Sinai and Olympus: Parallels in Heathen Myth and Hebrew Scripture, by a Texas Pagan

First published in 1899, Sinai and Olympus is a classic, an outstanding example of the thoughtful, reasoned, and well-researched sort of writing that characterized Texas' Golden Age of Freethought, an era that began shortly after the Civil War and lasted until just before the First World War began. For reasons that have been lost to history, its author, who is now known to have been a prominent Dallas lawyer, chose to mask his identity by humorously styling himself "A Texas Pagan."The author's message, which is just as compelling today as it was at the end of the nineteenth century, is quite clear: There is ample evidence that all deities are human constructs and that the most recent, the Judaeo-Christian god of today, is the result of plagiarism, that he and other biblical figures are recognizably-similar versions of the earlier so-called "pagan" gods that were invented and worshiped by the ancient Greeks and Romans. In the book's final chapters, he implores his readers to free themselves from the "despotism of a false religion," a "frightful superstition that poisons every source of happiness and blights every joy in, perhaps, the only life we shall ever live" and come into the light of reason.