the Creator?

I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but it would be
paying too great a compliment to their, credulity to forbear it on
that account. The times and the subject demand it to be done. The
suspicion that the theory of what is called the Christian church is
fabulous, is becoming very extensive in all countries; and it will be
a consolation to men staggering under that suspicion, and doubting
what to believe and what to disbelieve, to see the subject freely
investigated. I therefore pass on to an examination of the books
called the Old and the New Testament.

CHAPTER VII - EXAMINATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THESE books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations,
(which, by the bye, is a book of riddles that requires a revelation
to explain it) are, we are told, the word of God. It is, therefore,
proper for us to know who told us so, that we may know what credit to
give to the report. The answer to this question is, that nobody can
tell, except that we tell one another so. The case, however,
historically appears to be as follows:

When the church mythologists established their system, they collected
all the writings they could find, and managed them as they pleased.
It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the
writings as now appear under the name of the Old and the New
Testament, are in the same state in which those collectors say they
found them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them
up.