The Age of Reason - Thomas Paine (read aloud books TXT) 📗

40:3. Whiston says, that both these verses were originally in Isaiah. If so, it is another instance of the disordered state of the Bible, and corroborates what I have said with respect to the name and description of Cyrus being in the book of Isaiah, to which it cannot chronologically belong.

The words in Isaiah 11:3, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” are in the present tense, and consequently not predictive. It is one of those rhetorical figures which the Old Testament authors frequently used. That it is merely rhetorical and metaphorical, may be seen at the 6th verse: “And the voice said, Cry; and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass.” This is evidently nothing but a figure; for flesh is not grass, otherwise than a figure; or metaphor, where one thing is put for another. Besides which, the whole passage is too general and declamatory to be applied exclusively to any particular person or purpose.

I pass on to the eleventh chapter.

In this chapter Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he does not make it the accomplishment of a prophecy, as Matthew has done; for he says nothing about a prophecy. Instead of which, he goes on the other tack, and in order to add new honors to the ass, he makes it to be a miracle; for he says, verse 2, it was a colt whereon never man sat; signifying thereby, that as the ass had not been broken, he consequently was inspired into good manners, for we do not hear that he kicked Jesus Christ off. There is not a word about his kicking in all the four Evangelists.

I pass on from these feats of horsemanship, performed upon a jackass, to the l5th chapter.

At the 24th verse of this chapter, Mark speaks of parting Christ’s garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies no prophecy to it as Matthew does. He rather speaks of it as a thing then in practice with executioners, as it is at this day.

At the 28th verse of the same chapter, Mark speaks of Christ being crucified between two thieves: that, says he, The Scriptures might be fulfilled which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. The same thing might be said of the thieves. The expression is in Isaiah 53:12. Grotius applies it to Jeremiah. But the case has happened so often in the world, where innocent men have been numbered with transgressors, and is still continually happening, that it is absurdity to call it a prophecy of any particular person. All those whom the church calls martyrs were numbered with transgressors. All the honest patriots who fell upon the scaffold in France, in the time of Robespierre, were numbered with transgressors; and if he himself had not fallen, the same case, according to a note in his own handwriting, had befallen me; yet I suppose the bishop will not allow that Isaiah was prophesying of Thomas Paine.

These are all the passages in Mark which have any reference to prophecies.

Mark concludes his book by making Jesus to say to his disciples, 16:15, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (fine Popish stuff this). And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents: and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

Now the bishop, in order to know if he has all this saving and wonder-working faith, should try those things upon himself. He should take a good dose of arsenic, and, if he please, I will send him a rattlesnake from America! As for myself, as I believe in God, and not at all in Jesus Christ, nor in the books called the Scriptures, the experiment does not concern me.

I pass on to the book of Luke.

The Book of Luke

There are no passages in Luke called prophecies, excepting those which relate to the passages I have already examined.

Luke speaks of Mary being espoused to Joseph, but he makes no reference to the passages in Isaih, as Matthew does. He also speaks of Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he says nothing about a prophecy. He speaks of John the Baptist, and refers to the passage in Isaiah of which I have already spoken.

At the 13th chapter, verse 31, he says “The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him (Jesus), Get thee out, and depart hence, for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.”

Matthew makes Herod to die whilst Christ was a child in Egypt, and makes Joseph to return with the child on the news of Herod’s death, who had sought to kill him. Luke makes Herod to be living and to seek the life of Jesus after Jesus was thirty years of age; for he says, 3:23, “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.”

The obscurity in which the historical part of the New Testament is involved with some respect to Herod, may afford to priests and commentators a plea, which to some may appear plausible, but to none satisfactory, that the Herod of which Matthew speaks, and the Herod of which Luke speaks, were different persons. Matthew calls Herod a king; and Luke 3:1 calls Herod tetrarch (that is, governor) of Galilee. But there could be no such person as a King Herod, because the Jews and their country were then under the