Hesiod came long after Moses
After this Celsus sets out material from history outside the divine word, about people who have laid claim to antiquity, such as the Athenians, Egyptians, Arcadians and Phrygians, who say that certain earth-born men arose among them, and each of whom offers proofs of it. And he says that “the Jews, huddled together in some corner of Palestine, utterly uneducated, and not having heard of these things sung long ago by Hesiod and countless other inspired men, put together a most incredible and tasteless tale: a man moulded by the hands of God and blown into (Genesis 2:7), a little woman made from his side (Genesis 2:21–22), commandments of God (Genesis 2:16–17), and a serpent working against these commandments, the serpent getting the better of God’s orders (Genesis 3:1–6). They tell a sort of myth, as if to old women, and most impiously make God weak from the very beginning, unable to persuade even the one man whom he himself had moulded.”
In these words the widely read and learned Celsus, who charges both Jews and Christians with ignorance and lack of education, plainly shows how accurately he knew the dates of each writer, Greek and barbarian! For he thinks that Hesiod and countless others, whom he calls inspired men, are older than Moses and his writings: Moses, who is shown to be much older than the Trojan War.
So it was not the Jews who put together a most incredible and tasteless tale about the earth-born man, but Celsus’s “inspired men”, Hesiod and his countless others. Having neither learned nor heard the far older and most venerable accounts in Palestine, they wrote such histories about the ancients as their theogonies too, ascribing birth to gods, so far as it lay with them, and countless other things.
With good reason, then, Plato expels from his commonwealth Homer and those who write such poems, as corrupters of the young (Plato, Republic 398a; 607a). Plato plainly did not think that those who left such poems behind were inspired men. But Celsus the Epicurean, who is better able to judge than Plato, if indeed he is the same man who composed two other books against the Christians, has perhaps, out of a wish to quarrel with us, called “inspired” those whom he did not think inspired.
Greek
Μετὰ ταῦτα ὁ Κέλσος ἐκτιθέμενος τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς ἔξω τοῦ θείου λόγου ἱστορίας, τὰ περὶ τῶν ἐπιδικασαμένων ἀνθρώπων τῆς ἀρχαιότητος, οἷον Ἀθηναίων καὶ Αἰγυπτίων καὶ Ἀρκάδων καὶ Φρυγῶν, καὶ γηγενεῖς τινας παρὰ σφίσιν γεγονέναι λεγόντων καὶ τεκμήρια τούτων παρεχομένων ἑκάστων, φησὶν ὡς ἄρα Ἰουδαῖοι ἐν γωνίᾳ που τῆς Παλαιστίνης συγκύψαντες, παντελῶς ἀπαίδευτοι καὶ οὐ προακηκοότες πάλαι ταῦτα Ἡσιόδῳ καὶ ἄλλοις μυρίοις ἀνδράσιν ἐνθέοις ὑμνημένα, συνέθεσαν ἀπιθανώτατα καὶ ἀμουσότατα, ἄνθρωπόν τινα ὑπὸ χειρῶν θεοῦ πλασσόμενόν τε καὶ ἐμφυσώμενον καὶ γύναιον ἐκ τῆς πλευρᾶς καὶ παραγγέλματα τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ὄφιν τούτοις ἀντιπράσσοντα καὶ περιγινόμενον τῶν θεοῦ προσταγμάτων τὸν ὄφιν, μῦθόν τινα ὡς γραυσὶ διηγούμενοι καὶ ποιοῦντες ἀνοσιώτατα τὸν θεὸν, εὐθὺς ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς ἀσθενοῦντα καὶ μηδ᾿ ἕν᾿ ἄνθρωπον, ὃν αὐτὸς ἔπλασε, πεῖσαι δυνάμενον. διὰ τούτων δὴ ὁ πολυΐστωρ καὶ πολυμαθὴς καὶ Ἰουδαίοις καὶ Χριστιανοῖς ἀμαθίαν ἐγκαλῶν καὶ ἀπαιδευσίαν Κέλσος σαφῶς παρίστησι, τίνα τρόπον ἀκριβῶς ᾔδει τοὺς ἑκάστου συγγραφέως χρόνους, Ἕλληνος καὶ βαρβάρου· ὅς γε οἴεται Ἡσίοδον καὶ ἄλλους μυρίους. οὓς ὀνομάζει ἄνδρας ἐνθέους. πρεσβυτέρους εἶναι Μωϋσέως καὶ τῶν τούτου γραμμάτων. Μωϋσέως, τοῦ ἀποδεικνυμένου πολλῷ τῶν Ἰλιακῶν πρεσβυτέρου. οὐκ Ἰουδαῖοι οὖν συνέθεσαν ἀπιθανώτατα καὶ ἀμουσότατα τὰ περὶ τὸν γηγενῆ ἄνθρωπον, ἀλλ᾿ οἱ κατὰ Κέλσον ἄνδρες ἔνθεοι, Ἡσίοδος καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι αὐτοῦ μυρίοι, τοὺς πολλῷ πρεσβυτέρους καὶ σεμνοτάτους ἐν τῇ Παλαιστίνῃ λόγους μήτε μαθόντες μήτ᾿ ἀκηκοότες. τοιαύτας ἔγραψαν ἱστορίας περὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων. ὁποίας καὶ θεογονίας. γένεσιν τὸ ὅσον ἐφ᾿ ἑαυτοῖς περιτιθέντες θεοῖς. καὶ ἄλλα μυρία. εὐλόγως (οὖν) ἐκβάλλει τῆς ἑαυτοῦ πολιτείας Πλάτων ὡς ἐπιτρίβοντας τοὺς νέους τὸν Ὅμηρον καὶ τοὺς τοιαῦτα γράφοντας ποιήματα. ἀλλὰ Πλάτων μὲν δῆλός ἐστι μὴ φρονήσας ἐνθέους γεγονέναι ἄνδρας τοὺς τοιαῦτα ποιήματα καταλελοιπότας· ὁ δὲ κρίνειν μᾶλλον Πλάτωνος δυνάμενος, ὁ Ἐπικούρειος Κέλσος. εἴ γε οὗτός ἐστι καὶ ὁ κατὰ Χριστιανῶν ἄλλα δύο βιβλία συντάξας, τάχα ἡμῖν φιλονεικῶν οὓς μὴ ἐφρόνει ἐνθέους ἐνθέους ὠνόμασεν.