The Age Of Reason

As a corollary to his endorsement of the one true theology, Paine attacks both the Bible (by which he always means the Old Testament only) and the New Testament on two grounds. First, they are fraudulent, unsubstantiated texts filled with contradictions, inconsistencies, and impossibilities. Second, they have been imposed upon the world by church authorities, primarily Christian bishops and priests, seeking power and profit.

Paine addresses the question of truth throughout Age of Reason. In Part 1, he claims that the story of Christ’s resurrection and ascension into Heaven “has every mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it” (8). He dismisses the Gospel as “altogether anecdotal” (21) and labels Christianity a “pious fraud” (50). He argues that ancient Jewish poets have been misidentified as prophets. He also insists that no religion can be true if it relies on mystery, miracles, and prophecy. He does all of this from memory and without the aid of the actual texts.

For Parts 2 and 3, however, Paine works with copies of the Bible and New Testament in front of him. In the preface to Part 2, he writes: “I can say that I have found them to be much worse books than I had conceived” (66). Using textual evidence only, he argues that the true authors of most Old Testament books cannot be identified. Moses, for instance, most certainly did not write the Pentateuch. Other books contain references to people, places, or events with which the presumptive author could not have been familiar. He reserves his harshest criticisms for the Biblical prophets, whom he calls “imposters and liars” (114). Furthermore, to make Old Testament prophecies fit the story of Jesus Christ, he claims that “Christian translators have falsified the original” (180).

Paine also argues that Christian church authorities have imposed these lies on the unsuspecting masses who, for the most part, had no way of investigating the matter for themselves. This centuries-long imposition has a conspiratorial quality, fueled by the “adulterous connection of church and state” (4). The motive was power and profit. Christian bishops and priests have “set up a religion of pomp and revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty” (22). Paine describes the story of the virgin birth as a “barefaced perversion” of a so-called prophecy from the Book of Isaiah, a story perpetuated thanks to the “impudence and sordid interests of priests in later times” (108).

This theme of imposition intensifies as Paine’s textual analysis unfolds. He marvels at the fact that the four books comprising the Gospels, notwithstanding their disagreements on basic points of fact, “have been imposed upon the world” and misrepresented “as the unchangeable word of God” (134). He claims that the New Testament became the supposed word of God only by a vote of early Christian bishops. He marvels at the magnitude of the fraud: “Good heavens! How has the world been imposed upon by Testament-makers, priestcraft, and pretended prophecies” (184). In the Book of Matthew, Paine finds both “criminal imposition” (186) and “abominable imposition” (197). Paine concludes by returning to the motive of power and profit, blaming Christian priests who “had rather get than give” (224), suggesting that religious authorities not only spread false beliefs, but also behave immorally.