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The three Homilies—those On Superstition, On the Interpretation of the Old Testament, and On the Interpretation of the New Testament—are selected from five which Voltaire wrote in 1767, with the literary pretence that they had been delivered before some liberal congregation at London in 1765. The second of these Homilies is one of the most effective indictments of the Old Testament, considered as an inspired book. Nowhere in rationalistic literature is there an exposure of the essential humanity of the Old Testament so condensed yet so fluent, so original in form, comprehensive in range, and unanswerable in argument. It was published, it is believed, in 1767, though the first edition is marked 1766. Its humour is malicious from the first line, as the “Dr. Tamponet” whose name is put to it was really an orthodox champion of the Sorbonne. It is in this short diatribe that I have chiefly made the modifications of which I have spoken. It was Voltaire’s aim to show that the coarseness of many passages of the Old Testament is quite as inconsistent with inspiration as its colossal inaccuracy and its childlike superstition. An English translation, similarly modified, of the Questions of Zapata was made by an anonymous lady, and published by Hetherington, in 1840. In the present translation some of the paragraphs are omitted, and the numbering is therefore altered.