The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science Part 2

Another point which deserves a pa.s.sing notice here is the theory of Dr. Kurtz and others, that the Mosaic narrative represents a vision of creation, a.n.a.logous to those prophetic visions which appear in the later books of Scripture. This is beyond all question the most simple and probable solution of the origin of the doc.u.ment, when viewed as inspired, but we shall have to recur to it on a future page.

But with respect to the precise origin of this cosmogony, the question now arises, Is it really in substance a revelation from G.o.d to man? We must not disguise from ourselves that this deliberate statement of an order of creation in so far challenges comparison with the results of science, and this in a very different way from that which applies to the incidental references to nature in the Bible. Further, inasmuch as it relates to events which transpired before the creation of man, it is of the nature of prophecy rather than of history. It is, in short, either an inspired revelation of the divine procedure in creation, or it is a product of human imagination or research, or a deliberate fraud.

To no part of the Bible do these alternatives more strictly apply than to its first chapter. This "can not be history" in the strict acceptation of the term. It relates to events which no human eye witnessed, respecting which no human testimony could give any information. It represents the creation of man as the last of a long series of events, of which it professes to inform us. The knowledge of these events can not have been a matter of human experience. If at all ent.i.tled to confidence, the narrative must, therefore, be received as an inspired doc.u.ment, not handed down by any doubtful tradition, but existing as originally transfused into human language from the mind of the Author of nature himself. This view is in no way affected by the hypothesis, already mentioned, that the first chapters of Genesis were compiled by Moses from more ancient doc.u.ments. This merely throws back the revelation to a higher antiquity, and requires us to suppose the agency of two inspired men instead of one.

It would be out of place here to enter into any argument for the inspiration of Scripture, or to attempt to define the nature of that inspiration. I merely wish to impress on the mind of the reader that without the admission of its reality, or at least its possibility, our present inquiry becomes merely a matter of curious antiquarian research. We must also on this ground distinguish between the claims of the Scriptures and those of tradition or secular history, when they refer to the same facts. The traditions and cosmogonies of some ancient nations have many features in common with the Bible narrative; and, on the supposition that Moses compiled from older doc.u.ments, they may be portions of this more ancient sacred truth, but clothed in the varied garments of the fanciful mythological creeds which have sprung up in later and more degenerate times. Such fragments may safely be received as secondary aids to the understanding of the authentic record, but it would be folly to seek in them for the whole truth.

They are but the scattered ma.s.ses of ore, by tracing which we may sometimes open up new and rich portions of the vein of primitive lore from which they have been derived. It is, however, quite necessary here formally to inquire if there are any hypotheses short of that of plenary inspiration which may allow us to attach any value whatever to this most ancient doc.u.ment. I know but two views of this kind that are worthy of any attention.

1. The Mosaic account of creation may be a result of ancient scientific inquiries, a.n.a.logous to those of modern geology.

2. It may be an allegorical or poetical mythus, not intended to be historical, but either devised for some extraneous purpose, or consisting of the conjectures of some gifted intellect.

These alternatives we may shortly consider, though the materials for their full discussion can be furnished only by facts to be subsequently stated. I am not aware that the first of these views has been maintained by any modern writer. Some eminent scientific men are, however, disposed to adopt such an explanation of the ancient Hindoo hymns, as well as of the cosmogony of Pythagoras, which bears evidence of this origin; and it may be an easy step to infer that the Hebrew cosmogony was derived from some similar source. Not many years ago such a supposition would have been regarded as almost insane. Then the science of antiquity was only another name for the philosophy of Greece and Rome. But in recent times we have seen Egypt disclose the ruins of a mighty civilization, more grand and ma.s.sive though less elegant than that of Greece, and which had reached its acme ere Greece had received its alphabet--a civilization which, according to the Scripture history, is derived from that of the primeval Cus.h.i.+te empire, which extended from the plains of s.h.i.+nar over all Southeastern Asia, but was crushed at its centre before the dawn of secular history. We have now little reason to doubt that Moses, when he studied the learning of Egypt, held converse with men who saw more clearly and deeply into nature's mysteries than did Thales or Pythagoras, or even Aristotle.[12] Still later the remnants of old Nineveh have been exhumed from their long sepulture, and antiquaries have been astonished by the discovery that knowledge and arts, supposed to belong exclusively to far more recent times, were in the days of the early Hebrew kings, and probably very long previously, firmly established on the banks of the Tigris. Such discoveries, when compared with hints furnished by the Scriptures, tend greatly to exalt our ideas of the state of civilization at the time when they were written; and we shall perceive, in the course of our inquiry, many additional reasons for believing that the ancient Israelites were much farther advanced in natural science than is commonly supposed.

We have, however, no positive proof of such a theory, and it is subject to many grave objections. The narrative itself makes no pretension to a scientific origin, it quotes no authority, and it is connected with no philosophical speculations or deductions. It bears no internal evidence of having been the result of inductive inquiry, but appeals at once to faith in the truth of the great ultimate doctrine of absolute creation, and then proceeds to detail the steps of the process, in the manner of history as recorded by a witness, and not in the manner of science tracing back effects to their causes.

Farther, it refers to conditions of our planet respecting which science has even now attained to no conclusions supported by evidence, and is not in a position to make dogmatic a.s.sertions. The tone of all the ancient cosmogonies has in these respects a resemblance to that of the Scriptures, and bears testimony to a general impression pervading the mind of antiquity that there was a divine and authoritative testimony to the facts of creation, distinct from history, philosophical speculation, or induction.

One of the boldest and simplest methods of this kind is that followed by the authors of the "Types of Mankind," in the attempt to a.s.sign a purely human origin to Genesis 1st. These writers admit the greater antiquity of the first chapter, though a.s.signing the whole of the book to a comparatively modern date. They say:

"The 'doc.u.ment Jehovah'[13] does not especially concern our present subject; and it is incomparable with the grander conception of the more ancient and unknown writer of Genesis 1st. With extreme felicity of diction and conciseness of plan, the latter has defined the most philosophical views of antiquity upon _cosmogony_; in fact so well that it has required the palaeontological discoveries of the nineteenth century--at least 2500 years after his death--to overthrow his _septenary_ arrangement of 'Creation;' which, after all, would still be correct enough in great principles, were it not for one individual oversight and one unlucky blunder; not exposed, however, until long after his era, by post-Copernican astronomy. The oversight is where he wrote (Gen. i. 6-8), 'Let there be _raquie_,' _i. e._, a _firmament_; which proves that his notions of 'sky' (solid like the concavity of a copper basin, with _stars_ set as brilliants in the metal) were the same as those of adjacent people of his time--indeed, of all men before the publication of Newton's 'Principia' and of Laplace's 'Mecanique Celeste.' The blunder is where he conceives that _aur_, 'light,' and _iom_, 'day' (Gen. i. 14-18), could have been physically possible _three whole days_ before the 'two great luminaries,' _Sun_ and _Moon_, were created. These venial errors deducted, his majestic song beautifully ill.u.s.trates the simple process of ratiocination through which--often without the slightest historical proof of intercourse--different 'Types of Mankind,' at distinct epochas, and in countries widely apart, had arrived, naturally, at cosmogonic conclusions similar to the doctrines of that Hebraical school of which his harmonic and melodious numbers remain a magnificent memento.

"That process seems to have been the following: The ancients knew, as we do, that man _is_ upon the earth; and they were persuaded, as we are, that his appearance was preceded by unfathomable depths of time.

Unable (as we are still) to measure periods antecedent to man by any _chronological_ standard, the ancients rationally reached the tabulation of some events anterior to man through _induction_--a method not original with Lord Bacon, because known to St. Paul; 'for his unseen things from the creation of the world, his power and G.o.dhead, are clearly seen, _being understood by the things that are made_' (Rom. i., 20). Man, they felt, could not have lived upon earth without _animal_ food; ergo, 'cattle' preceded him, together with birds, reptiles, fishes, etc. Nothing living, they knew, could have existed without light and heat; ergo, the _solar system_ antedated animal life, no less than the _vegetation_ indispensable for animal support. But terrestrial plants can not grow without _earth_; ergo, that dry land had to be separated from pre-existent 'waters.' Their geological speculations inclining rather to the _Neptunian_ than to the _Plutonian_ theory--for Werner ever preceded Hutton--the ancients found it difficult to 'divide the waters from the waters' without interposing a metallic substance that 'divided the waters which were _under_ the firmament from the waters that were _above_ the firmament;' so they inferred, logically, that a _firmament_ must have been actually created for this object. [_E.g._, 'The _windows_ of the skies' (Gen. vii., 11); 'the waters _above_ the skies' (Psa. cxlviii., 4).] Before the 'waters' (and here is the peculiar error of the genesiacal bard) some of the ancients claimed the pre-existence of _light_ (a view adopted by the writer of Genesis 1st); while others a.s.serted that 'chaos' prevailed. Both schools united, however, in the conviction that DARKNESS--_Erebus_--anteceded all other _created things_. What, said these ancients, can have existed before the 'darkness?' _Ens entium_, the CREATOR, was the humbled reply. _Elohim_ is the Hebrew vocal expression of that climax; to define whose attributes, save through the phenomena of creation, is an attempt we leave to others more presumptuous than ourselves."

The problem here set to the "unknown" author of Genesis is a hard one--given the one fact that "man is" to find in detail how the world was formed in a series of preceding ages of vast duration. Is it possible that such a problem could have been so worked out as to have endured the test of three thousand years, and the scrutiny of modern science? But there is an "oversight" in one detail, and a "blunder" in another. By reference farther on, the reader will find under the chapters on "Light" and the "Atmosphere" that the oversight and blunder are those not of the writer of Genesis, but of the learned American ethnologists in the nineteenth century; a circ.u.mstance which cuts in two ways in defense of the ancient author so unhappily unknown to his modern critics.

The second of the alternatives above referred to, the mythical hypothesis, has been advanced and ably supported, especially on the continent of Europe, and by such English writers as are disposed to apply the methods of modern rationalistic criticism to the Bible. In one of its least objectionable forms it is thus stated by Professor Powell:

"The narrative, then, of six periods of creation, followed by a seventh similar period of rest and blessing, was clearly designed by adaptation to their conceptions to enforce upon the Israelites the inst.i.tution of the Sabbath; and in whatever way its details may be interpreted, it can not be regarded as an _historical_ statement of the _primeval_ inst.i.tution of a Sabbath; a supposition which is indeed on other grounds sufficiently improbable, though often adopted. * * *

If, then, we would avoid the alternative of being compelled to admit what must amount to impugning the truth of those portions at least of the Old Testament, we surely are bound to give fair consideration to the only suggestion which can set us entirely free from all the difficulties arising from the geological contradiction which does and must exist against any conceivable interpretation which retains the a.s.sertion of the historical character of the details of the narrative, as referring to the distinct transactions of each of the seven periods. * * * The one great fact couched in the general a.s.sertion that all things were created by the sole power of one Supreme Being is the whole of the representation to which an historical character can be a.s.signed. As to the particular form in which the descriptive narrative is conveyed, we merely affirm that it can not be history--it may be poetry."[14]

The general ground on which this view is entertained is the supposed irreconcilable contradiction between the literal interpretation of the Mosaic record and the facts of geology. The real amount of this difficulty we are not, in the present stage of our inquiry, prepared to estimate. We can, however, readily understand that the hypothesis depends on the supposition that the narrative of creation is posterior in date to the Mosaic ritual, and that this plain and circ.u.mstantial series of statements is a fable designed to support the Sabbatical inst.i.tution, instead of the rite being, as represented in the Bible itself, a commemoration of the previously recorded fact. This is, fortunately, a gratuitous a.s.sumption, contrary to the probable date of the doc.u.ments, as deduced from internal evidence and from comparison with the a.s.syrian and other cosmogonies; and it also completely ignores the other manifest uses mentioned under our first head. If proved, it would give to the whole the character of a pious fraud, and would obviously render any comparison with the geological history of the earth altogether unnecessary. While, therefore, it must be freely admitted that the Mosaic narrative can not be history, in so far at least as history is a product of human experience, we can not admit that it is a poetical mythus, or, in other words, that it is dest.i.tute of substantial truth, unless proved by good evidence to be so; and, when this is proved, we must also admit that it is quite undeserving of the credit which it claims as a revelation from G.o.d.

Since, therefore, the events recorded in the first chapter of Genesis were not witnessed by man; since there is no reason to believe that they were discovered by scientific inquiry; and since, if true, they can not be a poetical myth, we must, in the mean time, return to our former supposition that the Mosaic cosmogony is a direct revelation from the Creator. In this respect, the position of this part of the earth's Biblical history resembles that of prophecy. Writers _may_ accurately relate contemporary events, or those which belong to the human period, without inspiration; but the moment that they profess accurately to foretell the history of the future, or to inform us of events which preceded the human period, we must either believe them to be inspired, or reject them as impostors or fanatics. Many attempts have been made to find intermediate standing-ground, but it is so precarious that the nicest of our modern critical balancers have been unable to maintain themselves upon it.

Having thus determined that the Mosaic cosmogony, in its grand general features, must either be inspired or worthless, we have further to inquire to what extent it is necessary to suppose that the particular details and mode of expression of the narrative, and the subsequent allusions to nature in the Bible, must be regarded as ent.i.tled to this position. We may conceive them to have been left to the discretion of the writers; and, in that case, they will merely represent the knowledge of nature actually existing at the time. On the other hand, their accuracy may have been secured by the divine afflatus. Few modern writers have been disposed to insist on the latter alternative, and have rather a.s.sumed that these references and details are accommodated to the state of knowledge at the time. I must observe here, however, that a careful consideration of the facts gives to a naturalist a much higher estimate of the real value of the observations of nature embodied in the Scriptures than that which divines have ordinarily entertained; and, consequently, that if we suppose them of human origin, we must be prepared to modify the views generally entertained of early Oriental simplicity and ignorance. The truth is, that a large proportion of the difficulties in Scriptural natural history appear to have arisen from want of such accommodation to the low state of the knowledge of nature among translators and expositors; and this is precisely what we should expect in a veritable revelation. Its moral and religious doctrines were slowly developed, each new light illuminating previous obscurities. Its human history comes out as evidence of its truth, when compared with monumental inscriptions; and why should not the All-wise have constructed as skilfully its teachings respecting his own works? There can be no doubt whatever that the Scripture writers intended to address themselves to the common mind, which now as then requires simple and popular teaching, but they were under obligation to give truthful statements; and we need not hesitate to say, with Dr.

Chalmers, in reference to a book making such claims as those of the Bible: "There is no argument, saving that grounded on the usages of popular language, which would tempt us to meddle with the literalities of that ancient and, as appears to us, authoritative doc.u.ment, any farther than may be required by those conventionalities of speech which spring from 'optical' impressions of nature."[15]

Attempt as we may to disguise it, any other view is totally unworthy of the great Ruler of the universe, especially in a doc.u.ment characterized as emphatically _the truth_, and in a moral revelation, in which statements respecting natural objects need not be inserted, unless they could be rendered at once truthful and ill.u.s.trative of the higher objects of the revelation. The statement often so flippantly made that the Bible was not intended to teach natural history has no application here. _Spiritual_ truths are no doubt shadowed forth in the Bible by material emblems, often but rudely resembling them, because the nature of human thought and language render this necessary, not only to the unlearned, but in some degree to all; but this principle of adaptation can not be applied to plain material facts. Yet a confusion of these two very distinct cases appears to prevail almost unaccountably in the minds of many expositors. They tell us that the Scriptures ascribe bodily members to the immaterial G.o.d, and typify his spiritual procedure by outward emblems; and this they think a.n.a.logous to such doctrines as a solid firmament, a plane earth, and others of a like nature, which they ascribe to the sacred writers. We shall find that the writers of the Scriptures had themselves much clearer views, and that, even in poetical language, they take no such liberties with truth.

As an ill.u.s.tration of the extent to which this doctrine of "accommodation" carries us beyond the limits of fair interpretation, I cite the following pa.s.sage from one of the ablest and most judicious writers on the subject:[16] "It was the opinion of the ancients that the earth, at a certain height, was surrounded by a transparent hollow sphere of solid matter, which they called the firmament. When rain descended, they supposed that it was through windows or holes made in the crystalline curtain suspended in mid-heavens. To these notions the language of the Bible is frequently conformed. * * * But the most decisive example I have to give on this subject is derived from astronomy. Until the time of Copernicus no opinion respecting natural phenomena was thought better established than that the earth is fixed immovably in the centre of the universe, and that the heavenly bodies move diurnally round it. To sustain this view the most decisive language of Scripture might be quoted. G.o.d is there said to have '_established the foundations of the earth, so that they could not be removed forever_;' and the sacred writers expressly declare that the heavenly bodies _arise and set_, and nowhere allude to any proper motion of the earth."

Will it be believed that, with the exception of the poetical expression, "windows of heaven," and the common forms of speech relating to sunrise and sunset, the above "decisive" instances of accommodation have no foundation whatever in the language of Scripture. The doctrine of the rotation of solid celestial spheres around the earth belongs to a Greek philosophy which arose after the Hebrew cosmogony was complete; and though it occurs in the Septuagint and other ancient versions, it is not based on the Hebrew original. In truth, we know that those Grecian philosophers--of the Ionic and Pythagorean schools--who lived nearest the times of the Hebrew writers, and who derived the elements of their science from Egypt and Western Asia, taught very different doctrines. How absurd, then, is it thus to fasten upon the sacred writers, contrary to their own words, the views of a school of astronomy which probably arose long after their time, when we know that more accurate ideas prevailed nearer their epoch. Secondly, though there is some reason for stating that the "ancients," though certainly not those of Israel, believed in celestial spheres supporting the heavenly bodies, I suspect that the doctrine of a solid vault _supporting the clouds_, except as a mere poetical or mythological fancy, is a product of the imagination of the theologians and closet philosophers of a more modern time. The testimony of men's senses appears to be in favor of the whole universe revolving around a plane earth, though the oldest astronomical school with which we are acquainted suspected that this is an illusion; but the every-day observation of the most unlettered man who treads the fields and is wet with the mists and rains must convince him that there is no _sub-nubilar_ solid sphere. If, therefore, the Bible had taught such a doctrine, it would have shocked the common-sense even of the plain husbandmen to whom it was addressed, and could have found no fit audience except among a portion of the literati of comparatively modern times. Thirdly, with respect to the foundations of the earth, I may remark that in the tenth verse of Genesis there occurs a definition as precise as that of any lexicon--"and G.o.d called the _dry land_ earth;" consequently it is but fair to a.s.sume that the earth afterwards spoken of as supported above the waters is the dry land or continental ma.s.ses of the earth, and no geologist can object to the statement that the dry land is supported above the waters by foundations or pillars.

We shall find in our examination of the doc.u.ment itself that all the instances of such accommodation which have been cited by writers on this subject are as baseless as those above referred to. It is much to be regretted that so many otherwise useful expositors have either wanted that familiarity with the aspects of external nature by which all the Hebrew writers are characterized, or have taken too little pains to ascertain the actual meaning of the references to creation which they find in the Bible. I may further remark that if such instances of accommodation could be found in the later poetical books, it would be extremely unfair to apply them as aids in the interpretation of the plain, precise, and unadorned statements of the first chapters of Genesis. There is, however, throughout even the higher poetry of the Bible, a truthful representation and high appreciation of nature for which we seek in vain in any other poetry, and we may fairly trace this in part to the influence of the cosmogony which appears in its first chapter. The Hebrew was thus taught to recognize the unity of nature as the work of an Almighty Intelligence, to regard all its operations as regulated by his unchanging law or "decree," and to venerate it as a revelation of his supreme wisdom and goodness. On this account he was likely to regard careful observation and representation with as scrupulous attention as the modern naturalist. Nor must we forget that the Old Testament literature has descended to us through two dark ages--that of Greek and Roman polytheism and of Middle Age barbarism--and that we must not confound its tenets with those of either. The religious ideas of both these ages were favorable to certain forms of literature and art, but eminently unfavorable to the successful prosecution of the study of nature. Hence we have a right to expect in the literature of the golden age of primeval monotheism more affinity with the ideas of modern science than in any intermediate time; and the truthful delineation which the claims of the Bible to inspiration require might have been, as already hinted, to a certain extent secured merely by the reflex influence of its earlier statements, without the necessity of our supposing that ill.u.s.trations of this kind in the later books came directly from the Spirit of G.o.d.

Our discussion of this part of the subject has necessarily been rather desultory, and the arguments adduced must depend for their full confirmation on the results of our future inquiries. The conclusions arrived at may be summed up as follows: 1. That the Mosaic cosmogony must be considered, like the prophecies of the Bible, to claim the rank of inspired teaching, and must depend for its authority on the maintenance of that claim. 2. That the incidental references to nature in other parts of Scripture indicate, at least, the influence of these earlier teachings, and of a pure monotheistic faith, in creating a high and just appreciation of nature among the Hebrew people.

It is now necessary to inquire in what precise form this remarkable revelation of the origin of the world has been given. I have already referred to the hypothesis that it represents a vision of creation presented to the mind of a seer, as if in a series of pictures which he represents to us in words. This is perhaps the most intelligible conception of the manner of communication of a revelation from G.o.d; and inasmuch as it is that referred to in other parts of the Bible as the mode of presentation of the future to inspired prophets, there can be no impropriety in supposing it to have been the means of communicating the knowledge of the unknown past. We may imagine the seer--perhaps some aboriginal patriarch, long before the time of Moses--perhaps the first man himself--wrapt in ecstatic vision, having his senses closed to all the impressions of the present time, and looking as at a moving procession of the events of the earth's past history, presented to him in a series of apparent days and nights. In the first chapter of Genesis he rehea.r.s.es this divine vision to us, not in poetry, but in a series of regularly arranged parts or strophes, thrown into a sort of rhythmical order fitted to impress them on the memory, and to allow them to be handed down from mouth to mouth, perhaps through successive generations of men, before they could be fixed in a written form of words. Though the style can scarcely be called poetical, since its expressions are obviously literal and unadorned by figures of speech, the production may not unfairly be called the Song or Ballad of Creation, and it presents an Archaic simplicity reminding us of the compositions of the oldest and rudest times, while it has also an artificial and orderly arrangement, much obscured by its division into verses and chapters in our Bibles.

It is undoubtedly also characterized by a clearness and grandeur of expression very striking and majestic, and which shows that it was written by and intended for men of no mean and contracted minds, but who could grasp the great problems of the origin of things, and comprehend and express them in a bold and vigorous manner. It may be well, before proceeding farther, to present to the reader this ancient doc.u.ment in a form more literal and intelligible, and probably nearer to its original dress, than that in which we are most familiar with it in our English Bibles:

THE ABORIGINAL SONG OF CREATION.

_Beginning._

In the Beginning G.o.d created the Heavens and the Earth, And the Earth was formless and empty, And darkness on the surface of the deep, And the Breath of G.o.d moved on the Surface of the Waters.

_Day One._

_And G.o.d said_--"Let Light be,"

And Light was.

And G.o.d saw the Light that it was good.

And G.o.d called the Light Day, And the darkness he called Night.

And Evening was and Morning was--Day one.

_Day Second._

_And G.o.d said_--"Let there be an Expanse in the midst of the waters, And let it divide the waters from the waters."

And G.o.d made the Expanse, And divided the waters below the Expanse from the waters above the Expanse.

And it was so.

And G.o.d called the Expanse Heavens.

And Evening was and Morning was, a Second Day.

_Day Third._

_And G.o.d said_--"Let the waters under the Heavens be gathered into one place, And let the Dry Land appear."

And it was so, And G.o.d called the Dry Land Earth, And the gathering of waters called he Seas.

And G.o.d saw that it was good.

_And G.o.d said_--"Let the earth shoot forth herbage, The Herb yielding seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit containing seed after its kind, on the earth."

And it was so.

And the earth brought forth herbage, The Herb yielding seed and the Tree yielding fruit whose seed is in it after its kind, And G.o.d saw that it was good.

And Evening was and Morning was, a Third Day.

_Day Fourth._

_And G.o.d said_--"Let there be Luminaries in the Expanse of Heaven, To divide the day from the night, And let them be for Signs and for Seasons, And for Days and for Years.

And let them be Luminaries in the Expanse of Heaven To give light on the earth."

And it was so.

And G.o.d made two great Luminaries, The greater Luminary to rule the day, The lesser Luminary to rule the night, The Stars also.

And G.o.d placed them in the Expanse of Heaven To give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, And to divide the light from the darkness.

And G.o.d saw that it was good.

And Evening was and Morning was, a Fourth Day.