On the Christian Bible

As a champion of human reason, Thomas Paine was disdainful to the point of ridicule on the Bible's stories and allegories. He exhibited constant impatience with anyone who sought to read the biblical verse as literal truth.

Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies. [ The Age of Reason]

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed. [The Theological Works of Thomas Paine]

Every phrase and circumstance are marked with the barbarous hand of superstitious torture, and forced into meanings it was impossible they could have. The head of every chapter, and the top of every page, are blazoned with the names of Christ and the Church, that the unwary reader might suck in the error before he began to read. [The Age of Reason, p.131]

The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice. [The Age of Reason]

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel. [The Age of Reason]

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice . . . [Complete Writings]

The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous; but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale. [The Age of Reason]

It is far better that we admitted a thousand devils to roam at large than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God and have credit among us. [The Age of Reason]

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are of themselves evidences that the human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God. The Word of God exists in something else. [The Age of Reason]

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