the book of Genesis, I have quoted a passage from
xxxvi. 31, which evidently refers to a time, after that kings began to
reign over the children of Israel; and I have shown that as this
verse is verbatim the same as in 1 Chronicles i. 43, where it stands
consistently with the order of history, which in Genesis it does not,
that the verse in Genesis, and a great part of the 36th chapter, have
been taken from Chronicles; and that the book of Genesis, though it is
placed first in the Bible, and ascribed to Moses, has been manufactured
by some unknown person, after the book of Chronicles was written, which
was not until at least eight hundred and sixty years after the time of
Moses.

The evidence I proceed by to substantiate this, is regular, and has in
it but two stages. First, as I have already stated, that the passage in
Genesis refers itself for time to Chronicles; secondly, that the book
of Chronicles, to which this passage refers itself, was not begun to be
written until at least eight hundred and sixty years after the time of
Moses. To prove this, we have only to look into 1 Chronicles iii. 15,
where the writer, in giving the genealogy of the descendants of
David, mentions Zedekiah; and it was in the time of Zedekiah that
Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, B.C. 588, and consequently more than
860 years after Moses. Those who have superstitiously boasted of the
antiquity of the Bible, and particularly of the books ascribed to Moses,
have done it without examination, and without any other authority
than that of one credulous man telling it to another: for, so far as
historical and chronological evidence applies, the very first book in
the Bible is not so ancient as the book of Homer, by more than three
hundred years, and is about the same age with AEsop's Fables.

I am not contending for the morality of Homer; on the contrary, I think
it a book of false glory, and tending to inspire immoral and mischievous
notions of honour; and with respect to AEsop, though the moral is in
general just, the fable is often cruel; and the cruelty of the fable
does more injury to the heart, especially in a child, than the moral
does good to the judgment.

Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to the next in course,
the book of Ezra.

As one proof, among others I shall produce to shew the disorder in which
this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been put together, and the
uncertainty of who the authors were, we have o