entators, is the same person as is
called Esdras in the Apocrypha) was one of the persons who returned, and
who, it is probable, wrote the account of that affair. Nebemiah, whose
book follows next to Ezra, was another of the returned persons; and who,
it is also probable, wrote the account of the same affair, in the book
that bears his name. But those accounts are nothing to us, nor to any
other person, unless it be to the Jews, as a part of the history of
their nation; and there is just as much of the word of God in those
books as there is in any of the histories of France, or Rapin's history
of England, or the history of any other country.

But even in matters of historical record, neither of those writers are
to be depended upon. In Ezra ii., the writer gives a list of the tribes
and families, and of the precise number of souls of each, that returned
from Babylon to Jerusalem; and this enrolment of the persons so returned
appears to have been one of the principal objects for writing the
book; but in this there is an error that destroys the intention of the
undertaking.

The writer begins his enrolment in the following manner (ii. 3): "The
children of Parosh, two thousand one hundred seventy and four." Ver. 4,
"The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two." And in this
manner he proceeds through all the families; and in the 64th verse, he
makes a total, and says, the whole congregation together was forty and
two thousand three hundred and threescore.

But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the several particulars,
will find that the total is but 29,818; so that the error is 12,542.
What certainty then can there be in the Bible for any thing?

[Here Mr. Paine includes the long list of numbers from the Bible of all
the children listed and the total thereof. This can be had directly from
the Bible.]

Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list of the returned families, and
of the number of each family. He begins as in Ezra, by saying (vii. 8):
"The children of Parosh, two thousand three hundred and seventy-two;"
and so on through all the families. (The list differs in several of the
particulars from that of Ezra.) In ver. 66, Nehemiah makes a total, and
says, as Ezra had said, "The whole congregation together was forty and
two thousand three hundred and threescore." But the particulars of this
list make a total but of 31,089, so that the error here is 11,271. These
writers may do well enough for Bib