Part 22 (1/2)

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.”]