IT has often been said that any thing may be proved from
the Bible; but before any thing can be admitted as proved
by Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true; for
if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it
ceases to have authority, and cannot be admitted as proof
of any thing.

It has been the practice of all Christian commentators
on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to
impose the Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as
the word of God; they have disputed and wrangled, and have
anathematized each other about the supposeable meaning of
particular parts and passages therein; one has said and in-
sisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another that
it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant
neither one nor the other, but something different from
both; and this they have called understanding the Bible.

It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen
to the former part of The Age of Reason have been written
by priests: and these pious men, like their predecessors,
contend and wrangle, and understand the Bible; each under-
stands it differently, but each understands it best; and they
have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that
Thomas Paine understands it not.

Now instead of wasting their time, and heating them-
selves in fractious disputations about doctrinal points drawn
from the Bible, these men ought to know, and if they do not
it is civility to inform them, that the first thing to be under-
stood is, whether there is sufficient authority for believing
the Bible to be the word of God, or whether there is not?

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