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"There are two books from which I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant nature—that universal and public manuscript that lies expansed unto the eyes of all."—Sir T. Browne.

There are some questions, simple enough in themselves, respecting the general character and object of the references to nature and creation in the Scriptures, which yet are so variously and vaguely answered that they deserve some consideration before entering on the detailed study of the subject. These are: (1) The object of the introduction of such subjects into the Hebrew sacred books—the why of the revelation of origins. (2) The origin, character, and structure of the narrative of creation and other cosmological statements in those books—the how of the revelation. (3) The character of the Biblical cosmogony, and general views of nature to which it leads—the what of the revelation.

(1) The Object of the Introduction of a Cosmogony in the Bible.—Man, even in his rudest and most uncivilized state, does not limit his mental vision to his daily wants. He desires to live not merely in the present, but in the future also and the past. This is a psychological peculiarity which, as much as any other, marks his separation from the lower animals, and which in his utmost degradation he never wholly loses. Whatever may be fancied as to imagined prehistoric nations, it is certain that no people now existing, or historically known to us, is so rude as to be destitute of some hopes or fears in reference to the future, some traditions as to the distant past. Every religious system that has had any influence over the human mind has included such ideas. Nor are we to regard this as an accident. It depends on fixed principles in our constitution, which crave as their proper aliment such information; and if it can not be obtained, the mind, rather than want it, invents for itself. We might infer from this very circumstance that a true religion, emanating from the Creator, would supply this craving; and might content ourselves with affirming that, on this ground alone, it behooved revelation to have a cosmogony.

But the religion of the Hebrews especially required to be explicit as to the origin of the earth and all things therein. Its peculiar dogma is that of one only God, the Creator, requiring the sole homage of his creatures. The heathen for the most part acknowledged in some form a supreme god, but they also gave divine honors to subordinate gods, to deceased ancestors and heroes, and to natural phenomena, in such a manner as practically to obscure their ideas of the Creator, or altogether to set aside his worship. The influence of such idolatry was the chief antagonism which the Hebrew monotheism had to encounter; and we learn from the history of the nation how often the worshippers of Jehovah were led astray by its allurements. To guard against this danger, it was absolutely necessary that no place should be left for the introduction of polytheism, by placing the whole work of creation and providence under the sole jurisdiction of the One God. Moses consequently takes strong ground on these points. He first insists on the creation of all things by the fiat of the Supreme. Next he specifies the elaboration and arrangement of all the powers of inanimate nature, and the introduction of every form of organic existence, as the work of the same First Cause. Lastly, he insists on the creation of a primal human pair, and on the descent from them of all the branches of the human race, including of course those ancestors and magnates who up to his time had been honored with apotheosis; and on the same principle he explains the golden age of Eden, the fall, the cherubic emblems, the deluge, and other facts in human history interwoven by the heathen with their idolatries. He thus grasps the whole material of ancient idolatry, reduces it within the compass of monotheism, and shows its relation to the one true primitive religion, which was that not only of the Hebrews, but of right that of the whole world, whose prevailing polytheism consisted in perversions of its truth or unity. For such reasons the early chapters of Genesis are so far from being of the character of digressions from the scope and intention of the book, that they form a substratum of doctrine absolutely essential to the Hebrew faith, and equally so to its development in Christianity.

The references to nature in the Bible, however, and especially in its poetical books, far exceed the absolute requirements of the reasons above stated; and this leads to another and very interesting view, namely, the tendency of monotheism to the development of truthful and exalted ideas of nature. The Hebrew theology allowed no attempt at visible representations of the Creator or of his works for purposes of worship. It thus to a great extent prevented that connection of imitative art with religion which flourished in heathen antiquity, and has been introduced into certain forms of Christianity. But it cultivated the higher arts of poetry and song, and taught them to draw their inspiration from nature as the only visible revelation of Deity. Hence the growth of a healthy "physico-theology," excluding all idolatry of natural phenomena, and all superstitious dread of them as independent powers, but inviting to their examination as manifestations of God, and leading to conceptions of the unity of plan in the cosmos, of which polytheism, even in its highest literary efforts, was quite incapable. In the same manner the Bible has always proved itself an active stimulant of natural science, connecting such studies, as it does, with our higher religious sentiments; while polytheism and materialism have acted as repressive influences, the one because it obscures the unity of nature, the other because, in robbing it of its presiding Divinity, it gives a cold and repulsive, corpse-like aspect, chilling to the imagination, and incapable of attracting the general mind.

Naturalists should not forget their obligations to the Bible in this respect, and should on this very ground prefer its teachings to those of modern pantheism and positivism, and still more to those of mere priestly authority. Very few minds are content with simple materialism, and those who must have a God, if they do not recognize the Jehovah of the Hebrew Scriptures as the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the universe, are too likely to seek for him in the dimness of human authority and tradition, or of pantheistic philosophy; both of them more akin to ancient heathenism than to modern civilization, and in their ultimate tendencies, if not in their immediate consequences, quite as hostile to progress in science as to evangelical Christianity.

Every student of human nature is aware of the influence in favor of the appreciation of natural beauty and sublimity which the Bible impresses on those who are deeply imbued with its teaching; even where that same teaching has induced what may be regarded as a puritanical dislike of imitative art, at least in its religious aspects. On the other hand, naturalists can not refuse to acknowledge the surpassing majesty of the views of nature presented in the Bible. No one has expressed this better than Humboldt: "It is characteristic of the poetry of the Hebrews that, as a reflex of monotheism, it always embraces the universe in its unity, comprising both terrestrial life and the luminous realms of space; it dwells but rarely on the individuality of phenomena, preferring the contemplation of great masses. The Hebrew poet does not depict nature as a self-dependent object, glorious in its individual beauty, but always as in relation or subjection to a higher spiritual power. Nature is to him a work of creation and order—the living expression of the omnipresence of the Divinity in the visible world." In reference to the 104th Psalm, which may be viewed as a poetical version of the narrative of creation in Genesis, the same great writer remarks: "We are astonished to find in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass, the whole universe—the heavens and the earth—sketched with a few bold touches. The calm and toilsome life of man, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, when his daily work is done, is here contrasted with the moving life of the elements of nature. This contrast and generalization in the conception of the mutual action of natural phenomena, and the retrospection of an omnipresent invisible Power, which can renew the earth or crumble it to dust, constitute a solemn and exalted rather than a gentle form of poetic creation." [8]

If we admit the source of inspiration claimed by the Hebrew poets, we shall not be surprised that they should thus write of nature. We shall only lament that so many pious and learned interpreters of Scripture have been too little acquainted with nature to appreciate the natural history of the Book of God, or adequately to illustrate it to those who depend on their teaching; and that so many naturalists have contented themselves with wondering at the large general views of the Hebrew poets, without considering that they are based on a revelation of the nature and order of the creative work which supplied to the Hebrew mind the place of those geological wonders which have astonished and enlarged the minds of modern nations. A modern divine, himself well read in nature, truly says: "If men of piety were also men of science, and if men of science were to read the Scriptures, there would be more faith on the earth and also more philosophy." [9] In a similar strain the patient botanist of the marine algæ thus pleads for the joint claims of the Bible and nature: "Unfortunately it happens that in the educational course prescribed to our divines natural history has no place, for which reason many are ignorant of the important bearings which the book of nature has on the book of revelation. They do not consider, apparently, that both are from God—both are his faithful witnesses to mankind. And if this be so, is it reasonable to suppose that either, without the other, can be fully understood? It is only necessary to glance at the absurd commentaries in reference to natural objects which are to be found in too many annotations of the Holy Scriptures to be convinced of the benefit which the clergy would themselves derive from a more extended study of the works of creation. And to missionaries especially, a minute familiarity with natural objects must be a powerful assistance in awakening the attention of the savage, who, after his manner, is a close observer, and likely to detect a fallacy in his teacher, should the latter attempt a practical illustration of his discourse without sufficient knowledge. These are not days in which persons who ought to be our guides in matters of doctrine can afford to be behind the rest of the world in knowledge; nor can they safely sneer at the knowledge which puffeth up, until, like the apostle, they have sounded its depths and proved its shallowness." [10] It is truly much to be desired that divines and commentators, instead of trying to distort the representations of nature in the Bible into the supposed requirements of a barbarous age, or of setting aside modern discoveries as if they could have no connection with Scripture truth, would study natural objects and laws sufficiently to bring themselves in this respect to the level of the Hebrew writers. Such knowledge would be cheaply purchased even by the sacrifice of a part of their verbal and literary training. It is well that this point is now attracting the attention of the Christian world, and it is but just to admit that some of our more eminent religious writers have produced noble examples of accurate illustrations of Scripture derived from nature. In any case, the Bible itself can not be charged with any neglect of the claims of nature or with any narrow tendency to place material and spiritual things in antagonism to one another.

Another reason why a revelation from God must deal with the origins of things, is that such revelation is, like creation, in its own nature progressive. It is given little by little to successive generations of men, and must proceed from the first rudiments of religious truth onward to its higher developments with the growth of humanity from age to age. Hence the teachings in the early chapters of Genesis are of the simplest and most child-like character, and the first of these early teachings is necessarily that of God the Creator, just as our elementary catechisms for children have been wont to begin with the question, "Who made you?" In this way man is led in the most direct and simple way to the feet of the Universal Father, and a foundation is laid whereon further religious teaching adapted to the growth of the individual mind and to the growing complications of human society can be built. But again, alike in the earliest and simplest as in the more advanced states of the human mind, if spiritual things are to be taught, it must be through the medium of material things. We have no language to express in any direct way spiritual truths; they must be given to us in terms of the natural. We have not yet learned the tongue of the immortals, and probably can not learn it in this world. The word "spirit" itself, which we borrow from the Latin, the Greek Pneuma, the Hebrew Ruah, primarily all agree in signifying breath or wind. We have to speak of our own breath when we mean our spiritual nature, of God's breath when we mean his spiritual nature, and so of all other things not obvious to our senses. There is constant danger in this that the material shall be taken for the spiritual of which it is the symbol, the figure for the reality, the creature for the Creator, and this danger is best counteracted by a decided testimony in relation to the origin of all material things in the will of the spiritual and eternal God. Thus the Bible writers are enabled to use a free and bold manner of speech respecting divine things. Their expressions at one time appear pantheistic and at another anthropomorphic; they see God in every thing, and use with the utmost freedom natural emblems to indicate his perfections and procedure, and our relations to him. In this way there is life and action in their teaching, and it is removed as far as possible from a dry, abstract theology, while equally remote from any tinge of idolatry or superstition.

It may, however, be objected that by the introduction of a cosmogony the Bible exposes itself to a conflict with science, and that thereby injury results both to science and to religion. This is a grave charge, and one that has evidently had much weight with many minds, since it has been the subject of entire treatises designed to illustrate the history of the conflict or to explain its nature. The revelation of God's will to man for his moral guidance, if necessary at all, was necessary before the rise of natural science. Men could not do without the knowledge of the unity of nature and of the unity of God, until these great truths could be worked out by scientific induction. Perhaps they might never have been so worked out. Therefore a revealed book of origins has a right to precedence in this matter. Nor need it in any way come into conflict with the science subsequently to grow up. Science does not deal so much with the origin of nature as with its method and laws, and all that is necessary on the part of a revelation, to avoid conflict with it, is to confine itself to statements of phenomena and to avoid hypotheses. This is eminently the course of the Bible. In its cosmogony it shuns all embellishments and details, and contents itself with the fact of creation and a slight sketch of its order; and in their subsequent references to nature the sacred writers are strictly phenomenal in their statements, and refer every thing directly to the will of God, without any theory as to secondary causes and relations. They are thus decided and positive on the points with reference to which it behooves revelation to testify, and absolutely non-committal on the points which belong to the exclusive domain of science.

What, then, are we to say of the imaginary "conflict of science with religion," of which so much has been made? Simply that it results largely from misapprehension and from misuse of terms. True religion, which consists in practical love to God and to our fellow-men, can have no conflict with science. True science is its fast ally. The Bible, considered as a revelation of spiritual truth to man for his salvation and enlightenment, can have no conflict with science. It promotes the study of nature, rendering it honorable by giving it the dignity of an inquiry into the ways of God, and rendering it safe by separating it from all ideas of magic and necromancy. It gives a theological basis to the ideas of the unity of nature and of natural law. The conflict of science, when historically analyzed, is found to have been fourfold—with the Church, with theology, with superstition, and with false or imperfect science and philosophy. Religious men may have identified themselves from time to time with these opponents, but that is all; and much more frequently the opposition has been by bad men more or less professing religious objects. Organizations calling themselves "the Church," and whose warrant from the Bible is often of the slenderest, have denounced and opposed and persecuted new scientific truths; but they have just as often denounced the Bible itself, and religious doctrines founded on it. Theology claims to be itself one of the sciences, and as such it is necessarily imperfect and progressive, and may at any time be more or less in conflict with other sciences; but theology is not religion, and may often have very little in common either with true religion or the Bible. When discussions arise between theology and other sciences, it is only a pity that either side should indulge in what has been called the odium theologicum, but which is unfortunately not confined to divines. Superstition, considered as the unreasonable fear of natural agencies, is a passive rather than an active opponent of science. But revelation, which affirms unity, law, and a Father's hand in nature, is the deadly foe of superstition, and no people who have been readers of the Bible and imbued with its spirit have ever been found ready to molest or persecute science. Work of this sort has been done only by the ignorant, superstitious, and priest-ridden votaries of systems which withhold the Bible from the people, and detest it as much as they dislike science. Perhaps the most troublesome opposition to science, or rather to the progress of science, has sprung from the tenacity with which men hold to old ideas. These, which may have been at one time the best science attainable, root themselves in popular literature, and even in learned bodies and in educational books and institutions. They become identified with men's conceptions both of nature and religion, and modify their interpretations of the Bible itself. It thus becomes a most difficult matter to wrench them from men's minds, and their advocates are too apt to invoke in their defense political, social, and ecclesiastical powers, and to seek to support them by the authority of revelation, when this may perhaps be quite as favorable to the newer views opposed to them. All these conflicts are, however, necessary incidents in human progress, which comes only by conflict; and there is reason to believe that they would be as severe in the absence of revealed religion as in its presence, were it not that the absence of revelation seems often to produce a fixity and stagnation of thought unfavorable to any new views, and consequently to some extent to any intellectual conflict. It has been, indeed, to the disinterment of the Bible in the Reformation of the fifteenth century that the world owes, more than to any other cause, the immense growth of modern science, and the freedom of discussion which now prevails. The Protestant idea of individual judgment in matters of religion is thoroughly Biblical, for the Bible everywhere appeals to men in this way; and this idea is the strongest guarantee that the world possesses for intellectual liberty in other matters.

We conclude, therefore, on all these grounds, that it was necessary that a revelation from God should take strong and positive ground on the question of the origin of the universe.

(2) The Origin, Method, and Structure of the Scriptural Cosmogony.—A respectable physicist, but somewhat shallow naturalist and theologian, whose works at one time attracted much attention, has said of the first chapter of Genesis: "It can not be history—it may be poetry." Its claims to be history we shall investigate under another head, but it is pertinent to our present inquiry to ask whether it can be poetry. That its substance or matter is poetical no one who has read it once can believe; but it can not be denied that in its form it approaches somewhat to that kind of thought-rhythm or parallelism which gives so peculiar a character to Hebrew poetry. We learn from many Scripture passages, especially in the Proverbs, that this poetical parallelism need not necessarily be connected with poetical thought; that in truth it might be used, as rhyme is sometimes with us, to aid the memory. The oldest acknowledged verse in Scripture is a case in point. Lamech, who lived before the flood, appears to have slain a man in self-defense, or at least in an encounter in which he himself was wounded; and he attempts to define the nature of the crime in the following words:

"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;

Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech:—

I have slain a man to my wounding,

And a young man to my hurt;

If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,

Truly Lamech seventy and seven fold."

All this is prosaic enough in matter, but the form into which it is thrown gives it a certain dignity, and impresses it on the memory; which last object was probably what the author of this sole fragment of antediluvian literature had in view. He succeeded too—for the sentiment was handed down, probably orally; and Moses incorporates it in his narration, perhaps on account of its interest as the first record of the distinction between willful murder like that of Cain, and justifiable homicide. It is interesting also to observe the same parallelism of style, no doubt with the same objects, in many old Egyptian monumental inscriptions, which, however grandiloquent, are scarcely poetical. [11] It also appears in that ancient record of creation and the deluge recently rescued from the clay tablets of Nineveh.

Now in the first chapter of Genesis, and the first three verses of chapter second, being the formal general narrative of creation, on which, as we shall see, every other statement on the subject in the Bible is based, we have this peculiar parallelism of style. If we ask why, the answer must, I think, be—to give dignity and symmetry to what would otherwise be a dry abstract, and still more to aid memory. This last consideration, perhaps indicating that this chapter, like the apology of Lamech, had been handed down orally for a long period, connects itself with the theory of the pre-Abrahamic origin of these documents to which reference has already been made.

The form of the narrative, however, in no way impairs its precision or accuracy of statement. On this Eichhorn well says: "There lies at the foundation of the first chapter a carefully designed plan, all whose parts are carried out with much art, whereby its appropriate place is assigned to every idea;" and we may add, whereby every idea is expressed in the simplest and fewest words, yet with marvellous accuracy, amounting to an almost scientific precision of diction, for which both the form into which it is thrown and the homogeneous and simple character of the Hebrew language are very well adapted. Much of this indeed remains in the English version, though our language is less perfectly suited than the Hebrew for the concise announcement of general truths of this description. Our translators have, however, deviated greatly from the true sense of many important words, especially where they have taken the Septuagint translation for their guide, as in the words "firmament," "whales," "creeping things," etc. These errors will be noticed in subsequent pages. In the mean time I may merely add that the labors of the ablest Biblical critics give us every reason to conclude that the received text of Genesis preserves, almost without an iota of change, the beautiful simplicity of its first chapter; and that we now have it in a more perfect state than that in which it was presented to the translators of most of the early versions. It must also be admitted that the object in view was best served by that direct reference to the creative fiat, and ignoring of all secondary causes, which are conspicuous in this narrative. This is indeed the general tone of the Bible in speaking of natural phenomena; and this mode of proceeding is in perfect harmony with its claims to divine authority. Had not this course been chosen, no other could have been adopted, in strict consistency with truth, short of a full revelation of the whole system of nature, in the details of all its laws and processes. This we now know would have been impossible, and, if possible, useless or even mischievous.

Regarded from this point of view—the plenary inspiration of the book—the Scriptural references to creation profess to furnish a very general outline, for theological purposes, of the principal features of a vast region unexplored when they were written, and into which human research has yet penetrated along only a few lines. Natural science, in following out these lines of observation, has reached some of the objects delineated in the Scriptural sketch; of others it has obtained distant glimpses; many are probably unknown, and we can appreciate the true value and dimensions relatively to the whole of very few. So vast indeed are the subjects of the bold sketch of the Hebrew prophet, that natural science can not pretend as yet so to fill in the outline as quite to measure the accuracy of its proportions. Yet the lines, though few, are so boldly drawn, and with so much apparent unity and symmetry, that we almost involuntarily admit that they are accurate and complete. This may appear to be underrating the actual progress of science relatively to this great foreshadowing outline; but I know that those most deeply versed in the knowledge of nature will be the least disposed to quarrel with it, whatever skepticism they may entertain as to the greater general completeness of the inspired record.

Another point which deserves a passing notice here is the theory of Dr. Kurtz and others, that the Mosaic narrative represents a vision of creation, analogous to those prophetic visions which appear in the later books of Scripture. This is beyond all question the most simple and probable solution of the origin of the document, when viewed as inspired, but we shall have to recur to it on a future page.

But with respect to the precise origin of this cosmogony, the question now arises, Is it really in substance a revelation from God to man? We must not disguise from ourselves that this deliberate statement of an order of creation in so far challenges comparison with the results of science, and this in a very different way from that which applies to the incidental references to nature in the Bible. Further, inasmuch as it relates to events which transpired before the creation of man, it is of the nature of prophecy rather than of history. It is, in short, either an inspired revelation of the divine procedure in creation, or it is a product of human imagination or research, or a deliberate fraud.

To no part of the Bible do these alternatives more strictly apply than to its first chapter. This "can not be history" in the strict acceptation of the term. It relates to events which no human eye witnessed, respecting which no human testimony could give any information. It represents the creation of man as the last of a long series of events, of which it professes to inform us. The knowledge of these events can not have been a matter of human experience. If at all entitled to confidence, the narrative must, therefore, be received as an inspired document, not handed down by any doubtful tradition, but existing as originally transfused into human language from the mind of the Author of nature himself. This view is in no way affected by the hypothesis, already mentioned, that the first chapters of Genesis were compiled by Moses from more ancient documents. This merely throws back the revelation to a higher antiquity, and requires us to suppose the agency of two inspired men instead of one.

It would be out of place here to enter into any argument for the inspiration of Scripture, or to attempt to define the nature of that inspiration. I merely wish to impress on the mind of the reader that without the admission of its reality, or at least its possibility, our present inquiry becomes merely a matter of curious antiquarian research. We must also on this ground distinguish between the claims of the Scriptures and those of tradition or secular history, when they refer to the same facts. The traditions and cosmogonies of some ancient nations have many features in common with the Bible narrative; and, on the supposition that Moses compiled from older documents, they may be portions of this more ancient sacred truth, but clothed in the varied garments of the fanciful mythological creeds which have sprung up in later and more degenerate times. Such fragments may safely be received as secondary aids to the understanding of the authentic record, but it would be folly to seek in them for the whole truth. They are but the scattered masses of ore, by tracing which we may sometimes open up new and rich portions of the vein of primitive lore from which they have been derived. It is, however, quite necessary here formally to inquire if there are any hypotheses short of that of plenary inspiration which may allow us to attach any value whatever to this most ancient document. I know but two views of this kind that are worthy of any attention.

1. The Mosaic account of creation may be a result of ancient scientific inquiries, analogous to those of modern geology.

2. It may be an allegorical or poetical mythus, not intended to be historical, but either devised for some extraneous purpose, or consisting of the conjectures of some gifted intellect.

These alternatives we may shortly consider, though the materials for their full discussion can be furnished only by facts to be subsequently stated. I am not aware that the first of these views has been maintained by any modern writer. Some eminent scientific men are, however, disposed to adopt such an explanation of the ancient Hindoo hymns, as well as of the cosmogony of Pythagoras, which bears evidence of this origin; and it may be an easy step to infer that the Hebrew cosmogony was derived from some similar source. Not many years ago such a supposition would have been regarded as almost insane. Then the science of antiquity was only another name for the philosophy of Greece and Rome. But in recent times we have seen Egypt disclose the ruins of a mighty civilization, more grand and massive though less elegant than that of Greece, and which had reached its acme ere Greece had received its alphabet—a civilization which, according to the Scripture history, is derived from that of the primeval Cushite empire, which extended from the plains of Shinar over all Southeastern Asia, but was crushed at its centre before the dawn of secular history. We have now little reason to doubt that Moses, when he studied the learning of Egypt, held converse with men who saw more clearly and deeply into nature's mysteries than did Thales or Pythagoras, or even Aristotle. [12] Still later the remnants of old Nineveh have been exhumed from their long sepulture, and antiquaries have been astonished by the discovery that knowledge and arts, supposed to belong exclusively to far more recent times, were in the days of the early Hebrew kings, and probably very long previously, firmly established on the banks of the Tigris. Such discoveries, when compared with hints furnished by the Scriptures, tend greatly to exalt our ideas of the state of civilization at the time when they were written; and we shall perceive, in the course of our inquiry, many additional reasons for believing that the ancient Israelites were much farther advanced in natural science than is commonly supposed.

We have, however, no positive proof of such a theory, and it is subject to many grave objections. The narrative itself makes no pretension to a scientific origin, it quotes no authority, and it is connected with no philosophical speculations or deductions. It bears no internal evidence of having been the result of inductive inquiry, but appeals at once to faith in the truth of the great ultimate doctrine of absolute creation, and then proceeds to detail the steps of the process, in the manner of history as recorded by a witness, and not in the manner of science tracing back effects to their causes. Farther, it refers to conditions of our planet respecting which science has even now attained to no conclusions supported by evidence, and is not in a position to make dogmatic assertions. The tone of all the ancient cosmogonies has in these respects a resemblance to that of the Scriptures, and bears testimony to a general impression pervading the mind of antiquity that there was a divine and authoritative testimony to the facts of creation, distinct from history, philosophical speculation, or induction.

One of the boldest and simplest methods of this kind is that followed by the authors of the "Types of Mankind," in the attempt to assign a purely human origin to Genesis 1st. These writers admit the greater antiquity of the first chapter, though assigning the whole of the book to a comparatively modern date. They say:

"The 'document Jehovah' [13] does not especially concern our present subject; and it is incomparable with the grander conception of the more ancient and unknown writer of Genesis 1st. With extreme felicity of diction and conciseness of plan, the latter has defined the most philosophical views of antiquity upon cosmogony; in fact so well that it has required the palæontological discoveries of the nineteenth century—at least 2500 years after his death—to overthrow his septenary arrangement of 'Creation;' which, after all, would still be correct enough in great principles, were it not for one individual oversight and one unlucky blunder; not exposed, however, until long after his era, by post-Copernican astronomy. The oversight is where he wrote (Gen. i. 6–8), 'Let there be raquiê,' i.e., a firmament; which proves that his notions of 'sky' (solid like the concavity of a copper basin, with stars set as brilliants in the metal) were the same as those of adjacent people of his time—indeed, of all men before the publication of Newton's 'Principia' and of Laplace's 'Mécanique Céleste.' The blunder is where he conceives that aur, 'light,' and iom, 'day' (Gen. i. 14–18), could have been physically possible three whole days before the 'two great luminaries,' Sun and Moon, were created. These venial errors deducted, his majestic song beautifully illustrates the simple process of ratiocination through which—often without the slightest historical proof of intercourse—different 'Types of Mankind,' at distinct epochas, and in countries widely apart, had arrived, naturally, at cosmogonic conclusions similar to the doctrines of that Hebraical school of which his harmonic and melodious numbers remain a magnificent memento.

"That process seems to have been the following: The ancients knew, as we do, that man is upon the earth; and they were persuaded, as we are, that his appearance was preceded by unfathomable depths of time. Unable (as we are still) to measure periods antecedent to man by any chronological standard, the ancients rationally reached the tabulation of some events anterior to man through induction—a method not original with Lord Bacon, because known to St. Paul; 'for his unseen things from the creation of the world, his power and Godhead, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made' (Rom. i., 20). Man, they felt, could not have lived upon earth without animal food; ergo, 'cattle' preceded him, together with birds, reptiles, fishes, etc. Nothing living, they knew, could have existed without light and heat; ergo, the solar system antedated animal life, no less than the vegetation indispensable for animal support. But terrestrial plants can not grow without earth; ergo, that dry land had to be separated from pre-existent 'waters.' Their geological speculations inclining rather to the Neptunian than to the Plutonian theory—for Werner ever preceded Hutton—the ancients found it difficult to 'divide the waters from the waters' without interposing a metallic substance that 'divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament;' so they inferred, logically, that a firmament must have been actually created for this object. [E.g., 'The windows of the skies' (Gen. vii., 11); 'the waters above the skies' (Psa. cxlviii., 4).] Before the 'waters' (and here is the peculiar error of the genesiacal bard) some of the ancients claimed the pre-existence of light (a view adopted by the writer of Genesis 1st); while others asserted that 'chaos' prevailed. Both schools united, however, in the conviction that DARKNESS—Erebus—anteceded all other created things. What, said these ancients, can have existed before the 'darkness?' Ens entium, the CREATOR, was the humbled reply. Elohim is the Hebrew vocal expression of that climax; to define whose attributes, save through the phenomena of creation, is an attempt we leave to others more presumptuous than ourselves."

The problem here set to the "unknown" author of Genesis is a hard one—given the one fact that "man is" to find in detail how the world was formed in a series of preceding ages of vast duration. Is it possible that such a problem could have been so worked out as to have endured the test of three thousand years, and the scrutiny of modern science? But there is an "oversight" in one detail, and a "blunder" in another. By reference farther on, the reader will find under the chapters on "Light" and the "Atmosphere" that the oversight and blunder are those not of the writer of Genesis, but of the learned American ethnologists in the nineteenth century; a circumstance which cuts in two ways in defense of the ancient author so unhappily unknown to his modern critics.

The second of the alternatives above referred to, the mythical hypothesis, has been advanced and ably supported, especially on the continent of Europe, and by such English writers as are disposed to apply the methods of modern rationalistic criticism to the Bible. In one of its least objectionable forms it is thus stated by Professor Powell:

"The narrative, then, of six periods of creation, followed by a seventh similar period of rest and blessing, was clearly designed by adaptation to their conceptions to enforce upon the Israelites the institution of the Sabbath; and in whatever way its details may be interpreted, it can not be regarded as an historical statement of the primeval institution of a Sabbath; a supposition which is indeed on other grounds sufficiently improbable, though often adopted. * * * If, then, we would avoid the alternative of being compelled to admit what must amount to impugning the truth of those portions at least of the Old Testament, we surely are bound to give fair consideration to the only suggestion which can set us entirely free from all the difficulties arising from the geological contradiction which does and must exist against any conceivable interpretation which retains the assertion of the historical character of the details of the narrative, as referring to the distinct transactions of each of the seven periods. * * * The one great fact couched in the general assertion that all things were created by the sole power of one Supreme Being is the whole of the representation to which an historical character can be assigned. As to the particular form in which the descriptive narrative is conveyed, we merely affirm that it can not be history—it may be poetry." [14]

The general ground on which this view is entertained is the supposed irreconcilable contradiction between the literal interpretation of the Mosaic record and the facts of geology. The real amount of this difficulty we are not, in the present stage of our inquiry, prepared to estimate. We can, however, readily understand that the hypothesis depends on the supposition that the narrative of creation is posterior in date to the Mosaic ritual, and that this plain and circumstantial series of statements is a fable designed to support the Sabbatical institution, instead of the rite being, as represented in the Bible itself, a commemoration of the previously recorded fact. This is, fortunately, a gratuitous assumption, contrary to the probable date of the documents, as deduced from internal evidence and from comparison with the Assyrian and other cosmogonies; and it also completely ignores the other manifest uses mentioned under our first head. If proved, it would give to the whole the character of a pious fraud, and would obviously render any comparison with the geological history of the earth altogether unnecessary. While, therefore, it must be freely admitted that the Mosaic narrative can not be history, in so far at least as history is a product of human experience, we can not admit that it is a poetical mythus, or, in other words, that it is destitute of substantial truth, unless proved by good evidence to be so; and, when this is proved, we must also admit that it is quite undeserving of the credit which it claims as a revelation from God.

Since, therefore, the events recorded in the first chapter of Genesis were not witnessed by man; since there is no reason to believe that they were discovered by scientific inquiry; and since, if true, they can not be a poetical myth, we must, in the mean time, return to our former supposition that the Mosaic cosmogony is a direct revelation from the Creator. In this respect, the position of this part of the earth's Biblical history resembles that of prophecy. Writers may accurately relate contemporary events, or those which belong to the human period, without inspiration; but the moment that they profess accurately to foretell the history of the future, or to inform us of events which preceded the human period, we must either believe them to be inspired, or reject them as impostors or fanatics. Many attempts have been made to find intermediate standing-ground, but it is so precarious that the nicest of our modern critical balancers have been unable to maintain themselves upon it.

Having thus determined that the Mosaic cosmogony, in its grand general features, must either be inspired or worthless, we have further to inquire to what extent it is necessary to suppose that the particular details and mode of expression of the narrative, and the subsequent allusions to nature in the Bible, must be regarded as entitled to this position. We may conceive them to have been left to the discretion of the writers; and, in that case, they will merely represent the knowledge of nature actually existing at the time. On the other hand, their accuracy may have been secured by the divine afflatus. Few modern writers have been disposed to insist on the latter alternative, and have rather assumed that these references and details are accommodated to the state of knowledge at the time. I must observe here, however, that a careful consideration of the facts gives to a naturalist a much higher estimate of the real value of the observations of nature embodied in the Scriptures than that which divines have ordinarily entertained; and, consequently, that if we suppose them of human origin, we must be prepared to modify the views generally entertained of early Oriental simplicity and ignorance. The truth is, that a large proportion of the difficulties in Scriptural natural history appear to have arisen from want of such accommodation to the low state of the knowledge of nature among translators and expositors; and this is precisely what we should expect in a veritable revelation. Its moral and religious doctrines were slowly developed, each new light illuminating previous obscurities. Its human history comes out as evidence of its truth, when compared with monumental inscriptions; and why should not the All-wise have constructed as skilfully its teachings respecting his own works? There can be no doubt whatever that the Scripture writers intended to address themselves to the common mind, which now as then requires simple and popular teaching, but they were under obligation to give truthful statements; and we need not hesitate to say, with Dr. Chalmers, in reference to a book making such claims as those of the Bible: "There is no argument, saving that grounded on the usages of popular language, which would tempt us to meddle with the literalities of that ancient and, as appears to us, authoritative document, any farther than may be required by those conventionalities of speech which spring from 'optical' impressions of nature." [15]

Attempt as we may to disguise it, any other view is totally unworthy of the great Ruler of the universe, especially in a document characterized as emphatically the truth, and in a moral revelation, in which statements respecting natural objects need not be inserted, unless they could be rendered at once truthful and illustrative of the higher objects of the revelation. The statement often so flippantly made that the Bible was not intended to teach natural history has no application here. Spiritual truths are no doubt shadowed forth in the Bible by material emblems, often but rudely resembling them, because the nature of human thought and language render this necessary, not only to the unlearned, but in some degree to all; but this principle of adaptation can not be applied to plain material facts. Yet a confusion of these two very distinct cases appears to prevail almost unaccountably in the minds of many expositors. They tell us that the Scriptures ascribe bodily members to the immaterial God, and typify his spiritual procedure by outward emblems; and this they think analogous to such doctrines as a solid firmament, a plane earth, and others of a like nature, which they ascribe to the sacred writers. We shall find that the writers of the Scriptures had themselves much clearer views, and that, even in poetical language, they take no such liberties with truth.

As an illustration of the extent to which this doctrine of "accommodation" carries us beyond the limits of fair interpretation, I cite the following passage from one of the ablest and most judicious writers on the subject: [16] "It was the opinion of the ancients that the earth, at a certain height, was surrounded by a transparent hollow sphere of solid matter, which they called the firmament. When rain descended, they supposed that it was through windows or holes made in the crystalline curtain suspended in mid-heavens. To these notions the language of the Bible is frequently conformed. * * * But the most decisive example I have to give on this subject is derived from astronomy. Until the time of Copernicus no opinion respecting natural phenomena was thought better established than that the earth is fixed immovably in the centre of the universe, and that the heavenly bodies move diurnally round it. To sustain this view the most decisive language of Scripture might be quoted. God is there said to have 'established the foundations of the earth, so that they could not be removed forever' and the sacred writers expressly declare that the heavenly bodies arise and set, and nowhere allude to any proper motion of the earth."

Will it be believed that, with the exception of the poetical expression, "windows of heaven," and the common forms of speech relating to sunrise and sunset, the above "decisive" instances of accommodation have no foundation whatever in the language of Scripture. The doctrine of the rotation of solid celestial spheres around the earth belongs to a Greek philosophy which arose after the Hebrew cosmogony was complete; and though it occurs in the Septuagint and other ancient versions, it is not based on the Hebrew original. In truth, we know that those Grecian philosophers—of the Ionic and Pythagorean schools—who lived nearest the times of the Hebrew writers, and who derived the elements of their science from Egypt and Western Asia, taught very different doctrines. How absurd, then, is it thus to fasten upon the sacred writers, contrary to their own words, the views of a school of astronomy which probably arose long after their time, when we know that more accurate ideas prevailed nearer their epoch. Secondly, though there is some reason for stating that the "ancients," though certainly not those of Israel, believed in celestial spheres supporting the heavenly bodies, I suspect that the doctrine of a solid vault supporting the clouds, except as a mere poetical or mythological fancy, is a product of the imagination of the theologians and closet philosophers of a more modern time. The testimony of men's senses appears to be in favor of the whole universe revolving around a plane earth, though the oldest astronomical school with which we are acquainted suspected that this is an illusion; but the every-day observation of the most unlettered man who treads the fields and is wet with the mists and rains must convince him that there is no sub-nubilar solid sphere. If, therefore, the Bible had taught such a doctrine, it would have shocked the common-sense even of the plain husbandmen to whom it was addressed, and could have found no fit audience except among a portion of the literati of comparatively modern times. Thirdly, with respect to the foundations of the earth, I may remark that in the tenth verse of Genesis there occurs a definition as precise as that of any lexicon—"and God called the dry land earth;" consequently it is but fair to assume that the earth afterwards spoken of as supported above the waters is the dry land or continental masses of the earth, and no geologist can object to the statement that the dry land is supported above the waters by foundations or pillars.

We shall find in our examination of the document itself that all the instances of such accommodation which have been cited by writers on this subject are as baseless as those above referred to. It is much to be regretted that so many otherwise useful expositors have either wanted that familiarity with the aspects of external nature by which all the Hebrew writers are characterized, or have taken too little pains to ascertain the actual meaning of the references to creation which they find in the Bible. I may further remark that if such instances of accommodation could be found in the later poetical books, it would be extremely unfair to apply them as aids in the interpretation of the plain, precise, and unadorned statements of the first chapters of Genesis. There is, however, throughout even the higher poetry of the Bible, a truthful representation and high appreciation of nature for which we seek in vain in any other poetry, and we may fairly trace this in part to the influence of the cosmogony which appears in its first chapter. The Hebrew was thus taught to recognize the unity of nature as the work of an Almighty Intelligence, to regard all its operations as regulated by his unchanging law or "decree," and to venerate it as a revelation of his supreme wisdom and goodness. On this account he was likely to regard careful observation and representation with as scrupulous attention as the modern naturalist. Nor must we forget that the Old Testament literature has descended to us through two dark ages—that of Greek and Roman polytheism and of Middle Age barbarism—and that we must not confound its tenets with those of either. The religious ideas of both these ages were favorable to certain forms of literature and art, but eminently unfavorable to the successful prosecution of the study of nature. Hence we have a right to expect in the literature of the golden age of primeval monotheism more affinity with the ideas of modern science than in any intermediate time; and the truthful delineation which the claims of the Bible to inspiration require might have been, as already hinted, to a certain extent secured merely by the reflex influence of its earlier statements, without the necessity of our supposing that illustrations of this kind in the later books came directly from the Spirit of God.

Our discussion of this part of the subject has necessarily been rather desultory, and the arguments adduced must depend for their full confirmation on the results of our future inquiries. The conclusions arrived at may be summed up as follows: 1. That the Mosaic cosmogony must be considered, like the prophecies of the Bible, to claim the rank of inspired teaching, and must depend for its authority on the maintenance of that claim. 2. That the incidental references to nature in other parts of Scripture indicate, at least, the influence of these earlier teachings, and of a pure monotheistic faith, in creating a high and just appreciation of nature among the Hebrew people.

It is now necessary to inquire in what precise form this remarkable revelation of the origin of the world has been given. I have already referred to the hypothesis that it represents a vision of creation presented to the mind of a seer, as if in a series of pictures which he represents to us in words. This is perhaps the most intelligible conception of the manner of communication of a revelation from God; and inasmuch as it is that referred to in other parts of the Bible as the mode of presentation of the future to inspired prophets, there can be no impropriety in supposing it to have been the means of communicating the knowledge of the unknown past. We may imagine the seer—perhaps some aboriginal patriarch, long before the time of Moses—perhaps the first man himself—wrapt in ecstatic vision, having his senses closed to all the impressions of the present time, and looking as at a moving procession of the events of the earth's past history, presented to him in a series of apparent days and nights. In the first chapter of Genesis he rehearses this divine vision to us, not in poetry, but in a series of regularly arranged parts or strophes, thrown into a sort of rhythmical order fitted to impress them on the memory, and to allow them to be handed down from mouth to mouth, perhaps through successive generations of men, before they could be fixed in a written form of words. Though the style can scarcely be called poetical, since its expressions are obviously literal and unadorned by figures of speech, the production may not unfairly be called the Song or Ballad of Creation, and it presents an Archaic simplicity reminding us of the compositions of the oldest and rudest times, while it has also an artificial and orderly arrangement, much obscured by its division into verses and chapters in our Bibles. It is undoubtedly also characterized by a clearness and grandeur of expression very striking and majestic, and which shows that it was written by and intended for men of no mean and contracted minds, but who could grasp the great problems of the origin of things, and comprehend and express them in a bold and vigorous manner. It may be well, before proceeding farther, to present to the reader this ancient document in a form more literal and intelligible, and probably nearer to its original dress, than that in which we are most familiar with it in our English Bibles:

THE ABORIGINAL SONG OF CREATION.

Beginning.

In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,

And the Earth was formless and empty,

And darkness on the surface of the deep,

And the Breath of God moved on the Surface of the Waters.

Day One.

And God said—"Let Light be," And Light was. And God saw the Light that it was good. And God called the Light Day, And the darkness he called Night. And Evening was and Morning was—Day one.

Day Second.

And God said—"Let there be an Expanse in the midst of the waters, And let it divide the waters from the waters." And God made the Expanse, And divided the waters below the Expanse from the waters above the Expanse. And it was so. And God called the Expanse Heavens. And Evening was and Morning was, a Second Day.

Day Third.

And God said—"Let the waters under the Heavens be gathered into one place, And let the Dry Land appear." And it was so, And God called the Dry Land Earth, And the gathering of waters called he Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said—"Let the earth shoot forth herbage, The Herb yielding seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit containing seed after its kind, on the earth." And it was so. And the earth brought forth herbage, The Herb yielding seed and the Tree yielding fruit whose seed is in it after its kind, And God saw that it was good. And Evening was and Morning was, a Third Day.

Day Fourth.

And God said—"Let there be Luminaries in the Expanse of Heaven, To divide the day from the night, And let them be for Signs and for Seasons, And for Days and for Years. And let them be Luminaries in the Expanse of Heaven To give light on the earth." And it was so. And God made two great Luminaries, The greater Luminary to rule the day, The lesser Luminary to rule the night, The Stars also. And God placed them in the Expanse of Heaven To give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, And to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And Evening was and Morning was, a Fourth Day.

Day Fifth.

And God said—"Let the waters swarm with swarmers, having life, And let winged animals fly over the earth on the surface of the expanse of heaven." And God created great Reptiles, And every living thing that moveth, With which the waters swarmed after their kind, And every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying— "Be fruitful and multiply, And fill the waters of the sea; And let birds multiply in the land." And Evening was and Morning was, a Fifth Day.

Day Sixth.

And God said—"Let the Land bring forth living things after their kind, Herbivores and smaller mammals and Carnivores after their kind." And it was so. And God made all Carnivores after their kind, And all Herbivores after their kind, And all minor mammals after their kind. And God saw that it was good. And God said—"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, And let him have dominion over the fish in the sea And over the birds of the heavens, And over the Herbivora, And over the Earth, And over all the minor animals that creep upon the earth." And God created man in his own image, In the image of God created he him, Male and female created he them. And God blessed them. And God said unto them— "Be fruitful and multiply, And replenish the earth and subdue it, And have dominion over the fishes of the sea And over the birds of the air, And over all the animals that move upon the earth." And God said—"Behold, I have given you all herbs yielding seed, Which are on the surface of the whole earth, And every tree with fruit having seed, They shall be unto you for food. And to all the animals of the land And to all the birds of the heavens, And to all things moving on the land having the breath of life, I have given every green herb for food." And it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. And Evening was and Morning was, a Sixth Day.

Day Seventh.

Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished,

And all the hosts of them.

And on the seventh day God ended the work which he had made,

And he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it,

Because that in it he rested from all his work that he had created and made.