When Samson ran off with the gate-posts of Gaza, if he ever did so,
(and whether he did or not is nothing to us,) or when he visited his
Delilah, or caught his foxes, or did anything else, what has
revelation to do with these things? If they were facts, he could tell
them himself; or his secretary, if he kept one, could write them, if
they were worth either telling or writing; and if they were fictions,
revelation could not make them true; and whether true or not, we are
neither the better nor the wiser for knowing them. When we
contemplate the immensity of that Being, who directs and governs the
incomprehensible WHOLE, of which the utmost ken of human sight can
discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry
stories the word of God.

As to the account of the creation, with which the book of Genesis
opens, it has all the appearance of being a tradition which the
Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt; and after
their departure from that country, they put it at the head of their
history, without telling, as it is most probable that they did not
know, how they came by it. The manner in which the account opens,
shows it to be traditionary. It begins abruptly. It is nobody that
speaks. It is nobody that hears. It is addressed to nobody. It has
neither first, second, nor third person. It has every criterion of
being a tradition. It has no voucher. Moses does not take it upon
himself by introducing it with the formality that he uses on other
occasions, such as that of saying, "The Lords spake unto Moses,
saying."

Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the creation, I am at a
loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too good a judge of such