Isaiah, who lived in the time of Hezekiab, is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when these histories are speaking of that reign; but except in one or two instances at most, and those very slightly, none of the rest are so much as spoken of, or even their existence hinted at; though, according to the Bible chronology, they lived within the time those histories were written; and some of them long before.If those prophets, as they are called, were men of such importance in their day, as the compilers of the Bible, and priests and commentators have since represented them to be, how can it be accounted for that not one of those histories should say anything about them?
The history in the books of Kings and of Chronicles is brought forward, as I have already said, to the year B.C.588; it will, therefore, be proper to examine which of these prophets lived before that period.
Here follows a table of all the prophets, with the times in which they lived before Christ, according to the chronology affixed to the first chapter of each of the books of the prophets; and also of the number of years they lived before the books of Kings and Chronicles were written:
TABLE of the Prophets, with the time in which they lived before Christ, and also before the books of Kings and Chronicles were written: Years Years before NAMES.before Kings and Observations.
Christ.Chronicles.
Isaiah..............760172 mentioned.
(mentioned only in Jeremiah.............629 41 the last [two] chapters of Chronicles.
Ezekiel..............595 7 not mentioned.
Daniel...............607 19 not mentioned.
Hosea................785 97 not mentioned.
Joel.................800212 not mentioned.
Amos.................789199 not meneioned.
Obadiah..............789199 not mentioned.
Jonah................862274 see the note.
Micah................750162 not mentioned.
Nahum...............7I3125 not mentioned.
Habakkuk.............620 38 not mentioned.
Zepbaniah............630 42 not mentioned.
Haggai Zechariahall three after the year 588Mdachi [ NOTE In 2 Kings xiv.25, the name of Jonah is mentioned on account of the restoration of a tract of land by Jeroboam; but nothing further is said of him, nor is any allusion made to the book of Jonah, nor to his expedition to Nineveh, nor to his encounter with the whale.
-- Author.]
This table is either not very honourable for the Bible historians, or not very honourable for the Bible prophets; and I leave to priests and commentators, who are very learned in little things, to settle the point of etiquette between the two; and to assign a reason, why the authors of Kings and of Chronicles have treated those prophets, whom, in the former part of the 'Age of Reason,' I have considered as poets, with as much degrading silence as any historian of the present day would treat Peter Pindar.
I have one more observation to make on the book of Chronicles; after which I shall pass on to review the remaining books of the Bible.
In my observations on 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.
