Creation and Its Records Part 15

(2) Moving creatures that live (and fish are afterwards expressly mentioned) and great monsters (tann[i=]n[i=]m), cover the entire field of life up to Reptilia as far as these are aquatic forms.

(3) The terms used for the third group are also obviously exhaustive--the separate mention of the _cattle_ and the _beast_ (Carnivora and Ungulates) is a form which is invariably noticed throughout the Old and New Testaments. The "creeping things" would include all minor forms, all land reptiles not described above as the "tann[i=]n[i=]m," and insects.

And it is remarkable that the tortoises, the snakes, and, the more modern forms of crocodile and lizard, and the amphibia and higher insects, are all cainozoic--some of them were preceded by more or less transitory representatives, e.g., the Carboniferous _Eosaurus_ and Permian _Protosaurus_ the ancient Labyrinthodons and Urodelas, Chelonians and the amphicaelian crocodiles. Snakes have no palaeozoic representative.

Land insects, as might naturally be expected, go back to the times when land vegetation was sufficiently established, and appear gradually all along the line from the Silurian onwards. The modern types, however, are Tertiary.

The succession, we observe, may be ill.u.s.trated by the resemblance of a number of arrows shot rapidly one after the other in so many parallel courses: all would soon be moving nearly together.

Plant-life, the subject of the first Divine designing, has, as far as we can reasonably say, the start. According to known laws it appears in elementary and undeveloped forms, and gradually progresses. One group (Cryptogams) reaches a magnificent development and begins to die away in point of grandeur, though still abundantly exemplified. Phanerogamic plants in their lowest groups of gymnosperm exogens then begin to appear in the Devonian conifers, gradually followed by _cycads_. And it is not till Cainozoic times that we have the endogenous gra.s.ses and palms and angiospermous exogens.

But the command regarding animal life had followed the other after a short interval, so that we soon see this developing _pari pa.s.su_ with the other groups--first the lower marine forms and gradually advancing to the Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia, and then to Aves, as a special division in the second great design group. Lastly the mammals appear and man.[1] But throughout all, we see the rise, culmination, and decay of many transitory and apparently preparatory groups--such as, for example, the Labyrinthodons and Urodelas--preceding the modern types of Amphibia; ancient fish-forms preceding modern ones, and either dying out or leaving but a few and distant representatives; or again, the whole tribes of ancient Saurians, of which something has already been said.

All these wonderful under-currents and cross-currents, rises and falls, appearances and disappearances, nevertheless all work together till the whole earth is peopled with the forms, designed in the beginning by the Heavenly Creator.

[Footnote 1: Nor should we be surprised to find (should it be so discovered) that some animals appeared after man. (_Cf_. "Nineteenth Century" for Dec. 1885, p. 856.)]

No account of Creation can be other than wonderful and mysterious; nor can the mystery of the Divine act be explained in language other than that of a.n.a.logy.

We can speak without mystery of a human architect conceiving a design in his mind; and when he utters it, it is by putting the plans and details upon paper, and handing them over to the builders, who set to work (under the architect's supervision, and in obedience to all the rules he has prescribed as to the methods of work and materials to be used).

All this we can transfer by a.n.a.logy only, to a Divine design. The design is in the Divine mind, and He utters it in no material plans or drawings: the forces of nature and the chemical elements, His obedient builders, have no hands to receive the plans or eyes to scan them; but we can perceive the a.n.a.logy directly, and that is all that is necessary for Faith.

The origin of all we see in the world and in the entire Cosmos is, then, in G.o.d; and as regards the adjustments of our globe and its relations, and the actual life-forms in plant and animal, they came into existence pursuant to groups of types or designs, made by the Divine Mind, and declared by Him from His Throne in heaven, in six several days--periods of the rotation of our earth.

That is the message of Revelation. It requires no straining of the sacred text: it takes everything as it stands, and the seemingly lengthy explanation it requires is not to manipulate the text, but to clear away the heap of mistaken conceptions that have gathered round it:--to establish the idea, that the terms "G.o.d said, Let there be," and so forth, mean Heaven work, in the design and type--not earth work in its realization and building up. Establis.h.i.+ng this by ill.u.s.tration and argument, nothing more is required in the way of textual exegesis except to argue for the rejection of perverse and unsustainable meanings long given to "days," to "expanse" or "firmament," and to "great whales" in the narrative.

It will be admitted readily that if this account of Creation is the true one, if the meaning a.s.signed to the Genesis narrative is correct, it affords no hindrance to _any_ conclusions that may progressively be demanded by the investigation of life-history on earth.

It requires us to believe that the forms which life a.s.sumes are not chance forms, nor the _unpremeditated_ results of environment and circ.u.mstance. But we are not told positively which forms are transitory, which are final.

It is only a matter of probable opinion, which it is quite open to any one to dispute, that there is any indication of finality. I should personally be inclined to think that we have indications that carnivora, ungulates, and birds are final forms; that no evolution will ever modify a bird further into anything that is not a bird; that no transition between the ungulates and the carnivora is possible; that the _proboscideae_ are not a final but a transitory type, dying out gradually--our elephants and similar forms will disappear as the mastodon did.

But I admit this is all mere speculation, in which I ask no one to follow me.

On one important point only is there a difference; and if the text is ever proved wrong on that, it must be given up. But it is here that all scientific knowledge fails, in _any way whatever,_ to touch the sacred text. There _is_ an unique and exceptional account of one "special creation." A man "Adam" is described as having been actually created, not born as an ultimately modified descendant of ancestors originally far removed from himself. That is not to be denied; not only was his bodily form specially created (conformably to the _type_ created in Genesis i. 26), but a special spiritual and higher life was imparted--for I believe that no one disputes this as the meaning of the expression, "breathed into his nostrils the _breath of lives,_ and man became a living soul."

It must be noted again--although I have before alluded to this in some detail--that it is not impossible that, pursuant to the general command "Let us make man," there _may_ have been other human creations, perhaps not endowed with the higher life of Adam. If it is found difficult to realize this because the _image of G.o.d_ is connected (from the very first) with the design of Man's life-form, still it is to be remembered as an undeniable fact, that the form, though one a.s.sumed by G.o.d Himself in the Incarnation, _is connected_ in structure and function with the general animal (Mammalian) type, and that even the Adamic or spiritually endowed man _may_, by neglecting the higher and giving way to the lower nature, develop much of the purely b.e.s.t.i.a.l in himself. So that the bare possibility of a pre-Adamite and imperfect man cannot be _a priori_ denied. More than that it is not necessary to say. Nor is it necessary that any origin of man should be limited to six or eight thousand years back. If the state of the text is such that a perfect chronology is possible,[1] then all that the Bible goes back to chronologically is the particular man Adam. And it is quite impossible that any scientific or historical contradiction can arise therefrom.

[Footnote 1: It should be borne in mind that just as Revelation is often absolutely silent on many points that mere curiosity would like to see explained, so also, the Divine Author may have allowed parts of the original text of Revelation to be so far lost or obscured as to leave further points that _might_ have been once recorded, now doubtful. All that we may be quite sure of is that the text has been preserved for all that is essential to "life and G.o.dliness."]

APPENDIX.

_PROFESSOR DELITZSCH ON THE GARDEN OF EDEN._

The information here put together is a compilation from papers in "The Nineteenth Century," and other sources. It has no pretentions to originality, but only to give a brief and connected account of the subject, more condensed and freed from surrounding details than that which the original sources afford.

Before entering on the subject, I would again call attention to the surpa.s.sing importance of these early chapters of Genesis. And, I add, that unbelievers are especially glad to be able to allege anything they can against them, because they are aware that hardly any chapters in the Bible are more constantly alluded to, and made the foundation of practical arguments by our Lord and His Apostles, than these early chapters in the Divine volume. If these chapters can be shown to be mythical, then the divine knowledge of our Lord, as the Son of G.o.d, and the inspiration of His Apostles, are put in question. All through the Old Testament, allusions to Adam and to the early history in Genesis occur; and among other pa.s.sages, I will only here invite attention to the 31st chapter of Ezekiel, where there is, in a most beautiful description of the cedar-tree, an allusion to "Eden, the Garden of G.o.d"

(see also chapter xxviii. ver. 13), which some have thought to indicate that the site was still known, and existing in the time of the prophet.

This at least may be remarked, that in verse 9, where the prophet speaks of the "trees that _were_ in the Garden of G.o.d," the word _were_ is not in the original, and the sense of the context would rather denote the present tense--"the trees that _are_ in the Garden of G.o.d."

But it is in the New Testament that the most repeated and striking allusions to Adam, the temptation of the woman by the Serpent, and the entrance of sin and death into the life-history of mankind, occur.[1]

[Footnote 1: See on this subject page 137 _ante_.] [Transcriber's note: Chapter X.]

As regards the narrative of Eden itself, there has been, from the very earliest times, some disposition to regard it as mystical or "allegorical," i.e., to regard it as representing spiritual facts of temptation and disobedience, under the guise or story of an actual audible address by a serpent, and the eating of an actual fruit. The earliest translators seem to have glossed the "Gan-'Eden," everywhere in the Old Testament (_except_ in Gen. ii. 8), by the phrase "the paradise of pleasure," or some other similar term. And the Vulgate _always_ uses some phrase, such as "place of delight," "voluptas," "deliciae," &c. It must be admitted that there is some temptation to this course, because of the inveterate tendency of the human mind to reduce things to its own level--to suppose everything to have happened _in ways which are within its present powers to comprehend._ We figure to ourselves the fear and dislike _we_ should ourselves experience, of a large snake; we imagine the amazement with which an intelligible voice would be heard to proceed from such a creature; so far from being _tempted, we_ should at once be moved to hostility or to flight; and thus we are inclined to throw doubt on the narrative as it stands.

But this is to do what we justly complain of modern materialists and positivists for doing--reducing everything to terms of present experience and knowledge.

It has to be borne in mind, that _under the conditions of the case_, the serpent was neither ugly, dangerous, nor loathsome, but beautiful and attractive; that the residents of the Garden were familiar with the "voice of G.o.d"--i.e., they had habitual intelligible communication with heaven: probably, also, free intercourse with angelic messengers (inconceivable as it may now seem to us) was matter of daily experience to them. The woman would then recognize in the voice an Angel communication; and unaware at first that it was an evil angel, it would excite no surprise in her at all. Sensations of terror, surprise, dislike, and so forth, were _ex hypothesi_ unknown. Why then should not the narrative be exact, unless, indeed, we have some _a priori_ ground for supposing that human nature _never could_ have been in a state where the voice of G.o.d and angels sounded in its ears, and where innocence and the absence of all evil emotion was the daily condition of life? The unbeliever may sneer at such a state, but _reason_ why it should _not_ have been, he can give none. So, again, with the idea of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and the "tree of life." We are no doubt tempted to think that these terms may be symbolic; but a more careful reflection, and a deliberate rejection of the _influence of present experiences_, may lead us to accept the narrative more literally. Even now, we are not unfamiliar with the ideas of medicinal virtues in plants and fruits. I see nothing impossible in the idea that G.o.d may have been pleased to impart such virtue to the fruit of a tree standing in the midst of the Garden, that physical health, immunity from all decay, and constant restoration, should have been the result of eating the fruit; and the eating of this fruit, we know, was freely permitted. The late Archbishop Whately suggested, and I think with great probability, that the longevity of the earliest generations of the Adamic race may have been due to the beneficial effects of the eating of this fruit, which only gradually died out. Just as we know at the present time, that peculiarities introduced into human families, often survive from father to son, till they gradually die out after many generations.

Again, as regards the "forbidden tree," it will not seem impossible, that as a simple _test of obedience_ in a very primitive state, the rule of abstinence from a particular fruit may have been literally enjoined, and that the consequence of the moral act of _disobedience_ (rather than the physical effect of the fruit eaten) should have been the knowledge of evil, the first sensation of shame, terror, angry dissension, and, worst of all, the alienation from G.o.d the source of all good, which followed.

All such considerations of the reality of the history must gain greatly in strength, if we can demonstrate that the Garden of Eden, the scene of the temptation, the place where the trees that were the vehicles of such consequences to the occupants of the garden, stood, had a real existence and geographical site. Now I need hardly remark that the Mosaic narrative unquestionably _professes_ a geographical exactness and a literal existence of the garden, as no fabled locality--no Utopia or garden of the Hesperides. I need only refer to the _data_ afforded to us by Gen. ii. 8-14.

The Lord, it is said, planted a garden in Eden: it was "eastward;" but that does not directly indicate its site. From Gen. iv. 16, we also learn that the land of Nod where Cain dwelt (after the murder of Abel) was on the east of Eden.

A river went out and watered the garden. After pa.s.sing the limits of Eden, the river is said to have divided itself, or parted, into four heads, i.e., arms or branches. The first branch was called Pison. This branch "compa.s.seth," i.e., forms the boundary along the whole length of, "_the_ Havilah." This country is spoken of as being a tract wherein was produced good gold, "b'dolach" (translated "bdellium") and "shoham"

(translated "onyx.") The second branch was Gihon, which is described as similarly compa.s.sing the district of K[=u]sh. Here our A.V., by subst.i.tuting "Ethiopia" for the original "C[=u]sh," has made a gloss rather than a translation; and this gloss has given rise to several errors of commentators in identifying the site of Eden. The Revised Version has corrected the error.

The third branch was Hiddekel, the _Diklatu_ of the Arabs, the Tigra of the old Persians, and the _Tigris_ of later writers. This is said to run eastward towards a.s.syria.[1] The fourth river was the Frat or Euphrates.

Observe, in pa.s.sing, that the author gives no detail about the great river Euphrates, as being well known; while he adds particulars about the Tigris, and describes the Gihon and the Pison in some detail.

[Footnote 1: So the margin of the A. and R. Versions more correctly.]

Now it will at once strike the reader that two of these rivers are well known to the present day. The others are not.

It is in the identification of these two, and of the districts which they "compa.s.sed," which form the difficulties of the problem. Up till recent times, it is remarkable what a variety of speculations have been attempted as to the situation of Eden. Dr. Aldis Wright, the learned author of the article "Eden" in Smith's "Biblical Dictionary," remarks: "It would be difficult, in the whole history of opinion, to find any subject which has so invited, and at the same time completely baffled, conjecture, as the Garden of Eden." And in another place he thinks that "the site of Eden will ever rank with the quadrature of the circle, and the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy among those unsolved, and perhaps insoluble, problems which possess so strange a fascination." It is, however, to be remarked, (1)that all that was written before Professor Delitzsch's researches were made known; and (2)that really a great ma.s.s of the conjecture and speculation has been purely in the air--undertaken without any reference to the plain terms of the text to be interpreted. It is the extravagance of commentators, and their insisting on going beyond the narrative itself, that has raised such difficulties, and made the problem look more hopeless than it really is.

To what purpose are "the three continents of the old world" "subjected to the most rigorous search," as Dr. Wright puts it--when it is quite plain from the text itself, that the solution is to be sought in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, or not at all? The whole inquiry seems to have been one in which a vast cloud of learned dust has been raised by speculators, who began their inquiry without clearly determining, to start with, what was the point at issue. Either the description in Gen.

ii. 3-14 is meant for allegory, or geographical fact: this question must first be settled; and if the latter is agreed to, then it is quite inconceivable that the words should imply any very extensive region, or any fancied realm extending over a large proportion of one or other quarter of the globe. The problem is then at once narrowed; and it is simply unreasonable to look for Havila in India, or for Pison in the province of Burma, as one learned author does!

Yet commentators have forgotten this; and gone--the earlier ones into interpretation of allegory--the later into impossible geographical speculation; while only the most recent have confined themselves to the obvious terms of the problem as laid down in the narrative itself--a narrative which (whether true or false) is clearly meant to be definite and exact, as we have seen. Our A.V. translators are to be held, to some extent, responsible for the freedom which speculation has exercised, by themselves taking the C[=u]sh of the narrative to "Ethiopia," i.e., to the African continent--for which there is no authority whatever.

As regards the _allegorical_ interpretations, they are too extravagant for serious notice. Souls, angels, human pa.s.sions and motives, are supposed to be represented by towns, rivers, and countries. To all this it is enough to reply--What reason can we have for supposing an allegory suddenly to be interpolated at Gen. ii. 8? There is no allegory before it, there is none after.

Then as to the early geographical expounders. Josephus and others supposed the allusion was made to the great rivers known to ancient geography, all of which ran into that greatest river of all, which encircled the globe. In this view, the Gihon might be the Nile, and the Pison the Ganges! Here, again, it may be remarked it is impossible to read the narrative and believe that the author meant any such widespread region. Even if the author had the ancient ideas about cosmography generally, that would not prevent his being accurate about a limited region lying to the east of a well-known river in a populous country. In later times Luther avoided the difficult speculation by supposing that the Deluge had swept away all traces of the site! But unfortunately for this convenient theory, it is a plain fact that the Deluge did not sweep any two out of the four rivers named. The reader who is curious on the subject, will find in Dr. A. Wright's article a brief account of the various identifications proposed by all these commentators. It would not be interesting to go into any detail. I shall pa.s.s over all those extravagant views which go to places remote from the Euphrates, and come at once to the later attempts to solve the question in connection with the two known rivers, Euphrates and Hiddekel (Tigris); as this is the only kind of solution that any reasonable modern Biblical student will admit.

The different explanations adopted maybe grouped into two main attempts: (1) to find the place among the group of rivers that surrounds Mount Ararat in Northern Armenia, _vis._, in the extreme upper course of the Euphrates near its two sources; (2) to find the place below the _present_ junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris, along some part of the united course, which is now more than two hundred miles long, and is called "Shatt-el-'Arab."

But neither of these attempts has been successful: the first must, indeed, be absolutely dismissed; because the Hebrew phrases used in describing the four _branches_ of the river that "went out," and watered the garden, and then parted, cannot be applied to four independent sources or streams--_upstream_ of the Euphrates. It will not, then, satisfy the problem, to find four rivers somewhere in the vicinity of the Euphrates, and which, in a general way, enclose a district in which Eden might be placed. It may, indeed, be doubted whether this first attempt (which I may call the "North Armenian solution") would ever have been seriously entertained, but from the fact that the name Gihon--or something very like it--did attach itself to the Araxes or Phasis, a considerable river of Armenia. Finding a Gihon ready, the commentators next made the Pison, the Acampsis; and then as Pison was near the "Havila land," this country was laid on the extreme north of Armenia; all this without a particle of evidence of any kind.[1] I may here take the opportunity of remarking that a chance _similarity of names_[2] has been, throughout the controversy, a fruitful source of enlarged speculative wandering. Thus this name Gihon (Gaihun, Jikhun, G[=e][=o]n, &c.) that appears in North Armenia, again appears in connection with the _Nile_; while again the name "Nile" has wandered back to the confines of Persia, and one of the _Euphrates_ branches is still called "Shatt-en-nil." The ancients, indeed, had very curious ideas about the Nile. Its real sources being so long undiscovered--no Speke or Grant having appeared--imagination ran wild on the subject. Not only so, but it is remarkable that the name _Cush_ should have acquired both a Persian Gulf and an Egyptian employment: and the writer of the able article in "The Nineteenth Century" (October, 1882) points out several other singular instances in which names are common both to the African-Egyptian region, and to this.