The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you cannot prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by his thoughts and the same is the case with the word ‘revelation.’ There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more prove revelation than you can prove what another man dreams of, neither can he prove it himself. I am as capable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so, because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self-interest in the vote they gave. The pharisees of the second Temple, after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. The Popish Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time the person called Jesus Christ is said to have lived, voted the books that now compose what is called the New Testament to be the ‘word of God.’ This was done by yeas and nays, as we now vote a law. It is not your calling it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the Koran the ‘word of God’ makes the Koran to be so. IN your letter of the 20th of March, you give me several quotations from the Bible, which you call the ‘word of God,’ to shew me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and I could give you as many, from the same book to shew that yours are not right consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every way, one chooses to make it.īut by what authority do you call the Bible the ‘word of God?’ for this is the first point to be settled.

Thomas paine was the author of