VI. We have now concluded our task of expound- ing the biblical conceptions respecting cosmogony and the cosmos. It is manifestly beyond the true scope of this article to deal with the cosmogonies of Egypt, Persia, and India, though these also exhibit interesting parallels with the Scripture narrative. Undoubtedly there were points of historic contact, and these of no little importance, between Egypt and ancient Israel, but the course of recent investigation has not strengthened the impression that Egypt exercised any deep or lasting inflnence on Hebrew cosmogony. It is to
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Bxbylonia, the land of the highest and most ancient Sem. culture, we must look for the most fruitful clues to ancient Heb. thought and life. — Nor is it necessary to refer to Persian cosmogonies, for Pers. influence entered into the sphere of Jewish life too late to all'ect the cosmogonic con- ceptions of Genesis. It may here be remarlved that no chaos exists in the Persian cosmogon}' as it is preoented in the Bundehesh. A separation is made between the creation of the present world and of the other world .'\Ioreover, in the former we find a distinct creation by the Good and by the Evil deity. But those conceptions have a com- paratively late origin. Respecting the creation legends of E<'ypt, Persia, and India, the reader is referred to Dillmann's introductory remarks to Genesis, ch. i. in his great commentary (6th ed. pp. 5-10), and also to Otto Zockler's article ' Schdp- rung ' in Herzo^ and Plitt, E£P, where a compre- hensive survey is given of these cosmogonies as well as those of savage races.
Nor have we thought it necessary to describe the various apologetic schemes whereoy the state- ments that are contained in Genesis are brought into supposed harmony with the ascertained results of moaem science. A history of these successive attempts, with a succinct classification of them, will he found in the article by Zbckler to which reference has been made. This eminent evangelical scholar and divine concludes his examination of these varied theories with the significant and just remarks : ' The Mosaic account postulates a graduated advance of organic life from plants to animals, and among the latter, from water animals to creeping things and birds, and after that to land animals in the proper sense. But geology regards animals and plants as coming into existence together from the first. These considerations plainly reveal that the first chapter of Genesis is not intended to teach us the elements of geology, but to reveal to us the fundamental ideas of all theology, those ideas being religious in their essence. It is out of place, therefore, to insist on carrying out the parallel between the Bible and geology into every detail. We can only hope to exhibit a concordance of both in their large bearings and main outlines.' A very useful article on the same subject, written in a deeply reverent spirit, will be found in the Expasilor, Jan. 1886, by Driver ('The Cosmogony of Genesis'), in which the results of geological rescarcli are care- fully examined and compared with the statements of Scripture.
Probably, the most fatal objection, however, is the creation of the heavenly bodies on the fourth day. The language here clearly shows that in the mind of the writer they had not previously existed. It is obvious, therefore, that day and niglit were not regarded as standing in any causal connexion with the sun. In fact, the sun is no more regarded as causal than the moon. The sun rules or regulates the day, and the moon regulates the night.
Much as we value the remarkable harmonies that nevertheless exist between science and Scrip- ture, there is clear proof that biblical apologetic is proceeding on false lines when it seeks to con- strain the biblical narrative into harmony with the results of modem science. The preceding expo- sition shows tluit that narrative emerged from a divinely guided history and a divinely moulded process of tliouglit not isolated from the currents of the world of human life around it, but charged witli a great mi.ssion to gamer out of all the ellorts of humanity to spell out the awful enigma of the universe, that which was most vital and precious for the good of man, to purify it fr'm all mytho- logic taint and inform it with the spiritual monotheLstic conceptions of Judaism. The supreme
value of our biblical cosmogony lies in the fact thai it furnishes us with the only key that can solve the dark riddle of life. It sets God auove the great com plex world-process, and yet closely linked with it, as a personal intelligence and will that rules victori- ously and without a rival. And as the supreme object of His creative enerjnr, it sets man, fashioned in His divine likeness, to be the ruler of created thingb. All else is secondary, and it is for scientific investi- gation to determine the exact details of those intermediate steps in the stupendous ascent whereby God's work advanced along the vistas of past time to the dawn of human existence. But without that clear and sublime attestation at the threshold of the inspired record of the personal source from which all has flowed, and of the unique worth and dignity of man, and his near kinship with that source, surely human life would have been far darker and more hopeless, and its deepest