The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 63

~---- -···-------------------------- Pentoteuch, its 11uth~nticity woulcl be thereby established, it may be urged that th'l first objection largely insisted on by Kuenen (' The Religion of Israel,' vol. i. eh. ii. p. 109) and others is ex ltypothesi out of court, for the obvious reason that it assnme,q what is not admitted by the other side in this contention, and what has never been demonstrated by those who advance it, viz., that it is impossible for the Supreme Intel- Jigence who hllB made the world and established the la.we of nature to interfere with the order of the first, or modify the operation of the second, whenever to his infinite mind an adequate occasion for such interposition shall appear to have arisen. The second objection, which eeee in the Biblical cosmogony (Gen. i.), the narrative of the Flood (Gen. vi.-ix. ), the story of the Exodus, &c., &c., only Hebrew counterparts of Babylonian, Persian, Indian, and other national legends, has little difficulty in ascrib- ing them to the same source, viz., the mythologic spirit, which among all primeval peoples has antedated the age of written documents and historical research, and by adorning a.nd handing down through oral tradition the popular tales of the country, bas everywhere given to the literatures of the nations a similar commencement. But leaving out of view meanwhile the story of the Exodus, which will fall to be after- wards considered, there are three things to be said in favour of the credibility of the Pentateuchal Cosmogony and Noachic Deluge: viz., (1) that while the resemblances between the Mosaic narratives and those of the popular legends of antiquity are so great e.s to show that they rest upon a common basis of fact, the dissimilarities are eo apparent as to prove that they belong to widely different cate- gories of composition; (2) that so far from the Biblical cosmogony being hopelessly unscientific, there is already established a gratifying amount of harmony between it and the best ascertained result.a of geological research, which warrants the belief that when modem investigation shall have announced its last finding, it will be seen to completely corroborate the sublime utterances of the old Hebrew record, while, with regard to the Deluge, it is manifest that, as Scripture does not necessitate the belief in a universal flood, i. e. geographically viewed, but only in a flood destructive of the totality of the human race, there is no irreconcilable conflict between science and religion such as demands either the negation of the incontrovertible facts of science, or the relegation of the Mosaic story to the limbo of popular fable; and (3) that the Chaldean monuments, one of the most valuable of recent archreological discoveries, have, by their marvellous correspondence with the Biblical narratives of the Creation and the Flood, not only completely disposed of the allegation that these narratives were entirely mythical, but likewise triumphantly vindicated their claim to be the composition of Moses by snowing that they may have existed in a. written form as early as the time of Abraham, and were probably among the ancient records which Moses consulted in the preparation of his great work. Then the third objec- tion, which charges the Pentateuchal writing with historical inaccuracies, is supposed to have received, or rather, for the argument ie now exactly reversed, was supposed to receive, a striking exemplification in the blunders which its unknowl}, author had committed with reference to Egypt. The time was when Bohlen ( vide 'Introduction to the Book of Genesis,' vol. i. eh. vi. p. 63) was believed to have annihilated the last shred of historic truth which had previously been lingering about the Egyptology of the Pentateuch. "The blunders and inaccuracies" with reference to this country of which it had been guilty were of such a character, that not only was historic criticism obliged to assign o. later date than that of Moses to its origin, "but also to infer that its author was an absolute stmnger to Egypt, and must ha'l'e been indebted for his information to hearsay instead of observation." This literary person, who must have lived somewhere between the reign of Solomon and the time of the  d TllE Al1THORSHIP OF Tl-rn PP.:'\'L'ATEUCIT.