Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/891

Rh thing apparently agreed on being that his interpretation is wholly excluded. Upon a disputed original, and a disputed interpretation of the disputed original, he founds a signification in flat contradiction to the whole of the former narrative, to Elohist and Jehovist alike; which narrative, if it represents anything, represents a continuity of active reciprocal relation between God and man both before and after the transgression. Not to mention differences of translation, which essentially change the meaning of the words, the text itself is given by the double authority of the Samaritan Pentateuch and of the Septuagint in the singular number, which of itself wholly destroys the construction of Dr. Réville. I do not enter upon the difficult question of conflicting authorities, but I urge that it is unsafe to build an important conclusion upon a seriously controverted reading.

There is nothing, then, in the criticisms of Dr. Réville but what rather tends to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned belief that there is a revelation in the Hook of Genesis. With his argument outside this proposition I have not dealt. I make no assumption as to what is termed a verbal inspiration, and, of course, in admitting the variety, I give up the absolute integrity of the text. Upon the presumable age of the book and its compilation I do not enter—not even to contest the opinion which brings it down below the age of Solomon—beyond observing that in every page it appears from internal evidence to belong to a remote antiquity. There is here no question of the chronology or of the date of man, or of knowledge or ignorance in the primitive man; or whether the element of parable enters into any portion of the narrative; or whether every statement of fact contained in the text of the Hook can now be made good. It is enough for my present purpose to point to the cosmogony, and the fourfold succession of the living organisms, as entirely harmonizing, according to present knowledge, with belief in a revelation, and as presenting to the rejector of that belief a problem, which demands solution at his hands, and which he has not yet been able to solve. Whether this revelation was conveyed to the ancestors of the whole human race who have at the time or since existed, I do not know, and the Scriptures do not appear to make the affirmation, even if they do not convey certain indications which favor a contrary opinion. Again, whether it contains the whole of the knowledge specially vouchsafed to the parents of the Noachian races, may be very doubtful; though of course great caution must be exercised in regard to the particulars of any primeval tradition not derived from the text of the earliest among the sacred books. I have thus far confined myself to rebutting objections. But I will now add some positive considerations which appear to me to sustain the ancient and, as I am persuaded, impregnable belief of Christians and of Jews concerning the inspiration of the Book. I offer them as one wholly destitute of that kind of knowledge which carries authority, and who speaks derivatively as best he can, after listening to teachers of repute and such as practice rational methods.

I understand the stages of the majestic process described in the Book of Genesis to be in general outline as follows:

1. The point of departure is the formless mass, created by God, out of which the earth was shaped and constituted a thing of individual existence (verses 1, 2).

2. The detachment and collection of light, leaving in darkness as it proceeded the still chaotic mass from which it was detached (verses 3—5). The narrative assigning a space of time to each process appears to show that each was gradual, not instantaneous.

3. The detachment of light from darkness is followed by the detachment of wet from dry, and of solid from liquid, in the firmament, and on the face of the earth. Each of these operations occupies a "day"; and the conditions of vegetable life, as known to us by experience, being now provided, the order of the vegetable kingdom had begun (verses 6-13).

4. Next comes the presentation to us of the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars,