The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine [books for 8th graders .txt] 📗

dominion of the Roman emperors, who governed them by tetrarchs or governors.

Luke 2 makes Jesus to be born when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, to which government Judea was annexed; and according to this, Jesus was not born in the time of Herod. Luke says nothing about Herod seeking the life of Jesus when he was born; nor of his destroying the children under two years old; nor of Joseph fleeing with Jesus into Egypt; nor of his returning from thence. On the contrary, the book of Luke speaks as if the person it calls Christ, had never been out of Judea, and that Herod sought his life after he commenced preaching, as is before stated. I have already shown that Luke, in the book called the Acts of the Apostles (which commentators ascribe to Luke), contradicts the account in Matthew, with respect to Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. Matthew says, that Judas returned the money, and that the high priests bought with it a field to bury strangers in. Luke says, that Judas kept the money, and bought a field with it for himself.

As it is impossible the wisdom of God should err, so it is impossible those books could have been written by divine inspiration. Our belief in God and his unerring wisdom forbids us to believe it. As for myself, I feel religiously happy in the total disbelief of it.

There are no other passages called prophecies in Luke than those I have spoken of. I pass on to the book of John.

The Book of John

John, like Mark and Luke, is not much of a prophecy-monger. He speaks of the ass, and the casting lots for Jesus’s clothes, and some other trifles, of which I have already spoken.

John makes Jesus to say, 5:46, “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me.” The book of the Acts, in speaking of Jesus, says, 3:22, “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.”

This passage is in Deuteronomy, 18:15. They apply it as a prophecy of Jesus. What impositions! The person spoken of in Deuteronomy, and also in Numbers where the same person is spoken of, is Joshua, the minister of Moses, and his immediate successor, and just such another Robespierrean character as Moses is represented to have been. The case, as related in those books, is as follows:⁠—

Moses was grown old and near to his end; and in order to prevent confusion after his death, for the Israelites had no settled system of government, it was thought best to nominate a successor to Moses while he was yet living. This was done, as we are told, in the following manner:

Numbers 27:12, “And the Lord said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israel. And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron, thy brother, was gathered.” Verse 15, “And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him; and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight. And thou shalt put some of thine honor upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient.” Verse 22, “And Moses did as the Lord commanded him: and he took Joshua, and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation, and he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses.”

I have nothing to do, in this place, with the truth or the conjuration here practised, of raising up a successor to Moses like unto himself. The passage sufficiently proves it is Joshua and that it is an imposition in John to make the case into a prophecy of Jesus. But the prophecy-mongers were so inspired with falsehood that they never speak truth.90

I pass on to the last passage in these fables of the Evangelists, called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.

John having spoken of Jesus expiring on the cross between two thieves, says, 14:32: “Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first (meaning one of the thieves) and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs (verse 36), for these things were done that the Scriptures should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.”

The passage here referred to is in Exodus, and has no more to do with Jesus than the ass he rode upon to Jerusalem; nor yet so much, if a roasted jackass, like a roasted he-goat, might be eaten at a Jewish passover. It might be some consolation to an ass to know, that though his bones might be picked they would not be broken. I go to state the case.

The book of Exodus, in instituting the Jewish passover, in which they were to eat a he-lamb or a he-goat, says, 12:5: “Your lamb be without blemish, a male of the first year; ye shall take it from the sheep or from the goats.”

The book after stating some ceremonies to be used in killing and dressing it (for it was to be roasted, not