With regard to the six days, many have thought that they ought to be interpreted as six periods, with- out defining what the lengtli of those periods is. No one can suppose that the divine rest was literal!}' a rest of twenty-four hours only. On the contrary, the divine Sabbath s'till continues. There has been no creatioti since the creation of man. This is what Gen- esis teaches, and this geology confirms. But God, aft- er six periods of creative activity, entered into that
GENESIS
781
GENESIS
Sabbath in which his work has been, not a work of creation, but of redemption (Jolin v, 17). No attempt, however, whicli has as yet been made to identify these six periods with corresponding geological epochs can be pronounced satisfactory. See Geology. On the other hand, it seems rash and premature to assert that no reconciliation is possible. "VMiat we ought to main- tain is, that no reconciliation is necessary. It is cer- tain tiiat the anther of the first chapter of Genesis, whether Moses or some one else, knew nothing of ge- ology or astronomy. It is certain that he made use of phraseology concerning physical facts in accordance with the limited range of information which he pos- sessed. It is also certain that the Bible was never in- tended to reveal to us knowledge of which our own faculties, rightly used, could put us in possession. We have no business, therefore, to expect an3'thing but popular language in the description of physical phe- nomena. Thus, for instance, when it is said that l)y means of the firmament God divided the waters which were above from those which were beneath, we admit the fact without admitting the implied explanation. The llehreio supposed that there existed vast' reser- voirs above him corresponding to the ''waters under the earth." We know that by certain natural proc- esses the rain descends from the clouds. But the fact remains the same that there are waters above as well as below. Further investigation may perhaps throw more light on these interesting questions. Meanwhile it may safely be said that modern discoveries are in no way opposed to the great outlines of the Mosaic cos- mogony. That the world was created in six stages, that creation was Iiy a law of gradual advance, begin- ning with inorganic matter, and then advancing from the lowest organisms to the highest, that since the ap- pearance of man upon the earth no new species have come into being ; these are statements not only not disproved, but the two last of them at least amply con- firmed by geological research.
'2. To the description of Paradise, and the history of the Fall and of the Deluge, very similar remarks ap- pl)'. All nations have their own version of these facts, colored by local circumstances, «ind embellished according to the poetic or philosophic spirit of the tribes among whom the tradition has taken root. But if there be any one original source of these traditions, any root from which the)' diverged, we cannot doubt where to look for it. The earliest record of these mo- mentous facts is that preserved in the Bible. We can- not doubt this, because the simplicity of the narrative is greater than that of any other work with whicli wo are acquainted. This simplicity is an argument at once in favor of the greater antiquity, and also of the greater truthfulness of the story. It is hardly possible to sup- pose that traditions so widely spread over the surface of the earth as are the traditions of the Creation, the Fall, and the Deluge, should have no foundation what- ever in fact. It is quite as impossible to suppose that that version of these facts, which in its moral and re- ligious aspect is the purest, is not also, to take the lowest ground, the most likely to be true.
(1.) Opinions have differed whether we ought to take the story of the Fall in Gen. iii to be a literal statement of facts, or whether, with many expositors since the time of Philo, we should regard it as an alle- gory, framed in child-like words as befitted the child- hood of the world, but conveying to us a deeper spir- itual truth. But in the latter case we ought not to deny that spiritual truth. Neither should we overlook the very important bearing which this narrative has on the whole of the subse(iuent history of the world and of Israel. Delitzsch well sa3's, " The storj' of the Fall, like that of the Creation, has wandered over the world. Heathen nations have transplanted and mixed it up with tlieir geography, their history, their mythol- ogy, although it has never so completely changed form, and color, and spirit that you cannot recognise it.
Here, however, in the Law, it preserves the character of a universal, human, world-wide fact ; and the groans of Creation, tlie Kedemption that is in Christ Jesus, and the heart of every man, conspire in their testimony to the most literal truth of the narrative." See Fall OF Man.
(2.) The universality of the Deluge, it xnay be proved, is quite at variance with the most certain facts of ge- olog}'. But then we are not bound to contend for a universal deluge. The Biblical writer himself, it is true, supposed it to be universal, but that was only be- cause it covered what was then the known world : there can be no doubt that it did extend to all that part of the world ^chich was then inhabited; and this is enough, on tlie one hand, to satisfy the terms of the narrative, while, on the other, the geological difficulty, as well as other difficulties concerning the ark, and the number of animals, disappears with this interpretation. See Deluge.