le-makers, but not for any thing where
truth and exactness is necessary.

The next book in course is the book of Esther. If Madam Esther thought
it any honour to offer herself as a kept mistress to Ahasuerus, or as a
rival to Queen Vashti, who had refused to come to a drunken king in the
midst of a drunken company, to be made a show of, (for the account
says, they had been drinking seven days, and were merry,) let Esther and
Mordecai look to that, it is no business of ours, at least it is none of
mine; besides which, the story has a great deal the appearance of being
fabulous, and is also anonymous. I pass on to the book of Job.

The book of Job differs in character from all the books we have hitherto
passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of this book; it is the
meditations of a mind strongly impressed with the vicissitudes of human
life, and by turns sinking under, and struggling against the pressure.
It is a highly wrought composition, between willing submission and
involuntary discontent; and shows man, as he sometimes is, more disposed
to be resigned than he is capable of being. Patience has but a small
share in the character of the person of whom the book treats; on the
contrary, his grief is often impetuous; but he still endeavours to keep
a guard upon it, and seems determined, in the midst of accumulating
ills, to impose upon himself the hard duty of contentment.

I have spoken in a respectful manner of the book of Job in the former
part of the 'Age of Reason,' but without knowing at that time what I
have learned since; which is, that from all the evidence that can be
collected, the book of Job does not belong to the Bible.

I have seen the opinion of two Hebrew commentators, Abenezra and
Spinoza, upon this subject; they both say that the book of Job carries
no internal evidence of being an Hebrew book; that the genius of the
composition, and the drama of the piece, are not Hebrew; that it has
been translated from another language into Hebrew, and that the author
of the book was a Gentile; that the character represented under the name
of Satan (which is the first and only time this name is mentioned in
the Bible) [In a later work Paine notes that in "the Bible" (by which
he always means the Old Testament alone) the word Satan occurs also in 1
Chron. xxi. 1, and remarks that the action there ascribed to Satan is
in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, attributed to Jehovah ("Essay on Dreams"). In these
places, however, and