subjects to put his name to that account. He had been educated among
the Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in science, and
particularly in astronomy, as any people of their day; and the
silence and caution that Moses observes, in not authenticating the
account, is a good negative evidence that he neither told it nor
believed it. -- The case is, that every nation of people has been
world-makers, and the Israelites had as much right to set up the
trade of world-making as any of the rest; and as Moses was not an
Israelite, he might not chose to contradict the tradition. The
account, however, is harmless; and this is more than can be said for
many other parts of the Bible.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries,
the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness,
with which more than half the Bible [NOTE: It must be borne in mind
that by the "Bible" Paine always means the Old Testament alone. --
Editor.] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the
word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness,
that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own
part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.

We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, but what
deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to the
miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous publications, the
Psalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in the latter, we find
a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially expressed of the
power and benignity of the Almighty; but they stand on no higher rank
than many other compositions on similar subjects, as well before that
time as since.