Part 8 (2/2)

Matthew Poole, well known for his valuable and extensive commentaries on the Bible, thus expresses himself: ”It is not to be supposed that the entire globe of the earth was covered with water. Where was the need of overwhelming those regions in which there were no human beings? It would be highly unreasonable to suppose that mankind had so increased before the deluge as to have penetrated to all the corners of the earth. It is, indeed, not probable that they had extended themselves beyond the limits of Syria and Mesopotamia. Absurd it would be to affirm that the effects of the punishment inflicted upon men alone applied to places in which there were no men. If, then, we should entertain the belief that not so much as the hundredth part of the globe was overspread with water, still the deluge would be universal, because the extirpation took effect upon all the part of the globe which was inhabited. If we take this ground, the difficulties which some have raised about the deluge fall away as inapplicable, and mere cavils; and irreligious persons have no reason left them for doubting the truth of the Holy Scriptures.”--_Synopsis on Gen._ vii. 19.

Poole wrote nearly two centuries ago. In more recent times, we find authorities equally eminent for learning and candor adopting the same views. ”Interpreters,” says Dathe, ”do not agree whether the deluge inundated the whole earth, or only those regions then inhabited. I adopt the latter opinion. The phrase _all_ does not prove the inundation to have been universal. It appears that in many places [Hebrew] (_kol_) is to be understood as limited to the thing or place spoken of. Hence all the animals said to have been introduced into the ark were only those of the region inundated. So, also, only those mountains are to be understood, which were surmounted by the waters.”--_Pentateuchus a Dathio_, p. 63.

But no modern writer has treated this subject with so much candor and ability--and the same may be said of his whole work on the ”Relation of the Holy Scriptures to some Parts of Geological Science”--as Dr. John Pye Smith. We can say of him, what we can say of very few men, that he is accurately acquainted with all the branches of the subject. Eminent as a theologian and a philologist, and fully possessed of all the facts in geology and natural history, he gives us his opinion, not as a young man, fond of novelties, but in the full maturity of judgment and of years.

”From these instances,” says he, ”of the scriptural idiom in the application of phraseology similar to that in the narrative concerning the flood, I humbly think that those terms do not oblige us to understand a literal universality; so that we are exonerated from some otherwise insuperable difficulties in natural history and geology. If so much of the earth was overflowed as was occupied by the human race, both the physical and the moral ends of that awful visitation were answered.”--_Scrip. and Geol._ p. 214, 4th ed.

”Let us now take the seat of the antediluvian population,” continues Dr.

Smith, ”to have been in Western Asia, in which a large district, even at the present day, lies considerably below the level of the sea. It must not be forgotten that six weeks of continued rain would not give an amount of water forty times that which fell on the first, or a subsequent day, for evaporation would be continually carrying up the water to be condensed, and to fall again; so that the same ma.s.s of water would return many times.

If, then, in addition to the tremendous rain, we suppose an elevation of the bed of the Persian and Indian Seas, or a subsidence of the inhabited land towards the south, we shall have sufficient cause in the hands of almighty justice for submerging the district, covering its hills, and destroying all living beings within its limits, except those whom divine mercy preserved in the ark. The drawing off of the waters would be effected by a return of the bed of the sea to a lower level, or by the elevation of some tracts of land, which would leave channels and slopes for the larger part of the water to flow back into the Indian Ocean, while the lower part remained a great lake, or an inland sea, the Caspian.”--p.

217.

It is a circ.u.mstance favoring the above suggestions of Dr. Smith, that there is a tract of country ten degrees of lat.i.tude in breadth, embracing most of Asia Minor, ancient Armenia and Georgia, and part of Persia, extending at least as far east as the Caspian Sea, and probably much farther, in which volcanic agency has been in operation at a comparatively recent period. I am not aware that we have evidence of any eruption of lava in those regions, within historic times, except, perhaps, some mud volcanoes in the Caucasian range. The Katekekaumene, or Burnt District, of Asia Minor, and Mount Ararat, probably experienced eruptions at a date somewhat earlier, though at a comparatively recent date. Yet important changes of level may have been the result of volcanic agency in Central Asia, as recently as the Noachian deluge, without leaving any traces which would be obvious, without more careful observation than has yet been made in those regions. Especially might a subsidence of the surface have taken place, and not have left any striking evidence of its occurrence. Still more difficult would it now be to discover the marks of vertical movements in the bed of the Indian Ocean at the time of the deluge.

I will venture to add another suggestion. If the bed of the Indian Ocean was uplifted by volcanic matter, struggling to get vent, vapor enough might have been liberated to account, on natural principles, for the forty days' rain of the deluge. For it is well known that in volcanic eruptions drenching rains are often the result of the sudden condensation of the aqueous vapor.

We are here met, however, by a serious objection to the hypothesis, which gives only a limited extent to the deluge. If the present Mount Ararat, in Armenia, is the mountain on which the ark first rested, a deluge which covered its top must, by its flux and reflux, have overspread nearly all other portions of the globe, for that mountain rises seventeen thousand seven hundred feet above the ocean. But we are informed by Jerome, that the name Ararat was given generally to the mountains of Armenia; (indeed, that is the meaning of the name;) and long before geology existed, Shuckford suggested that some spot farther east corresponds better with the scriptural account of the place where the ark rested. For it is said of the families of the sons of Noah, that, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of s.h.i.+nar. Now, s.h.i.+nar, or Babylonia, lies nearly south of the Armenian Ararat, and the probability, therefore, is, that the true Ararat, from whose vicinity the descendants of Noah probably emigrated, lay much farther to the south. Again, if the ark rested upon the present Ararat, it is impossible, except by a miracle, that those who came out of it could have reached the plain below; for so exceedingly difficult of access is it, that it is doubtful whether, since the deluge, any one ever succeeded in reaching its summit, till the year 1829. Indeed, it is an article in the creed of the Armenian church that its ascent is impossible. That the almost universal tradition of Eastern nations should have fixed upon that mountain as the resting-place of the ark is not strange, considering that there is no mountain in all Asia so striking to behold.

But upon the whole, the probability is strong that some other elevation, less lofty and steep, was the radiating point of the postdiluvian races of man and other animals. The fact of Noah's sending forth a dove from the ark, which came back in the evening with an olive leaf in her mouth, strengthens the preceding view. For neither upon the present Ararat, nor around it, does the olive grow, because it is too cold. Indeed, all its upper part is covered with perpetual ice. But if the Ararat of Scripture lay nearer the tropics, the olive might find upon it a congenial spot. A distinguished botanist adduced the fact about the olive as evidence against the Bible. But how easily refuted, if the theory now under examination be true!

In favor of this supposition, I might have urged another consideration, which, in my mind, has no little weight. It is impossible that the waters of the deluge should have covered the earth for a year, without destroying nearly all the existing vegetation. Yet nothing is said of the preservation of seeds in the ark; and if they had been preserved, certainly nothing but miraculous power, and that of the most remarkable kind, could have scattered them through the remotest continents and islands, so as to form distinct botanical districts, such as have been described. The olive, from which a leaf was plucked by the dove sent out of the ark, was probably situated upon elevated ground, and where it remained but a short time beneath the waters, and therefore did not lose its vitality.

It is probable that the theory which makes the deluge limited in extent will meet with more favor than any other, with candid and intelligent men, to meet the suggested difficulties of the case. But some, who are unwilling to abandon the idea of the universality of the deluge, avoid these difficulties by supposing a new creation to have taken place at that epoch. That such a new creation occurred at the commencement of several geological periods can hardly admit a doubt. And a presumption is hence derived in favor of a similar act at the beginning of the postdiluvian period, preceded as it was, like the other geological periods, by an almost entire destruction of organic life.

The princ.i.p.al objection to this view is, that no notice is taken of such a new creation in the Bible. And it would seem that an event of so much importance would hardly be pa.s.sed in silence; and yet the bringing into existence new races of the inferior animals and plants could have but little bearing upon the object of revelation, which respects almost exclusively the spiritual condition of man. One, however, can hardly see why pairs and septuples of the animals, even in a limited district, need to have been preserved in the ark, if a new creation were to follow the coming catastrophe; nor why the creation of the antediluvian animals, so soon to perish, should have been so particularly described, while no notice was taken of the postdiluvian races, which were to occupy the earth so much longer time.

A third theory has been suggested by some, embracing both those which have been described. They admit the deluge to have been of limited extent, but suppose this limitation not to be sufficient to explain all the facts of revelation and of science, without a new creation also, at the commencement of the postdiluvian period. They suppose, indeed, that geology and natural history teach the occasional extinction of species, and the creation of others, even in our own times. And in regard to this latter view, it may at least be said that it is not contradicted by the Bible. Nay, one would almost suppose that the Psalmist were describing such a state of things when he says, _Thou hidest thy face; they_ [animals] _are troubled. Thou takest away their breath; they die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit; they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth._ The resemblance between this language and that employed to describe the original creation is striking.

Indeed, the same word (_bawraw_) is used.

Without attempting to decide which of these theories has the highest claim upon our belief, it is sufficient to remark, that either of them reconciles the facts of geology and natural history with the inspired record; nor does the adoption of either of them require us to put a forced and unnatural construction upon the language of the Bible. Even then, if we should admit that a construction agreeing with these theories is not the most natural meaning, yet if the facts of natural history unequivocally require such an interpretation to harmonize the Bible with nature, it is a.s.suredly one of those cases where science must be allowed to modify our exegesis of Scripture. In the view of sound philosophy, such modification at once disarms scepticism of its cavils.

With two remarks of a practical character, I close the discussion of this subject.

First. The history of opinions respecting the Noachian deluge furnishes a salutary lesson to those employed in the examination of a.n.a.logous subjects. We have seen these opinions a.s.sume almost every possible shape; yet, until recently they have all been maintained with the most positive and dogmatic a.s.surance; and each particular theory has been regarded as involving the essence of the Bible, as being the _articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesi_, and whoever denied it virtually denied the Bible. But all reasonable and truly scientific men are fast coming to the conclusion, that the deluge has had very little to do with the present configuration of the globe, and that it is doubtful whether any trace of its occurrence will ever be found in nature; so that, on the one hand, all the alarms and denunciations of misguided Christians on this subject might have been spared; and, on the other hand, if the hasty exultation of the infidel, in his supposed discovery of discrepancy between nature and Moses, had been suppressed until the subject was understood, he would not have experienced the mortification of entire defeat.

It is, indeed, very humiliating to human nature to find so many of the wise, the talented, and the religious so confident and zealous, yet so erroneous. But it is a salutary lesson. It shows us the vast importance of being thoroughly acquainted with a subject before we dogmatize upon it. It should not, indeed, discourage us, and produce a universal scepticism on all subjects not admitting a mathematical demonstration; but it should make us cautious in examining the grounds of our conclusions, and modest in maintaining them.

Secondly. It is interesting to observe how, amid all the diversities and fluctuations of opinion on this subject, the Bible has remained unaffected.

The infidel felt confident that the arrows which he drew from this quiver would certainly pierce Christianity to the heart. But they rebounded from her adamantine breastplate, blunted and broken; and no one will have the courage to pick them up and hurl them again. The physico-theological school at one time felt certain, that no other theory but an entire dissolution of the crust of the globe at the deluge, could possibly be made consistent with the Bible. More recently, it has been supposed equally necessary, to reconcile geology and revelation, that we should admit the antediluvian continents to have sunk beneath the ocean at that time. Still later, it has been thought quite certain that the surface of the earth bore the most striking marks of a universal deluge, probably identical with that of Scripture. At length, the extreme opinion is now generally reached, that no trace of the deluge of Noah remains. And equally wide and well established is the belief that, amid all these fluctuations of theory, the Bible has stood as an immovable rock amid the conflicting waves. The final result is, that we have only slightly to modify the interpretation of the Mosaic account, in conformity with the laws of language, to make it entirely consistent with the notion that all traces of the deluge have disappeared. Thus, in the midst of human opinions, veering to every point of the compa.s.s, the Bible has ever remained fixed to one point. Not so with false systems of religion. The Hindoo religion contains a false astronomy, as well as anatomy and physiology; and the Mohammedan Koran distinctly advances the Ptolemaic hypothesis of the universe; so that you have only to prove these religions false in science in order to destroy their claim to infallibility. But the Bible, stating only facts, does not interfere with, neither is affected by, the hypotheses of philosophy. Often, indeed, in past ages, have men set up their hypotheses as oracles in the temple of nature, to be consulted rather than the Bible. But, like Dagon before the ark, they have fallen to the earth, and been broken in pieces before the Word of G.o.d; while this has ever stood and ever shall stand, in sublime simplicity and undecaying strength, amid the wrecks of every false system of philosophy and religion.

LECTURE V.

THE WORLD'S SUPPOSED ETERNITY.

In our attempts thus far to elucidate the religion of geology, our attention has been directed to those points where this science has been supposed to conflict with revelation; and I trust it has been made manifest that the collision was rather with the interpretation than with the meaning of Scripture; and that, in fact, geology, instead of coming into collision with the Bible, affords us important aid in understanding it aright. We now advance to a part of the subject which has a more direct bearing upon natural religion. And here, if I mistake not, we shall find the ill.u.s.tration of religious truth from this science, as we might expect, more direct and palpable.

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