Verses 16 and 17. It is a matter of great difficulty to refrain from ridiculing the statement that there exist trees bearing such fruit, and after overcoming this difficulty, it is still less comprehensible why God should forbid man to acquire a knowledge of good and evil. Would not man's free access to this knowledge appear more in accordance with the character of a just and merciful God? and is not knowledge necessary to man, especially when we find the serpent 'more subtle than other animals,' plotting man's destruction?
Verses 18 and 19. It is somewhat remarkable that immediately after the Lord God had declared his intention of making a helpmeet
for Adam, that he formed all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. This is open to many objections; first, see chap, i, v. 21, but as we must admit there are two distinct accounts of the creation, I will not further burden my work with the contradictions between them; second, the strong improbability of the story of the Lord God bringing the beasts and fowl to see what Adam would call them; either the Lord God had fore-ordained the names to be applied by Adam, or the theologians are wrong--either the Lord God foreknew what names Adam would give each bird and beast, in which case Genesis is incorrect, or prescience, one of the attributes applied to Deity, is deficient; third, the immense time which this naming of every bird and beast must have taken, especially when we remember that Adam was waiting for his wife--it almost appears as if verse 18 should come after verse 20 to make sense of the story. Lawrence says that the account of all the animals being brought before Adam is zoologically impossible ('Lectures on Man,' p. 169). Voltaire says that if Adam had named the animals according to their various natures, he must have either previously eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or it would apparently have answered no end for God to have interdicted him from it. He must have already known more than the Royal Society or the Academy of Sciences of Paris. The mode of manufacturing the woman from the rib of the man has been the subject of much controversy, but is only noticed here as another illustration of the fabulous character of the book we are dealing with.
Having passed through the two accounts of the creation contained in the anonymous book I am examining, I shall strive to ascertain the source from whence some of the doctrines and traditions contained in this book were derived. Aware of the magnitude of my task, I will now only deal with authorities to whom no exception should be taken by the religious reader. One is the pious and erudite Sir William Jones, the other the Reverend Thomas Maurice. Of the claims of the first to our attention I will say nothing, for every man ought to be more or less acquainted with the character of the great linguist; of the second I can only say that I find his work issued under the countenance of the heads of the Church, and supported by some of the first men of his day.
When, at the present day, you point out to a Christian the striking coincidence in many points between the Bible and the Hindoo and other sacred writings, he will tell you that the latter have been stolen from the former. Is this the fact? I think not. Maurice, in his preface to his 'Indian Antiquities,' says, 'The stupendous system of the Brahmin Chronology, extending back through millions of years; the _obstinate denial of a general deluge_ by those Brahmins; the perplexing doctrine of a trinity in the divine nature constantly recurring in the operations of Brahma, Vishnu, and Seeva, _a doctrine not to be traced to any immediate connexion with the Jewish nation_; these were among the delicate topics which neither the clerical nor historical functions in which I had engaged would allow of being passed over in silence. As I advanced in my inquiries, I found that the primeval histories of all the ancient empires of the earth amount to little more than the romantic dreams of astronomical mythology.'
Weigh well this last sentence, read your Bibles attentively, and ask yourselves in what particular feature is Genesis superior to the Shastra or Bhagavat.
The following is from the Manava Sastra, the words of Menu, Son of Brahma, as quoted in vol. i of the 'Asiatic Researches,' page 244:--
'"This world (says he) was all darkness, undiscernible, undistinguishable, altogether as in profound sleep; till the self-existent invisible God, making it manifest with five elements and other glorious forms, perfectly expelled the gloom. He, desiring to raise up various creatures by an emanation from his own glory, first created the waters, and impressed them with a power of motion: by that power was produced a golden egg, blazing like a thousand suns, in which was born Brahma, self-existing, the great parent of all rational beings. The waters are called nárà, since they are the offspring of _Nara or Iswara; and thence was Náryána_ named, because his first ayana, or moving, was on them.
'"That which is, the invisible cause, eternal, self-existing, but un-perceived, becoming masculine from neuter, is celebrated among all creatures by the name of Brahmá. That God, having dwelled in the egg through revolving years, Himself meditating on himself, divided it into two equal parts; and from those halves formed the heavens and the earth, placing in the midst the subtle ether, the eight points of the world, and the permanent receptacle of waters."'
Sir William Jones admits that the Vedas are 'very ancient, and far older than any other Sanscrit works,' but assigns to the Manava Sastra, and the Bhagavat a later date than 'the Scriptures of Moses,' on the ground that 'the nakedness of the Hebrew dialect, metre, and style must convince every man of their superior antiquity.' On the same page Sir W. Jones, however, states that the Brahmans affirm that the Vedas, the Manava Sástra, and the Bhagavat, were all written in the first age of the world. Is it honest to reject the testimony of the Priests of Brahma while we are content to place our reason in the hands of the Priests of our own Church?
My reasons for not believing the Manava Sastra and Bhagavat were stolen from the Jews are as follows: first, the Bhagavat, admitted to be much more ancient than our alleged Christian era, contains the history of Chrishna, which is, in very many particulars, identical with that of Christ, and as it is absolutely impossible that the Hindoos could have stolen the history of Christ one thousand years prior to his existence, I am inclined to conceive it more probable that in our Bible we have throughout appropriated from the Hindoos; second, I deny that it has ever been shown that the Jewish nation is nearly so ancient as the Hindoo, and I am, therefore, puzzled in attempting to charge the more ancient nation with stealing the traditions of the modern one. It would be nearly as reasonable if a Frenchman were to charge the English with stealing the history of William the Conqueror from the Americans.
Sir William Jones further says, 'I am persuaded that a connexion subsisted between the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before they emigrated to their several settlements, and consequently before the birth of Moses;' and what do we find? Why this, that the religions of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, have a wonderful similarity to one another, and yet we are told that the religion of the Jewish nation (which contains something common to them all) was not stolen from them, but they, the ancient religions, were stolen from the more modern nation. It would be as probable were I to tell you that the Royal Society in London was founded and originated in consequence of something which fell last year from the lips of Louis Napoleon.
The third chapter of Genesis contains, according to its heading, an account of man's 'most shameful fall.' It will be in vain to attempt to treat the contents of this chapter as a relation of actual occurrences. The following is a summary: a serpent, walking erect on its tail instead of crawling on its belly, tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, urging that Adam has been deceived by God; the woman (not at all surprised at being addressed by one 'in such a questionable shape') saw that the tree was good for food (how she saw this does not appear) and ate and gave to her husband. Upon eating, their eyes are opened, and they are ashamed of their nakedness, and sew fig leaves together to make breeches. This sewing was before the invention of needles. The species of this fruit has formed the subject of much conjecture; one kind only has since been known to confer on man and woman a knowledge of their nakedness after mutually partaking thereof, and it has therefore been suggested that this chapter is an allegorical representation of the union of the sexes. After eating, Adam and Eve hear the 'voice of the Lord God walking,' and they hide themselves. It is not easy to understand how either God or his voice could walk in the garden, nor why he should walk in the cool of the day, as we cannot suppose heat to affect him. The reason Adam gives for hiding himself is not a correct one; he was not naked unless his fig-leaf garment had fallen to pieces. God having ascertained that Adam had disobeyed his command, cursed the serpent and commanded it to eat dust and go upon its belly all the days of its life; God also cursed the ground. It does not appear, however, that he carried out the threat contained in chap, ii, v. 17; in fact, the serpent appears to have been more correct in saying to Adam and Eve, 'Ye shall not surely die.' Some divines would have us believe that by the sin of Adam death was introduced into the world, and the Rev. Dr. John Pye Smith tells us, 'It is probable, had not man fallen, that, after a continuance in the earthly state for a period of probation, each individual would have been translated to a higher condition of existence.' Unfortunately, this hypothesis will not bear investigation. Professor Newman says, in relation to this subject, 'A fresh strain fell on the Scriptural infallibility, in contemplating the origin of death. Geologists assured us that death went on in the animal creation many ages before the existence of man. The rocks formed of the shells of animals testify that death is a phenomenon thousands and thousands of years old; to refer the death of animals to the sin of Adam and Eve is evidently impossible. Yet, if not, the analogies of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible that man's body can ever have been intended for immortality. Nay, when we consider the conditions of birth and growth to which it is subject, the wear and tear essential to life, the new generations intended to succeed and supplant the old--so soon as the question is proposed as one of physiology, the reply is inevitable that death is no accident, introduced by the perverse will of our first parents, nor any way connected with man's sinfulness, but is purely a result of the conditions of animal life. On the contrary, St. Paul rests most important conclusions on the fact, that one man, Adam, by personal death, brought death upon all his posterity. If this was a fundamental error, religious doctrine also is shaken.'
Verse 20. 'And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.' This can hardly be the reason, as Eve was not the mother of anybody at that time. The word [------] (Adam) means red or ruby, and [------] (Eve) to show, discover, or declare.
Verse 21. I suppose the most enthusiastic advocate for the literal reading of the Bible would hardly wish us to picture God as a tailor. One of the Jewish Rabbis asserts that God clothed Adam and Eve with the skin of the serpent who had tempted them.
Verse 22. (And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us.' One of whom? To whom are these words addressed? It is evident that the writer of this book believed in a plurality of Gods, and had not any very elevated ideas in relation to those Gods, for, in the very same verse, he makes God express fear lest Adam should take or the tree of life, and eat and live for ever. Does it mean that man's soul was not then immortal? it cannot mean that man's body could become immortal. If man's soul was not then capable of living for ever, when did its nature become changed? Verse 24. 'Cherubim!' This word is ridiculous; cherubim is the plural of cherub; the is merely a specimen of Bible orthography. In Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary I find the following severe remark on the word 'Cherubim:'--Those who understand no language but their own are apt to commit an unpardonable fault with critics, by mistaking this word for a singular, and writing the plural "Cherubims."' It is evident, therefore, that if God inspired the Bible, he did not inspire the grammar. But what is a cherub? the word [----] (kereb) is of very doubtful meaning, and seems to have been used to express an inferior kind of deity. In the seventh edition of Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, the correspondence between the description of the cherubim in Ezekiel and the inferior deities in other mythologies is fully and ably pointed out under this head. Were it not for the length of Parkhurst's article, I would quote the whole, it constituting an elaborate essay in which the astronomical origin of every religious system is clearly proved. An interesting astronomical explanation of the allegory or the fall is given in pp. 294-5 of 'Volney's Ruins.' Some of the cherubic figures are a compound of ox, eagle, lion, and man. Are we to imagine several of these with a flaming sword, guarding the way to the tree of life?
Having read the third chapter carefully, we are irresistibly driven to the conclusion that Adam's primitive nature was extremely frail, for he fell with the first temptation, and no greater evidence of frailty can be given; yet Adam is the choice work of God, made in his own image.
*Chapter iv contains the history of Cain and Abel, which presents several remarkable features for our consideration. Cain and Abel both make sacrifices to the Lord. Why they should so sacrifice does not appear; they do not seem to have followed the example of Adam, as we cannot find any history of his sacrificing to the Lord at all. By verses 4 and 5 we find that the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering, but unto Cain and his offerings he had not respect. Why is this? Cain's offerings consist of flowers and fruits, sending up sweet fragrance to heaven; Abel's offerings are the bleeding carcasses of slaughtered lambs; yet God, 'with whom there is no respect of persons' (2 Chronicles, chap, xix, v. 7--Romans, chap, ii, v. 11), respects Abel more than Cain. How was this respect shown? God, by showing favour to Abel without assigning the least reason for the
Preference, created animosity between the two brothers. God must have foreknown that this religious strife would end in bloodshed. Religious strife always has led to war, and it is only because people are growing larger than their creeds that they now do not fight quite so recklessly about them.
Verse 7. It is somewhat perplexing to find that, although God is displeased with Cain, yet he tells him he shall rule over his brother Abel.
Verse 13. This verse is translated in a very different manner to the Douay. In our version Cain complains of the severity of his punishment; in the other, Cain says that his sin is too great for pardon. Which is right? {22]} Verse 14. What does Cain mean when he says 'Every one that findeth me shall slay me.' 'Every one 'can only be used when there is a likelihood of meeting with many persons, yet Cain must have been well aware that no persons were then in existence beside his father and mother.
Verse 16. How is it possible that Cain could go out of the presence of the Lord? (vide Psalm cxxxix, v. 7 to 12).
Verse 17. Who was Cain's wife? According to Genesis, there was only his mother, Eve, living. 'And he builded a city.' It must have been rather a remarkable city, built by one man, and inhabited by one man, his wife, and one child.
Verse 18. Who was Enoch's wife? Perhaps these were what the Mormonites call 'Spiritual Wives.'
*Chapter v, v. 1. 'This is the book of the generations of Adam.* Books were not known at the date alleged for the existence of Moses.
Verses 1 and 2 contradict the previous chapters.
The fifth chapter appears to fit on after verse 3 of the second chapter; and it is rather curious that in the list of Adam's children, Cain and Abel are not mentioned. Neither are Cain's descendants in any way referred to. Cain not only went out of the presence of the Lord, but both he and his wife and family seem entirely to have gone out of sight of everybody.
Verse 24. 'And Enoch walked with God, and he was not.' The Breeches Bible, in a marginal note, says that 'to inquire what became of Enoch is mere curiosity.'
Verse 27. Methusalem must have just died in time to save himself from drowning.
*Chapter vi, v. 2. 'The Sons of God.' Who are the Sons of God?; How could God have Sons? Is not Jesus said to be the only Son of God? Voltaire says of this verse, 'No nation has ever existed, unless perhaps we may except China, in which some God is not described as having had offspring upon women. These corporeal Gods frequently descended to visit their dominions upon earth; they saw the daughters of our race, and attached themselves to those who were most interesting and beautiful; the issue of this connexion between Gods and mortals must, of course, have been superior to other men, thus giants were produced.' But there is a further objection to our authorised version; the original is not 'Sons of God,' but [----------] (Beni Alehim, Sons of the Gods). In the mythologies of Greece, Italy, and India, we find the same idea of Gods having intercourse with women; and it is also remarkable that, although in many cases the woman bears a child, yet all true believers devoutly contend for her virginity. Verse 3 seems out of place, it should come in after 5 or 6; but in any place it is not correct. One hundred and twenty years is neither the average nor the limit of man's life. What does God mean when he says 'My Spirit shall not always strive with man?' What was the striving about? Does the verse mean that God's spirit strove in vain? What does 'that he also is flesh' mean? Does it mean that the Lord's spirit and man are both flesh? Verses 5 and 6. God made mankind and the circumstances which surrounded them, and must have foreknown what would have been the effect produced upon man; why not have made better circumstances? Shall we presume either that God had not the power to have created things differently, or that he is careless of man's welfare? In what manner did God make known his repentance? In Numbers, chap, xxiii, v. 19, we are led to believe that God never repents. Why should God destroy the beasts, creeping things, and fowls? they surely could not have been parties to man's wickedness. Why should God repent that he made 'the beasts, the creeping things, and the fowls of the air?' What does the phrase mean in relation to God, 'it grieved him at his heart?' The expressions 'repent,' 'grieve,' etc., could scarcely have been used if the book had been a revelation from a God who intended to convey to us an idea of his omnipotence and immutability. The following quotation is from Robert Taylor:--
'What blasphemy! thus to represent the Creator of the world. Omnipotence repenting that he had made man, sitting upon a stone, and crying like a child, wringing his hands, tearing nis hair, calling himself all the fools and idiots he could think of, stamping his foot, cursing, swearing, and vowing vengeance, that he would not leave a dog nor a rat alive. We should yet have but a faint idea of the' exceeding sinfulness of sin, and how poor and impotent language of any kind must be, to convey to us the emotions of that infinite wisdom and inconceivable benevolence which repented that he had made man, and grieved that man was no better than he had made him.
'There can be no doubt at all that such language as this, when used in relation to the Supreme Being, is used only in gracious condescension to our ignorance, and in accommodation to the dulness and stupidity of our powers of conception, which require to be stimulated ana excited by strong and impassioned figures of speech, ere they can be led to form an idea at all on sacred subjects.'
Verses 11 and 12. All flesh could not be corrupt; in the previous verse we are told that Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations. All flesh being corrupt, flesh and fowl were condemned; but the fish were allowed to escape. Were the birds more corrupt than the fish? or were the fish allowed to escape because the concocter of this tale did not conceive the possibility of their being killed by a flood? By verse 17 it is clear that God intended to destroy every living thing; perhaps he forgot the fishes.
Verse 14 to chap, viii, v. 19. Of this account Professor Newman says 'It had become notorious to the public that geologists rejected the idea of an universal deluge, as physically impossible. Whence could the water come to cover the highest mountains? Two replies were attempted: 1--The flood of Noah is not described as universal; 2--The flood was indeed universal, but the water was added and removed by miracle. Neither reply, however, seemed to be valid. First, the language respecting the universality of the flood is as strong as any that could be written; moreover, it is stated that the tops of the high hills _were all covered_, and after the water subsides the ark settles on the mountains of Armenia. Now, in Armenia, of necessity, numerous peaks would be seen unless the water covered them, and especially Ararat. But a flood that covered Ararat would overspread all the continents, and leave only a few summits above. If, then, the account in Genesis is to be received, the flood was "universal. Secondly, the narrator represents the surplus water to have come from the clouds, and perhaps from the sea, and again to drain back into the sea. Of a miraculous creation and destruction of water, he evidently does not dream.
'Other impossibilities come forward: the insufficient dimensions of the ark to take in all the creatures; the unsuitability of the same climate to arctic and tropical animals for a full year; the impossibility of feeding them, and avoiding pestilence; and especially, the total disagreement of the modern facts of the dispersion of animals, with the idea that they spread anew from Armenia as their centre. We have no right to call in a aeries of miracles to solve difficulties of which the writer was unconscious. The ark itself was expressly devised to economise miracle, by making a fresh creation of animals needless.'
Voltaire says of the deluge:--
'We consider it as a miracle; first, because all the facts by which God condescends to interfere in the sacred books are so many miracles.
'Secondly, because the sea could not rise fifteen cubits, or one and twenty standard feet and a half above the highest mountains without leaving its bed dry, and, at the same time violating all the laws of gravity and the equilibrium of fluids, which would evidently require a miracle.
'Thirdly, because, even although it might rise to the height mentioned, the ark could not have contained, according to known physical laws, all the living things of the earth, together with their food, for so long a time; considering that lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, ounces, rhinoceroses, bears, wolves, hyenas, eagles, hawks, kites, vultures, falcons, and all carnivorous animals, which feed on flesh alone, would have died of hunger, even after having devoured all the other species.
'Fourthly, because the physical impossibilities of an universal deluge, by natural means, can be strictly demonstrated. The demonstration is as follows:--
'All the seas cover half the globe. A common measure of their depths near the shores and in the open ocean, is assumed to be five hundred feet.
'In order to their covering both hemispheres to the depth of five hundred feet, not only would an ocean of that depth be necessary over all the land, but a new sea would, in addition, be required to envelope the ocean at present existing, without which the laws of hydrostatics would occasion the dispersion of that other new mass of water five hundred feet deep, which should remain covering the land. 'Thus, then, two new oceans are requisite to cover the terraqueous globe nearly to the depth of five hundred feet.
'Supposing the mountains to be only twenty thousand feet high, forty oceans each five hundred feet in height would be required to accumulate on each other, merely in order to equal the height of the mountains. Every successive ocean would contain all the others, and the last of them all would have a circumference containing forty times that of the first.
'In order to form this mass of water, it would be necessary to create it out of nothing. In order to withdraw it, it would be necessary to annihilate it.
'What was that abyss which was broken up, or what were the cataracts of heaven which were opened? Isaac Vossius denies the universality of the deluge; "Hoc est piè nugari." Calmet maintains it, informing us that bodies have no weight in air, but in consequence of their being compressed by air. Calmet was not much of a natural philosopher, and the weight of the air has nothing to do with the deluge. Let us content ourselves with reading and respecting everything in the Bible, without comprehending a single word of it.
'I do not comprehend how God created a race of men in order to drown them, and then substituted in their room a race still viler than the first.
'How seven pairs of all kinds of clean animals should come from the four quarters of the globe, together with two pairs of unclean ones, without the wolves devouring the sheep on the way, or the kites the pigeons, etc., etc.
'How eight persons could keep in order, feed, and water such an immense number of inmates, shut up in an ark-for nearly two yeare, for, after the cessation of the deluge, it would be necessary to have food for all these passengers for another year, in consequence of the herbage being so scanty.'
The dimensions of the ark, which are slightly varied according to the different lengths assigned to the cubit, were between 450 and 574 feet in length, between 75 and 91 feet in breadth, and 45 and 55 feet in height. An ark that size must have been a tremendous undertaking for a man nearly six hundred years old, even with his three sons to help him. The ark was divided into three stories and many rooms, but only had one window and one door. The situation of this door is curious, 'in the side;' if it gave access to all the floors it must have extended from top to bottom. It is hardly possible to imagine a large number of animals, civet cats, musk rats, etc., existing in an ark in which ventilation was so badly provided for; when the door was shut and the window shut to keep out the rain and water, it must have been absolutely stifling. But it is impossible to imagine seven of each of the clean beasts and two of each of the unclean, and seven of each of the birds, crammed into so small a space. Even if there were room for it, we hear nothing of any food being collected for the sustenance of all these birds and beasts. Did they fast? How did Noah know which were clean and which unclean? Thomas Paine treats the account of the flood as follows:--
'We have all heard of Noah's flood; and it is impossible to think of the whole human race, men, women, children, and infants, (except one family) deliberately drowning, without feeling a painful sensation; that must be a heart of flint that can contemplate such a scene with tranquillity. There is nothing in the ancient mythology, nor in the religion of any people we know of on the globe, that records a sentence of their God, or of their Gods, so tremendously severe and merciless. If the story be not true, we blasphemously dishonour God by believing it, and still more so in forcing, by laws and penalties, that belief upon others. I go now to show, from the face of the story, that it carries the evidence of not being true.
'There were no such people as Jews or Israelites in the time that Noah is said to have lived, and consequently there was no such law as that which is called the Jewish or Mosaic Law. It is, according to the Bible, more than six hundred years from the time the flood is said to have happened to the time of Moses, and, consequently, the time the flood is said to have happened was more than six hundred years prior to the law called the law of Moses, even admitting Moses to be the giver of that law, of which there is great cause to doubt.
'We have here two different epochs, or points of time; that of the flood, and that of the law of Moses; the former more than six hundred years prior to the latter. But the maker of the story of the flood, whoever he was, has betrayed himself by blundering, for he has reversed the order of the times. He has told the story as if the law of Moses was prior to the flood; for he has made God to say to Noah, Genesis, chap, vii, v. 2, "Of every clean beast, thou shalt take to thee by sevens, tne male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." This is the Mosaic law, and could only be said after that law was given, not before. There were no such things as beasts clean and unclean in the time of Noah--it is nowhere said they were created so. They were only declared to be so as meats, by the Mosaic law, and that to the Jews only; and there were no such people as Jews in the time of Noah. This is the blundering condition in which this strange story stands.
'When we reflect on a sentence so tremendously severe as that of consigning the whole human race, eight persons excepted, to deliberate drowning, a sentence which represents the Creator in a more merciless character than any of those whom we call Pagans ever represented the Creator to be, under the figure of any of their deities, we ought at least to suspend our belief of it, on a comparison of the beneficent character of the Creator with the tremendous severity of the sentence; but when we see the story told with such an evident contradiction of circumstances, we ought to set it down for nothing better than a Jewish fable, told by nobody knows whom, and nobody knows when.
'It is a relief to the genuine and sensible soul of man to find the story unfounded. It frees us from two painful sensations at once; that of having hard thoughts of the Creator, on account of the severity of the sentence; and that of sympathising in the horrid tragedy of a drowning world. He who cannot feel the force of what I mean is not, in my estimation of character, worthy the name of a human being.'
The account of the deluge is rather complicated; according to chap, vii., v. 2 and 5, Noah took inseven pairs of all clean beasts, and one pair of all unclean, as [------] (Alehim) had commanded him; while, by v. 8 and 9, it would appear that Noah only took in two of every kind, as [------] (Jeue or Jehovah) had commanded. This is another specimen of the confusion in the use of different originals in the manufacture of the book of Genesis.
Dr. John Pye Smith, in his 'Relation between Geology and the Holy Scriptures,' admits that he is compelled to the conclusion that the flood of Noah was not absolutely universal; and with respect to the ark grounding on Mount Ararat, he says that the state of the summit of that mount is such that the four men, and four women, and many of the quadrupeds would have found it utterly impossible to descend. The summit of Mount Ararat is continually covered with snow and ice.
The olive leaf mentioned in chap, viii., v. 11, is remarkable, as one would be inclined to imagine it decomposed after remaining under water for about twelve months.
*Chapter viii., v. 21. 'The Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart.' This is, of course, only a figurative expression; but it is much to be regretted that, in a book issued from God, an expression should be found so liable to misconstruction; a literal reader might imagine that God had a nose and heart.
*Chapter ix., v. 9 and 10. These verses have been much commented on. Voltaire says:--
'God made a covenant with beasts! What sort of a covenant? Such is the outcry of infidels. But if he makes a covenant with man, why not with the beast? It has feeling; and there is something as divine in feeling, as in the most metaphysical meditation. Besides, beasts feel more correctly than the greater part of men think. It is clearly by virtue of this treaty that Francis d'Assisse, the founder of the Seraphic order, said to the grasshoppers and the hares, "Pray sing, my dear sister grasshopper; pray browse, my dear brother hare." But what were the conditions of the treaty? That all animals should devour one another; that they should feed upon our flesh, and we upon theirs; that, after having eaten them, we should proceed with wrath and fury to the extermination of our own race; nothing being, then, wanting to crown the horrid series of butchery and cruelty, but devouring our fellow men, after having thus remorselessly destroyed them. Had there been actually such a treaty as this, it could have been entered into only with the devil.'
The token of this covenant is to be the rainbow--v. 13. The Geneva translation has it, 'I have set my bow;' the authorised version, 'I do set my bow;' the Douay,'I will set my bow. Of this latter, Voltaire remarks-- 'Observe, that the author does not say, I have put my bow in the clouds; he says, I will put; this clearly implies it to have been the prevailing opinion that there had not always been a rainbow. This phenomenon is necessarily produced by rain; yet, in this place, it is represented as something supernatural, exhibited in order to announce and prove that the earth should no more be inundated. It is singular to choose the certain sign of rain, in order to assure men against their being drowned.'
It is quite evident by the context, whichever translation be right, that the meaning intended to be conveyed is, that the rainbow is to be the sign to remind God and the people and beasts of his covenant with them. This covenant, like many treaties made with high powers, is open to misconstruction. God only covenants not again to destroy all flesh by a flood, but it is quite within the terms of his covenant to overflow a few rivers, and sweep flocks, herds, villages, and villagers off a large tract of country; this is occasionally done, and the rainbow cheers the survivors with the thought that, as everybody is not to be drowned at once, they are safe till another time.
Verse 16. It is implied that, but for the rainbow, God might forget his covenant; surely this cannot be a revelation from an unchangeable God, who could never forget.
Verse 21. Noah, if he was a just and perfect man before the flood, seems to have soon degenerated, although he had just had cognizance of so fearful an example of God's vengeance. 'His tent.' The word [------] does not mean his tent; the final [--] is a feminine termination, and the word should be translated 'her tent;' but to save revelation from seeming ridiculous, the translators have taken a slight liberty with the text.
Verse 25. It is hard to understand why Canaan should be cursed because his father, Ham, accidentally walked into a tent and saw Noah naked. If Ham even deserved a curse, it is no reason for cursing his son, who was no party to his father's offence.
*Chapter x. There are scarcely any of the names contained in this or the preceding or following chapter, until we come to Abraham, which are now used amongst the Jews. Paine says, 'If they (the Jews) affix the same idea of reality to those names as they do to those that follow after, the names of Adam, Abel, Seth, etc., would be as common among the Jews of the present day, as are those of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron.
'In the superstition they have been in, scarcely a Jew family would be without an Enoch, as a presage of his going to heaven as ambassador for the whole family. Every mother who wished that the days of her son might be long in the land, would call him Methuselah; and all the Jews that might have to traverse the ocean would be named Noah, as a charm against shipwreck and drowning.'
*Chapter xi., v. 1. If the whole earth was of one tongue, what do verses 5, 20, and 31 of the preceding chapter mean?
Voltaire says, 'People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having divided among themselves the islands of the nations, and established themselves in divers lands, with each one his particular language, family, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of Shinaar to build there a tower, saying, "Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
'The book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia all came to Shinaar, speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing.
'The Vulgate places the deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the construction of the Tower of Babel, 1771; that is to say, one hundred and fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life of Noah.
'Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high, we are amazed at so stupendous a work.
'It is a pity that there remains not on the earth, among the profane authors, one vestige of the famous Tower of Babel; nothing of this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe, as the names of Noah, Methusalem, Cain, and Adam and Eve.'
It seems scarcely probable that a multitude of people, forming so many nations, could be got together in one plain; and if they were, why should they fear being scattered?
Verse 5. 'The Lord came down.' This idea pervades the book--that is, that God resides in heaven, above the earth, and that he leaves heaven occasionally and comes down to earth, and after having finished his business, goes up again to heaven. The writer appears to have had no conception that God could see from heaven to earth, but makes God come down to ascertain whether the tale which had reached him in heaven be true. Unfortunately, even after ignoring the attribute of omnipresence in relation to God, the idea is not a correct one. That which is above me when I look up and pray is not above the New Zealander, if he looks up and prays at the same instant. The powers above to him would be the powers below to me. The verse implies that God could not see the tower until he came down.
Verses 6 and 7. Who did God speak to? 'Let us go down;' who are 'us?' Did the Almighty actually fear lest his creatures should build a tower so high that they might scramble into heaven without his assistance? The whole of this account is absurd in the extreme. Dr. John Pye Smith says that 'the confusion of language was probably only to a certain point, not destroying cognation.' I do not the better understand the story with the aid of this comment. The only thing proved by the elaborate commentaries of many divines is, that they gave God the credit of inspiring an inexplicable revelation, and that, instead of endeavouring to make it explicable, they burden the margin of the book with suppositions which only increase the difficulties of the text. Verse 26. 'And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram.'
Verse 32. 'And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.'
*Chapter xii., v. 1. And the Lord said to Abram, 'Get thee out,' etc. So that Abram must have been one hundred and thirty-five years old when he left Haran; but, according to verse 4 it appears that Abram was only seventy-five years of age. This has been regarded as an inexplicable difficulty by St. Jerome and St. Augustine; and I, who am not a saint, must confess with Voltaire that I cannot understand how a man can be seventy-five and one hundred and thirty-five years of age at the same time.
*Chapter xii., v. 1, 2, 3, and 7; chap, xiii., v. 14, 15, 16, and 17; chap, xv., v. 5, 6, 7, and 18; chap, xvii., v. 7 and 8; chap, xviii., v. 18; chap, xxii., v. 17 and 18; chap, xxvi., v. 3 and 4.; chap, xxviii., v. 14.
These verses contain the solemn promise, the more solemn covenant, and the most solemn oath of God; this promise, covenant, and oath all being to one effect--namely, that Abraham's children should be as numerous as the dust of the earth, or the stars of heaven, and that this numerous progeny should possess certain specified land for ever. There is a difficulty in comprehending why God, who is no respector of persons, should have selected Abraham and his descendants for such great reward; but waiving this, we find several questions requiring answer. Who are Abraham's descendants? Not the Jews; their number is very limited. Where are Abraham's descendants? Not in the promised land, most certainly.
If Abraham's descendants are the Jews, then I say that they have never been as numerous as God promised, covenanted, and swore they should be. I say that they have not held the promised land for ever. It may be that this promise is yet to be fulfilled; it is quite certain that it is unfulfilled up to the present time.
*Chapter xii., v. 11 to 20. The account of the chosen of God having recourse to a lie to pass off his wife for his sister, deserves notice. When this happens twice (chap. 20), it excites suspicion; and when it occurs a third time in the same country to the son of Abraham, it creates doubt as to the truth of the whole. Voltaire writes thus of Abraham:--
'The Scripture says that the God of the Jews, who intended to give them the land of Canaan, commanded Abraham to leave the fertile country of Chaldea, and go towards Palestine, promising that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. It is for theologians to explain, by allegory and mystical sense, how all the nations of the earth were to be blessed in a seed from which they did not descend, since this much-to-be-venerated mystical sense cannot be made the object of a work purely critical. A short time after these promises, Abraham's family was afflicted by famine, and went into Egypt for corn. It is singular that the Hebrews never went into Egypt but when pressed by hunger; for Jacob afterwards sent his children on the same errand.
'Abraham, who was then very old, went this way with his wife Sarah, aged sixty-five; she was very handsome, and Abraham feared that the Egyptians, smitten by her charms, would kill him in order to enjoy her transcendent beauties; he proposed to her that she should pass for his sister, etc. Human nature must at that time have possessed a vigour which time and luxury have since very much weakened. That which Abraham had foreseen came to pass; the Egyptian youth found his wife charming, notwithstanding her sixty-five years; the king himself fell in love with her, and placed her in his seraglio, though, probably, he had younger females there; but the Lord plagued the king and his seraglio with very great sores. The text does not tell us how the king came to know that this dangerous beauty was Abraham's wife; but it seems that he did come to know it, and restored her.
'Sarah's beauty must have been unalterable; for, twenty-five years afterwards, when she was ninety years old, pregnant, and travelling with her husband through the dominions of a King of Phoenicia, named Abimelech, Abraham, who had not yet corrected himself, made her a second time pass for his sister. The Phoenician King was as sensible to her attractions as the King of Egypt had been; but God appeared to this Abimelech in a dream, and threatened him with death if he touched his new mistress. It must be confessed that Sarah's conduct was as extraordinary as the lasting nature of her charms.
'The singularity of these adventures was probably the reason why the Jews had not the same sort of faith in their histories which they had in their Leviticus. There was not a single iota of their law in which they did not believe; but the historical part of their Scriptures did not command the same respect. Their conduct in regard to their ancient books may be compared to that of the English, who received the laws of St. Edward without absolutely believing that St. Edward cured the scrofula; or that of the Romans, who, while they obeyed their primitive laws, were not obliged to believe in the miracles of the sieve filled with water, the ship drawn to the shore by a vestal's girdle, the stone cut with a razor, and so forth.'
*Chapter xiii., v. 7 and 18, as before observed, could not have been written by Moses, (see p. 5.)
*Chapter xiv., v. 1 to 16. This victory of Abraham over four mighty kings is, if true, a very wonderful one. It is quite clear that Chedorlaomer was a very powerful monarch, having other monarchs for his vassals. Amraphel was the king of the mighty empire of Babylon, doubtless not so grand as it afterwards became, but still one of the most powerful of the then monarchies of the world. These are assisted by two other kings; one of whom is described as the king of nations. The four allies make war upon certain kings, five in number; and, according to verse 10, they fight, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fall in the vale of Siddim.
Abraham, hearing that Lot, his relative, was taken prisoner, took three hundred and eighteen men, and, by night, pursued and smote the four allied kings, and recaptured his brother. As he went near to Damascus in pursuit, he must have travelled more than one hundred miles, beside crossing some very mountainous country; this, of course, enhances the character of the victory. One of the fruits of this triumph seems to have been, that the King of Sodom, who is killed in verse 10, comes to meet Abraham, alive and well, in verse 17. Verse 18. 'Melchizedek;' who was he? Before answering this question, read Psalm ex., v. 4, Hebrews, chap, v., v. 6, 10, and 11, chap, vii., and chap, viii., v. 1. In the verse we are examining, he is described as [------] (melekitzedek)-- [------] (melek) [------] (shelem).
What does this mean? Melekitzedek or Melchizedek; 'first by interpretation King of Righteousness, and after that the King of Salem, which is, the King of Peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life'--vide Hebrews, chap, vii., v. 3.
This description does not answer to any man who ever lived on the face of the earth; nearly everybody claims to have had a father and a grandfather; everybody has had a mother. Everybody was one hour old before he grew older; and after existing some few score years, more or less, every man has, sooner or later, died. So Melchizedek could not have been a man. In Malachi, chap iv., v. 2, we find [------] (Chemesh zedek); this is translated Sun of Righteousness, and it is only to the sun that the description of Melchizedek will apply. The ancients looked upon the sun as the everlasting source of all existence, and personified it in various names; Melchizedek, king of the zodiac, appears to be one of the Bible personifications. But supposing Melchizedek to be not a real person, what becomes of the story of Abraham giving him tithes of his spoils? If this story be not fact, how much is allegory?
Is any portion of the history of Abraham a fact? In chap, xvi., we find part of the history of Hagar and Sarai; while, in Galatians, chap, iv., v. 24 and 25, we are told that whole history is an allegory, and that Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia, and Sarai the City of Jerusalem, which is 'above.'
If it be taken as a relation of fact, we find Sarah, the chosen of God, ill-treating a woman of her household, causing her to fly into the desert when in a state of health requiring great care; and we further find that God prophecies for the yet unborn child, 'That his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.' If all things are in the order and disposition of God, he did not order and dispose them very well for poor Ishmael. But perhaps the God of the Jews, like the slaveowner, had not the same consideration for those born in bondage as for their masters.
*Chapter xv., v. 13. If this four hundred years refers to the Egyptian captivity, it is four hundred and thirty years according to Exodus, chap, xii., v. 40 and 41 (also see Galatians, chap, iii., v. 17); but, according to the Bible chronology, it is only about two hundred years. It is impossible to give credit to one more than the other; for Genesis, Exodus, and Chronology, while they contradict one another, are not supported by any other evidence themselves. Verse 18 to end. Ten nations are specified here; in Joshua, chap, iii., v. 10, seven only are mentioned; in Deuteronomy, chap. xxii v. 17, six; in Exodus, chap, iii., v. 17, and chap, xxiii., v. 23, six; 2 Chronicles, chap, viii., v. 7, five only. The land from the Nile to the Euphrates has never yet been in the undisturbed possession of the Jews; large portions have never been in their possession for a single moment, so that this promise has never been performed.
