintained that it is impossible Moses could have written the book of Genesis. One of their principal reasons is, that in the history of Abraham that patriarch is stated to have paid for a cave he purchased for the interment of his wife, in silver coin; and the King of Gerar to have given Sarah a thousand pieces of silver, when he restored her, after having carried her off for her beauty at the age of seventy-five. They inform us that they have consulted all the ancient authors, and that it appears very certain that, at the period mentioned, silver money was not in existence:—

Genesis, chap. xxii. v. 14. It is asserted that Mount Moriah was not called the Mount of the Lord until after the Temple was erected thereon, centuries after the death of Moses:—

Genesis, chap, xxxvi., v. 31. This could not have been written until kings had ruled over the Children of Israel, which would bring the authorship to the time of Saul, even conceding the earliest date. Voltaire says, 'this is the celebrated passage which has proved one of the great stumbling-stones; this it was which decided the great Newton, the proud and acute Samuel Clarke, the profound and philosophic Bolingbroke, the learned Le Clerc, the ingenious Freret, and a host of other enlightened men, to maintain that it was impossible Moses could have been the author of Genesis':—

Exodus, chap, xvi., v. 35. This could not have been written by Moses, as manna did not cease until after his death (vide Joshua, chap, v., v. 12):—

Numbers, chap, xii., v. 3. No man will for one moment suppose that a meek man would write his own character, to be handed down to posterity in this fashion. Paine, quoting the verse, says, 'If Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant of coxcombs, and the advocates for these books may now take which side they please, for both sides are against them; if Moses was not the author, the book is without authority, and if he was the author, is without credit, because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie in sentiment':—

Deuteronomy, chap, i., v. 1 and 5, and chap iv., v. 41 to 49. 'These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on the other side of Jordan.' Our version gives it, 'this side Jordan,' but the Hebrew word in each verse is [———] which even the orthodox Park-hurst translates as meaning over, beyond, on the other side (vide Parkhurst's Lexicon, p. 509, article [———] and Dr. Cooper's Letter, p. 41 to 44). In fact, the translators of the Bible have themselves translated this very word differently in Deuteronomy, chap, iv., v. 49. It of course follows that, as Moses never crossed the river Jordan, he could not have been the author of the verses in which the expression occurs:—

Deuteronomy, chap, ii., v. 12. This could not have been written by Moses, as in his day the Children of Israel had not even reached, much less entered into possession of the promised land:—

Deuteronomy, chap, xxxiii. It is scarcely probable that Moses wrote a chapter containing phrases such as 'the man of God, Moses, blessed the Children of Israel before his death,' 'Moses commanded us a law,' &c:—Deuteronomy, chap, xxxiv. I do not consider it necessary to reason upon the proposition that a man cannot write an account of his own death and burial, or to endeavour to prove that he cannot relate that his grave remains undiscovered to the present day. Beside which, the names used in this chapter are those which were given to the places after the Israelites had obtained possession of the land, and which could not have been known in the time of Moses. The same remark applies to Deuteronomy, chap, iv., v. 43, in which the reader will at once discover a glaring anachronism, as it is impossible Bezer, Gilead, and Golan, could have been called Bezer of the Reubenites, Gilead of the Gadites, and Golan of the Mannassites, until after those tribes had conquered and taken possession of Bezer, Gilead, and Golan respectively, which they did not do until after the death of Moses.

In Dr. Cooper's able letter to Professor Silliman, Spinoza's 'Tractates Theologico-Politicus,' Pere Simon's critical history of the Old Testament, Voltaire's 'Philosophical Dictionary,' Volney upon Ancient History, as also in the notes to Volney's 'Ruins,' and in Thomas Paine's 'Age of Reason,' part 2, the reader will find the arguments I have used more fully elaborated.

In Professor Newman's 'Phases of Faith,' pp. 83 and 84, there is an eloquent repudiation of the attempts at argument of those theologians who contend for the Mosaic Pentateuch. (The word Pentateuch is a compound Greek word, meaning five books.)

Why should we acknowledge Moses as the author of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy? We have positive evidence that he was not the writer of very many portions, and we have no evidence at all to support the assertion that he wrote a single line of either of the five books.

In Voltaire's dialogue between the monk and the honest man, the following remarks occur:—

'1.—It seems difficult that Moses could have written the Pentateuch which we attribute to him, in the desert. If his people came from Egypt, where they had lived, says the author, 400 years (although he is mistaken in 200 years), the book would, probably, have been written in Egyptian, and we are told it was in Hebrew. It must have been graven upon stone or wood, because, in the time of Moses, they had no other mode of writing. This was a very difficult art, and one which required long preparations, since it was necessary to polish the wood or the stone. It does not appear that this art would have been exercised in a desert, where, according to the book itself, the Jewish horde were not able to make their own clothes and shoes, and where God was obliged to work a continual miracle during forty years to preserve their vestments without decaying, and the coverings of their legs and feet. It is so true that they were only able to write upon stone, that the author of the book of Joshua says that Deuteronomy was written upon an altar of rough stones, plastered with mortar. It appears Joshua did not even imagine this book was durable. '2.—Those men who are most versed in antiquity think these books were written more than 700 years after Moses. They found this opinion upon that which is spoken of the Kings of Edom and Israel, when there were no kings till a long time after Moses; upon the position of the cities, which is false if the books were written in the desert, and true if they were written at Jerusalem; upon the names of the cities and small towns of which these books speak, which were neither built nor called by the names there given them till many ages afterwards, &c.'

Previous to my analysis of the first chapter of Genesis, I shall quote from an able letter which appeared in a provincial paper a short time since, and in which I fully concur.

'Before entering into a detailed examination of the Mosaic narrative, I will glance at the order and operation of its incidents. This is the more necessary, as the sequence of those operations becomes a leading and important feature in the final deductions.

'Genesis, read in its literal sense, teaches that, on the first day God directed light to be, and divided light from darkness, calling the light day and darkness night, 'On the second day He placed a firmament to divide the waters, gathering the waters together and forming dry land, which He commanded to bring forth grass and herbs yielding seed, and trees yielding fruit.

'On the fourth day He placed lights in the firmament to give light upon the earth; and, on the same day, He made two great lights, the greater to rule the day, the lesser the night; and he also made the stars, and placed them in the firmament to give light upon the earth.

On the fifth day the sea was commanded to bring forth the living creature that had life, and the fowl that might fly above the earth in the open firmament.

'The great whales were also created on that day, and every living thing that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind.

'The first part of the sixth day opens with the creation of the beasts of the earth, and cattle, and everything that creepeth on the earth; consummating the mighty work with the creation of man.

'My task is to prove that, so far as geology and the sister sciences have examined into the results of this creation, neither the order, the mode, nor the period of operations can, on physical evidences, be sustained.

'"God said, let there be light, and there was light." We have here a fiat originating light; but from what physical source was that luminous effect evolved? Neither sun nor moon was yet made; not a single star had twinkled in the heavens; nor was a firmament or atmosphere placed, as a vehicle for the rays. By what natural law could there be light? The common rudiments of Physics teach us that air diffuses the solar beams, thereby causing the brightness of that portion of light called, from the earliest recorded period, "day." Without that diffusive medium, the heavenly bodies would be sharply defined balls of apparent fire, in the profoundly black vault of heaven. Science has never, hitherto, found a substitute for the sun; nor research discovered a period since the earth existed, having evening and morning, without one.

'The terms "evening and morning" of a day have, from all recorded time, conveyed to the mind distinct impressions; evening, that portion of sun light immediately preceding and succeeding its apparent departure or disappearance below our horizon; morning, that portion of light that immediately precedes and succeeds its apparent rising above. They also imply two other divisions of time, night and mid-day. Now, we have the direct conclusive evidence daily exhibited, that the sun, or its luminous atmosphere, by recognised laws and combinations, lights the world; and that darkness, as a necessary consequence, follows its absence.

'If the earth had existed independently of the sun, it would have been a wanderer in space, under circumstances which are decidedly inconceivable. Yet Genesis relates that there was light, without a sun to give it forth, or medium to diffuse its rays. We have also involved in this order of creation the phenomena of a diurnal rotation, indicated without any central source of light to make the period or time of revolution, and a planet revolving in an orbit without a centre round which to revolve. Scientific observations and deductions, every day evidences of the physical laws that govern our solar system, lead clearly to the conclusion that the sun, 140,000 times larger than the earth, was the first born. Genesis asserts that our pigmy earth was its precursor.

'Whence, without sun or moon or stars, did this light, in accordance with any known natural law, proceed; and how was the division of evening and morning of the first day indicated?

'The second day's creation again gives us an evening and morning without any arrangement to measure those divisions of time, and still without any source from which light could proceed. What the waters were above the firmament or atmosphere, I cannot discover; certainly clouds are not above the firmament or atmosphere, but floating in it; and of any other aqueous aggregations above the firmament we know nothing.

'In the third day's creation we have dry land appearing, and grass and herb yielding seed, and fruit trees yielding fruit brought forth.

'We have, as yet, had no sun to shine on the earth created, to give colour to the leaves or to the flowers; to ripen the seeds of herbs yielding seed, or the fruit of trees yielding fruit. Neither does Genesis mention any other creation of plants; we must therefore infer this creation originated all the vegetable world.

'The present number of named species of plants is about 280,000, spread in provinces over the known world. The greater part of this large number are peculiar in their habits, and arbitrary in their provinces of growth. The palms of the tropics would die in the ungenial atmosphere of the northern hemisphere; and the plants that flourish under the chilling blasts of the Arctic Regions would wither under the scorching suns of the Torrid Zone. It is, therefore, a preliminary question—was this a multitudinous creation, assorted to their several localities, or a creation of one or two plants of a class from whence all the rest proceeded? If the former is alleged, I ask, as the ordered world was then only two days old, what provision was there, by known laws, to meet numerous physical wants of this immense creation? Were they created perfect plants, as we are informed they were, yielding seed, or only the germs for future growth? If perfect plants, I apprehend the periodical rings, the distinctive mark of the exogens, would, by natural laws, be wanting; but, I suppose, added in the plants proceeding from the parent stem. We have, then, a development process at once admitted; a process, I conceive, manifestly opposed to the Mosaic narrative.

'Of the oneness of vegetable "creation," "making," or "formation," Genesis leaves no doubt. Now Geology, or rather palaeontology, adduces many proofs which, to unbiassed minds, I apprehend, will be conclusive, that such was not the case; but, on the contrary, the vegetable world progressed with the altered structural and climatic conditions of the earth. This is evidenced by the presence of special fossil vegetable productions in certain strata, and the absence of others. Negative evidence may, in some cases, be inconclusive; but it must be borne in mind that there are certain conditions or collateral circumstances which impart to negative the force and conclusiveness of positive and direct affirmative testimony. Thus, in considering the value of that evidence in favour of the existence of a certain class of vegetable life at any given period, if we find (says the Rev. B. Powell) that some vegetable forms existed, and a fitness at the same period for the existence of others, the non-appearance of the latter in such cases is tantamount to "non-existence." On evidence thus valued we will inquire into the simultaneous creation and existence of the vegetable world as related in the 11th and 12th verses.

'Through nearly the entire range of the immense Silurian deposits we find only traces of algae, the lowest form of plants of the Thallogens. Sir R. J. Murchison says, "there are no traces of land plants in the great mass of the Silurian rocks."

'The first evidence we have in the Devonian of terrestrial vegetation is a doubtful specimen of the fern tribe; yet, through these immense periods, a large surface of dry land is evidenced by the extent of the sedimentary deposits of the earlier stratified formations; for, as Professor Nicoll observes, "any sedimentary deposition implies not only the existence of a sea in which its materials were deposited, but of lands from which they were derived."

'When we enter on the Carboniferous, we "are surrounded by the spoils of the first great woody era." Now, during the Carboniferous period, it cannot be denied that we have every requisite for supporting vegetable life, and the most undeniable evidence of its existence by the fossiliferous preservation of near 500 species. These were peculiar to the Carboniferous period. They died away and have not left one species specifically the same with our present vegetation. 'Further, there is scarcely any evidence of a true exogen up to and through the vast and immeasurable periods of the coal measures; and he who dreams that, in the woods of the primeval world there flourished the oak, the elm, and the hundreds of our other forest productions, introduces in the landscape a feature equally immaginative to the wildest Eastern allegory. Of the great family of the leguminosae we have no trace until we come to the London clay, forming a part of the eocene series. In the same formation (deposited in the geological calculation tens of thousands of years past, and hundreds of thousands of years subsequent to the Carboniferous era) we have abundance of fossil fruits—-palm nuts, custard apples, and the gourd and melon family. That the most delicate and perishable parts of vegetable structure can be preserved through immense periods of time, is shown by the state of these, and also of the fossil ligneous coverings of nuciferous fruits, cones of firs, and even the indication of flowers. This preservation of parts of fructification, and the pollen of coniferae, displays the art with which nature embalms her relics. Who, having examined the fossils of the Carboniferous beds, can fail being struck with amazement at the clear and distinct tracing of leaves and forms of the most delicate articulation and structure? We have, also, in our coal measures, found trees of species long extinct, thirty to forty feet high, with roots attached as they grew in situ.

'These were of a structure far more liable to perish than the hard, close grained exogens of our days. But palaeontology discloses that nature has been guided in her formations by certain laws pre-eminently evidenced by her vegetable productions.

'A large portion of the earth's surface, we may infer from analogy, in the Carboniferous ages had the appearance of an immense Polynesia of equable temperature, where her peculiar vegetable productions grew in immense profusion, and, for their species, attained gigantic size.

'Immediately after this period, land vegetation almost disappears; and not until the deposition of the tertiaries do we find the dawning of new species of varied structures. After entering thereon, an entirely different view opens to us. Birch, pines, and evergreen shrubs, species of the orange and gourd families, of the leguminosae and mallows, abound. We have here wherewith to make a forest, a garden, a feast. Now all these floras depart in type more or less from their predecessors; each in its turn died out, as Buffon emphatically states, because "time fought against them." They are peculiar to the days of their existence; but the past and the present unite in proclaiming, trumpet-tongued, that these multitudinous species had neither one centre nor one period of creation. The remarkable statement of the much-regretted Professor Edward Forbes, in his presidential address to the Geological Society in 1854, of the fauna or animal life of the creation, applies more strongly, if possible, to the flora. "More evident does it become every day," said that eminent naturalist, "that the old notion of an universal primaeval fauna is untenable, and that at all epochs, from the earliest preserved to us to the latest, there were natural history provinces in geographical space."

'Now we find that, although seeds, herbs, and flowers and plants were stated to have been "created," "made," or "formed," on the third day, we find no evidence of their existence during periods incalculable subsequent to the appearance of animal life. Any short period of non-appearance might not satisfy the requirements for the proof of "non-existence;" but the astounding fact or the absence of the vegetation specifically the same as the present, through all the intervening series from the earliest dawn of life to the tertiary, can leave no doubt on any unbiassed or candid mind of their "non-existence" in the early ages of the created world, and of their subsequent altered structure. May we not fairly argue and expect that in such multitudinous species some evidence of their existence during enormous periods (especially when we find remains of other vegetable forms and animal life abound) would appear. And if this one day's work does not disclose the whole vegetable creation, when or at what period did the subsequent one take place?

'I apprehend I have shown circumstances surrounding the negative evidence, to give to the non-appearance of land vegetation through the periods of the Silurian and Devonian the force of proof of nonexistence.

'I also submit that I have shown, by direct evidence, that there was no oneness of creation of vegetable life, but that altered forms and structure were peculiar to periods in which they flourished; and that there never did exist any immense primaeval flora as narrated in Genesis.

'I have thus far had the task of showing how negative evidence,. in the non-appearance and the subsequent varied forms, contradict the order of oneness in the creation or "formation" of vegetable life.

'I will now produce positive evidence bearing upon the same discrepancies. We have in the third day the creation of vegetable life, but no animal life until the fifth day—then we have (we must be excused reiteration) fish and fowl and the whales, whilst on the sixth and last day were brought forth creeping things. The first sign of animal life yet discovered is of the radiate class, in the lowest zone of the lower Silurian. We have another class of animal life, the articulata,

in the same zone; and we have some three hundred species of molluscs through the silurian. Nay, so large is the last named class at this early period, that it is denominated by American geologists "the age of molluscs." I must remind our readers that during the whole of this immeasurable age, we have not a single authenticated land plant; nay, further, we have fish, the creation of the fifth day, before aught of the third day's creation appears.

'We have, also, a reptilian vertebrate land animal in the Devonian ages incalculably before the appearance of any seed bearing herbs or fruit bearing plants. Here, then, is positive and direct evidence of the appearance of types of the four great groups of animal life—the radiate, the articulate, the molusca, and the vertebrata—not a few hours or days or months, or a few years, but thousands upon thousands of years before a single evidence of the seed-bearing and fruit-bearing plants of the first day's creation existed. It must not be said they might have existed yet are not preserved, for this is opposed to the facts previously stated of the preservation of the algae and fucoids during these periods, and of the immense flora during the subsequent coal formation, and the pollen, flowers, fruits, leaves, and trees in still younger formations. Nor can it be met by an argument against the fitness of the condition of the earth at this time.

'If, on the other hand, it is urged, Where are the evidences of the existence of these several forms of life at the periods stated? I answer, the facts bearing out my assertions will be found recorded in Lyell, Murchison, Phillips, and Morris (the collectors from the several strata named), all geological writers of repute; and the fossil forms themselves can be examined in the museums of the country.'

Amongst the many works which have been issued for the purpose of explaining away the discrepancies between Geology and Genesis, is one by Dommick McCausland, entitled 'Sermons in Stones,' and the following is a portion of the mode of harmonising pursued by the author. While admitting that the transactions mentioned in the first chapter of Grenesis could not be brought within the compass of six days, it is urged by Mr. McCausland that the scene of the creation was presented to Moses 'In a series of visions, each separate one occupying an evening and a morning, that is to say, an intermediate night, the season of visions or dreams. So that, in commencing our task of making revelation reasonable, we are to imagine that Moses dreamed the whole of the history of the creation.

But even this hypothesis is open to objection. What 'scene' could 'present to the vision of Moses' (if we admit Moses to be the dreamer) an earth without form and void, especially with darkness upon the face of it? It is true that, if you suppose the writer dreamed the whole story of the creation, it will account for much that is otherwise most improbable; for we all know what strange images are conjured before us in our dreaming moments, sometimes they are compounds, sometimes reversals, of our waking experience.

McCausland proceeds, 'It is well known that the transactions of years are often compressed, in a dream, into the space of a few minutes; on the same principle, the operations of the divine author of creation, which may have occupied a long series of years, may have been presented to Moses as the events of a single day.' What may have been or may not have been, is hardly sufficient to base an argument upon. It is most extraordinary that, in discussions upon this subject, the reverend advocates arrogate to themselves the right of conjecturing 'What God meant to do,' 'What God's intentions were,' 'What might have happened before this occurred or that was prevented,' 'That this is literal,' 'That that is allegorical,' etc., etc.; and yet, while they are conjecturing and supposing outside the text to an unlimited extent, it becomes rank blasphemy to advance an opinion to the plain English meaning of the text itself. I am afraid that Moses is not the only dreamer; for a few pages further I find this remarkable sentence, 'We know from Geology, in confirmation of Scripture, that there was a beginning, when the universe was formed out of nothing'!! In which strata or in what rock was this knowledge found? Are we to be told in the present day that in the universe we find evidence which convinces us that there was a period when the substance of that universe did not exist—when there was nothing? Why, the very form of words conveys an absurd and contradictory meaning. It is impossible for man, in his boldest flights of imagination or doubting, to annihilate existence; he may, in his fancy, vary its modes, but he cannot, even in his wildest moods, ignore its substance.

Of the fiat, 'let there be light.' the harmonizer says, 'This divine command and the result of it does not negative the previous existence of light. It only conveys the information that light was commanded to shine. The sun had sent forth his rays from the date of the creation, but the black misty envelope of the deep could not be penetrated until the divine fiat went forth for the advent of light to its surface.' Quoting Genesis, chap, i, v. 14 to 19, he says, 'With respect to this language, all philologists agree that it does not mean that the sun, moon, and stars were for the first time called into existence at this period of the creation.' This is not true; if the verses mean anything, they positively do mean that the sun, moon, and stars were, for the first time, created on the fourth day, and it is only the evident falsity of this statement which has compelled religious philologists to twist 'the language' into a spiritual meaning.

We learn from such works as the 'Sermons in Stones,' that the warmest advocates of scriptural history find so glaring a discordance as to immediately compel them to relinquish the literal version; with the strongest faith they cannot believe in light before the sun—they cannot reverse the order of the different strata as revealed by the science of geology, and they therefore tell you that you must call in your fancy (or rather their fancy) to the aid of your revelation, and, by subtracting from, or liberally adding to, the words of the text, they will melt the strongest contradiction. You must read prayerfully, that is, you must be prepared to cast away your senses every time they are opposed to your Bible.

'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' The word here translated God is [———] (Alehim or Elohim) which is a plural noun (vide Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, article [———], and although translated by the singular word God, it is often associated with plural adjectives, pronouns, and verbs, see Genesis, chap, i, v. 26, chap, iii, y. 22, chap, xi, v. 7; nay more, on the same orthodox authority we learn, that in many other passages the translators have ignored the plural accompaniments for the purpose of supporting the orthodox theory, and yet we are told in the present day that the Bible does not want retranslation. It has been before pointed out that there is a double creation narrated, one from Genesis, chap, i, v. 1 to chap. ii, v. 3; in this the only word used is the plural word Alehim, or the Gods (that is, if Alehim be either God or Gods as it has been differently translated; elsewhere we find the expression 'God' applied to Moses—this would lead us to doubt as to the precise meaning of the word. I am told by some of my reverend friends that the meaning of the word God is varied according to the mode of printing; if with a capital letter 'God,' it means an incomprehensible anything they like, if with a small initial, 'god,' it means an inferior anything you like). Volney, in the notes to his 'Ruins of Empires,' says, 'If we further observe that the root of the word Elohim signifies strong or powerful, and that the Egyptians called their decans strong and powerful leaders, attributing to them the creation of the world, we shall presently perceive that the Book of Genesis affirms neither more nor less than that the world was created by the decans, by those very genii whom, according to Sanconiathon, Mercury excited against Saturn, and who were called Elohim. It may be further asked why the plural substantive Elohim is made to agree with the singular verb bara (the Elohim creates). The reason is, that after the Babylonish captivity, the unity of the Supreme Being was the prevailing opinion of the Jews; it was therefore thought proper to introduce a pious solecism in language, which it is evident had no existence before Moses. Thus, in the names of the children of Jacob, many of them are compounded of a plural verb, to which Elohim is the nominative case understood; as Raouben (Reuben), they have looted upon me, and Samaonm (Simeon), they have granted me my prayer, to wit, the Elohim. The reason of this etymology is to be found in the religious creeds of the wives of Jacob, whose Gods were the taraphim of Laban, that is, the angels of the Persians, and the Egyptian decans.' The other account commences with the fourth verse of the second chapter, and in this the words translated 'Lord God' are [———]; what these really mean it is impossible to say, unless they mean Chief of the Gods. Parkhurst translates it into a trinity. The word [———] (rendered in our version Jehovah) simply represents time past, present, and future. The two accounts differ considerably; in the first we find water forming an important feature, and ultimately drained off so that the dry land appears; in the second we have the land dry without water, and it becomes necessary to send a mist to water the face of the earth.

Genesis, chap, i, v. 1 to 27. Whoever wrote these verses must either have been an inspired man, a dupe, or a knave—that is, he could not have gathered from tradition, because here tradition is outstepped; it could not have been known by man, as he was not yet made; he must either have received it from God, or have been deceived by man, or must have intended to deceive man himself. If inspired, it is a pity God did not explain the creation of light before the sun ( verse 3), the creation of herbs and fruit trees bearing seed and fruit before there was a sun to ripen the fruit and bring the seed to maturity (verse 11), the creation of 'female-man' in his own image (verse 27), etc. By verse 29 it appears that God intended man to be a vegetarian; by Genesis, chap, ix, v. 3, he gave them all kinds of cattle for food; and by Leviticus, chap, xi, v. 12, he forbade man to eat certain kinds there specified; one of God's attributes notwithstanding all this is immutability. Chap. ii. v. 2 and 3, he rested on the seventh day and blessed it and sanctified it, because in it he had rested:—see Deuteronomy, chap, v, v. 12 to 15; which is the correct reason for the sanctifying the sabbath day?

Chapter ii, v. 4. This, as it is translated, seems ridiculous: 'the generations of the heavens and the earth.' What is the meaning of this phrase? What are the generations? From a careful reading of verses? 5, 6, and 7, it would appear that God did not make man out of the dry dust; and that it was not until a mist had watered the whole face of the earth that he formed man. This may account for the creed of the negro, who believed that God made Adam from mud, and who assigned as a reason that dry dust would not stick together. In verse 9 are mentioned the 'tree of life' and the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil.' If these expressions occurred in the 'Arabian Nights' tales, we might not regard them as inappropriate, for in such books, which make no pretensions to truth, we expect to find tales of ghosts, witches, men carried off in fiery chariots, devils walking about bodily, donkeys speaking, and men passing through furnaces unhurt; but when we are told that a book is inspired by the God of truth, and in its early pages find mention made of a tree, by eating the fruit of which a man might live for ever, and that by eating of the fruit of another tree, a man would get knowledge of good and evil, with other fabulous expressions of a like nature, we cannot help a feeling of astonishment.

Of verses 10 to 14 Voltaire speaks as follows:—'According to this version, the earthly paradise would have contained nearly a third part of Asia and of Africa. The sources of the Euphrates and the Tigris are sixty leagues distant from each other, in frightful mountains bearing no possible resemblance to a garden. The river which borders Ethiopia, and which can be no other than the Nile, commences its course at the distance of more than a thousand leagues from the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates; and if the Pison means the Phasis, it is not a little surprising that the source of a Scythian river and that of an African one should be situated on the same spot. We must therefore look for some other explanation, and for other rivers. Every commentator has got up a Paradise of his own.'

Dr. John Pye Smith suggests that the description is antediluvian, and that the deluge changed the courses of many streams; that hence we must not expect to find any spot conforming to the exact geographical description. If antediluvian, Moses did not write it.

'Verse 15. "The Lord then took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden that he might cultivate it."

Voltaire continues:—

'It is very respectable and pleasant for a man to "cultivate his garden," but it must have been somewhat difficult for Adam to have dressed and kept in order a garden of a thousand leagues in length, even although he had been supplied with some assistants. Commentators on this subject, therefore, we again observe, are completely at a loss, and must be content to exercise their ingenuity in conjecture. Accordingly, these four rivers have been described as flowing through numberless different territories.'

Verses 16 and 17. It is a matter of great difficulty to refrain from ridiculing the statement that there exist trees bearing such fruit, and after overcoming this difficulty, it is still less comprehensible why God should forbid man to acquire a knowledge of good and evil. Would not man's free access to this knowledge appear more in accordance with the character of a just and merciful God? and is not knowledge necessary to man, especially when we find the serpent 'more subtle than other animals,' plotting man's destruction?

Verses 18 and 19. It is somewhat remarkable that immediately after the Lord God had declared his intention of making a helpmeet

for Adam, that he formed all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. This is open to many objections; first, see chap, i, v. 21, but as we must admit there are two distinct accounts of the creation, I will not further burden my work with the contradictions between them; second, the strong improbability of the story of the Lord God bringing the beasts and fowl to see what Adam would call them; either the Lord God had fore-ordained the names to be applied by Adam, or the theologians are wrong—either the Lord God foreknew what names Adam would give each bird and beast, in which case Genesis is incorrect, or prescience, one of the attributes applied to Deity, is deficient; third, the immense time which this naming of every bird and beast must have taken, especially when we remember that Adam was waiting for his wife—it almost appears as if verse 18 should come after verse 20 to make sense of the story. Lawrence says that the account of all the animals being brought before Adam is zoologically impossible ('Lectures on Man,' p. 169). Voltaire says that if Adam had named the animals according to their various natures, he must have either previously eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or it would apparently have answered no end for God to have interdicted him from it. He must have already known more than the Royal Society or the Academy of Sciences of Paris. The mode of manufacturing the woman from the rib of the man has been the subject of much controversy, but is only noticed here as another illustration of the fabulous character of the book we are dealing with.

Having passed through the two accounts of the creation contained in the anonymous book I am examining, I shall strive to ascertain the source from whence some of the doctrines and traditions contained in this book were derived. Aware of the magnitude of my task, I will now only deal with authorities to whom no exception should be taken by the religious reader. One is the pious and erudite Sir William Jones, the other the Reverend Thomas Maurice. Of the claims of the first to our attention I will say nothing, for every man ought to be more or less acquainted with the character of the great linguist; of the second I can only say that I find his work issued under the countenance of the heads of the Church, and supported by some of the first men of his day.

When, at the present day, you point out to a Christian the striking coincidence in many points between the Bible and the Hindoo and other sacred writings, he will tell you that the latter have been stolen from the former. Is this the fact? I think not. Maurice, in his preface to his 'Indian Antiquities,' says, 'The stupendous system of the Brahmin Chronology, extending back through millions of years; the obstinate denial of a general deluge by those Brahmins; the perplexing doctrine of a trinity in the divine nature constantly recurring in the operations of Brahma, Vishnu, and Seeva, a doctrine not to be traced to any immediate connexion with the Jewish nation; these were among the delicate topics which neither the clerical nor historical functions in which I had engaged would allow of being passed over in silence. As I advanced in my inquiries, I found that the primeval histories of all the ancient empires of the earth amount to little more than the romantic dreams of astronomical mythology.'

Weigh well this last sentence, read your Bibles attentively, and ask yourselves in what particular feature is Genesis superior to the Shastra or Bhagavat.

The following is from the Manava Sastra, the words of Menu, Son of Brahma, as quoted in vol. i of the 'Asiatic Researches,' page 244:—

'"This world (says he) was all darkness, undiscernible, undistinguishable, altogether as in profound sleep; till the self-existent invisible God, making it manifest with five elements and other glorious forms, perfectly expelled the gloom. He, desiring to raise up various creatures by an emanation from his own glory, first created the waters, and impressed them with a power of motion: by that power was produced a golden egg, blazing like a thousand suns, in which was born Brahma, self-existing, the great parent of all rational beings. The waters are called nÁrÀ, since they are the offspring of Nara or Iswara; and thence was NÁryÁna named, because his first ayana, or moving, was on them.

'"That which is, the invisible cause, eternal, self-existing, but un-perceived, becoming masculine from neuter, is celebrated among all creatures by the name of BrahmÁ. That God, having dwelled in the egg through revolving years, Himself meditating on himself, divided it into two equal parts; and from those halves formed the heavens and the earth, placing in the midst the subtle ether, the eight points of the world, and the permanent receptacle of waters."'

Sir William Jones admits that the Vedas are 'very ancient, and far older than any other Sanscrit works,' but assigns to the Manava Sastra, and the Bhagavat a later date than 'the Scriptures of Moses,' on the ground that 'the nakedness of the Hebrew dialect, metre, and style must convince every man of their superior antiquity.' On the same page Sir W. Jones, however, states that the Brahmans affirm that the Vedas, the Manava SÁstra, and the Bhagavat, were all written in the first age of the world. Is it honest to reject the testimony of the Priests of Brahma while we are content to place our reason in the hands of the Priests of our own Church?

My reasons for not believing the Manava Sastra and Bhagavat were stolen from the Jews are as follows: first, the Bhagavat, admitted to be much more ancient than our alleged Christian era, contains the history of Chrishna, which is, in very many particulars, identical with that of Christ, and as it is absolutely impossible that the Hindoos could have stolen the history of Christ one thousand years prior to his existence, I am inclined to conceive it more probable that in our Bible we have throughout appropriated from the Hindoos; second, I deny that it has ever been shown that the Jewish nation is nearly so ancient as the Hindoo, and I am, therefore, puzzled in attempting to charge the more ancient nation with stealing the traditions of the modern one. It would be nearly as reasonable if a Frenchman were to charge the English with stealing the history of William the Conqueror from the Americans.

Sir William Jones further says, 'I am persuaded that a connexion subsisted between the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before they emigrated to their several settlements, and consequently before the birth of Moses;' and what do we find? Why this, that the religions of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, have a wonderful similarity to one another, and yet we are told that the religion of the Jewish nation (which contains something common to them all) was not stolen from them, but they, the ancient religions, were stolen from the more modern nation. It would be as probable were I to tell you that the Royal Society in London was founded and originated in consequence of something which fell last year from the lips of Louis Napoleon.

The third chapter of Genesis contains, according to its heading, an account of man's 'most shameful fall.' It will be in vain to attempt to treat the contents of this chapter as a relation of actual occurrences. The following is a summary: a serpent, walking erect on its tail instead of crawling on its belly, tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, urging that Adam has been deceived by God; the woman (not at all surprised at being addressed by one 'in such a questionable shape') saw that the tree was good for food (how she saw this does not appear) and ate and gave to her husband. Upon eating, their eyes are opened, and they are ashamed of their nakedness, and sew fig leaves together to make breeches. This sewing was before the invention of needles. The species of this fruit has formed the subject of much conjecture; one kind only has since been known to confer on man and woman a knowledge of their nakedness after mutually partaking thereof, and it has therefore been suggested that this chapter is an allegorical representation of the union of the sexes. After eating, Adam and Eve hear the 'voice of the Lord God walking,' and they hide themselves. It is not easy to understand how either God or his voice could walk in the garden, nor why he should walk in the cool of the day, as we cannot suppose heat to affect him. The reason Adam gives for hiding himself is not a correct one; he was not naked unless his fig-leaf garment had fallen to pieces. God having ascertained that Adam had disobeyed his command, cursed the serpent and commanded it to eat dust and go upon its belly all the days of its life; God also cursed the ground. It does not appear, however, that he carried out the threat contained in chap, ii, v. 17; in fact, the serpent appears to have been more correct in saying to Adam and Eve, 'Ye shall not surely die.' Some divines would have us believe that by the sin of Adam death was introduced into the world, and the Rev. Dr. John Pye Smith tells us, 'It is probable, had not man fallen, that, after a continuance in the earthly state for a period of probation, each individual would have been translated to a higher condition of existence.' Unfortunately, this hypothesis will not bear investigation. Professor Newman says, in relation to this subject, 'A fresh strain fell on the Scriptural infallibility, in contemplating the origin of death. Geologists assured us that death went on in the animal creation many ages before the existence of man. The rocks formed of the shells of animals testify that death is a phenomenon thousands and thousands of years old; to refer the death of animals to the sin of Adam and Eve is evidently impossible. Yet, if not, the analogies of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible that man's body can ever have been intended for immortality. Nay, when we consider the conditions of birth and growth to which it is subject, the wear and tear essential to life, the new generations intended to succeed and supplant the old—so soon as the question is proposed as one of physiology, the reply is inevitable that death is no accident, introduced by the perverse will of our first parents, nor any way connected with man's sinfulness, but is purely a result of the conditions of animal life. On the contrary, St. Paul rests most important conclusions on the fact, that one man, Adam, by personal death, brought death upon all his posterity. If this was a fundamental error, religious doctrine also is shaken.'

Verse 20. 'And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.' This can hardly be the reason, as Eve was not the mother of anybody at that time. The word [———] (Adam) means red or ruby, and [———] (Eve) to show, discover, or declare.

Verse 21. I suppose the most enthusiastic advocate for the literal reading of the Bible would hardly wish us to picture God as a tailor. One of the Jewish Rabbis asserts that God clothed Adam and Eve with the skin of the serpent who had tempted them.

Verse 22. (And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us.' One of whom? To whom are these words addressed? It is evident that the writer of this book believed in a plurality of Gods, and had not any very elevated ideas in relation to those Gods, for, in the very same verse, he makes God express fear lest Adam should take or the tree of life, and eat and live for ever. Does it mean that man's soul was not then immortal? it cannot mean that man's body could become immortal. If man's soul was not then capable of living for ever, when did its nature become changed? Verse 24. 'Cherubim!' This word is ridiculous; cherubim is the plural of cherub; the is merely a specimen of Bible orthography. In Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary I find the following severe remark on the word 'Cherubim:'—Those who understand no language but their own are apt to commit an unpardonable fault with critics, by mistaking this word for a singular, and writing the plural "Cherubims."' It is evident, therefore, that if God inspired the Bible, he did not inspire the grammar. But what is a cherub? the word [——] (kereb) is of very doubtful meaning, and seems to have been used to express an inferior kind of deity. In the seventh edition of Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, the correspondence between the description of the cherubim in Ezekiel and the inferior deities in other mythologies is fully and ably pointed out under this head. Were it not for the length of Parkhurst's article, I would quote the whole, it constituting an elaborate essay in which the astronomical origin of every religious system is clearly proved. An interesting astronomical explanation of the allegory or the fall is given in pp. 294-5 of 'Volney's Ruins.' Some of the cherubic figures are a compound of ox, eagle, lion, and man. Are we to imagine several of these with a flaming sword, guarding the way to the tree of life?

Having read the third chapter carefully, we are irresistibly driven to the conclusion that Adam's primitive nature was extremely frail, for he fell with the first temptation, and no greater evidence of frailty can be given; yet Adam is the choice work of God, made in his own image.

Chapter iv contains the history of Cain and Abel, which presents several remarkable features for our consideration. Cain and Abel both make sacrifices to the Lord. Why they should so sacrifice does not appear; they do not seem to have followed the example of Adam, as we cannot find any history of his sacrificing to the Lord at all. By verses 4 and 5 we find that the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering, but unto Cain and his offerings he had not respect. Why is this? Cain's offerings consist of flowers and fruits, sending up sweet fragrance to heaven; Abel's offerings are the bleeding carcasses of slaughtered lambs; yet God, 'with whom there is no respect of persons' (2 Chronicles, chap, xix, v. 7—Romans, chap, ii, v. 11), respects Abel more than Cain. How was this respect shown? God, by showing favour to Abel without assigning the least reason for the

Preference, created animosity between the two brothers. God must have foreknown that this religious strife would end in bloodshed. Religious strife always has led to war, and it is only because people are growing larger than their creeds that they now do not fight quite so recklessly about them.

Verse 7. It is somewhat perplexing to find that, although God is displeased with Cain, yet he tells him he shall rule over his brother Abel.

Verse 13. This verse is translated in a very different manner to the Douay. In our version Cain complains of the severity of his punishment; in the other, Cain says that his sin is too great for pardon. Which is right? Verse 14. What does Cain mean when he says 'Every one that findeth me shall slay me.' 'Every one 'can only be used when there is a likelihood of meeting with many persons, yet Cain must have been well aware that no persons were then in existence beside his father and mother.

Verse 16. How is it possible that Cain could go out of the presence of the Lord? (vide Psalm cxxxix, v. 7 to 12).

Verse 17. Who was Cain's wife? According to Genesis, there was only his mother, Eve, living. 'And he builded a city.' It must have been rather a remarkable city, built by one man, and inhabited by one man, his wife, and one child.

Verse 18. Who was Enoch's wife? Perhaps these were what the Mormonites call 'Spiritual Wives.'

Chapter v, v. 1. 'This is the book of the generations of Adam.* Books were not known at the date alleged for the existence of Moses.

Verses 1 and 2 contradict the previous chapters.

The fifth chapter appears to fit on after verse 3 of the second chapter; and it is rather curious that in the list of Adam's children, Cain and Abel are not mentioned. Neither are Cain's descendants in any way referred to. Cain not only went out of the presence of the Lord, but both he and his wife and family seem entirely to have gone out of sight of everybody.

Verse 24. 'And Enoch walked with God, and he was not.' The Breeches Bible, in a marginal note, says that 'to inquire what became of Enoch is mere curiosity.'

Verse 27. Methusalem must have just died in time to save himself from drowning.

Chapter vi, v. 2. 'The Sons of God.' Who are the Sons of God?; How could God have Sons? Is not Jesus said to be the only Son of God? Voltaire says of this verse, 'No nation has ever existed, unless perhaps we may except China, in which some God is not described as having had offspring upon women. These corporeal Gods frequently descended to visit their dominions upon earth; they saw the daughters of our race, and attached themselves to those who were most interesting and beautiful; the issue of this connexion between Gods and mortals must, of course, have been superior to other men, thus giants were produced.' But there is a further objection to our authorised version; the original is not 'Sons of God,' but [—————] (Beni Alehim, Sons of the Gods). In the mythologies of Greece, Italy, and India, we find the same idea of Gods having intercourse with women; and it is also remarkable that, although in many cases the woman bears a child, yet all true believers devoutly contend for her virginity. Verse 3 seems out of place, it should come in after 5 or 6; but in any place it is not correct. One hundred and twenty years is neither the average nor the limit of man's life. What does God mean when he says 'My Spirit shall not always strive with man?' What was the striving about? Does the verse mean that God's spirit strove in vain? What does 'that he also is flesh' mean? Does it mean that the Lord's spirit and man are both flesh? Verses 5 and 6. God made mankind and the circumstances which surrounded them, and must have foreknown what would have been the effect produced upon man; why not have made better circumstances? Shall we presume either that God had not the power to have created things differently, or that he is careless of man's welfare? In what manner did God make known his repentance? In Numbers, chap, xxiii, v. 19, we are led to believe that God never repents. Why should God destroy the beasts, creeping things, and fowls? they surely could not have been parties to man's wickedness. Why should God repent that he made 'the beasts, the creeping things, and the fowls of the air?' What does the phrase mean in relation to God, 'it grieved him at his heart?' The expressions 'repent,' 'grieve,' etc., could scarcely have been used if the book had been a revelation from a God who intended to convey to us an idea of his omnipotence and immutability. The following quotation is from Robert Taylor:—

'What blasphemy! thus to represent the Creator of the world. Omnipotence repenting that he had made man, sitting upon a stone, and crying like a child, wringing his hands, tearing nis hair, calling himself all the fools and idiots he could think of, stamping his foot, cursing, swearing, and vowing vengeance, that he would not leave a dog nor a rat alive. We should yet have but a faint idea of the' exceeding sinfulness of sin, and how poor and impotent language of any kind must be, to convey to us the emotions of that infinite wisdom and inconceivable benevolence which repented that he had made man, and grieved that man was no better than he had made him.

'There can be no doubt at all that such language as this, when used in relation to the Supreme Being, is used only in gracious condescension to our ignorance, and in accommodation to the dulness and stupidity of our powers of conception, which require to be stimulated ana excited by strong and impassioned figures of speech, ere they can be led to form an idea at all on sacred subjects.'

Verses 11 and 12. All flesh could not be corrupt; in the previous verse we are told that Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations. All flesh being corrupt, flesh and fowl were condemned; but the fish were allowed to escape. Were the birds more corrupt than the fish? or were the fish allowed to escape because the concocter of this tale did not conceive the possibility of their being killed by a flood? By verse 17 it is clear that God intended to destroy every living thing; perhaps he forgot the fishes.

Verse 14 to chap, viii, v. 19. Of this account Professor Newman says 'It had become notorious to the public that geologists rejected the idea of an universal deluge, as physically impossible. Whence could the water come to cover the highest mountains? Two replies were attempted: 1—The flood of Noah is not described as universal; 2—The flood was indeed universal, but the water was added and removed by miracle. Neither reply, however, seemed to be valid. First, the language respecting the universality of the flood is as strong as any that could be written; moreover, it is stated that the tops of the high hills were all covered, and after the water subsides the ark settles on the mountains of Armenia. Now, in Armenia, of necessity, numerous peaks would be seen unless the water covered them, and especially Ararat. But a flood that covered Ararat would overspread all the continents, and leave only a few summits above. If, then, the account in Genesis is to be received, the flood was "universal. Secondly, the narrator represents the surplus water to have come from the clouds, and perhaps from the sea, and again to drain back into the sea. Of a miraculous creation and destruction of water, he evidently does not dream.

'Other impossibilities come forward: the insufficient dimensions of the ark to take in all the creatures; the unsuitability of the same climate to arctic and tropical animals for a full year; the impossibility of feeding them, and avoiding pestilence; and especially, the total disagreement of the modern facts of the dispersion of animals, with the idea that they spread anew from Armenia as their centre. We have no right to call in a aeries of miracles to solve difficulties of which the writer was unconscious. The ark itself was expressly devised to economise miracle, by making a fresh creation of animals needless.'

Voltaire says of the deluge:—

'We consider it as a miracle; first, because all the facts by which God condescends to interfere in the sacred books are so many miracles.

'Secondly, because the sea could not rise fifteen cubits, or one and twenty standard feet and a half above the highest mountains without leaving its bed dry, and, at the same time violating all the laws of gravity and the equilibrium of fluids, which would evidently require a miracle.

'Thirdly, because, even although it might rise to the height mentioned, the ark could not have contained, according to known physical laws, all the living things of the earth, together with their food, for so long a time; considering that lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, ounces, rhinoceroses, bears, wolves, hyenas, eagles, hawks, kites, vultures, falcons, and all carnivorous animals, which feed on flesh alone, would have died of hunger, even after having devoured all the other species.

'Fourthly, because the physical impossibilities of an universal deluge, by natural means, can be strictly demonstrated. The demonstration is as follows:—

'All the seas cover half the globe. A common measure of their depths near the shores and in the open ocean, is assumed to be five hundred feet.

'In order to their covering both hemispheres to the depth of five hundred feet, not only would an ocean of that depth be necessary over all the land, but a new sea would, in addition, be required to envelope the ocean at present existing, without which the laws of hydrostatics would occasion the dispersion of that other new mass of water five hundred feet deep, which should remain covering the land. 'Thus, then, two new oceans are requisite to cover the terraqueous globe nearly to the depth of five hundred feet.

'Supposing the mountains to be only twenty thousand feet high, forty oceans each five hundred feet in height would be required to accumulate on each other, merely in order to equal the height of the mountains. Every successive ocean would contain all the others, and the last of them all would have a circumference containing forty times that of the first.

'In order to form this mass of water, it would be necessary to create it out of nothing. In order to withdraw it, it would be necessary to annihilate it.

'What was that abyss which was broken up, or what were the cataracts of heaven which were opened? Isaac Vossius denies the universality of the deluge; "Hoc est piÈ nugari." Calmet maintains it, informing us that bodies have no weight in air, but in consequence of their being compressed by air. Calmet was not much of a natural philosopher, and the weight of the air has nothing to do with the deluge. Let us content ourselves with reading and respecting everything in the Bible, without comprehending a single word of it.

'I do not comprehend how God created a race of men in order to drown them, and then substituted in their room a race still viler than the first.

'How seven pairs of all kinds of clean animals should come from the four quarters of the globe, together with two pairs of unclean ones, without the wolves devouring the sheep on the way, or the kites the pigeons, etc., etc.

'How eight persons could keep in order, feed, and water such an immense number of inmates, shut up in an ark-for nearly two yeare, for, after the cessation of the deluge, it would be necessary to have food for all these passengers for another year, in consequence of the herbage being so scanty.'

The dimensions of the ark, which are slightly varied according to the different lengths assigned to the cubit, were between 450 and 574 feet in length, between 75 and 91 feet in breadth, and 45 and 55 feet in height. An ark that size must have been a tremendous undertaking for a man nearly six hundred years old, even with his three sons to help him. The ark was divided into three stories and many rooms, but only had one window and one door. The situation of this door is curious, 'in the side;' if it gave access to all the floors it must have extended from top to bottom. It is hardly possible to imagine a large number of animals, civet cats, musk rats, etc., existing in an ark in which ventilation was so badly provided for; when the door was shut and the window shut to keep out the rain and water, it must have been absolutely stifling. But it is impossible to imagine seven of each of the clean beasts and two of each of the unclean, and seven of each of the birds, crammed into so small a space. Even if there were room for it, we hear nothing of any food being collected for the sustenance of all these birds and beasts. Did they fast? How did Noah know which were clean and which unclean? Thomas Paine treats the account of the flood as follows:—

'We have all heard of Noah's flood; and it is impossible to think of the whole human race, men, women, children, and infants, (except one family) deliberately drowning, without feeling a painful sensation; that must be a heart of flint that can contemplate such a scene with tranquillity. There is nothing in the ancient mythology, nor in the religion of any people we know of on the globe, that records a sentence of their God, or of their Gods, so tremendously severe and merciless. If the story be not true, we blasphemously dishonour God by believing it, and still more so in forcing, by laws and penalties, that belief upon others. I go now to show, from the face of the story, that it carries the evidence of not being true.

'There were no such people as Jews or Israelites in the time that Noah is said to have lived, and consequently there was no such law as that which is called the Jewish or Mosaic Law. It is, according to the Bible, more than six hundred years from the time the flood is said to have happened to the time of Moses, and, consequently, the time the flood is said to have happened was more than six hundred years prior to the law called the law of Moses, even admitting Moses to be the giver of that law, of which there is great cause to doubt.

'We have here two different epochs, or points of time; that of the flood, and that of the law of Moses; the former more than six hundred years prior to the latter. But the maker of the story of the flood, whoever he was, has betrayed himself by blundering, for he has reversed the order of the times. He has told the story as if the law of Moses was prior to the flood; for he has made God to say to Noah, Genesis, chap, vii, v. 2, "Of every clean beast, thou shalt take to thee by sevens, tne male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." This is the Mosaic law, and could only be said after that law was given, not before. There were no such things as beasts clean and unclean in the time of Noah—it is nowhere said they were created so. They were only declared to be so as meats, by the Mosaic law, and that to the Jews only; and there were no such people as Jews in the time of Noah. This is the blundering condition in which this strange story stands.

'When we reflect on a sentence so tremendously severe as that of consigning the whole human race, eight persons excepted, to deliberate drowning, a sentence which represents the Creator in a more merciless character than any of those whom we call Pagans ever represented the Creator to be, under the figure of any of their deities, we ought at least to suspend our belief of it, on a comparison of the beneficent character of the Creator with the tremendous severity of the sentence; but when we see the story told with such an evident contradiction of circumstances, we ought to set it down for nothing better than a Jewish fable, told by nobody knows whom, and nobody knows when.

'It is a relief to the genuine and sensible soul of man to find the story unfounded. It frees us from two painful sensations at once; that of having hard thoughts of the Creator, on account of the severity of the sentence; and that of sympathising in the horrid tragedy of a drowning world. He who cannot feel the force of what I mean is not, in my estimation of character, worthy the name of a human being.'

The account of the deluge is rather complicated; according to chap, vii., v. 2 and 5, Noah took inseven pairs of all clean beasts, and one pair of all unclean, as [———] (Alehim) had commanded him; while, by v. 8 and 9, it would appear that Noah only took in two of every kind, as [———] (Jeue or Jehovah) had commanded. This is another specimen of the confusion in the use of different originals in the manufacture of the book of Genesis.

Dr. John Pye Smith, in his 'Relation between Geology and the Holy Scriptures,' admits that he is compelled to the conclusion that the flood of Noah was not absolutely universal; and with respect to the ark grounding on Mount Ararat, he says that the state of the summit of that mount is such that the four men, and four women, and many of the quadrupeds would have found it utterly impossible to descend. The summit of Mount Ararat is continually covered with snow and ice.

The olive leaf mentioned in chap, viii., v. 11, is remarkable, as one would be inclined to imagine it decomposed after remaining under water for about twelve months.

Chapter viii., v. 21. 'The Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart.' This is, of course, only a figurative expression; but it is much to be regretted that, in a book issued from God, an expression should be found so liable to misconstruction; a literal reader might imagine that God had a nose and heart.

Chapter ix., v. 9 and 10. These verses have been much commented on. Voltaire says:—

'God made a covenant with beasts! What sort of a covenant? Such is the outcry of infidels. But if he makes a covenant with man, why not with the beast? It has feeling; and there is something as divine in feeling, as in the most metaphysical meditation. Besides, beasts feel more correctly than the greater part of men think. It is clearly by virtue of this treaty that Francis d'Assisse, the founder of the Seraphic order, said to the grasshoppers and the hares, "Pray sing, my dear sister grasshopper; pray browse, my dear brother hare." But what were the conditions of the treaty? That all animals should devour one another; that they should feed upon our flesh, and we upon theirs; that, after having eaten them, we should proceed with wrath and fury to the extermination of our own race; nothing being, then, wanting to crown the horrid series of butchery and cruelty, but devouring our fellow men, after having thus remorselessly destroyed them. Had there been actually such a treaty as this, it could have been entered into only with the devil.'

The token of this covenant is to be the rainbow—v. 13. The Geneva translation has it, 'I have set my bow;' the authorised version, 'I do set my bow;' the Douay,'I will set my bow. Of this latter, Voltaire remarks— 'Observe, that the author does not say, I have put my bow in the clouds; he says, I will put; this clearly implies it to have been the prevailing opinion that there had not always been a rainbow. This phenomenon is necessarily produced by rain; yet, in this place, it is represented as something supernatural, exhibited in order to announce and prove that the earth should no more be inundated. It is singular to choose the certain sign of rain, in order to assure men against their being drowned.'

It is quite evident by the context, whichever translation be right, that the meaning intended to be conveyed is, that the rainbow is to be the sign to remind God and the people and beasts of his covenant with them. This covenant, like many treaties made with high powers, is open to misconstruction. God only covenants not again to destroy all flesh by a flood, but it is quite within the terms of his covenant to overflow a few rivers, and sweep flocks, herds, villages, and villagers off a large tract of country; this is occasionally done, and the rainbow cheers the survivors with the thought that, as everybody is not to be drowned at once, they are safe till another time.

Verse 16. It is implied that, but for the rainbow, God might forget his covenant; surely this cannot be a revelation from an unchangeable God, who could never forget.

Verse 21. Noah, if he was a just and perfect man before the flood, seems to have soon degenerated, although he had just had cognizance of so fearful an example of God's vengeance. 'His tent.' The word [———] does not mean his tent; the final [—] is a feminine termination, and the word should be translated 'her tent;' but to save revelation from seeming ridiculous, the translators have taken a slight liberty with the text.

Verse 25. It is hard to understand why Canaan should be cursed because his father, Ham, accidentally walked into a tent and saw Noah naked. If Ham even deserved a curse, it is no reason for cursing his son, who was no party to his father's offence.

Chapter x. There are scarcely any of the names contained in this or the preceding or following chapter, until we come to Abraham, which are now used amongst the Jews. Paine says, 'If they (the Jews) affix the same idea of reality to those names as they do to those that follow after, the names of Adam, Abel, Seth, etc., would be as common among the Jews of the present day, as are those of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron.

'In the superstition they have been in, scarcely a Jew family would be without an Enoch, as a presage of his going to heaven as ambassador for the whole family. Every mother who wished that the days of her son might be long in the land, would call him Methuselah; and all the Jews that might have to traverse the ocean would be named Noah, as a charm against shipwreck and drowning.'

Chapter xi., v. 1. If the whole earth was of one tongue, what do verses 5, 20, and 31 of the preceding chapter mean?

Voltaire says, 'People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having divided among themselves the islands of the nations, and established themselves in divers lands, with each one his particular language, family, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of Shinaar to build there a tower, saying, "Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

'The book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia all came to Shinaar, speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing.

'The Vulgate places the deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the construction of the Tower of Babel, 1771; that is to say, one hundred and fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life of Noah.

'Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high, we are amazed at so stupendous a work.

'It is a pity that there remains not on the earth, among the profane authors, one vestige of the famous Tower of Babel; nothing of this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe, as the names of Noah, Methusalem, Cain, and Adam and Eve.'

It seems scarcely probable that a multitude of people, forming so many nations, could be got together in one plain; and if they were, why should they fear being scattered?

Verse 5. 'The Lord came down.' This idea pervades the book—that is, that God resides in heaven, above the earth, and that he leaves heaven occasionally and comes down to earth, and after having finished his business, goes up again to heaven. The writer appears to have had no conception that God could see from heaven to earth, but makes God come down to ascertain whether the tale which had reached him in heaven be true. Unfortunately, even after ignoring the attribute of omnipresence in relation to God, the idea is not a correct one. That which is above me when I look up and pray is not above the New Zealander, if he looks up and prays at the same instant. The powers above to him would be the powers below to me. The verse implies that God could not see the tower until he came down.

Verses 6 and 7. Who did God speak to? 'Let us go down;' who are 'us?' Did the Almighty actually fear lest his creatures should build a tower so high that they might scramble into heaven without his assistance? The whole of this account is absurd in the extreme. Dr. John Pye Smith says that 'the confusion of language was probably only to a certain point, not destroying cognation.' I do not the better understand the story with the aid of this comment. The only thing proved by the elaborate commentaries of many divines is, that they gave God the credit of inspiring an inexplicable revelation, and that, instead of endeavouring to make it explicable, they burden the margin of the book with suppositions which only increase the difficulties of the text. Verse 26. 'And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram.'

Verse 32. 'And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.'

Chapter xii., v. 1. And the Lord said to Abram, 'Get thee out,' etc. So that Abram must have been one hundred and thirty-five years old when he left Haran; but, according to verse 4 it appears that Abram was only seventy-five years of age. This has been regarded as an inexplicable difficulty by St. Jerome and St. Augustine; and I, who am not a saint, must confess with Voltaire that I cannot understand how a man can be seventy-five and one hundred and thirty-five years of age at the same time.

Chapter xii., v. 1, 2, 3, and 7; chap, xiii., v. 14, 15, 16, and 17; chap, xv., v. 5, 6, 7, and 18; chap, xvii., v. 7 and 8; chap, xviii., v. 18; chap, xxii., v. 17 and 18; chap, xxvi., v. 3 and 4.; chap, xxviii., v. 14.

These verses contain the solemn promise, the more solemn covenant, and the most solemn oath of God; this promise, covenant, and oath all being to one effect—namely, that Abraham's children should be as numerous as the dust of the earth, or the stars of heaven, and that this numerous progeny should possess certain specified land for ever. There is a difficulty in comprehending why God, who is no respector of persons, should have selected Abraham and his descendants for such great reward; but waiving this, we find several questions requiring answer. Who are Abraham's descendants? Not the Jews; their number is very limited. Where are Abraham's descendants? Not in the promised land, most certainly.

If Abraham's descendants are the Jews, then I say that they have never been as numerous as God promised, covenanted, and swore they should be. I say that they have not held the promised land for ever. It may be that this promise is yet to be fulfilled; it is quite certain that it is unfulfilled up to the present time.

Chapter xii., v. 11 to 20. The account of the chosen of God having recourse to a lie to pass off his wife for his sister, deserves notice. When this happens twice (chap. 20), it excites suspicion; and when it occurs a third time in the same country to the son of Abraham, it creates doubt as to the truth of the whole. Voltaire writes thus of Abraham:—

'The Scripture says that the God of the Jews, who intended to give them the land of Canaan, commanded Abraham to leave the fertile country of Chaldea, and go towards Palestine, promising that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. It is for theologians to explain, by allegory and mystical sense, how all the nations of the earth were to be blessed in a seed from which they did not descend, since this much-to-be-venerated mystical sense cannot be made the object of a work purely critical. A short time after these promises, Abraham's family was afflicted by famine, and went into Egypt for corn. It is singular that the Hebrews never went into Egypt but when pressed by hunger; for Jacob afterwards sent his children on the same errand.

'Abraham, who was then very old, went this way with his wife Sarah, aged sixty-five; she was very handsome, and Abraham feared that the Egyptians, smitten by her charms, would kill him in order to enjoy her transcendent beauties; he proposed to her that she should pass for his sister, etc. Human nature must at that time have possessed a vigour which time and luxury have since very much weakened. That which Abraham had foreseen came to pass; the Egyptian youth found his wife charming, notwithstanding her sixty-five years; the king himself fell in love with her, and placed her in his seraglio, though, probably, he had younger females there; but the Lord plagued the king and his seraglio with very great sores. The text does not tell us how the king came to know that this dangerous beauty was Abraham's wife; but it seems that he did come to know it, and restored her.

'Sarah's beauty must have been unalterable; for, twenty-five years afterwards, when she was ninety years old, pregnant, and travelling with her husband through the dominions of a King of Phoenicia, named Abimelech, Abraham, who had not yet corrected himself, made her a second time pass for his sister. The Phoenician King was as sensible to her attractions as the King of Egypt had been; but God appeared to this Abimelech in a dream, and threatened him with death if he touched his new mistress. It must be confessed that Sarah's conduct was as extraordinary as the lasting nature of her charms.

'The singularity of these adventures was probably the reason why the Jews had not the same sort of faith in their histories which they had in their Leviticus. There was not a single iota of their law in which they did not believe; but the historical part of their Scriptures did not command the same respect. Their conduct in regard to their ancient books may be compared to that of the English, who received the laws of St. Edward without absolutely believing that St. Edward cured the scrofula; or that of the Romans, who, while they obeyed their primitive laws, were not obliged to believe in the miracles of the sieve filled with water, the ship drawn to the shore by a vestal's girdle, the stone cut with a razor, and so forth.'

Chapter xiii., v. 7 and 18, as before observed, could not have been written by Moses, (see p. 5.)

Chapter xiv., v. 1 to 16. This victory of Abraham over four mighty kings is, if true, a very wonderful one. It is quite clear that Chedorlaomer was a very powerful monarch, having other monarchs for his vassals. Amraphel was the king of the mighty empire of Babylon, doubtless not so grand as it afterwards became, but still one of the most powerful of the then monarchies of the world. These are assisted by two other kings; one of whom is described as the king of nations. The four allies make war upon certain kings, five in number; and, according to verse 10, they fight, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fall in the vale of Siddim.

Abraham, hearing that Lot, his relative, was taken prisoner, took three hundred and eighteen men, and, by night, pursued and smote the four allied kings, and recaptured his brother. As he went near to Damascus in pursuit, he must have travelled more than one hundred miles, beside crossing some very mountainous country; this, of course, enhances the character of the victory. One of the fruits of this triumph seems to have been, that the King of Sodom, who is killed in verse 10, comes to meet Abraham, alive and well, in verse 17. Verse 18. 'Melchizedek;' who was he? Before answering this question, read Psalm ex., v. 4, Hebrews, chap, v., v. 6, 10, and 11, chap, vii., and chap, viii., v. 1. In the verse we are examining, he is described as [———] (melekitzedek)— [———] (melek) [———] (shelem).

What does this mean? Melekitzedek or Melchizedek; 'first by interpretation King of Righteousness, and after that the King of Salem, which is, the King of Peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life'—vide Hebrews, chap, vii., v. 3.

This description does not answer to any man who ever lived on the face of the earth; nearly everybody claims to have had a father and a grandfather; everybody has had a mother. Everybody was one hour old before he grew older; and after existing some few score years, more or less, every man has, sooner or later, died. So Melchizedek could not have been a man. In Malachi, chap iv., v. 2, we find [———] (Chemesh zedek); this is translated Sun of Righteousness, and it is only to the sun that the description of Melchizedek will apply. The ancients looked upon the sun as the everlasting source of all existence, and personified it in various names; Melchizedek, king of the zodiac, appears to be one of the Bible personifications. But supposing Melchizedek to be not a real person, what becomes of the story of Abraham giving him tithes of his spoils? If this story be not fact, how much is allegory?

Is any portion of the history of Abraham a fact? In chap, xvi., we find part of the history of Hagar and Sarai; while, in Galatians, chap, iv., v. 24 and 25, we are told that whole history is an allegory, and that Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia, and Sarai the City of Jerusalem, which is 'above.'

If it be taken as a relation of fact, we find Sarah, the chosen of God, ill-treating a woman of her household, causing her to fly into the desert when in a state of health requiring great care; and we further find that God prophecies for the yet unborn child, 'That his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.' If all things are in the order and disposition of God, he did not order and dispose them very well for poor Ishmael. But perhaps the God of the Jews, like the slaveowner, had not the same consideration for those born in bondage as for their masters.

Chapter xv., v. 13. If this four hundred years refers to the Egyptian captivity, it is four hundred and thirty years according to Exodus, chap, xii., v. 40 and 41 (also see Galatians, chap, iii., v. 17); but, according to the Bible chronology, it is only about two hundred years. It is impossible to give credit to one more than the other; for Genesis, Exodus, and Chronology, while they contradict one another, are not supported by any other evidence themselves. Verse 18 to end. Ten nations are specified here; in Joshua, chap, iii., v. 10, seven only are mentioned; in Deuteronomy, chap. xxii v. 17, six; in Exodus, chap, iii., v. 17, and chap, xxiii., v. 23, six; 2 Chronicles, chap, viii., v. 7, five only. The land from the Nile to the Euphrates has never yet been in the undisturbed possession of the Jews; large portions have never been in their possession for a single moment, so that this promise has never been performed.

Chapter xvi., v. 13. In the Douay this is translated, 'And she called the name of the Lord that spoke unto her, thou the God who hast seen me; for she said, verily here have I seen the hinder parts of him that seeth me.' The reader will perceive a strange difference in the two texts. If the Douay be the correct translation, where are the hinder parts of a God who is without parts? (vide thirty-nine articles).

Chapter xvii., v. 1. 'And the Lord appeared to Abraham.' Verse 3. 'And Abraham fell on his face.' Verse 17. 'Then Abraham fell on his face.' Verse 23. 'And he left off talking with him; and God went up from Abraham.'

The intent of this chapter is to induce a belief that the Lord appeared in person to Abraham; and that, after he had talked with him for some time, he left and went up. It is also intended to convey that Abraham showed his respect to the Lord bv falling down before him; and, according to the Douay, 'flat on his face.' I have before remarked on this going up and coming down, which is utterly inconsistent with any idea of an infinite and omnipotent God. I do not wish to fill my pages with mere repetitions, and shall, therefore, at once deal with Genesis, chap, xvii., v. 1 and 22, chap, xviii., v. 1, 2, 7, and 8, chap, xxii., v. 11 and 15, chap, xxvi., v. 2 and 24, chap. xxviii., v. 13, chap, xxxii., v. 30, and chap, xxxv., v. 7, 9, and 13. It is quite clear that the author of these verses in Genesis considered not only God was material, and could be seen, but also considered God in the light of a superior or more powerful being than man, yet of somewhat the same form and passions. Man is represented as made in the image of God. Men, Gods, and Angels are strangely confused together; angels are spoken of in three characters—viz., as intermediatory messengers, as inferior Gods, and as God. This would be sufficient of itself to cause great confusion. God is spoken of in this book as eating, talking, walking, going up and down, grieving, repenting, and swearing, making impossible covenants and never keeping them, fearing lest man should eat of the tree of life and live for ever, or that he should build a tower which should reach to heaven. In the eighteenth chapter, the terms 'Angels,' 'Men,' and 'Lord,' are indiscriminately used in reference to the same persons.

In the twenty-second chapter, the angel of the Lord calls from heaven to Abraham. What are angels? Voltaire says—

'Angel, in Greek, envoy. The reader will hardly be the wiser for being told that the Persians had their peris, the Hebrews their melakim, and the Greeks their demonoi.

'But it is, perhaps, better worth knowing that one of the first of man's ideas has always been, to place intermediate beings between the Divinity and himself; such were those demons, those genii, invented in the ages of antiquity. Man always made the Gods after his own image; princes were seen to communicate their orders by messengers; therefore, the Divinity had also his couriers. Mercury and Iris were couriers or messengers. The Jews, the only people under the conduct of the Divinity himself, did not, at first, give names to the angels whom God vouchsafed to send them; they borrowed the names given them by the Chaldeans, when the Jewish nation was captive in Babylon; Michael and Gabriel are named for the first time by Daniel, a slave among those people. The Jew Tobit, who lived at Nineveh, knew the angel Raphael, who travelled with his son to assist him in recovering the money due to him from the Jew Gabael.

'In the laws of the Jews, that is, in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, not the least mention is made of the existence of the angels, much less of the worship of them; neither did the Sadducees believe in the angels.

'But, in the histories of the Jews, they are much spoken of. The angels were corporeal; they had wings at their backs, as the Gentiles feigned that Mercury had at his heels; sometimes they concealed their wings under their clothing. How could they be without bodies, since they all ate and drank?

'The ancient Jewish tradition, according to Ben Maimon, admits ten degrees, ten orders of angels.

'The Christian religion is founded on the fall of the angels. Those who revolted were precipitated from the spheres which they inhabited into hell, in the centre of the earth, and became devils. A devil, in the form of a serpent, tempted Eve, and damned mankind. Jesus came to redeem mankind, and to triumph over the devil, who tempts us still. Yet this fundamental tradition is to be found nowhere but in the apochryphal book of Enoch; and there it is in a form quite different from that of the received tradition.

'It is not known precisely where the angels dwell—whether in the air, in the void, or in the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.'

Chapter xvii., v. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. According to the latter verse, no uncircumcised man will be admitted into heaven; so the Mahomedans would get in and Christians be excluded. The following will be found in the Philosophical Dictionary under the head 'Circumcision.' '"It appears," says Herodotus, in his book Euterpe, 'that the inhabitants of Colchis sprang from Egypt. I judge so from my own observations, rather than from hearsay; for I found that, at Colchis, the ancient Egyptians were more frequently recalled to my mind than the ancient customs of Colchis were, when I was in Egypt.

'"These inhabitants of the shores of the Euxine sea stated themselves to be a colony founded by Sesostris. As for myself, I should think this probable, not merely because they are dark and wooly-haired, but because the inhabitants of Colchis, Egypt, and Ethiopia, are the only people in the world who, from time immemorial, have practised circumcision; for the Phoenicians and the people of Palestine confess that they adopted the practice from the Egyptians. The Syrians, who at present inhabit the banks of Thermodon, acknowledge that it is, comparatively, but recently that they have conformed to it. It is principally from this usage that they are considered of Egyptian origin.

'"With respect to Ethiopia and Egypt, as this ceremony is of great antiquity in both nations, I cannot by any means ascertain which has derived it from the other. It is, however, probable that the Ethiopians received it from the Egyptians; while, on the contrary, the Phoenicians have abolished the practice of circumcising new-born children since the enlargement of their commerce with the Greeks."

'From this passage of Herodotus, it is evident that many people had adopted circumcision; but no nation ever pretended to have received it from the Jews. To whom, then, can we attribute the origin of this custom; to a nation from whom five or six others acknowledge they took it, or to another nation, much less powerful, less commercial, less warlike, hid away in a corner of Arabia Petraea, and which never communicated any one of its usages to any other people?

'The Jews admit that they were, many ages since, received in Egypt out of charity. Is it not probable that the lesser people imitated a usage of the superior one, and that the Jews adopted some customs from their masters?

'Clement of Alexandria relates that Pythagoras, when travelling among the Egyptians, was obliged to be circumcised, in order to be admitted to their mysteries. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary to be circumcised to be a priest in Egypt. Those priests existed when Joseph arrived in Egypt. The government was of great antiquity, and the ancient ceremonies of the country were observed with the most scrupulous exactness. (Joseph was married into the family of the Priest of the Sun before his relations had established any religious system.)

'The Jews acknowledge that they remained in Egypt two hundred and five years (the Bible says four hundred and thirty). They say that, during that period, they did not become circumcised. It is clear, then, that for two hundred and five years, the Egyptians did not receive circumcision from the Jews. Would they have adopted it from them after the Jews had stolen the vessels which they had lent them, and, according to their own account, fled with their plunder into the wilderness? Will a master adopt the principal symbol of the religion of a robbing and runaway slave? It is not in human nature.

'It is stated in the book of Joshua that the Jews were circumcised in the wilderness. "I have delivered you from what constituted your reproach among the Egyptians." But what could this reproach be, to a people living between Phoenicians, Arabians, and Egyptians, but something which rendered them contemptible to these three nations?'

Chapter xviii., v. 1. The Lord appeared, according to verse 2, in the shape of three men, who wash their feet and sit down under a tree, and eat cakes, butter, milk, and veal, until the tenth verse, when they become only one, and it is 'he said.' This he would, according to verse 13, appear to be the Lord; but, in verse 16, we go back to 'the men' again, who walk with Abraham. During the walk, the Lord speaks (verse 17), and, in verse 22, the Lord is mentioned separately from 'the men.' Verses 20 and 21. This is scarcely the language to be expected from an omniscient God. It is here stated that a report of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah has reached God; that God is uncertain and ignorant as to the correctness of the report, and that he is determined to go down to the city to ascertain the truth for himself. This is just what an ignorant and superstitious man might fancy, but not that which we should expect a God would reveal. The argumentative conversation between God and Abraham, and the strange comment, that, after the conversation was finished, 'the Lord went his way,' are worthy of notice. The Douay Bible explains this chapter in a foot-note, as follows:—'The Lord here accommodates his discourse to the way of speaking and acting amongst men, for he knoweth all things, and needeth not to go anywhere for information. Note here that two of the three angels went away immediately for Sodom, while the third, who represented the Lord, remained with Abraham.' How is this ascertained? This comment is, like all the rest, a barefaced attempt to make falsehood appear like truth; but failing in the attempt, because, like upon the contact of fire with water, a loud hiss is always raised against those who endeavour to mix falsehood with truth.

Chapter xix. My original publishers and my present printer, more moral than the Queen's printers, decline to print or publish any comment upon, or any quotations from, the obscene part of this chapter. In defence of the publishers, I may observe that, if this chapter was in any book but the Bible, and was published by any one not well protected by the aristocracy, he would be most assuredly prosecuted by the Society for Suppression of Vice; Regent Street, a few Lords, a Duke or Marauis, a Bishop, or the Bible, will, however, cover with mystery, and varnish over with fashion, that, which if stript of its tawdry gewgaws or solemn black cloak, is nothing but disgusting and degrading immorality.

I shall, therefore, pass with but scant notice, and without the slightest attempt at examination, all those chapters or verses which may be classed under the head 'obscene.'

It is said that the Bible would not be an authentic history unless it contained such chapters as this, and that the relation is given for the purpose of showing that God condemned and punished such conduct, and as a warning and example to futurity. Now, I feel that 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' and, although I regret that God made such an unfortunate mistake in selecting a family who trained up such bad children, when he drowned everybody beside, yet I cannot admire and reverence his conduct in leaving them to fall into disgusting crime for the purpose of furnishing us with the horrid scene of the inhabitants of two cities burnt alive.

Lot's wife being changed into a pillar of salt, is a chemical problem not easy of solution. 'Looking back' seems scarcely sufficient to account for the transmutation. Jesus told his disciples that they were the salt of the earth; perhaps they were descended from Lot's wife.

Chapter xx. This has been before adverted to in the general remarks on Abraham. Newman, in his 'Phases of Faith,' asks, 'What was I to make of God's anger with Abimelech, whose sole offence was the having believed Abraham's lie? for which a miraculous barrenness was sent on all the females of Abimelech's tribe, and was bought off only by splendid presents to the favoured deceiver.'

According to verse 6, Abimelech was not free and responsible; this makes the punishment still more remarkable; and why punish others for Abimelech's offence (if offence was really committed)? If God withheld Abimelech from committing sin, why is he not as merciful to every one? it would be more Godlike to prevent sin than to punish the sinner.

Chapter xxi., v. 12 and 14. The sending Hagar and Ishmael into the desert with only one bottle of water is cruel and barbarous conduct. Abraham does not seem to have had much parental affection; his first-born son he turned out into the desert with a small amount of food and water, and he prepared to cut the throat of his second son without the slightest hesitation.

God informed Abraham that in Isaac should the great promise be fulfilled; and on this Ishmael was sent away. Voltaire says—

'It was in Isaac that the race of the Patriarch was to be blessed; yet Isaac was father only of an unfortunate and contemptible nation, who were for a long period slaves, and have, for a still longer, been dispersed. Ishmael, on the contrary, was the father of the Arabs; who, in course of time, established the empire of the Caliphs, one of the most powerful and most extensive in the world.'

Verses 30 and 31. In chap, xxvi., v. 25, 32, and 33, we are told that it was not Abraham, but the servants of Isaac who digged the well; and that it was not Abraham, but Isaac who called the name of the place Beersheba. Which is correct, or were there two Beer-shebas? The thirty-third verse reads, 'Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.' The Rev. Dr. Giles adds, 'It is sufficient to remark that no city of Beersheba existed in the time of Moses; consequently, the Book in which it is found could not have been written by Moses or any of his contemporaries.'

Chapter xxii., v. 1. 'God did tempt Abraham.' It is quite clear that James, 'a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,' did not believe this verse; for, in his epistle to the twelve tribes, chap, i., v. 13, he says, that God never tempteth any man.

Verse 2. In the Douay, Abraham is told to go 'into the land of vision,' in our version, 'into the land of Moriah.' The Bible is so much made up of dreams and visions, that we cannot wonder the preachers should chiefly discourse upon castles in the air and crowns in heaven, not to be looked at in the present life, but to be enjoyed without stint in the next. It is one drawback that we are all to die first, because men may well doubt whether their decaying and decayed remains will rise again with capacity to enjoy the good things. This influences all; per example, assuming a bishop to be a sincere believer, we all know that he is reluctant to retire without his five shillings in this world, even while upheld by his faith in the crown he is to receive in the world to come. Any doubter can satisfy his conscience by reference to the late debates on the retiring bishop's bill.

Verse 4. Abraham does not speak the truth when he tells the young men that he and the young lad will return after worshipping, because at that time he intends to kill Isaac. I do not wish to imply by this criticism that I expect to find Abraham speaking the truth, because such an implication would not be justified. Abraham might have respected truth, perhaps did, but he kept a long way from it very often (vide his before-mentioned adventures with Pharaoh and Abimelech). Abraham even deceived his own son; see verses 7 and 8. On this Voltaire remarks—

'It seems astonishing that God, after causing Isaac to be born of a centenary father and a woman of ninety-five, should afterwards have ordered that father to murder the son whom he had given him, contrary to every expectation. This strange order from God seems to show that, at the time when this history was written, the sacrifice of human victims was customary amongst the Jews, as it afterwards became in other nations, as witness the vow of Jephtha.'

Newman adds, 'Paul and James agree in extolling Abraham as the pattern of faith; James and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews specify the sacrifice of Isaac as a first-rate fruit of faith; yet, if the voice of morality is allowed to be heard, Abraham was (in heart and intention) not less guilty than those who sacrificed their children to Molech.' See also 'Phases of Faith,' p. 91.

Verse 14. 'And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah jireh;' in Exodus, chap, vi., v. 3, God says positively that he was not known to Abraham by the name Jehovah; which is true? If Abraham called the name of the place Jehoveh jireh, he must have known the Lord by that name; either the account as to Abraham is untrue, or God had forgotten or made a mistake in Exodus. Which ever supposition is adopted, the Bible ceases to have any claim on us as a revelation from a truthful deity.

Verse 16. 'By myself have I sworn.' Can my readers imagine any form of oath an omnipotent, eternal, and infinite God would be like to use? Is God's oath to be considered more binding than his word? In our day, if a man swear to an untruth, We call it perjury; but, although God did not keep his oath, we must remember that his ways are not as our ways.

Chapter xxiii., verses 2 and 19, and verses 15 and 16 have been before noticed on page 5.

Chapter xxiv., v. 1. Abraham, in his old age, was more vigorous than in his youth and prime of life; for, by chap, xxv., v. 1 to 3, we learn that after this he took another one, and had six sons, and, by chap, xxv., v. 6, it would appear that he had other wives and children.

Verse 3. The conduct of Abraham and of God, as previously detailed, as to oath-taking, is disapproved in Matthew, chap, v., v. 34 to 37, and James, chap, v., v. 12.

Chapter xxv., v. 5 and 6. If Abraham gave 'all that he had' unto Isaac, what kind of gifts did his other children get?

Verse 8. One would scarcely fancy when reading the life of Abraham and this conclusion, that he had died younger than any of his predecessors on record. The Douay has it, 'and decaying, he died in a good old age, and having lived a long time.' Why, instead of dying in a good old age, he had lived a much shorter period than any of his ancestors, and the verse, to be in accordance with the previous chapters, ought to have lamented his premature death.

Verse 23. God seems to have a preference for younger sons; the dutiful Ishmael (who, though turned out into the desert to starve, forgot his wrongs, and attended to place his father's body in the grave) was set aside for his younger brother Isaac. The truthful, manly, and forgiving elder born Esau is supplanted by the crafty, cowardly, and untruthful Jacob.

Chapter xxvi., v. 7 to 11. Of this adventure happening a third time in the history of father and son, and a second time in the same country, Professor Newman says, 'Allowing that such a thing was barely not impossible, the improbability was so intense as to demand the strictest and most cogent proof; yet, when we asked who testified it, no proof appeared that it was Moses; or, supposing it to be he, what his sources of knowledge were'—and, on chap, xxvii.,' Was it at all credible that the lying and fraudulent Jacob should be so specially loved by God?'

Verse 34. These wives are differently named and described in chap, xxxvi., v. 2 and 3.

Chapter xxviii., v. 11. Even in a dream, the idea of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven to enable God and his angels to go up and down is rather ludicrous. The Douay says that Jacob 'saw the ladder in his sleep.' A dream, in Genesis, is intended to have a stronger significance than we should attach to it; we are told that God often appeared to various persons in dreams. The writer of Genesis evidently conceived a ladder necessary to enable God to get up to heaven, in the same style in which you or I might ascend to the roof of a house.

Verse 20. The inference from this conditional statement is, that if God does not keep, clothe, and feed Jacob, then he shall not be Jacob's God. Jacob was rather a shrewd fellow; he did not want to be religious for nothing.

Verse 22. How can a stone be God's house, and what benefit would tithes be to God?

Chapter xxix., v. 5. Laban was the son of Bethuel, not the son of Nahor; see chap, xxv., v. 20. Verse 17. The Douay says that Leah was blear-eyed. Verse 25. The cunning Jacob was outwitted by Laban, his uncle.

The bickerings between Jacob and his wives, and the curious mode of cheating Laban (chap, xxx., v. 32 to 42), need no comment other than that of surprise that a special providence should interfere to make women fruitful or barren, or to make sheep of divers colours, white, black, brown, speckled, spotted, grisled, and ringstraked—extraordinary sheep those. In the Douay and Breeches Bibles, the word 'sheep' stands instead of 'cattle' in our version. Perhaps the authorised translators had never seen sheep so peculiar as those first described:

Chapter xxxi., v. 53. Who is the God of Nahor?

Chapter xxxii., v. 1. Who are the 'Angels of God?'

Verses 24 to 30. If any meaning is intended to be conveyed by; these verses, it is that the omnipotent and infinite God and his creature Jacob wrestled all night, and that in the morning God, finding that Jacob was as strong and clever at wrestling as himself, unfairly puts Jacob's thigh out of joint; notwithstanding which, Jacob refused to let let go his hold of God Almighty until he had given him his blessing. I will not comment on this, because, to Freethinkers, the matter is too absurd, and, to Believers, too outrageous for remark.

On verse 32, the Rev. Dr. Giles remarks, 'This reference to a custom still existing among the Israelites, seems decidedly to indicate a later date than that of Moses. No one has ventured to assert that the Mosaic Law was observed by the Jews before it was instituted by Moses. Now, the words of the passage before us seem to show that the Israelites had, for a long time, abstained from eating the sinew which shrank. Moses, being conscious that this custom was ordained by himself, could hardly have used such language, or have claimed such great antiquity as the words seem to indicate.'

Verse 3 to 22, and chap, xxxiii., v. 1 to 15. Read this account attentively, and then ask yourselves which of the brothers was the more worthy of the promise—Esau, cozened out of his birthright, swindled out of his father's blessing, yet forgetting and forgiving when he had the power to crush and punish; or Jacob, the cheater, the liar, and the coward.

Chapter xxxiii., v. 19: In the Douay, instead of 'a hundred pieces of money,' we are told that Jacob gave the children of Hamor 'a hundred lambs.'

Verse 20 is thus translated; 'And raising an altar there, he invoked upon it the most mighty God of Israel.'

Whether Douay or Protestant translation be correct, it is quite certain that Jacob was a little too fast—there was no [————] (al alei ishral)—Jacob was not called Israel until chap, xxxv., v. 10—so that the 'El-elohe-Israel' of our version, and the 'most mighty God of Israel' of the Douay, are both out of place unless Jacob used the words in the spirit of prophecy, which will explain many difficult passages.

Chapter xxxiv. Upon this chapter Voltaire indulges in criticism more pungent than before:—

'Here our critics exclaim in terms of stronger disgust than ever. What! say they, the son of a king is desirous to marry a vagabond girl; the marriage is approved; Jacob, the father, and Dinah, the daughter, are loaded with presents; the King of Sichem deigns to receive those wandering robbers, called patriarchs, within his city; he has the incredible politeness or kindness to undergo, with his son, his court, and his people, the rite of circumcision, thus condescending to the superstition of a petty horde that could not call half a league of territory their own! And, in return for this astonishing hospitality and goodness, how do our holy patriarchs act? They wait for the day when the process of circumcision generally induces fever; when Simeon and Levi run through the whole city with poignards in their hands and massacre the king, the prince his son, and all the inhabitants. We are precluded from the horror appropriate to this infernal counterpart of the tragedy of St. Bartholomew, only by a sense of its absolute impossibility. It is an abominable romance; but it is evidently a ridiculous romance. It is impossible that two men could have slaughtered in quiet the whole population of a city. The people might suffer, in a slight degree, from the operation which had preceded; but, notwithstanding this, they would have risen in self-defence against two diabolical miscreants; they would have instantly assembled, would have surrounded them, and destroyed them with the summary and complete vengeance merited by their atrocity.

'But there is a still more palpable impossibility. It is that, according to the accurate computation of time, Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, could be only four or five years old; and that, even by forcing up chronology as far as possible in favour of the narrative, she could, at the very most, be only eight. It is here, then, that we are assailed with bursts of indignant exclamation. What! it is said, what! is it this book—the book of a rejected and reprobate people—a book so long unknown to all the world—a book in which sound reason and decent manners are outraged in every page—that is held up to us as irrefragable, holy, and dictated by God himself? Is it not even impious to believe it? or could anything less than the fury of cannibals urge to the persecution of sensible and modest men for not believing it?'

Chapter xxxv., v. 11. Although kings were to come out of Jacob's loins by promise, Esau's issue have been quite as successful, in fact rather more so, without any of God's assistance.

Verse 22, and chap, xlix., v. 3 and 4. The family to whom God promised 'the land,' seem to have been as immoral and vicious as any on record. Abraham has been noticed; the conduct of Lot, his family, and neighbours I dare not comment on; Isaac was pretty free from blame, except in the matter of Rebekah; but his goodness is overborne by the rascality of his son Jacob and his wife, Rachel, who (worthy partner of such a husband) robs her own father—the cutthroat propensities of Simeon and Levi—and the licentiousness of Reuben.

Chapter xxxv., end of verse 22 to verse 26. Dr. Giles speaks of the inaccuracy of the last verse, as follows:—

'"These are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan-Aram."

'But it is well known that Benjamin was born some years after Jacob returned to Canaan. The text, therefore, is incorrect, and creates a serious difficulty, if we suppose that Moses, writing in the presence of God, could have been liable to such an error.'

Chapter xxxvi., v. 2 and 3, are contradicted in chap, xxvi., v. 34.

Verses 14, 16, and 18. It is difficult to discover from this whether Korah was the son or grandson of Esau, as he is described in both characters.

Verse 31 has been referred to on page 6. In Dr. Giles's 'Hebrew Records,' page 140, the critical reader will find the matter discussed more fully than my pages allow.

Chapter xxxvii., v. 1. In the Douay, instead of 'wherein his father was a stranger,' it reads,' wherein his father sojourned;' and, in verse 2, instead of 'seventeen,' it reads 'sixteen,' and states that Joseph 'accused his brethren to his father of a most wicked crime.'

Verses 25, 27, and 28. These verses are criticised in the 'Hebrew Records' as follows:—

'Here the merchants, to whom Joseph is sold, are twice called Ishmaelites, and once Midianites. Bishop Patrick explains the inconsistency in the following extraordinary manner:—

'"Ishmaelites. They are called below Midianites. These people were near neighbours to each other, and were joined together in one company, or caravan, as it is now called. It is the custom, even to the present day, in the East, for merchants and others to travel through the deserts in large companies, for fear of robbers or wild beasts."

'If the passage to which these comments are annexed, occurred in one of the famous Greek or Latin historians—Livy, Thucydides, or any other—such a note would not, for one instant, be taken as sound criticism, because none of those able writers would be guilty of such an absurdity as applying two names, known to be distinct, to the same people, within the space of four lines. If some idle and weakly written tale contained the inconsistency, the mode of interpreting it, which Bishop Patrick applies to the passage before us, might be passed over, but, even then, more from its being of no importance, than from its soundness or its propriety. But, when we find this discrepancy in a work which professes to be inspired, it is highly desirable that such an inconsistency or discrepancy should be cleared up. Why have none of the commentators remarked on the singular circumstance of there being Ishmaelitish merchants at all, in the time when Joseph was sold into Egypt? Ishmael was Jacob's uncle, being brother to Isaac, Jacob's father. The family of Ishmael could not have increased to such an extent in the time of which the history treats. The mention of Ishmaelites, in the text before us, indicates that the writer lived many generations later, when Ishmaelitish merchants were well known. Still less likely is it that there were Midianitish merchants in those days; for Midian was also one of the sons of Abraham, and fifty-four years younger than Isaac; see chap, xxv., y. 2. At all events, the variation in the name of this tribe of merchantmen renders it impossible that Moses could have written the narrative, unless we suppose that, when he had it in his power to describe the matter accurately and definitely, he rather chose to relate it in such a manner as to puzzle all future ages as to its exact meaning.'

Verse 35. In the Douay, the word 'hell' is substituted for the word 'grave.' The Hebrew is [———] (shale). Jacob believed his son devoured by wild beasts, and, therefore, could have hardly expected to find him in his grave; and, although hell might, perhaps, be the appropriate receptacle for one who had been so great a rascal as Jacob, yet, I much doubt whether he ever expressed his intention to go there to find his son. I must refer my more precise readers to the various controversial works written by various shades of Catholic and Protestant divines, on the words 'purgatory,' 'limbo,' 'hell,' and 'grave.'

Verse 36. The word [———] translated 'officer,' means eunuch, and is so translated in the Douay; if this be correct, we can scarcely wonder at the conduct of Potiphar's wife, as detailed in chap, xxxix.

Chapter xxxviii Judah and his children are a still further illustration of the happy and moral family in whom all the nations of the world were to be blessed. The following is quoted from Voltaire:—

'The Rev. Father Dom Calmet makes this reflection, in alluding to the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis:—"Scripture," he observes, "gives us the details of a history, which, on the first perusal, strikes our minds as not of a nature for edification; but the hidden sense which is shut up in it is as elevated, as that of the mere letter appears low to carnal eyes. It is not without good reasons that the Holy Spirit has allowed the histories of Tamar, of Rahab, of Ruth, and of Bathsheba, to form a part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ."

'It might have been well, if Dom Calmet had explained these sound reasons, by which we might have cleared up the doubts, and appeased the scruples, of all the honest and timorous souls who are anxious to comprehend how this Supreme Being, the Creator of the world, could be born in a Jewish village, of a race of plunderers and of prostitutes. This mystery, which is not less inconceivable than other mysteries, was assuredly worthy the explanation of so able a commentator.'

Chapter xxxix. is inserted, I presume, by way of contrast, to heighten the effect produced by the previous chapter.

Chapter xl., v. 5, 8, 9, 12, and 16—chap, xli., v. 15 and 25. In Leviticus, chap, xix., v. 26, we find these words according to the Douay, 'You shall not divine nor observe dreams.'

Chapter xli., v. 38 and 39. One would imagine, by these verses, that Joseph and the Egyptians worshipped the same God, but this is not the fact; Pharaoh speaks to Moses of the Lord your God, and if the Egyptians had spoken in their usual manner, it would have been not to have praised Joseph for the Spirit of God being in him, but rather to have upbraided the infidel prisoner with having obtained his knowledge from the devil, unless, indeed, we are to assume that the religious Egyptians were more humane than the religious Christians. If Joseph had lived a few years later, he would have stood a fair chance of being stoned to death, for his divinations and fortune-telling (vide Exodus, chap, xxii., v. 18, and Deuteronomy, chap, xviii., v. 10, 11, and 12).

Verses 45 and 50. Potipherah is here called priest of On; in the Douay, he is denominated priest of Heliopolis. In plain truth, he was priest of the sun; and it might be instructive if it were possible to ascertain the reasons which induced the translators to hide Joseph's close connexion with sun worship.

Verse 56. This famine was over the whole earth, so that the favoured family of Abraham were worse off than the Egyptians, to whom God gave seven years' notice, to enable them to prepare against the coming trouble. We have all heard of people living on hope; and the children of Isaac might have hoped for the fulfilment of the promise, but such would be very unsubstantial food during a seven years' famine.

Chapter xliii., v. 32. How could it be considered an abomination for the Egyptians to eat with the Hebrews? the latter were only the descendants of Abraham, few in number, and the Egyptians could not have known of their existence until they made acquaintance with Joseph; and, by giving him the daughter of the high priest to wife, they had conferred great honour and favour on him—he was the first in the land, and the only Hebrew amongst them.

Chapter xliv., v. 5 and 15. Joseph, according to this, used to divine in a cup. My grandmother used to inspect the dregs of her tea cup, and prophesy wondrously; but it is really too much to expect us to find a creed in such a cup.

Chapter xlvi., v. 1 to 3. God again appeared in a vision at night, that is, Jacob dreamed that he saw God.

The Rev. Dr. Giles observes on verses 8 to 26:—

'An error is found also in the other catalogue of Jacob's children, who accompanied him into Egypt. The names occupy from verse 8 to 25 of Genesis, chap. xlvi. In verse 26 it is said:—

'"All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were three score and six."

'This total is erroneous, for the names, added properly, amount to sixty-seven; and a still greater difference is found between the Hebrew text and the Septuagint, in the twenty-seventh verse; the former makes "all the souls of the house of Jacob," to be "three score and ten," whereas the latter states them to have been seventy-five.

'We might set aside the authority of the Septuagint as inferior to that of the Hebrew in such a matter, were it not, that in St. Stephen's speech, in the Acts of the Apostles, chap, vii., v. 14, the number 75 is repeated; and an awkward dilemma is created, from which it is impossible to extricate ourselves, if these conflicting accounts, both written by inspiration, are to be considered as having come down to us in their original state. This may, with justice, be called in question; for Dean Shuckford, who supposes that the transcribers have added something in chap, xxxv., accuses them of having omitted something in chap, xlvi., of having added a verse in xlvi., 27, of the Septuagint, which is more full than the Hebrew, and, lastly, of having altered seventy into seventy-five, in chap. vii. of the Acts. It is difficult to imagine how a book, with which such liberties have been taken, can properly be regarded as an immaculate record. But the same mode of interpretation is entirely inapplicable to explain the remarkable fact, that, among those who accompanied Jacob into Egypt, are enumerated, in chap, xlvi., v. 21, ten sons of Benjamin, and, in v. 12, two grandsons of Judah, Hezron and Hamul. Jacob surely went into Egypt soon after the famine began; and Benjamin was then a lad, if we may trust the chronologers, under twenty years of age. The grandsons of Judah, through his son Pharez, could not have been born until many years later; for Pharez, their father, was only two or three years old when the whole family first entered the land of their servitude.

'In verse 34 it is said, as a reason for the Israelites being placed in the land of Goshen, that "every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians." But it appears, from every other part of the history of Joseph and Pharaoh, that there was no such enmity between them. This is also the opinion of Dr. Shuckford, whose account of the matter is as follows:—

'"There is, indeed, one passage in Genesis which seems to intimate that there was that religious hatred, which the Egyptians were afterwards charged with, paid to creatures even in the days of Joseph; for we are informed that he put his brethren upon telling Pharaoh their profession, in order to have them placed in the land of Goshen, for, or because, 'every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians,' Genesis, xlvi., v. 34. I must freely acknowledge that I cannot satisfy myself about the meaning of this passage; I cannot see that shepherds were really, at this time, an abomination to the Egyptians; for Pharaoh himself had his shepherds, and, when he ordered Joseph to place his brethren in the land of Goshen, he was so far from disapproving of their employment, that he ordered him, if he knew any men of activity amongst them, that he should make them rulers of his cattle; nay, the Egyptians were, at this time, shepherds themselves as well as the Israelites, for we are told, when their money failed, they brought their cattle of all sorts unto Joseph, to exchange them for corn, and, among the rest, their flocks of the same kind with those which the Israelites were to tell Pharaoh that it was their profession to take care of, as will appear to any one that will consult the Hebrew text in the places referred to. Either, therefore, we must take the expression that every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians to mean no more than that they thought meanly of the employment, that it was a lazy, idle, and inactive profession, as Pharaoh seemed to question whether there were any men of activity amongst them, when he heard what their trade was; or, if we take the words to signify a religious aversion to them, which does, indeed, seem to be the true meaning of the expression, from the use made of it in other parts of Scripture, then I do not see how it is reconcilable with Pharaoh's inclination to employ them himself, or with the Egyptians being many of them, at this time, of the same profession themselves, which the heathen writers agree with Moses in supposing them to be. [Diod. Sic., lib. 1],'" Though learned men have observed that there are several interpolations in the books of the Scriptures, which were not the words of the Sacred Writers, some persons, affecting to show their learning, when they read over the ancient MSS., would sometimes put a short remark in the margin, which they thought might give a reason for, or clear the meaning of, some expression in the text against which they placed it, or to which, they adjoined it; and from hence it happened, now and then, that the transcribers from manuscripts so remarked upon, did, through mistake, take a marginal note or remark into the text, imagining it to be a part of it. Whether Moses might not end his period in this place with the words, that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; and whether what follows, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians, may not have been added to the text in this way, is entirely submitted to the judgment of the learned. Connexion Book 5, vol. i., p. 341."

'The learned writer of this extract is more correct in his statement of the difficulty, than in its solution. It is a principle in criticism to consider a book as free from interpolation, until it is proved that interpolations have certainly been made. The charge of interpolation is brought against the books of the Old Testament for no other reason, than to reduce them into harmony with the preconceived opinion that they were written by the authors to whom they are commonly ascribed. In the present instance, there has been no interpolation.

The compiler, relating the honours paid to the family of Jacob in Egypt, and endeavouring to harmonise them with the state of things in his own times, 1,000 years later, when the Egyptians, by their religious absurdities, had been made to entertain an enmity towards shepherds, has given us a description which, in this particular, is inconsistent with itself. In short, the Egyptians held shepherds in aversion in the fifth, but not in the fifteenth, century before the Christian era.'

It is scarcely necessary to add to the above; but, if it were, it would be hard to reconcile there being an abomination with the eleventh verse of chap, xlvii., in which it is stated that Pharaoh gave these very people 'the best of the land, in the land of Rameses.'

Chapter xlviii., v. 22. Jacob's life contains no account of his wars with the Amorites; in fact, had it not been for these concluding words, I should have looked upon him as rather likely to gain victories by cozening and diplomatic swindling, than by his bow and sword.

Chapter 1., v. 10 and 11. These verses could not have been written by Moses, because Atad was not beyond but on this side Jordan to him. Joseph did not cross the Jordan to bury his rather.

Before quitting Genesis, I will endeavour, as briefly as possible, to sum up the effect of my partial examination (I say partial, because there are many differences in the readings of the various manuscripts, and in the translation of the different versions, which I passed without notice, because they have seemed to me to be of comparative unimportance). I have shown, in the foregoing pages—first, that in the authorised version the book claims our attention under false pretences, that, in fact, it is not, and in the original does not claim to be, the work of Moses; many passages he could not have written, of the rest, some passages are evidently taken from different manuscripts, and badly joined or fitted in, so as to make up the text as we have it, forming, in many cases, a twice or even thrice told tale, as in the accounts of the creation, of the flood, the adventures of Abraham's wife, and of Jacob's wife, etc. Second, that it is impossible the book can be a revelation from God, because it contains passages in relation to deity which are in themselves ridiculously absurd, because it speaks of more Gods than one, treating some as superior and some as inferior Gods, because it degrades the deity to the level of man, making him grieve and repent, and become subject to the same passions and feelings as man, liable to heat and cold, etc, because it treats of the deity as a finite being, occupying a small portion of space, travelling from one part of the earth to another, going up to heaven and coming down therefrom with the aid of a ladder; because it relates that God has, or sometimes assumes, a finite, substantial shape, which a man may lay hold of and wrestle with; because it pictures God as favouring, without apparent reason, some men in preference to others, and, in very many instances, choosing as the objects of his divine favour the worst possible characters, rewarding fraud and knavery with lands flowing with milk and honey, and discouraging and discountenancing virtuous conduct either by leaving it unnoticed or by depriving the unfortunate virtuous man of some benefit to which he appeared to be entitled; because it represents a just and Almighty God allowing the happiness of his own creatures to be destroyed by one of the animals he had created, and then cursing the tempted man and woman for being frail enough to fall at the first temptation, when, in fact, he (God) was the cause of that very frailty; because it represents the same Deity pledging his oath to a promise which he either never intended to perform, or which he did not possess the ability to perform, or which he afterwards wilfully broke.

Third.—That it cannot be relied on as a relation of actual occurrences, because, in the account of the creation, science has enabled us to detect several positively false statements in the account of the flood; also several gross and palpable mis-statements occur; because, in dealing with dates and genealogical statements, it contradicts and confuses its own narrative; because, even where it pretends to be the most real, it is alleged, in another book of the same Bible, to be purely allegorical. Fourth.—-That it ought not to be used as an educational work for the foregoing reasons, and because of the various obscene passages spread throughout the book; because, also, the youthful scholar will find cunning, craft, and cheating rewarded and preferred, while honesty and noble conduct is unnoticed; because he will find the practice of sacrifice is encouraged, and sacrifice, either human or bestial, is degrading and debasing; because he will find cruelties detailed at which his nature must revolt or become deteriorated.

In Foxton's work on 'Popular Christianity,' a quotation is given from the Prospective Review, in which the writer suggests:—

'That the Jews, like every other nation of antiquity, have framed for themselves a mythical history, which, with the lapse of time, has been received for fact. This at once releases us from the necessity of any elaborate contrivances for reconciling their belief with probability and the laws of nature; and exhibits a phenomenon so universal and so natural, that it would have been a miracle if the Jewish literature had been an exception to it. But the transition from regarding the first chapters of Genesis as an inspired record, to treating them as only a picture of the popular notions of the age in which they were produced, is too violent to be made at once by any large portion of the public. We are not sorry, therefore, that, from time to time, hypotheses are proposed which smooth the descent from one of these opinions to the other, and make the gradients safer. The clerical geologists would have been suspended by their diocesans, or hooted from their pulpits, if they had not been able, at first, to profess that their discoveries confirmed the Mosaic account of the deluge, and did not contravene that of the creation. Time has familiarised men with the idea that they are not to look into Scripture for geology; and we hope that its professors will soon come openly to avow this, and cease to torture the words of Genesis into a conformity with their science. Public opinion is so tyrannically intolerant, and its penal power so fearful, that we cannot expect the whole truth to be told, or even to be seen, at once. But while we admit the temporary value of such intermediate stages of opinion, we are bound to declare our judgment that they are merely temporary, and have no solid basis.'

My only object in collecting together these criticisms on the Bible, is to free the human family from the many evils which, in my opinion, attach to, and are consequent on, a belief in the divine origin of the Book.

The child is taught to believe the Bible is the word of God, at an age when he can scarcely read its words; he is taught to regard with horror every attempt to criticise its pages; and the result is, that when his senses point out a fact, and that fact clashes with his Bible, he is bewildered and confused, he knows not what to think, and unless he be of great mental power, he ends by not thinking at all, and becomes professedly a believer, but in reality a man who dares not reason.