The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science Part 22

Many similar opinions of old commentators might be quoted. It is also not unworthy of note that the cardinal number is used here, "one day"

for first day; and though the Hebrew grammarians have sought to found on this, and a few similar pa.s.sages, a rule that the cardinal may be subst.i.tuted for the ordinal, many learned Hebraists insist that this use of the cardinal number implies singularity and peculiarity as well as mere priority.]

[Footnote 51: It is to be observed, however, that on the so-called literal day hypothesis the first Sabbath was not man's seventh day, but rather his first, since he must have been created toward the close of the sixth day.]

[Footnote 52: "Footprints of the Creator."]

[Footnote 53: This idea occurs in Lord Bacon's "Confession of Faith,"

and De Luc also maintains that the Creator's Sabbath must have been of long continuance.]

[Footnote 54: See the quotation from Job, _supra_.]

[Footnote 55: This is not strictly correct, as many animals, especially of the lower tribes, extend back to the early tertiary periods, long before the creation of man; a fact which of itself is irreconcilable with the Mosaic narrative on the theory of literal or ordinary days.]

[Footnote 56: Since this was written, the bones of many Batrachian reptiles have been found in the Carboniferous, both in Europe and America. No reptilian remains have yet been found in the Devonian rocks.]

[Footnote 57: _Biblical Repository_, 1856. See also an excellent paper by Prof. C. H. Hitchc.o.c.k, _Bibliotheca Sacra_, 1867.]

[Footnote 58: Rhode, quoted by McDonald, "Creation and the Fall," p. 62; Eusebius, Chron. Arm.]

[Footnote 59: Suidas, Lexicon--"Tyrrenia."]

[Footnote 60: Diodorus Siculus, bk. i. Prichard, Egyptian Mythology.]

[Footnote 61: "Asiatic Researches."]

[Footnote 62: This name is exactly identical in meaning with the Hebrew Jehovah Elohim.]

[Footnote 63: Muller, Sanscrit Literature.]

[Footnote 64: The theology of the Inst.i.tutes is clearly primitive Semitic in its character; and therefore, if the Bible is true, must be older than the Aryan theogony of the Rig-Veda, as expounded by Muller, whatever the relative age of the doc.u.ments.]

[Footnote 65: "Recent Advances in Physical Science."]

[Footnote 66: Croll's "Climate and Time" contains some interesting facts as to this.]

[Footnote 67: See the discussion of this in the author's "Story of the Earth," and in Sir William Thomson's British a.s.sociation Address, 1876.]

[Footnote 68: Daniell's Meteorological Essays; Prout's Bridgewater Treatise; art. "Meteorology," Encyc. Brit.; "Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea."]

[Footnote 69: Kaemtz, "Course of Meteorology."]

[Footnote 70: Encyc. Brit., art. "Meteorology."]

[Footnote 71: It is not meant that the word _rakiah_ occurs in these pa.s.sages, but to show how by other words the idea of stretching out or extension rather than solidity is implied. The verb in the first two pa.s.sages is _nata_, to spread out.]

[Footnote 72: See also Humboldt, "Cosmos," vol. ii., pt. 1.]

[Footnote 73: Heb., "they refine."]

[Footnote 74: "His pavilion round about him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies," Psa. xviii. This expression explains that in the text.]

[Footnote 75: Or "He darkens the depths of the sea."]

[Footnote 76: Translation of these lines much disputed and very difficult. Gesenius and Conant render it, "His thunder tells of him; to the herds even of him who is on high."]

[Footnote 77: I take advantage of this long quotation to state that in the case of this and other pa.s.sages quoted from the Old Testament I have carefully consulted the original; but have availed myself freely of the renderings of such of the numerous versions and commentaries as I have been able to obtain, whenever they appeared accurate and expressive, and have not scrupled occasionally to give a free translation where this seemed necessary to perspicuity. In the book of Job, I have consulted princ.i.p.ally the translation appended to Barnes's Commentary, Conant's translation, 1857, and those of Tayler Lewis and Evans in Schaff's edition of Lange, 1874.]

[Footnote 78: The word is one of those that pervade both Semitic and Indo-European tongues: Sanscrit, _ahara_; Pehlevi, _arta_; Latin, _terra_; German, _Erde_; Gothic, _airtha_; Scottish, _yird_; English, _earth_.--Gesenius.]

[Footnote 79: Psalm xcv.]

[Footnote 80: Gesenius.]

[Footnote 81: Perhaps "changed," metamorphosed, as by fire. Conant has "destroyed."]

[Footnote 82: "Dust" in our version, literally lumps or "nuggets."]

[Footnote 83: The vulgar and incorrect idea that the vulture "scents the carrion from afar," so often reproduced by later poets, has no place in the Bible poetry. It is the bird's keen eye that enables him to find his prey.]

[Footnote 84: Lyell's "Principles of Geology."]

[Footnote 85: Stanford, London, 1875.]

[Footnote 86: In further explanation of these general geological changes, see "The Story of the Earth and Man," by the author.]

[Footnote 87: "Tenera herba, sine semine saltem conspicuo."--Rosenmuller, "Scholia."]

[Footnote 88: Haughton, Address to the Geological Society, Dublin.]

[Footnote 89: See McDonald, "Creation and the Fall." Professor Guyot, I believe, deserves the credit of having first mentioned, on the American side of the Atlantic, the doctrine respecting the introduction of plants advocated in this chapter.]

[Footnote 90: "Eozoic" of this work. Professor Dana in the latest edition of his Manual uses the name "Archaean."]

[Footnote 91: This may refer to an eclipse, but from the character of the preceding verses more probably to the obscurity of a tempest. It is remarkable that eclipses, which so much strike the minds of men and affect them with superst.i.tious awe, are not distinctly mentioned in the Old Testament, though referred to in the prophetical parts of the New Testament.]

[Footnote 92: Perhaps rather the high places of the waters, referring to the atmospheric waters.]

[Footnote 93: The rendering "sweet influences" in our version may be correct, but the weight of argument appears to favor the view of Gesenius that the close bond of union between the stars of this group is referred to. I think it is Herder who well unites both views, the Pleiades being bound together in a sisterly union, and also ushering in the spring by their appearance above the horizon. Conant applies the whole to the seasons, the bands of Orion being in this view those of winter.]

[Footnote 94: It would be unfair to suppress the farther probability that the writer intends specially to indicate that the sacred crocodile of the Nile was itself a creature of Jehovah, and among the humbler of those creatures.]

[Footnote 95: The interesting discovery, by Mr. Beale and others, of several species of mammalia in the Purbeck, and that of Professor Emmons of a mammal in rocks of similar age in the Southern States of America, do not invalidate this statement; for all these, like the _Microlestes_ of the German trias and the _Amphitherium_ of the Stonesfeld slate, are small marsupials belonging to the least perfect type of mammals. The discovery of so many species of these humbler creatures, goes far to increase the improbability of the existence of the higher mammals.]

[Footnote 96: It is very interesting, in connection with this, to note that nearly all the earliest and greatest seats of population and civilization have been placed on the more modern geological deposits, or on those in which stores of fuel have been acc.u.mulated by the growth of extinct plants.]

[Footnote 97: See Appendix.]

[Footnote 98: See Appendix for farther discussion of this subject.]