In additional proof that the Jew books have no just claim to antiquity, there is not a vestige of authentic testimony to show that they were in existence before the King of Babylon gave the Jews permission to settle in Palestine, after their slavery. The first thirteen of these appear to have been then fabricated from loose and unconnected traditions; of which the Pentateuch was in all probability compiled the last, as there is no mention of it either in Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, Psalms, or in Kings or Chronicles, until the time of Josiah, that is, about 900 years after the pretended time of Moses.* If a man, without slavish fear or prejudice, will impartially examine the stories in 2 Kings xxii., and 2 Chron. xxxiv., xxxv., he will see palpably the collusion between the high priest Hilkiah and his pupil, the young king Josiah, aided by the prophet Jeremiah, Shaphan the scribe, and the prophetess Huldah. These persons, some of whom must have learnt to write while at Babylon, acted in concert under the high priest, in manufacturing the books of the law, which they pretended to have found in an old chest, where, according to their story, they must have mouldered for upwards of 900 years; _yet Shaphan could read them as fluently as if he had written them himself_. The object of this fraud being to wean the Jews from the gods of the Chaldean priests, it is probable that the books of the law only were forged on this occasion; for we find that the compilation of a large portion of the Bible traditions fell to the share of Esdras (who was identically Ezra the scribe), as he distinctly tells us in the fourteenth chapter of his second book, viz., that under the orders of the Lord (read, _the high priest_), he had a number of clerks engaged for forty days, during which time they completed amongst them 204 books or chapters.** As all these men had been captives in Babylon, and could nowhere else be taught to write, how could these books be composed in any other than the Chaldee character? The third chapter of the book of Chronicles gives a list of the Jewish kings from David to Zedekiah, and even to four generations after his time. Now, as Zedekiah was one of those who were carried to Babylon, we have a strong, an irrefragable proof that those books were written after that captivity. * The proof that Moses could not possibly be the author of the Pentateuch did not escape the luminous mind of Mr. Paine. In Genesis xiv., 14, it is said, "And Abraham pursued them to Dan." Now, there was no place called Dan until the time of the Judges. See Judges xviii., 28 and 29. In Genesis xxxvi., 31, it is said, "And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom _before the children of Israel had any king_" Therefore several kings, viz., Saul, David, Solomon, etc., must have reigned before the first book of the Pentateuch was written.