Twenty-eighth. It is hard to believe that God talked to Abraham as one man talks to another; that he gave him land that he pointed out; that he agreed to give him land that he never did; that he ordered him to murder his own son; that angels were in the habit of walking about the earth eating veal dressed with butter and milk, and making bargains about the destruction of cities.
Twenty-ninth. Certainly a man ought not to be eternally damned for entertaining an honest doubt about a woman having been turned into a pillar of salt, about cities being destroyed by storms of fire and brimstone, and about people once having lived for nearly a thousand years.
Thirtieth. Neither is it probable that God really wrestled with Jacob and put his thigh out of joint, and that for that reason the Jews refused "to eat the sinew that shrank," as recounted in the thirty-second chapter of Genesis; that God in the likeness of a flame inhabited a bush; that he amused himself by changing the rod of Moses into a serpent, and making his hand leprous as snow.
Thirty-first. One can scarcely be blamed for hesitating to believe that God met Moses at a hotel and tried to kill him that afterward he made this same Moses a god to Pharaoh, and gave him his brother Aaron for a prophet;2 that he turned all the ponds and pools and streams and all the rivers into blood,3 and all the water in vessels of wood and stone; that the rivers thereupon brought forth frogs;4 that the frogs covered the whole land of Egypt; that he changed dust into lice, so that all the men, women, children, and animals were covered with them;6 that he sent swarms of flies upon the Egyptians;8 that he destroyed the innocent cattle with painful diseases; that he covered man and beast with blains and boils;7 that he so covered the magicians of Egypt with boils that they could not stand before Moses for the purpose of performing the same feats, that he destroyed every beast and every man that was in the fields, and every herb, and broke every tree with storm of hail and fire;9 that he sent locusts that devoured every herb that escaped the hail, and devoured every tree that grew;10 that he caused thick darkness over the land and put lights in the houses of the Jews;11 that he destroyed all of the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh upon the throne to the firstborn of the maidservant that sat behind the mill,"12 together with the firstborn of all beasts, so that there was not a house in which the dead were not."
1 Ex. iv, 24. 5 Ex. viii, 16, 17. 9 Ex. ix, 25.
2 Ex. vii. 1. 6 Ex. viii, 21. 10 Ex. x, 15.
3 Ex. viii, 19. 7 Ex. ix, 9. 11 Ex. x, 22, 23.
4 Ex. viii, 3. 8 Ex. ix, 11. 12 Ex. xi, 5.
13 Ex. xii, 29.
Thirty-second. It is very hard to believe that three millions of people left a country and marched twenty or thirty miles all in one day. To notify so many people would require a long time, and then the sick, the halt, and the old would be apt to impede the march. It seems impossible that such a vast number—six hundred thousand men, besides women and children—could have been cared for, could have been fed and clothed, and the sick nursed, especially when we take into consideration that "they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual." 1
Thirty-third. It seems cruel to punish a man forever for denying that God went before the Jews by day "in a pillar of a cloud to lead' them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night," or for denying that Pharaoh pursued the Jews with six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and that the six hundred thousand men of war of the Jews were sore afraid when they saw the pursuing hosts. It does seems strange that after all the water in a country had been turned to blood—after it had been overrun with frogs and devoured with flies; after all the cattle had died with the murrain, and the rest had been killed by the fire and hail and the remainder had suffered with boils, and the firstborn of all that were left had died; that after locusts had devoured every herb and eaten up every tree of the field, and the firstborn had died, from the firstborn of the king on the throne to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon; that after three millions of people had left, carrying with them the jewels of silver and gold and the raiment of their oppressors, the Egyptians still had enough soldiers and chariots and horses left to pursue and destroy an army of six hundred thousand men, if God had not interfered.
1 Ex. xii, 37-39
Thirty-fourth. It certainly ought to satisfy God to torment a man for four or five thousand years for insisting that it is but a small thing for an infinite being to vanquish an Egyptian army; that it was rather a small business to trouble people with frogs, flies, and vermin; that it looked almost malicious to cover people with boils and afflict cattle with disease; that a real good God would not torture innocent beasts on account of something the owners had done; that it was absurd to do miracles before a king to induce him to act in a certain way, and then harden his heart so that he would refuse; and that to kill all the firstborn of a nation was the act of a heartless fiend.
Thirty-fifth. Certainly one ought to be permitted to doubt that twelve wells of water were sufficient for three millions of people, together with their flocks and herds,1 and to inquire a little into the nature of manna that was cooked by baking and seething and yet would melt in the sun,2 and that would swell or shrink so as to make an exact omer, no matter how much or how little there really was.3 Certainly it is not a crime to say that water cannot be manufactured by striking a rock with a stick, and that the fate of battle cannot be decided by lifting one hand up or letting it fall.4 Must we admit that God really did come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people; that he commanded that all who should go up into the Mount or touch the border of it should be put to death, and that even the beasts that came near it should be killed?5 Is it wrong to laugh at this? Is it sinful to say that God never spoke from the top of a mountain covered with clouds these words to Moses, "Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish; and let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them"?6