Before quitting Genesis, I will endeavour, as briefly as possible, to sum up the effect of my partial examination (I say partial, because there are many differences in the readings of the various manuscripts, and in the translation of the different versions, which I passed without notice, because they have seemed to me to be of comparative unimportance). I have shown, in the foregoing pages--first, that in the authorised version the book claims our attention under false pretences, that, in fact, it is not, and in the original does not claim to be, the work of Moses; many passages he could not have written, of the rest, some passages are evidently taken from different manuscripts, and badly joined or fitted in, so as to make up the text as we have it, forming, in many cases, a twice or even thrice told tale, as in the accounts of the creation, of the flood, the adventures of Abraham's wife, and of Jacob's wife, etc. Second, that it is impossible the book can be a revelation from God, because it contains passages in relation to deity which are in themselves ridiculously absurd, because it speaks of more Gods than one, treating some as superior and some as inferior Gods, because it degrades the deity to the level of man, making him grieve and repent, and become subject to the same passions and feelings as man, liable to heat and cold, etc, because it treats of the deity as a finite being, occupying a small portion of space, travelling from one part of the earth to another, going up to heaven and coming down therefrom with the aid of a ladder; because it relates that God has, or sometimes assumes, a finite, substantial shape, which a man may lay hold of and wrestle with; because it pictures God as favouring, without apparent reason, some men in preference to others, and, in very many instances, choosing as the objects of his divine favour the worst possible characters, rewarding fraud and knavery with lands flowing with milk and honey, and discouraging and discountenancing virtuous conduct either by leaving it unnoticed or by depriving the unfortunate virtuous man of some benefit to which he appeared to be entitled; because it represents a just and Almighty God allowing the happiness of his own creatures to be destroyed by one of the animals he had created, and then cursing the tempted man and woman for being frail enough to fall at the first temptation, when, in fact, he (God) was the cause of that very frailty; because it represents the same Deity pledging his oath to a promise which he either never intended to perform, or which he did not possess the ability to perform, or which he afterwards wilfully broke.