BS
B 389191
657
.W75
ARTES
1837
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E PLURIBUS UNUM
TUEBUR
SQUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
CIRCUMSPICE
THE GIFT OF
Pros. R. Hudson
.:.
pliments of
Hexander Winchell
Prof. R. Hindson
LUG PA 1908
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
PROF. ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL. D.
IS
457
175

PROF. ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL. D.
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
BY
ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL. D.
་་ད
HOLY BIBLE
bo
HERE is no part of the
Bible whose subject matter
approaches so closely and so
broadly as the first chapter
of Genesis, to the territory com-
monly held as belonging to science.
Those who accept the Bible as a
supernatural communication must,
therefore, feel a deep interest in the
question whether the determinations
of science respecting the early conditions.
of the world corroborate the statements
found in Genesis or conflict with them.
If a substantial agreement exists, that
must be regarded as greatly strengthening the credibility of
the scriptures at large. If a conflict is discovered, or thought
to be discovered, it becomes a matter of the highest interest
to ascertain whether it is real and irremediable, or only appar-
If a seeming conflict is capable of reconciliation, it is of
first importance to bring out the real harmony. The claims
of the Bible concern so profoundly the welfare of man that no
taint of invalidity should be allowed to remain. Nor should the
ent.
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YOU AND I
suspicion of possibility of an error be permitted to throw a
cloud over the sacred page. If only the possibility of conflict
exists, there are willing rejecters of the Bible who will hold
the possibility as a certainty, and will disparage the Bible as
if it were demonstrated incredible. We must exclude the
possibility of cavil, or the antagonism of those predisposed to
doubt will be positive and unreserved.
I.
GENERAL RELATIONS OF THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE.
It may be useful to offer some further and more specific
statements respecting the attitude from which we ought to
estimate the congruity or incongruity of scriptural and secular
teachings on subjects lying within the domain of science.
What I am thinking of suggesting is applicable both to the
relations between Genesis and Geology and the relations at
large between biblical utterances and scientific doctrines.
Expressly important is it to bear in mind that what we
ordinarily speak of as the Bible is only a translation of the
real Bible. The Old Testament records in their true charac-
ter stand in a tongue which has so long been "dead" that
great difficulty exists, in some cases, in attaining to the real
signification. The difficulty is greatest in those passages
which have long been misinterpreted; and those are the pas-
sages bearing upon the truth of the natural world, since our
interpretations of these were made at a period when our
knowledge of the natural world was crude and often erroneous.
In arriving at the meaning of any passage touching natural
truth the translator must necessarily exercise his intelligence.
Both knowledge and good judgment must be brought into
exercise. The requirements are the same as in translating
from the Greek the histories of Herodotus or the philosophic
essays of Plato. A translator ignorant of history, ethnography
and archæology would no more be qualified to give us
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
593
Herodotus in the English tongue, than one unfamiliar with
philosophic conceptions and unversed in Greek thought, could
give us an adequate version of Plato's Gorgias or Timæus.
Rawlinson, the most learned of historians and antiquarians,
has produced the most exact translation of Herodotus. No
one unacquainted with the natural history of the Mediter-
ranean shores could fully reproduce, in another tongue, the
writings of Aristotle on "Animals." If Aristotle had been in
full possession of a knowledge of the primitive history of the
world, as it has become developed in modern times, and had
recorded some concise general statements based on such
knowledge, I venture to say that Aristotle, in those particu-
lars, would have remained an enigma for two thousand years;
or that his translators would have attempted to adapt his
utterances to the scientific conceptions of their times.
What I wish the reader clearly to perceive is the fact that
the translator of a treatise embodying scientific statements
and allusions, must necessarily perform his work in the light
of the science of his time. If the best science is crude or
erroneous, he will give an inadequate or misleading coloring
to his translation; since he would be accused of making non-
sense of his author should he ascribe to him opinions in
science which all the world rejected.
Now, everything which can be made a matter of observa-
tion belongs to the store of scientific facts. Whatever can
be found out by observing and reasoning belongs to science.
Assuredly, science has access to a multitude of facts respect-
ing plants, animals, rocks and worlds. It has, then, the data
from which it may reason respecting the former conditions of
plants, animals, rocks and worlds. Questions respecting the
earlier conditions of the earth and its populations lie within
the domain of science. Science has the right to an opinion
38
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YOU AND I.
on such questions; and it is even conceivable that science may
arrive at substantial truth about these things.
But these are the very things of which the opening chapter
of Genesis treats. And these are the very things of which
the world knew almost nothing until modern science found
out the probable truth. It was in this original ignorance of
the subjects touched by the first chapter of Genesis that our
translators attempted to tell us what Genesis teaches. Is it
probable, to the slightest extent, that they have given us the
true and full meaning of the original, so far as translation
requires knowledge of the subject and a good judgment on
the themes treated? By no means. The knowledge which
they possessed, and which guided their renderings, was the
knowledge of their time, which, upon cosmogony, was only
profound ignorance. The light in which they translated our
sacred text was the traditional Jewish dogma that the world.
was 6000 years old, and that it was brought into existence
with all its populations in six literal days.
What, after all, is science? It is simply a knowledge of the
truth respecting anything about which our knowing faculties.
may be exercised. It is a knowledge of the truth respecting
the condition of the world six thousand years ago-ten.
thousand years ago—any length of time ago. It is a knowl-
edge of the facts which render it probable or improbable that
more than six thousand years have passed while the earth has
existed. What is the origin of the truth about things? Is it.
not the same as the origin of things? If we hold that God is
the author of all that exists, then we hold that God is the
author of that truth which science seeks to acquire. If there
is anything true in science, the Creator of the world is the
author of it. Can we find anything profane about such
science? Can we find anything which is not sacred? If not,
then the truth of science is sacred truth, and the truths found.
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
595
out through scientific research are as sacred as those which
come to us through inspired revelation.
Now reflect again under what conditions of former ignor-
ance of the truth of nature, attempts have been made to
reproduce, in our own tongue, the statements of truth in our
Sacred Writings-particularly those which are simple enunci-
ations of truths ascertainable by scientific research. Is it not
inevitable that some conceptions of natural truth received
from a mistranslated Bible, may be found in conflict with con-
ceptions of truth as ascertained by the latest scientific
research? In the light of what precedes, the question implies
the answer.
Now, we should not feel unreasonably tender about our
traditional understanding of biblical statements as long as
those understandings are subject to such chances of error.
Remember, it is not the meaning of the original about which
we have reason to feel uncertain, but only that representation
of the original which has been given to us by translators
unavoidably ignorant and ill prepared on certain points. But
it is natural to look upon the translation as the Bible; and to
regard the purport of the translation as the real sacred truth
embodied in the original. Generally it is so, beyond all ques-
tion; for, on linguistic grounds, the translators of our Bible
were fully competent. It seems at first, however, a singular
fact that religious affection should cling as fondly as it does to
understandings about matters strictly scientific, which at the
same time are involved in such chances of error as have been
pointed out. That it should be so reluctant, for instance, to
admit that the world is more than six thousand years old; or
that there may be inhabitants on the other planets, beyond
the probable reach of redemptive efficiency exerted on this
planet. But, on second thought, this very devotion to a pro-
position which the religious nature once received and conse-
596
YOU AND I.
crated as divine truth, is understood to come from the fidelity
of the religious nature to its objects; and truly typifies the
changelessness of these spiritual truths which alone are the
legitimate objects of religious faith. Adherence to tenets,
which good reason refuses to sanction, we style bigotry; but
even bigotry proclaims that something exists within the scope
of religious activity which is worthy of inflexible devotion,
and therefore intended to receive unfaltering defense.
The persistent devotion of the religious nature to unworthy
objects arises from the lack of intellectual light. The relig-
ious faculty is not a discerning faculty; and so it summons
into its service the same discerning faculties as we employ on
all other subjects. If the intelligence serves it truly, the
religious faculty acquires real truth on which to rest. If it
supplies information which is erroneous, the religious faculty
consecrates it with the same affection; but is doomed, by and
by, to the pain and mortification of finding some of its objects
of faith discredited by a more enlightened intelligence. By
a law of its being, the knowing faculty is ever reaching a
broader comprehension, a juster conception of the truths of
nature. To the extent to which this is accomplished, the
older teachings formerly accepted and consecrated by relig-
ious faith are shown to be false, and faith is robbed of some
of its cherished objects. Faith is distressed and blindly feels
that progressive science is its foe.
This appearance of conflict is not altogether an evil, since
religious devotion to effete science would end in a religious
system unfit for intelligent beings. In fact, such devotion is
an impossibility. The religious faith of enlightened believers
will show docility to the teachings of science, or it will decline,
and become merely the faith of the ignorant and superstitious,
while an enlightened faith will supplant it in the acceptance of
progressive intelligence. If representatives of the religious
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
597
creed persist in inveighing against scientific positions strong
in scientific sanction, they stultify themselves and repel those
accessible to intelligent conviction. If, for instance, the
clergyman from the pulpit, as I have sometimes heard him,
declares no harmony possible between Moses and geology,
then those who feel the conviction which the facts of geology
bring, will consider themselves warned away from the church
by the very voice sent to win them to it. If the religious
teacher stakes the truth of his religious system on the recog
nition of the negro as the descendant of Ham, then those
who have followed Ham's descendants into regions never
populated by negroes, will choose to accept the lead of intel-
ligence rather than that of unenlightened tradition.
I feel moved to interpose an obvious reflection on the
solemn responsibility of religious teachers who neglect to fol-
low the great advances of scientific truth; or, at least,
receive with humility and gladness the grand enunciations
of science in the domain of natural truth; feeling, as they
have a right to, that these truths are sacred and reflect the
character and mind of God, and are in solid union with the
whole system of truth. As the human intelligence is consti-
tuted, man must yield credence to evidence. Scientists are
not to be conceived as pestilent lovers of error.
None are
more devoted to the search for truth; none are more willing
to humiliate themselves and change their opinions when dis-
covered in error. But yet they must yield to evidence; they
will believe according to the evidence; let prelate or pope or
priest denounce as loudly and as fiercely as he will. This is
the spirit of the native human intelligence. This is the char-
acter of the dawning intelligence of the boy at school, or the
expanding intelligence of the young man in college. The
teaching of nature, meantime, reaches them. The evidences
which sustain great scientific doctrines inevitably come to
598
YOU AND I.
3
their knowledge. They contemplate, they reason, they con-
clude. There is no power on earth which can urge intelligent
conviction out of the line of the evidence. Suppose now the
young man, trained to faithful attendance at church, hears his
pastor warning against the peril of such and such beliefs,
which to him seem irresistible. Suppose he hears his pastor
affirm such and such scientific teachings are incompatible with
the Bible, hostile to a religious life, synonyms of materialism
and practical atheisın—and yet the evidence sustains them as
true.
This is a painful dilemma for an ingenuous, truth-loving
young man. Yet I have to testify that it is the dilemma in
which a large proportion of the educated young men of the day
are placed. They are not all worldly-minded. They are not
prejudiced against religious belief. They feel the need of
religion. They would gladly ally themselves with a form of
church belief which gives free scope to scientific conviction.
But the constituted religious teachers present him a creed
stuffed with effete science, and call that the sine qua non of a
religious life, declaring that the effete science must be taken
with the religious truth or the distracted seeker is forever lost.
In this dilemma what is a young man in the closing years. of
the nineteenth century likely to respond? Sorrowfully, but
firmly, he turns away from the church, declaring his convic-
tions more sacred than her authority. "If your religion," he
says sadly, "is not reconcilable with the truth which my best
intelligence brings me, it is not the religion for which I feel a
need." So the church loses his alliance. So the church loses
the strength which his intelligence would bring. So the
church tends to grow progressively feebler and more imbe-
cile, and the "independent" and "rationalistic" organizations
grow in strength.
To many, undoubtedly, there is something startling in such
GEOLOGY AND THe bible.
599
suggestions. I have long felt that they ought to be made-
with boldness and force—and by a friend rather than an
enemy. There is no reason to despair of the final interests of
religion. It is only for the time being that much of the best
intelligence may feel alienated. It is only for the bigoted
and imbecile creed that peril threatens.
outlived creeds will ultimately be swept
These effete relics of
away, and the puri-
fied and generous creed will be recruited by all the brightest
intelligence of the people.
I beg to remind the reader that the statements just made
are not intended to be "wholesale." They have in view only
a portion of those who speak for the church, though unhappily,
a noisy and conspicuous portion. They have in view the
controlling influence which this portion exerts in preserving
the antique form of the creed, and in waving away those who
maintain unswerving loyalty to their intelligence. All honor to
those who stand by the complete system of truth-scientific as
well as ecclesiastic— albeit from time to time, they find them-
selves in imminent peril of being counted out as heretics
limbo that has lost its influence in the decisions of synods and
conferences.
a
All these general principles have their bearing on the par-
ticular case which I wish to present to the reader. We have
in Genesis a history of the beginnings of the world's existence.
It is by far the most ancient document in the possession of
man. It is commended to us as the gift of inspiration, but in
a cold examination of its credibility, we can not yield to any
claim of authority. Does it state what we have found true in
this age of the world? That is the only question.
Preliminarily, we must ascertain what it really states-not
what our translation of it states, or assumes. In doing this,
we may contemplate the account as a whole, and then more
carefully consider its several parts.
Mor M
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YOU AND I.
II. THE BIBLICAL RECORD.
The Composition Poetic.-In general conception as a com-
position, it bears the stamp of poetry. Great facts are recorded
under figures of speech. For instance, intervals of time are
defined by inclusion between evening and morning; the earth
is commanded to bring forth grass, and the waters to bring
forth moving creatures. The beginning of existence is
called the head; and in the midst of the chaos, the spirit of
God brooded over the abyss. I think we may trace the
imagery farther. In the origination of Eve, she is represented
as formed from a rib of Adam, which is a poetic conception
of the intimacy appointed to exist between man and woman.
So Adam and Eve were placed in a garden, and the evil
which tempted them is figured under the insidious form of a
serpent. The structure too, of the composition is strophaic-
distinctly so in the first chapter. Perpetually recurring are
the phrases "and it was evening and it was morning; " "and
it was so;" "and God saw that it was good."
The Proœmium.- Still further, the first and most general
narrative appears to be introduced by some brief announce-
ments which serve as a prooemium. The procenium, or proem,
is the passage which states the theme of the poem which is to
follow. Its use has been practised by all the great epic poets.
All the great epics are thus introduced. When Homer, the
oldest of the epic poets of Greece and "the father of epic
poetry," introduced the Iliad, his greatest work, to the world,
he began thus:
"Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing."
And the poet then proceeded to narrate the consequences of
the ire of Achilles.
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
601
When Virgil, his imitator, opened the beautiful epic of the
Æneid, he announced his argument as follows:
1
"I sing of arms, and the man who driven by fate from the
shores of Troy, came first to Italy and the Lavinian shores,"
and then launched into the midst of the incidents which
attended the wanderings of Æneas from the sack of Troy.
So when Milton, the greatest epic poet of the English
language, enters upon his great theme, he says:
"Of man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woes,
With loss of Eden," etc.
Then follows the heroic recital.
So when the epic poet of an age older than any of these,
writing upon a theme more grandly heroic than any of these,
prepares the way for his formal recital, he opens with the
proœmium—the prototype and archetype of all proœmiums;
and says:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep.
And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
These are the first two "verses" of the English text. These
embody the announcement of the theme. The details of the
events follow.
The Four Documents. In further considering the creative
account as a whole, we find it to be the first of four distin-
guishable documents treating of the primitive history of the
world and its inhabitants. The first ends with the third verse
of the second chapter of Genesis. It presents a broad outline of
the entire work of creation. The second document ends with
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YOU AND I.
•
the fourth chapter of Genesis. It takes the later events of the
creative work, and gives them a fuller amplification and
unfolding. It carries the history over the establishment of
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; the fall, and the chief
incidents in the life of their son Cain and his immediate
descendants. The third document ends with the ninth chap-
ter of Genesis. It follows the subject with new details, and
extends it to a later date-speaking of the ages of the patri-
archs; the depravity of mankind; the deluge, and God's
covenant with Noah. The fourth document begins with the
tenth chapter of Genesis, and further unfolds the history of
man in the posterity of Noah. This method is a true evolu-
tion of the subject, and typifies the method of nature in every
field of activity.
Interpretation of the Proxmium.- Now, confining our
attention to the first document, let us examine the significance
and force of particular words and phrases.
In the first verse, Elohim, God is plural. This use of the
plural is often called the plural of majesty. Bârâ, [Pronounced
baw-raw. It is the third person singular. The citation of
some of the characteristic Hebrew words, transliterated into
English, will not diminish the popular character of this exposi-
tion, since all these may be omitted in reading, while it is
hardly practicable to avoid mentioning them in an attempt to
attain a true meaning of the text. Many readers, moreover,
will be glad to see them.] which is translated "created,"
signifies primarily, to cut, to cut out, to carve; and secondarily,
to create, to produce. Hashamayim, the heavens, is plural,
though rendered "heaven" in our text. The particle eth,
which stands before the words rendered "heaven" and
"earth," is sometimes regarded as merely the sign of the
accusative [objective] case; but by others it is thought to
denote the substance of the thing named.
GEOLOGY ANDd the bible.
603
In the second verse, the earth is said to have been tohoo
vau-bohoo, desolate and empty. The very words have an
onomatopoeic signification - that is, their sound conveys some
idea of their meaning. The conception here is precisely that
of the Greeks and Romans. Ovid, the Roman poet says:
"Primevally, the sea and land and sky which covers all, pre-
sented one aspect in the whole circuit of nature—which
they call Chaos-a crude and formless mass. Nothing
existed but inert matter—a conglomeration of the discord-
ant germs of things not yet combined together."
It is to be noticed that it is the "earth" of which this
statement is made. At the epoch here referred to, the earth
existed.
And darkness was upon the face of the deep, continues our
version. The word here rendered "deep "-tehom-signifies
a mass of raging waters-especially the ocean.
From the
connection it appears that this deep was upon the earth.
earth's surface was "a mass of raging waters."
The
And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The word mayim here used, signifies only waters, and
mérahépheth denotes brooding over, as a hen broods over her
young. This is a remarkable expression, and a remarkable
conception. To some it suggests the ancient Hindoo notion
that the earth was produced from an egg. To me it suggests
rather the thought which is embodied in the later expressions,
let the waters bring forth, let the earth bring forth. The
spirit of God, the vehicle of the power of God, fecundated the
waters, and when they brought forth "swarms, innumerable,"
God who made the heavens and the earth was their Father
and Originator. The elements of nature only bring forth
when the spirit of God broods over them. When the divine
'fecundating principle imparts the reproductive potency, even
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YOU AND I.
the waters become the mother of living things, and the land
teems with generations of terrestrial beings.
1
99
Examination of Lange. So much I think must be
regarded as "prooemium." I am aware that Lange and many
others consider the history as beginning with the second verse.
But let us consider what is the subject of the statement in the
opening of the second verse. It is the earth which is "deso-
late and empty." Now, according to those who begin the
narrative with the second verse, this was before the existence
of light—even
-even "cosmical light "- the luminosity of the mat-
ter out of which the earth was to be made. This involves a
contradiction. Next, the succeeding clauses, as I have already
reminded the reader, depict events in relation to the earth.
The raging waters on which was darkness, and over which
the spirit of God brooded, were terrestrial waters. These
"waters belonged to the earth. But Lange and others
maintain that these waters are "quite another thing from the
water of the third creative day." Having assumed that the
prooemium does not include the second verse, they are under
the necessity of maintaining that the word which signifies
"waters" on the third day signifies something else in this con-
nection. So they translate it "vapors." Well, if they are
thinking of aqueous vapors, the rendering may not be inadmis-
sibly strained. But by these "vapors " they refer to "the fluid
(or gaseous) form of the earth in it first condition." But the
vaporous state in which the earth existed in its first condition,
was a state of fiery vapors-dry vapors—or at least, mixed
vapors. To suppose the writer of this narrative styled these
fiery vapors tehom, and then, after a few sentences, applied
the same term to the waters of the ocean, is to cast upon
him the charge of needless inconsistency. Moreover, though
the matter of the earth was truly involved in the fiery
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
605
vapors, as long as they existed, the earth was not isolated
from the promiscuous mass until long afterward; and it
would be an extraordinary stretch of language to begin to
speak about the "waters" of the earth, or even the fiery
"vapors" of the earth, while yet no earth existed except
in potency.
The points which come to light in this examination of
the proœmium are therefore the following:
1. The disclosure of God as originator of the heavens
and the earth.
2. The desolate and empty condition of the earth (at the
epoch of its first differentiation from the common cosmic
mass, as we shall see).
3. The darkness which enveloped the earth (when the
gathered clouds excluded the light of the sun).
4. The mass of raging waters (which prevailed while the
primeval rains were descending).
5. The myriad forms of life hatching from the divinely
fecundated waters.
Creation of Light.- Now begins the narrative. Without
ostentation without apparent consciousness of the sublimity
of the thought, the writer puts in five words the most tremend-
ous conception which the mind is capable of forming. There
was only darkness. The realm of infinite space was filled
with gloom which no ray yet pierced. Then with a word,
infinite space was luminous. The magnitude of the transition
from infinite darkness to infinite light cannot be comprehended.
Yet how simple the phrase in which the event is recorded: yehi
or vay-yehi or [Sound the i like ee and the o long. The e too,
should be pronounced like the French unaccented e, that is, like
u in nut.] let light be and light was. To Moses Longinus
concedes credit for the highest example of moral sublimity.
606
YOU AND I.
The Septuagint expresses the sublime thought with greater
sonorousness: Gen-es-tho phos, kai phos egeneto. [Pronounce
the
g
hard, and give o the long sound. For the effect, repeat
the sentence many times.]
•
Use of Yom.— The creation of light, we are told in the fifth
verse of our translation, completed the work of the "first
day." The Hebrew says: And it was evening and it was
morning yom one. [Pronounced yome. The plural of this is
yamim, pronunced yaw-meem.] Now, what length of time
is implied by the word yom? Undoubtedly, it commonly
signifies, as here rendered, a civil day. But I find it employed
in various senses. Sometimes it signifies the period between
sunrise and sunset, as in Gen. I, 14, to divide the day from the
night; Gen. VII, 4, forty days and forty nights; Gen.
XXXI, 39, stolen by day or stolen by night.
Sometimes it signifies the civil day of twenty-four hours,
as in Gen. VII, 24, the waters prevailed upon the earth a
hundred and fifty days; Gen. L, 3, and forty days were ful-
filled for him; Job III, 6, let not [that night] rejoice among
the days of the year; Ps. LXXXVIII, 1, I have cried day
and night before thee.
Sometimes it signifies the light of day, as in Gen. I, 5, and
God called the light day; Zech. XIV, 7, but it shall be one day
which shall be known to the Lord, not day nor night.
Very often it signifies an indefinite time, as in Zech. XIV,
13, 16, and it shall come to pass in that day that a great
tumult from the Lord shall be among
*
them.
* * Every
one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem
shall even go up from YEAR to YEAR, to worship the King;
Judges XVII, 30, until the day of the captivity of the land;
Is. XLVII, 7, before the day when thou heardest them not;
Job XI, 32, it shall be accomplished before his day, [our
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
607
version says "time."
in the plural, as, 1 Kings II, 11, the days [time] that David
reigned over Israel was forty years; Gen. XLVII, 9, the
days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty
This use of the word is very frequent
years.
Such expressions as the day of our king, the day of Jezreel,
the day of calamity, the day of Jehovah, are of frequent
occurrence. In Gen. II, 4, it denotes an interval six times as
long as in the first chapter: These are the generations of the
heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
""
Since the word yom is employed in senses so various, and
so many times in an indefinite sense, it seems quite allowable
to suppose it was not intended in the first chapter of Genesis
to express exclusively a literal day of twenty-four hours — the
more so, as this chapter itself employs it in three senses, and
the fourth verse of the second chapter, in an extended sense.
Still more must it be maintained that the literal day is not
intended, because so far as the natural evidence goes, the
results were not accomplished in six literal days.
I was once confronted in a public assembly by a learned
and highly respected doctor of divinity and biblical commenta-
tor, who declared that the word yom could not be taken in
any sense but that of a civil day. When reminded that in
point of fact, the events did not occur in six civil days, he felt
no inconvenience from the conflict between his interpretation
and the facts. The facts were very unfortunate; but his
judgment could not be amended. A notion older than the
Christian Era was more sacred than a nineteenth century
truth. A young man in the audience declared that for
his part, he preferred to assimilate the truth of the nineteenth
century. What else could be expected when a high represent-
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YOU AND I.
ative of Christian theology declares his tenets incompatible
with the accepted fundamental truth of geology?
I feel satisfaction in assuring my intelligent friend that he
may retain his respect for the Bible without committing
outrage on his intelligence. The Bible has friends who do
not presume to parry the blows of modern skepticism with
the armor of the dark ages.
Meaning of the "Firmament."We come in the sixth
verse to the creation of the firmament. This word signifies
something firm. It comes from the Latin term firmamentum,
which, though also designating the vault of the sky, expresses
as a word, the idea of firmness. The idea of firmness is
adopted from the Greeks, who fabled the vault of heaven a
floor of brass; and the Seventy, who gave us the Greek
version of the Old Testament, expressed this idea with the
word stereôma. The Hebrew word rakiang also conveys
commonly the conception of a solid expanse. The notion of
solidity, however, when applied to the celestial vault, must
have been but the vulgar impression. In any event, the thing
here denominated rakiang was neither a solid vault nor the
celestial vault at all. We notice that God said, Let there be
a rakiang in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters. And God made the rakiang, and
divided the waters which were under the rakiang from the
waters which were above the rakiang. Thus the rakiang
was something above waters below, and below waters above.
Are there any waters above the celestial vault in which the
stars appear to be set? Certainly none which sustain any
relation to the earth. There are none between the terrestrial
atmosphere and the moon. The waters above the rakiang
could not be above the atmosphere. They must be borne in
the atmosphere. Then the waters under the rakiang must
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
609
be supported somewhere in the atmosphere or beneath the
atmosphere, or on the earth's surface. Finally, we are told in
verses 9 and 10, that the waters under the heaven are "the
"seas."
In this state of the requirements, what reasonable
resort have we except to regard the watery clouds as the
waters above the rakiang, and the watery oceans as the
waters under the rakiang? In this view, the rakiang was
the interval between them. It was an "expanse," but not a
"firm expanse "-nor that expanse in which the stars appear
set. For "firmament," therefore, we may read "expanse.
And yet this expanse above us seems, when we look upward,
projected on the vault of the stars; and the stars appear in it,
and we see the whole "heaven" of which the first verse
speaks; and accordingly we are told that "God called the
rakiang shamayim, heaven or heavens.
1. In
Land and Vegetation. The narrative next proceeds to the
separation of the land from the water-that is, the formation
of continental surfaces. In immediate connection, we learn
of the introduction of vegetable life. In the mention of vege-
tation, the broad scope of the conception is indicated:
the use of the verb dáshá [pronounced daw-shaw], which, in
the Hiphil conjugation, here employed, signifies to cause to
sprout. It has reference then to whatever sprouts - both
higher and lower forms of vegetation. Our translation, there-
fore, in saying “grass" is misleading. 2. In the use of the
same root in the expression the herb yielding seed. The
original says nothing of "herb " or "seed "—that is a fancy
of the translators. The original reads déshé, shoots, whatever
grows; and the whole sentence reads: Let the earth cause
to sprout shoots. This also is perfectly general, and includes
vegetation of every rank. 3. In the express designation of
the higher and conspicuous types-gnéseb, green herbs caus-
39
610
1
YOU AND I.
ing to scatter seed, and gnéts, tree yielding fruit. 4. In the
command to the earth to produce vegetation, though much
vegetation flourishes in the sea; since the earth is the ultimate
source and supply of aliment, even for aquatic plants, whether
rooted in the bottom or floating in the water.
Sun, Moon and Stars.-Here it will be noticed that it is
not said God now created these luminaries. The verb used is
not bârâ, as in the first verse when speaking of originations,
but gnasah. The primary idea, says Gesenius, "lies probably
in forming, shaping, cutting "; but the leading conception in
the various uses of this verb is to do, to make or cause. From
this the signification to appoint is not remote; and this sense
is common, as may be seen in 1 Sam., II, 6, It is the Lord
who appointed Moses, where our version says advanced;
1 Kings, XII, 31, And he made priests of the lowest people;
2 Chron., XII, 9, And have made you priests after the man-
ner of the nations. In Ps. CIV., 19, the same verb gnasah
is rendered "appointed" in our version, when referring to
this very subject-He appointeth the moon for seasons.
We
may legitimately, therefore, understand this passage of Gen-
esis as declaring that the sun and moon were appointed on
this fourth day, to rule the day and the night. Our own
word make admits of the same usage, since we may say,
"I make a horse stand still," "The king makes you his
ambassador."
Marine Animals and Birds.-In proceeding with the nar-
rative, we learn that the work of the fifth yom was the creation
of marine animals and birds. It is noticeable that the form
of expression implies that organization sprung from the fecun-
dated waters. It is next noticeable that, as in the introduction
of vegetation, the general announcement embraces every grade
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
611
of organization in the kingdom. Literally, the text reads,
Let the waters creep with crawling animals—yishretsu shérets.
Everything in the water crawls. The next verse informs us
that this includes every living creature which the waters
brought forth. It is noticeable in the third place, that though
God commanded the waters to bring forth, it is still said, in
verse 21, God created- bârâ.
bârâ. This means that God creates
by causing intermediate agents to serve.
Besides the general announcement of the creation of all
living marine things, the account specifies tanninim, and our
translation makes it mean "great whales "-a very inadequate
rendering. The word is used in the Bible for all sea-monsters.
It is also applied to serpents [Ex., VII., 9; Deut., XXXII., 33;
Ps., XCI., 13,] and crocodiles [Ez., XXIX., 29, and XXXII.,
I; Is., LI., 9,] and fearful marine monsters in general [Jer.,
LI., 34; Ps., LXXIV., 13, 14.]
It will be especially noted that "fowl" are mentioned three
times immediately after marine creatures, as forming the
later part of the work of the fifth day. To the popular appre-
hension, the winged creature inhabiting the air possesses so
little affinity with the dweller in the ocean, that the close and
constant association of the two in this narrative is a striking
circumstance.
Land Animals.- In the formula, Let the earth bring forth
the living creature-literally, creature of life—we have sug-
gested, as in the last case, the conception of every grade of
animals proper to the situation. This general conception, like
the other, is then unfolded in its particulars. We find specified
béhémáth, a dumb beast-which our Bible puts down as
"cattle "this seeming to refer to the four-footed creatures,
with body uplifted above the ground; and then the creeping
612
YOU AND I.
thing, which seems to embrace limbless animals, and all whose
bodies are dragged over the ground.
Man.- Finally, we are told that God created man as the
concluding work of the sixth day, and of the creation. The
verb bára is here employed; and it is said that God created
hâ-âdâm, the man; and it is added, in his own image created he
them. The plural pronoun implies that woman came into
being at the same time and in the same manner. The subse-
quent account, then, of the fashioning of Eve from a rib of
Adam, is plainly a poetical amplification, intended specially to
typify the intimate relations of the two.
This history is repeated in the second document of Genesis,
with additional particulars. In Gen., II., 5, we learn.
There was not âdâm to till the adamah. In verse 7, Jehovah
Elohim formed the âdâm of the dust of the adâmâh. In verse
8, There [in Eden] he put the âdâm whom he had formed.
In verse 9, And out of the adâmâh made Jehovah Elohim to
grow every tree. In verse 19, And out of the adâmáh
Jehovah Elohim formed every beast of the field, and every
fowl of the air, and brought them to the âdâm to see what he
would call them; and whatever the âdâm called every living
creature, that was the name thereof. In verse 20, And the
âdâm gave names to all cattle.
*
*
*
*
But for
âdâm there was not found a help-meet for him.
As far as this last mention of âdâm, the word is uniformly,.
except in Gen., II., 5, preceded by the definite article ha;
and in this instance, a particle is prefixed. There can scarcely
exist a doubt that it was conceived as a common substantive,.
and not a proper name. Our translators have treated it as a
common substantive, and translated it "man," until they
reached the nineteenth verse, where for the first time, they
assume it as a proper name, and no longer translate it. In
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
613
the following verses of this chapter, the text treats the word
also, as a common substantive, though our translators make it
a proper name. In the story of the temptation, hâ-âdâm still
signifies "the man," though our translators regularly give it
to us as Adam. In the fourth chapter of Genesis the same
usage continues, though Eve is evidently a proper name. It
is only at the beginning of the fifth chapter, or third document
of Genesis, that âdâm is first employed as a proper name, with-
out the article.
There is reason to believe that this Adam does not refer to
the same individual as hâ-âdâm of the preceding chapters.
Here in this fifth chapter, we have the man whose posterity is
traced to Noah; and in subsequent chapters, especially the
tenth, the information is given which enables us to identify
Noah, and therefore Adam of the fifth chapter, with the
Mediterranean Race. This Adam preceded Noah by only
about a thousand years, and was only nine generations before
him. On the contrary, the ádám mentioned in connection
with the origination of the world, was the first man; and we
have no means of ascertaining the interval of time between
him and Adam.
The man, therefore, which God is representing as creating
in the beginning, is not Adam. The early Hebrews fell into
a confusion of thought. They traced their lineage back as
far as possible, and there assumed that they had reached
hâ-âdâm of the creative account; and so called him by emphasis,
"Adam." How far they had failed of reaching back to hâ-âdâm
they never knew, and preferred not to know. Thus they gave
the world the erroneous impression that the Adam who was born
but a thousand years before Noah, and was a well character-
ized Caucasian, was the progenitor of all the diversified races
of the earth, some of which were known to the Egyptians a
thousand years before the flood.
614
YOU AND I.
III. THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD.
Let us now turn to the testimony of the rocks. It cannot
be expected in this essay, to go beyond a concise presentation
of the conclusions of science, without elucidation of the
grounds on which they rest. Nor can those conclusions be
presented except so far as they stand related to the biblical
account which we have just passed in review.
The Original Nebula.—It is almost universally maintained
at present, that the earth has had a primordial history common
to itself and the other planets of the Solar System. It is
almost universally believed by those who have investigated
the subject of cosmogony or world-making, that the common
matter of the worlds of our system once existed in a state
somewhat analogous to that exemplified before our eyes in
the nebulæ, or clouds of faint luminous matter, revealed
chiefly by the aid of the telescope, in the distant regions of
the firmament. We have reasoned to some.
some extent on
the probable previous conditions of that matter. We have
investigated probable causes of its luminosity, but we must
pass such inquiries by. [The reader interested in the general
questions connected with cosmogony may consult the writer's
World-Life or Comparative Geology, 12m0, pp. XXIV 642,
with illustrations. S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago.]
Good evidence exists that the nebulæ are in a state of
luminous incandescence; and it is held that the original nebula
from which our system was formed, was similarly in a state
of incandescence and luminosity. Let this be admitted, and
we perceive at once, that the great phenomenon of the prim-
ordial condition of the matter of the world was luminosity.
This matter must have existed in a state of rotation. It is
next to a physical impossibility that any mass of matter should
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
615
exist in the material universe except in a state of rotation.
This heated matter must also have radiated its heat. As a
consequence of loss of heat, the mass cooled and contracted.
When a rotating body contracts, its velocity of rotation must
necessarily increase. Rotation causes a protuberance of the
rotating body around its equatorial belt, and increased rate of
rotation causes an extension of the equatorial protuberance.
In other words, a rotating sphere becomes an oblate spheroid
-flattened at the poles. With increase of rotational velocity
the flattening increases.
The rotation of an oblate spheroid causes parts upon the
surface to tend to fly off. This is called the centrifugal
tendency. It is greatest at the equator. The central attrac-
tion of the general mass tends to hold these parts on the
surface and prevent their flying off. This is called centripetal
tendency. This tendency cannot become greater or less while
the mass remains the same, but the centrifugal tendency
continually increases as long as the velocity of rotation
increases. At length the centrifugal tendency about the
equator becomes equal to the centripetal tendency. Things
at the equator now have no weight.
In the case of the nebulous spheroid with which we are
concerned, a time would arrive when the matter around the
equator would be held in a state of equilibrium between
centrifugal and centripetal forces. Then, when further cooling
caused further contraction, the equatorial parts would not fall
down, but would be left balanced in space. The main mass
would shrink away from the equatorial portion thus in equi-
librium, and that portion would remain as a ring detached
from the main mass.
This ring would be itself in a state of motion, exactly the
same as before it became detached. How long it might con-
tinue as a ring would depend on many circumstances which
616
YOU AND I.
can not be calculated. But it can be demonstrated that the
ring would sooner or later be broken, and then all its matter
would be gathered into a globe. This globe would still move
as the ring had moved, and the old place of the ring would
become the orbit of the globe. It would also acquire a rota-
tion on its axis, and that would be in the same direction as
the rotation of the original mass. This globe would be a
planet in a primitive condition. Other planets would come
into existence in a similar way.
This series of changes has been reasoned out on the prin
ciples of physics; and we feel quite certain that the early
history of the matter of our system was much as stated.
The earth then was once in the condition of such a globe.
It was not yet solid; it was not even liquid. Its temperature
was still so high that it existed as a fire-mist—that is, a vast
sphere of fine liquid particles of mineral matter suspended in
space, held near each other by mutual attractions, but perhaps
prevented from immediately coalescing by the intervention of
other matters actually in a gaseous state. These particles of
fire-mist had formed through the process of cooling, as aqueous
mist forms and floats in our atmosphere. With further cooling,
the amount of fire-mist was augmented and the drops were
enlarged. Then a fiery rain began. Drops of molten matter
descended toward the centre of the great mass, and there they
accumulated. There a globe of molten matter grew into
existence and continually enlarged. The fire-mist was corre-
spondingly exhausted; and when it had all rained down, a
molten globe existed of nearly the size of the present earth.
A fervid heterogeneous atmosphere enveloped it, composed of
all the materials remaining gaseous at the temperature then
attained.
Next, in the process of cooling, a crust of solid mineral
matter began to form over the surface of the molten globe.
}
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
617
This of course was still highly luminous. At the tempera-
ture existing there were many substances which had not
passed out of the gaseous state. One of these was water.
All the water which now belongs to the earth was then an
invisible gas mingled with the other gaseous constituents in
an atmosphere of a very heterogeneous character. The sun
was in existence. The sun was the residual mass of the
original fire-mist from which had been detached the rings
destined to become the planets of our system.
The sun
remains that original mass to-day, still retaining its partly fire-
mist and partly gaseous condition. The moon was also in
existence. The moon had been detached from the earth as
a ring during the earth's fire-mist period.
The sun
Thus conceive the sun, the earth and the moon.
and moon sent their light as now to the earth, but through
an atmosphere copious and heterogeneous. The earth how-
ever was not a dark globe as at present. Though incrustation
was in progress, the crust was still so thin that the internal
heat kept it at a glowing temperature. The earth was then
another sun to the moon; and if the earth were in the same
state as the sun, it would have yielded twelve and a half times
as much light and heat as the sun did, to the possible lunarians
then in existence.
The Formation of the Ocean.-But we remember that the
successive events in the world-history which we are tracing
were all incidents in a long history of cooling. We must
reason out the nature of events which would ensue during the
further continuance of the cooling process. We may
feel cer-
tain that the time would arrive when, in the upper region of
the atmosphere, the temperature would be sufficiently reduced
to permit the invisible gas of water to condense into the con-
dition of visible vapor. The presence of the vapor was
618
YOU AND I.
!
revealed in a thin haze dimming the brightness of the sunlight.
This thickened by degrees, and in the course of ages, the
envelope of vapor made twilight over the earth-or there
would have been twilight but for the continued glow of the
forming crust. The dense vapors were a mantle of cloud
and wrapped the earth on every side. In the course of time
the rains began to descend; but in mid-air the fervent heat
dissipated them to vapor, and they re-ascended to the clouds.
The descent of rain and the ascent of vapor disturbed the
electrical equilibrium, and flashes of lightning illumed the
convolutions of the clouds. It was as when in the heat of
summer, the friction of the rising vapors of the midday breeds.
the thunder-storm of the afternoon. But the primeval storm
was world-embracing. The battle of the elements was
waged over a field as wide as the atmosphere, and the
lurid and blinding discharges of electricity followed in quick
succession during the time of the geologic age. The respon-
sive voices of the thunders rolled around the world. This
was the reign of chaos.
But the conflict had not yet settled to the earth's surface,
and the still glowing crust sent its paling gleam upon the
field of battle. Some æons later the rushing rains, so long
repulsed, fought their way to the solid surface. Fiercer than
before the conflict waged for a time. But the waters were
predestined to be victorious. They held the surface; they
spread in a universal film around the world. The primeval
ocean had come into existence. It was an ocean of boiling
water resting on the heated arch which covered the vast
molten nucleus of the earth. The floods continued to
descend. The lightnings still flashed. But the crust was
no longer luminous. The sunlight remained excluded, and
"darkness was upon the face of the abyss.""
(
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
619
Here was the separation between the waters which were
above the rakiang and the waters which were beneath the
rakiang. The space between the clouds and the sea was
the rakiang.
Germs of the Land.-Other ages rolled by while yet
the primeval storm was raging and the vast ocean was
accumulating. Meantime the process of terrestrial cooling
continued, and the cooling mass of the earth contracted.
But it will be noticed that the portion within the crust
parted continually with some of its heat, but received none;
while the crust, though parting also with heat by radiation
from the surface, received all the heat which escaped from
the inner portion. The inner portion therefore grew cooler,
while the crust remained nearly of a uniform temperature.
The interior therefore contracted, while the crust contracted
less. If the crust when first formed was closely adapted
to the nucleus, it became, after a time, through the unequal
contraction of the crust and nucleus, too large for the
nucleus. Being too large, it would wrinkle; and the
wrinkles, once started, would grow from age to age, until
they attained such prominence that some of them rose
above the level of the shallow sea. These were the germs
of the great continents which were to be. Thus, after æons
of shrinkage, the waters were gathered together in one
place, and the dry lands appeared-destined indeed to
become further emergent in later æons, with broadened
bases and deeper oceans between.
Meantime the turbulence of the waters was subsiding.
Their boiling had ceased. The war of the chemical elements
in them had been waged. The overburdened clouds had been
relieved, and a new twilight dawned upon the world. Now
the situation existed to which some low forms of organic life
620
YOU AND I.
.
might be adapted; and the spirit of God brooded over the
face of the waters; and the lowest forms of vegetation sprang
into existence in the midst of them. They were forerunners.
of the great vegetable type which, from the beginning, con-
tinually expanded until its representatives acquired power to
hold the land as well as the sea, and developed into the noblest
forms of the forest and the plain. These primeval marine
plants unfolded in vast profusion, and their remains, drifted in
masses upon the ancient shores, became consolidated into
those beds of graphite with which our crayons are provided.
The plant which grew in this twilight of the world afforded
the material for writing its own biography.
Close of the Primeval Storm.—The escape of the world's
primitive heat never ceased. The chill which prevaded the
atmospheric region condensed the whole of its aqueous vapor,
and the cooling sea returned a diminished amount of steam to
the clouds. The mantle which was once so thick as to exclude
the solar light, and later, transmitted a brightening twilight,
grew constantly thinner. A geologic day was dawning.
It had been evening, and now it was morning.
In the course of the earth's revolutions on its axis, bringing
the periodic dawn and alternating paling of the gray light, a
day arrived when the thinned clouds were parted, and the
bright sun, ascending its forenoon steeps, poured a full beam
of golden light through a rift in the long worn mantle of
vapors. The new sunlight fell on the surface of the wide
ocean, and illumed its dusky depths. New forms of plant-life
were evoked from slumbering germs, and the rudest types of
conscious animal organization assumed appropriate stations
on the floor of the ocean.
Now for the first time had the phenomena of day and night
-sunrise and sunset-been a possibility on the earth. When
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
621
the clouds began to gather, and excluded the light of the sun,
the earth itself was luminous. The sun had shone upon it for
thousands of ages, but no shadow was cast behind; and no
night succeeded the dazzling day. Now the world had been
darkened; and when sunlight returned to it, one hemisphere
was illumined and the other was in night. Now for the first
time could the sun and moon serve as "rulers" of the day
and night.
Life in the Ocean.—The career of life had been fully
inaugurated. The records of the times have been well
preserved on the stony tablets filed away from time to time,
as the history of the world was enacted. Earlier records were
written on the changeful elements, and vanished with the age;
but the tablet of the cold rocks was enduring. With the
story which they have preserved, the science of inductive
geology begins. The deciphered legends inform us that the
lands were yet narrow, and that all the life for which the
world was yet suited was marine. Vast aeons of time rolled
by, and with the progressive improvement in the conditions.
of the sea, progressively higher types of being appeared.
The waters were once the exclusive home of the lowest type
of coral-builders. The trilobites dominated for a brief time,
but were superseded by great rapacious molluscs. Fishes
next assumed the sceptre of the sea-monsters, uncouth,
armored, and death-dealing to all their foes. These yielded
empire to the dynasty of marine saurians - great tanninim,
in which dominion over all the other creeping and crawling
and swimming things in the sea was finally crowned.
Reptilian Life. The period had now arrived when the
lands, with soils accumulated from the decay of ages, were
fully clothed with multitudes of primitive vegetable forms.
622
YOU AND I.
Here was food for the land-dwellers, and the opportunity
invited them into being. No habitable place in the history
of the world has ever been allowed to waste without its
appropriate inhabitant. Humblest and feeblest forms of
crawling amphibia first inhaled the vital air; but the next
age saw more powerful and more highly organized reptiles
assuming the role of sceptre-bearers. The reptilian type
holds a sort of central position among vertebrates. Almost
all vertebrate classes sustain important structural relations to
it. The amphibia trailed their slimy lengths along the very
boundary between fishes and reptiles. And now, while the
fundamental type of the age was reptilian, the reptiles them-
selves bore prophecies of birds and quadrupeds. Some of
the reptiles spread out leathery wings and soared like birds.
Some gathered their straggling lengths in the more compact
fashion of the quadruped, and ambulated like oxen over the
plain. Others, suggestive in another way of the bipedal bird,
uplifted themselves and marched as bipeds through the reeking
jungles. All these were closely related in structure and
instincts to the reptiles whose home was in the sea.
lived contemporaneously with them, and many ancient reptilian
types whose home, like that of the alligator, was essenti-
ally on the land, resorted habitually to the water for conceal-
ment. In one broad glance, the whole horde of reptiles
sustain such relations to aquatic homes, that they may well
be conceived as creatures of the water.
They
Just as the reign of reptiles was declining, the real bird
appeared upon the scene-fowl which flew in the air- the
blossom of reptilian organization-sustaining by far a more
intimate structural relation to reptiles than any other type of
vertebrates; and thus rendering most appropriate the biblical
mention of birds in immediate connection with reptiles.
GEOLOGY AND the bible.
623
Mammalian Life on the Land.-Even before the close of
the reptilian rule, small, inconspicuous mammals had skulked
in safe hiding-places among the homes of the cruel and dom-
ineering saurians. Now, however, at the time appointed for
the dominion of a superior type, the ponderous and stolid
reptiles shrank back, and the procession of mammals passed
through the portal of life. It was now the age of the world
styled Cenozoic. They assumed dominion of forest, and crag,
and plain. They suited themselves to every condition. They
grew into gigantic and uncouth forms, and mingled strangely
the traits of diversified types of animals. As time advanced, these
comprehensive embodiments underwent progressive resolution.
At length each family type became disengaged from those
with which it had been bundled in the early distributions of
mammalian traits, and the beasts of the earth stood forth,
each in the guise under which it was to be introduced to the
final possessor of dominion over land and sea.
Man in the Light of Geological Evidence.— No trace of
man has been revealed to scientific research among the
records of those ages which witnessed the long history over
which we have glanced. Now, however, at the end of the
dominant career of this succession of dynasties, man stepped
on the earth and began to exercise authority. The lands had
been wasted in the service of the dumb creatures which had
preceded, and a renovating process brought soil and surface
suited to the needs of a reasoning intelligence. When all was
ready hâ-âdâm, the man, made his advent in some region of
the world where the physical surroundings were friendly to
his being. During many ages he multiplied and spread over
the earth. He became diversified into several race-types.
Finally, in southern central Asia, the home of the foremost
racial type, sprang up an advance which seems to have been
624
YOU AND I.
the initial point of the various families of the Adamic race.
This, perhaps, was not over six thousand years ago. No
scientific evidence' opposes such an opinion of the antiquity of
the Adamic race.
IV. THE HARMONY.
Y
If such are the facts of science, and such the meaning of the
statements set forth in the biblical account of creation, we
need not be long in search of the true correspondence between
them. We may picture the inspired writer as seated for the
purpose of making a record of the truth about the origin of
the world, as the visions of it might present themselves to his
mind. The first and uppermost and fundamental thought was
the pre-existence of a creator, and the divine origination of all
things. Then he records: "In the beginning, God." Then
the concept of divine efficiency-"created." The concept of
the result" the heavens and the earth”—all that human
intelligence can conceive to exist.
Next, the writer pauses; his mind's eye glances down
through the sons of fire-mist and storm; and it is arrested by
the scene presented in the midst of the primeval tempest. He
records again: "The earth was without form, and void, and
darkness was upon the face of the raging deep."
He pauses again, and his mental vision passes over the scene
of the quieting ocean; and he sees organic forms about to teem
into existence, and he writes again: "And the spirit of God
brooded over the face of the waters." This was the begin-
ning of the exercise of divine energy in the organic world. The
beginning involved the whole. The great features of the creative
work were embraced in these disjointed sentences. Eons separ-
ated the periods to which they related; but these are the
burning index-lines of the story of the world. These lines
are the proëm of the epic.
GEOLOGY ANd the bible.
625.
And now the hymn of creation begins. The work of the
first yom was the gathering together of the world-stuff whose
elemental collisions were to light the fire that should send its
gleam through the universe.
The work of the second yom was the gathering of the
clouds, and the pouring of the waters of the world into the
basins of the oceans-separating the empire of waters by the
interposition of the rakiang or expanse.
The work of the third yom was the wrinkling of the
terrestrial crust, and the emergence of crests of sea-bottom to
mark the beginnings of the lands; and the simultaneous intro-
duction of the type of vegetation in the humblest forms.
The work of the fourth yom was the final exhaustion of the
long overhanging clouds, and the revelation of the sun and
moon to the now darkened earth, and their entrance upon the
offices to which they were now appointed.
The work of the fifth yom was the outcome of the product-
iveness of the sea-the birth of creeping things and swim-
ming monsters-at the end of which, birds passed over the
scene, exactly as the biblical account affirms.
The work of the sixth yom was the outcome of the product-
iveness of the land; and last of all, as the account also affirms,
the origination of Man.
Six yamin have passed, and the seventh yom is passing.
This work of creation is ended, and the Creator is resting
from all his work which he created and made. As the divine
Worker rests on the seventh of the divine days, so the finite
worker may, by a strict analogy, be commanded to rest on
the seventh of his human days.
A clearer conception of this parallel may perhaps be
acquired from the tabular presentation which follows:
40
626
YOU AND 1.
Proem.
:
HARMONY OF GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
THE BIBLICAL PROËM.
I.
God the Creator of the Substance and the Forms
of the Universe.
*
Gen I, 1, 2.
II.
Terrestrial Chaos.
III.
Darkness on the Face of the Deep.
IV.
The Mass of Raging Waters.
V.
The Vivification of the Waters.
BIBLICAL RECORD.
GEOLOGICAL RECORD.
YOM. CREATIVE WORKS.
EVENTS.
AGES.
Ver. 3-5.
I.
Creation of
Firemist condensing. Age of FIRE.
LIGHT.
ABIOTIC.
II.
Ver. 6-8.
Creation of
FIRMAMENT
or EXPANSE.
Ver. 9-13.
Creation of
DRY LAND and
of PLANTS.
Ver. 14-19.
Gathering of Clouds.
Descent of Rains.
Age of RAIN.
Earliest Sediments.
Uplift of Continents. Age of LAND-
III
Appearance of Ma-
and PLANT-
rine Vegetation.
MAKING.
PROTO-
PHYTIC.
Appointment of
Dispersion of Clouds.
IV.
LUMINARIES: Appearance of Sun, Age of PLANT-
GROWTH.
Sun, Moon and
Moon and Stars.
Stars.
Ver. 20-23.
rine Animals (mol-
V.
Creation of
AQUATIC
ANIMALS.
Appearance of Ma- Age of MOL-
luscs, fishes, &c.).
And Aquatic Rep-
tiles and Birds.
LUSCS and
FISHES
Age of REP-
TILES & BIRDS.
PALEOZOIC.
MESOZOIC.
AZOIC.
Ver. 24-31.
Creation of
VI.
Appearance of Mam-
LAND ANIMALS
mals and Man.
Age of
MAMMALS.
CÆNOZOIC.
and MAN.
Gen. II, 1, 2, 3.
Reign of Man.
VII.
Sabbath of GOD.
Cessation of New Age of MAN.
Advents.
PHRENOZOIC.
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
627
The foregoing Table sets forth the harmony which the
writer has taught and published since 1855. It was originally
the result of very careful study. About the same time, as
appears, Professor Guyot, then of Princeton, presented a sim-
ilar scheme in a series of lectures delivered in New York, and
Professor James D. Dana adopted it and introduced it to the
world through the Bibliotheca Sacra. [A work more
recently written by Guyot is Creation; or, The Biblical Cos-
mogony in the Light of Modern Science; 12mo., 134 PP.
Scribner's Sons, 1884.] The scheme of Dana, as now enun-
ciated, is as follows:
I. THE INORGANIC ERA.
1st Day.-Light cosmical.
2d Day. The earth divided from the fluid around it, or
individualized.
3d Day.— {
1. Outlining of the land and water.
2. Creation of vegetation.
2. THE ORGANIC ERA.
4th Day.-Light from the sun.
5th Day.-Creation of the lower orders of animals.
1. Creation of Mammals.
6th Day.-
{
2. Creation of Man.
This harmony differs from mine chiefly in the events of the
second day. In this it appears that Lange has followed
Dana. But I have shown why this interpretation is inadmis-
sible. [For Dana's view see Manual of Geology, 3d ed.,
1880.] This differs somewhat from Guyot.
While it is of no consequence whether this harmony was
published before or after my own, it is an interesting fact that
the two were originated in complete independence. It looks
!!
628
YOU AND I.
as if there must be some real truth in the parallelism. They
confirm each other.
All the earlier attempts at establishing a harmony were
failures, because their authors would not recognize the
primordial fire-mist condition of the matter of the world, fear-
ing to give countenance to the dreaded doctrine of evolution.
Of course, the entire history of the world, as sketched in
Genesis, could never be parallelized with half the history of
the world as revealed in the permanent records of inductive
geology.
The foolish and puerile expedient has often been resorted
to of assuming a "chasm" of time between the first and
second verses; admitting that vast æons were perhaps
employed, as geology affirms, in the establishment of the
world, but that the work was all rehearsed in six literal days,
as seemed to be taught in the verses following the first. All
this to preserve the traditional interpretation of the word yom.
The attacks of scientific writers, notably Professor Huxley
in his New York lectures-taking the most generous view of
them are prompted by the misleading translation in our
Version and the mistaken zeal of theologians in standing to its
very letter.
With such a harmony as I have explained every one should
be satisfied. There is no straining of the text or perversion.
of science. If, therefore, a writer in the infancy of the world
could so wonderfully conform his statements to the develop-
ments of modern science, his information must have had more
than a human source.
Alexander Winchell
ATENTED
21, 190
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 07331 8506