After what I have observed above, it will be useless to say much as to your third letter, in which you examine minutely the passages Thomas Paine has pointed out to prove the Pentateuch not genuine. First, As to the objection taken from the name of Dan, I never thought it specious. This is not the case with the very next one, which is of very great weight. The writer, after enumerating a number of Arabian names, concludes in these words, "These are the kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." Contrary to my expectations, you acknowledge this to have been written after the Jews had kings. Many of your brethren have attempted to deny it by quibbles! but you say that this does not invalidate the authority of the book: wonderful! if your _alma-mater_ taught you, that an evident lie or contradiction in any book, particularly of remote antiquity, and relating histories unsupported by impartial authors, does not create a suspicion, which approaches to certainty, that the book is not authentic; if you think so, I must give up arguing with you. It may be an interpolation, you observe. How did you learn this? You will at least leave, me the right to suppose, and you cannot deny that the presumption is against you, an absurdity in a book is a reason for distrusting the rest. I have probability on my side; for the Jew who forged this passage, either from piety or ignorance, might have forged the whole book, or so interpolated it, as to destroy its credibility. At any rate, the detection of falsehood in a history, is not a motive to suppose it true. It requires an excess of piety to break through all the rules of logic and common sense. How does it happen, that the Lord Jahovah does not provide better against such mistakes creeping into the book of the law of his favourite people? It could seem as if he had done it on purpose to create incredulity, and enjoy the pleasure of punishing unbelievers, as of old, he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he might have a pretext to inflict calamities on him and his people.