In Judges i., the writer, after announcing the death of Joshua, proceeds to tell what happened between the children of Judah and the native inhabitants of the land of Canaan.In this statement the writer, having abruptly mentioned Jerusalem in the 7th verse, says immediately after, in the 8th verse, by way of explanation, "Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and taken it;" consequently this book could not have been written before Jerusalem had been taken.The reader will recollect the quotation I have just before made from Joshua xv.63, where it said that the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem at this day; meaning the time when the book of Joshua was written.
The evidence I have already produced to prove that the books I have hitherto treated of were not written by the persons to whom they are ascribed, nor till many years after their death, if such persons ever lived, is already so abundant, that I can afford to admit this passage with less weight than I am entitled to draw from it.For the case is, that so far as the Bible can be credited as an history, the city of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of David; and consequently, that the book of Joshua, and of Judges, were not written till after the commencement of the reign of David, which was 370 years after the death of Joshua.
The name of the city that was afterward called Jerusalem was originally Jebus, or Jebusi, and was the capital of the Jebusites.The account of David's taking this city is given in 2 Samuel, v.4, etc.; also in 1 Chron.
xiv.4, etc.There is no mention in any part of the Bible that it was ever taken before, nor any account that favours such an opinion.It is not said, either in Samuel or in Chronicles, that they "utterly destroyed men, women and children, that they left not a soul to breathe," as is said of their other conquests; and the silence here observed implies that it was taken by capitulation; and that the Jebusites, the native inhabitants, continued to live in the place after it was taken.The account therefore, given in Joshua, that "the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah" at Jerusalem at this day, corresponds to no other time than after taking the city by David.
Having now shown that every book in the Bible, from Genesis to Judges, is without authenticity, I come to the book of Ruth, an idle, bungling story, foolishly told, nobody knows by whom, about a strolling country-girl creeping slily to bed to her cousin Boaz.[The text of Ruth does not imply the unpleasant sense Paine's words are likely to convey.-- Editer.] Pretty stuff indeed to be called the word of God.It is, however, one of the best books in the Bible, for it is free from murder and rapine.
I come next to the two books of Samuel, and to shew that those books were not written by Samuel, nor till a great length of time after the death of Samuel; and that they are, like all the former books, anonymous, and without authority.
To be convinced that these books have been written much later than the time of Samuel, and consequently not by him, it is only necessary to read the account which the writer gives of Saul going to seek his father's asses, and of his interview with Samuel, of whom Saul went to enquire about those lost asses, as foolish people nowa-days go to a conjuror to enquire after lost things.
The writer, in relating this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, does not tell it as a thing that had just then happened, but as an ancient story in the time this writer lived; for he tells it in the language or terms used at the time that Samuel lived, which obliges the writer to explain the story in the terms or language used in the time the writer lived.
Samuel, in the account given of him in the first of those books, chap.
ix.13 called the seer; and it is by this term that Saul enquires after him, ver.11, "And as they [Saul and his servant] went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water; and they said unto them, Is the seer here? "Saul then went according to the direction of these maidens, and met Samuel without knowing him, and said unto him, ver.18, "Tell me, I pray thee, where the seer's house is? and Samuel answered Saul, and said, I am the seer."As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these questions and answers, in the language or manner of speaking used in the time they are said to have been spoken, and as that manner of speaking was out of use when this author wrote, he found it necessary, in order to make the story understood, to explain the terms in which these questions and answers are spoken; and he does this in the 9th verse, where he says, "Before-tune in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake, Come let us go to the seer;for he that is now called a prophet, was before-time called a seer." This proves, as I have before said, that this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, was an ancient story at the time the book of Samuel was written, and consequently that Samuel did not write it, and that the book is without authenticity, But if we go further into those books the evidence is still more positive that Samuel is not the writer of them; for they relate things that did not happen till several years after the death of Samuel.Samuel died before Saul; for i Samuel, xxviii.tells, that Saul and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up after he was dead; yet the history of matters contained in those books is extended through the remaining part of Saul's life, and to the latter end of the life of David, who succceded Saul.The account of the death and burial of Samuel (a thing which he could not write himself) is related in i Samuel xxv.; and the chronology affixed to this chapter makes this to be B.C.106O; yet the history of this first book is brought down to B.C.1056, that is, to the death of Saul, which was not till four years after the death of Samuel.
