You then show, that Mr. Paine's objections to the genuineness are not new. This is true; and I am surprised you have quoted so few supporters of his opinions. Your attempt to prove the genuineness of the Pentateuch, by direct evidence, is ridiculous. What! Maimonides, ten centuries after the destruction of the Jews, a Jew himself, and writing at a period so remote from the supposed date of the books of the Old Testament, is, by Dr. Watson, called a direct evidence of the genuineness of the Pentateuch. Juvenal, a poet, who in more than one place ridicules the credulity of the Jews, says, that they believe in Moses--so do the Europeans allow that the Indians believe in Brama.--We question not the general traditions of the Jews, but the credit they deserve; and I shall next proceed to show, that the books of the Pentateuch are spurious, and undeserving of credit. The name of Moses and the Jews were unknown to the famous Phoenician historian Sanchoniato, of whom Eusebius has preserved us some extracts; he has never mentioned a word about this famous legislator: had he done so, Eusebius was too strenuous an advocate _for_ Christianity not to have recorded it. The books of the Jews were concealed from all the world before the famous Greek translation made at the instance of Ptolemy Philadelphia. Josephus himself acknowledges, that no heathen knew the Jewish books, which he endeavours to explain, by some miraculous interference of God to keep them from the impious. It is evident, that the insignificance and ignorance of the Jews were sufficient to screen them for a long time from the search of philosophers. Upon the early history of the Jewish nation, however, we have the testimony of several of the ancient writers. Manetho, and Chaeremon, Egyptian historians, give the most unfavourable account of this nation. Lisimachus does not favour them any more; and, although he differs about the name of the king who expelled them from Egypt, yet he agrees in calling them a set of men infected with leprosy, and the meanest of the subjects of the king of Egypt. Diodorus Siculus is as hard upon these wretched Jews. In short, the opinion of their being the vilest and most ignorant of men, has prevailed among all antiquity. All the writers about them agree in stating that they never produced any work in science; indeed, that they never improved any branch of useful knowledge. Many of these authors mention Moses as a priest of Heliopolis, who led them out of Egypt, and gave them a religion. Diodorus Siculus informs us, that the God of Moses was Jau, or Jahouh, which is the true pronunciation of Jehovah; and Plutarch (de Iside) says, that the Thebans adored this God, and had not images in their temples, because Jau signified the general principle of life, the soul of the world.