Of Isaiah he writes: "Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed to Isaiah, will find it one of the most wild and disorderly compositions ever put together; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; and, except a short historical part, and a few sketches of history in the first two or three chapters, is one continued incoherent, bombastical rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of meaning; a schoolboy would scarcely have been excusable for writing such stuff; it is (at least in translation) that kind of composition and false taste that is properly called prose run mad" - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
Mr. Paine's greatest argument of the book of Isaiah is his own distaste for it. However, multitudes of Christians find great pleasure in the wonder of this book. Its imagery is marvelous and the prophetical pictures of Christ are so profound. He offers nothing of substance, we are only supplied with his obnoxious opinions. We find the same of his opinions in Jeremiah, nothing of substance for me to address.
Mr. Paine speeds up his trek as he travels through the Prophets retelling their stories with his vivid imagination altering them and their meanings to form the foolishness he desires to claim. I am personally amazed by his imagination as he embellishes the accounts of the Prophets. One familiar with the reading of the Prophets would scarcely recognize them when reading Mr. Paine's version and rendering of the text. He seems to embellish the text so that he may then rage against it.
"There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the lesser prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be forgotten together.
I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through a wood with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie; and the priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, perhaps, stick them in the ground, but they will never make them grow. I pass on to the books of the New Testament." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
Mr. Paine seemed to have thought his ax fell the trees, however, he only joins the list of men of arrogance that history has already laid aside as the Bible continues. Mr.Paine is not the first nor the most influential to criticize the Bible. It has been fought against throughout history, yet it remains. It gives hope to those who hear it, life to those who believe it. You would think from reading "The Age of Reason" one would be a fool to read such nonsense. Yet, Mr. Paine's contemporaries say quite differently about their reading of the book?
"I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world." - John Adams (Works, Vol. X, p. 85, to Thomas Jefferson on December 25, 1813.)
"Whoever believes in the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth." - John Quincy Adams (Life of John Quincy Adams, W. H. Seward, editor (Auburn, NY: Derby, Miller & Company, 1849), p. 248.)
"The Bible… is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed." - Patrick Henry. (William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry (Philadelphia: James Webster, 1818), p. 402; see also George Morgan, Patrick Henry (Philadelphia & London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1929), p. 403.)
"For my part, I am free and ready enough to declare that I think the Christian religion is a Divine institution; and I pray to God that I may never forget the precepts of His religion or suffer the appearance of an inconsistency in my principles and practice." - James Iredell, (The Papers of James Iredell, Don Higginbotham, editor (Raleigh: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1976), Vol. I, p. 11 from his 1768 essay on religion.)
"The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts." - John Jay, (The Winning of the Peace. Unpublished Papers 1780-1784, Richard B. Morris, editor (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1980), Vol. II, p. 709, to Peter Augustus Jay on April 8, 1784.)
"[P]ublic utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. Without the Bible, in vain do we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions." - James McHenry (Bernard C. Steiner, One Hundred and Ten Years of Bible Society Work in Maryland, 1810-1920 (Maryland Bible Society, 1921), p. 14.)
"I believe the Bible to be the written word of God and to contain in it the whole rule of faith and manners." - Robert Treat Paine, (The Papers of Robert Treat Paine, Stephen T. Riley and Edward W. Hanson, editors (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1992), Vol. I, p. 49, Robert Treat Paine’s Confession of Faith, 1749.)
"By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects… It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published." - Benjamin Rush, ( Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), Vol. II, p. 936, to John Adams, January 23, 1807.)
"The revealed law of God is the rule of our duty." - Roger Sherman, (Correspondence Between Roger Sherman and Samuel Hopkins (Worcester, MA: Charles Hamilton, 1889), p. 10, from Roger Sherman to Samuel Hopkins, June 28, 1790.)
"I believe only in the Scriptures, and in Jesus Christ my Savior." - Charles Thomson, (The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush; His “Travels Through Life” together with his Commonplace Book for 1789-1813, George W. Carter, editor (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1948), p. 294, October 2, 1810.)
"The Bible is a book… which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow man." - Daniel Webster, Address Delivered at Bunker Hill, June 17, 1843, on the Completion of the Monument (Boston: T. R. Marvin, 1843), p. 31; see also W. P. Strickland, History of the American Bible Society from its Organization to the Present Time (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1849)
"The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society, the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of men." - Noah Webster, (The Holy Bible . . . With Amendments of the Language (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1833), p. v.)
It is very evident that both the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New are at great pains to give us a view of the glory and dignity of the person of Christ. With what magnificent titles is He adorned! What glorious attributes are ascribed to him!… All these conspire to teach us that He is truly and properly God – God over all, blessed forever! - John Witherspoon, (The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), Vol. V, p. 267, Sermon 15, “The Absolute Necessity of Salvation Through Christ,” January 2, 1758.)
Could it be Mr. Paine's peers were reading a different book? It cannot be, the greatest minds that were forming the foundation of our nation put his foolishness to rest.
David
