Transcribed from the 1871 George P. Bacon edition by David Price.
[No 11.
BIOLOGY VERSUS THEOLOGY.
THE BIBLE
IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE, EXPERIENCE,
AND EVEN ITS OWN STATEMENTS.
BY JULIAN.
* * * * *
“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum—
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”
VIRGIL.
“Know, then, thyself—Presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.”
POPE’S ESSAY ON MAN.
“If it be possible to perfect mankind, the means of doing so will be
found in the Medical Sciences.”
DESCARTES.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Lewes:
GEORGE P. BACON, STEAM PRINTING OFFICES.
1871.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
INTRODUCTION 3
PART I.—SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE.
(1) The Mosaic Cosmogony 5
(2) The Fall 11
(3) The Flood 13
PART II.—SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
(Miracles) 16
(1) Pre-historic Man 21
(2) Increase of Man 24
(3) Armies of the Jews, and numbers slain in 26
battle
(4) Incredible Statements 28
PART III.—THE BIBLE IRRECONCILABLE WITH ITSELF.
(a) Historic Errors 31
(b) Erroneous Figures 33
(c) Misstatements 39
PART III.—SECOND DIVISION.—SCRIPTURE CONTRADICTS SCRIPTURE.
Contradictory Texts 46
CONCLUSION 61
INTRODUCTION.
“THE myths of paganism,” says Professor Huxley, {3} “are as dead as
Osiris or Zeus, and the man who should revive them, in opposition to the
knowledge of our time, would be justly laughed to scorn; but the coeval
imaginations current among the rude inhabitants of Palestine, recorded by
writers whose very name and age are admitted by every scholar to be
unknown, have unfortunately not yet shared their fate; but even at this
day are regarded by nine-tenths of the civilised world as the
authoritative standard of fact, and the criterion of the justice of
scientific conclusions in all that relates to the origin of things, and
among them of species.
“In this 19th century, as at the dawn of modern physical science, the
cosmogony of the semi-barbarous Hebrew is the incubus of the philosopher
and the opprobrium of the orthodox. Who shall number the patient and
earnest seekers after truth . . . whose lives have been embittered and
good name blasted by the mistaken zeal of bibliolaters? Who shall count
the host of weaker men whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the
effort to harmonise impossibilities,—whose life has been wasted in the
attempt to force the generous new wine of science into the old bottle of
Judaism? It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their cause has
been amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of
every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and
history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly
opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding
and crushed, if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy
is the Bourbon of the world of thought: it learns not, neither can it
forget; and though at present bewildered and afraid to move, it is as
willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the
beginning and the end of sound science, and to visit with such petty
thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl those who refuse to
degrade Nature to the level of primitive Judaism.”
We purpose, in this pamphlet, with all possible brevity, to show that
Scripture is irreconcilable with science, experience, and even with its
own statements.
PART I.
SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE.
(1.) _The Mosaic Cosmogony_.
IT is not our intention to go with any minuteness into the thrice-told
tale of the antagonism between the Mosaic cosmogony and the revelations
of geology. That only five days intervened between the creation of
heaven and that of man is contradicted by every stratum of the earth.
We readily admit that the word “day” is used in Scripture in a very vague
sense, and that even the limiting phrase “evening and morning” by no
means circumscribes the interval to twenty-four hours. As the sun did
not even exist till the fourth of these days, the three preceding ones
could not possibly have been divided by its setting and rising.
In like manner it may be admitted that Daniel’s “vision of the evening
and morning” (viii., 26) covers a period of 2,300 days, and his “seventy
weeks” (ix., 24) may be 490 years, that is seventy weeks of years; but
all this gives very little relief to the real difficulties. It is not
true that there ever was a period like that called by Moses “the third
day;” a period when the earth was drained, the sea gathered into its bed,
the rivers and lakes confined to their proper boundaries, grass growing
on the mountains, trees in the forests, fruits in the vineyards, and all
the vegetable kingdom complete; yet no fish in the waters, no creeping
thing on the earth, no bird in the air. Even in the Cambrian period may
be traced the rudiments of animal life; and in the Silurian, long before
any trace of land plants can be detected, certain molluscs were so
abundant that the period of this formation has been distinctly called
“The age of brachiopods.”
Next to the Silurian or mollusc period comes the Devonian or “age of
fishes,” when the seas literally swarmed with inhabitants, and it is not
till we arrive at the coal formation that we come to the “vegetable age.”
And what were these vegetables? principally ferns and mosses, a rank
production, which can in no wise answer to the description: “The earth
brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding
fruit after his kind . . . and the evening and the morning were the third
day.”
But of this enough. Come we to the physical features of the heavens and
the earth according to the writers of the Old and New Testaments.
The earth is represented by these writers as immovable in the centre of
the universe, and the heavenly bodies are described as revolving round
it. The clouds (_rakia_) are supposed to be a solid body sustaining an
ocean of water similar to the seas: “God said, let there be a firmament
(_rakia_) in the midst of [or between] the waters, and let it divide the
waters [of the sea] from the waters [of the clouds], and it was so.”
This solid firmament, or roof of the earth, is said to have windows or
casements in it, which are opened to let the rain fall through.
The New Testament makes no advance upon these primitive notions. We are
told (Matt, iv., 8) that the devil on one occasion took Jesus to a high
mountain, and showed him thence “all the kingdoms of the world.” Of
course the writer supposed the world to be a flat surface, the whole of
which could be seen from one spot, if of sufficient elevation. In like
manner the solidity of the clouds is taken for granted, for thrones are
set upon them, and Christ, it is said, will show himself hereafter
“sitting on the clouds,” attended with his court of angels.
We grant that many expressions of daily use will not bear a close
analysis. Thus we talk of being “charmed” and “enchanted” without the
remotest idea of incantation; and when we say “the sun rises and sets” we
ignore the active character of these phrases. These, and hundreds of
other words, have acquired a conventional meaning: thus charmed means
“greatly delighted,” and the phrases “rising in the east” and “setting in
the west,” applied to the sun, mean simply that it shows itself at
daybreak in the east, and as the day closes disappears in the west.
This conventional use of words is a very different matter to the
endorsing of vulgar errors. To say that the sun rises and sets can
mislead no one. It teaches nothing beyond an optical fact, and can in no
wise justify such teaching as this: The earth is a vast plane, buoyed up
on a bed of water; and under this water is the region of hell, where
Satan rules supreme over the fallen angels. The clouds are a solid roof
sustaining an aerial ocean, the fountain of our rain; and above this is
the region of heaven, where God rules as an earthly potentate, and where
are mansions, streets, rivers, and trees, after the fashion of this
earth.
It is said again, if Moses had written like a modern geologist, no one
would have understood him. Apply this to Newton, or any early teacher of
a new science. What would be said of Newton, if he had taught the myths
of Scandinavian mythology under a similar plea? If his discoveries of
light and gravitation were not new, they were no discoveries at all; but
if they were new they were unknown. It is the part of a teacher to
teach, to correct errors, and not to perpetuate them; to tell what is not
known, and not confirm the folly of ignorance and superstition.
Once more. It is said that the object of the Bible is to teach religion
and not science. Granted. And the object of an astronomer is to teach
astronomy, of a geologist to teach geology. What then? Is the
astronomer and geologist free to revel in all sorts of errors provided
they do not affect his special science? No one would advance such a plea
except for a sinister purpose. But admitting it for the sake of
argument, what is gained by the admission? The express object of the
first chapter of Genesis is to teach science. It professes to tell us
how the world was made; and all its teaching is wrong. The object of
Genesis vii. and viii. is to teach history. It professes to tell us how
the world was destroyed by a flood; and the teaching is all wrong. The
object of Genesis xi. is to teach ethnology. It professes to tell us how
men became dispersed over the earth, and how it is that different nations
speak different tongues; and the teaching is all wrong. It is no
justification to plead that Moses was not skilled in geology, history,
and ethnology. If he knew nothing about these matters, why did he
profess to teach them, and why give it out that what he taught was told
him by God? If God is the God of truth he can no more teach false
science than false morals; it is equally untruthful to falsify a
scientific or historical fact, as to falsify a moral precept or church
doctrine.
It is said that the writers of Scripture were inspired by divine wisdom
to write nothing but truth. Now either the world was made in six days or
it was not; either the flood covered the whole world or it did not;
either the sun stood still at the bidding of Joshua or it did not; either
Balaam’s ass spoke Hebrew and the serpent in the garden spoke the
language of Adam, or they did not. If these things are not positive
facts they are fictions, and could only deceive as they still do. It is
inconceivable that Professor Airy or Huxley, knowing certain facts,
should write a book and wholly ignore that knowledge. It would be
puerile in the extreme if they were to plead in excuse for such folly
that they were writing on another subject. The true question is this:
were they knowingly stating fiction and falsehoods as veritable facts?
If they knew that man was not made of dust, nor woman of a rib taken out
of Adam while he was asleep; if they knew that the world was not made in
six days, but affirmed that it was; if they knew that the serpent was not
doomed to crawl on the ground and eat dust because the devil chose to
assume its shape, but said that it did, then are they altogether to
blame, and it is a matter wholly indifferent whether they were writing
science or theology. So with the “inspired penmen.” They profess to
write truth, to write facts, and if the words they utter are not truths,
and the events they record are not facts, it is quite beside the question
whether they pertain to the immediate object of their books or not.
Lastly, it is said that science at present is unsettled, and therefore it
is too early to pronounce upon the scientific teaching of the Bible. No
doubt there are questions in science still _in nubibus_, and others _sub
judice_, but what of that? Because a science is still not fully
developed, is it worth nothing? has it no voice, no authority? It is
still doubtful whether some of the nebulæ are unfinished stars, or stars
so thickly clustered together that at this distance they look like a
“cloud.” Because this question is not fully determined, must we ignore
the fact that the earth is a globe; that the planets roll round the sun;
that the clouds are due to evaporation, and rain to a change of
temperature? The Bible says the earth is a plane, and the clouds a solid
flooring; that the sun, moon, and stars are set in the atmosphere between
the upper and lower waters. We are told to suspend judgment on these
points, because there are problems of astronomy and geology yet unsolved.
This indeed is clinging to a hopeless hope; it is the obstinacy of a
Gambetta, who finding no help in man, dreamt in his enthusiasm that the
stars in their courses would fight for France against the Prussians.
To return to the Mosaic notion of creation. The writer tells us that man
was made in the image of God—a male and a female. “Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image; in
the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” This
seems to imply an Isis as well as an Osiris, a female as well as a male
deity, and no doubt Moses, who derived his inspiration from the Egyptian
priests, believed this sexual divinity. But what is meant by “the image
and likeness of God?” We are told over and over again that God has no
image, no bodily form, and we are forbidden to make any likeness of any
creature and look on it as a likeness of God. Theologians tell us the
likeness referred to is righteousness and true holiness. But why say
“the image and likeness?” _image_ seems to point to bodily form.
Besides, Adam was not like God in holiness and true righteousness, for he
hearkened to temptation, and if he was “like God,” it implies that Satan
might delude even God, and that God might by possibility fall like Adam.
Having made man, the writer says: “God ended his work” (Gen. ii., 2). He
made man and ceased the work of creation. Strange, that the writer
should say this, and yet in the very same chapter contradict the
statement, by the “new creation” of a woman! The dogma, however, that
the creative work of God was sealed up, never to be re-opened when man
was made, is in direct antagonism to the whole reading of the rocks.
Geology shows us worlds of extinct vegetables and animals, the types of
which, in one geological period differed entirely from those which
existed at a succeeding one, and every anterior period had a flora and a
fauna wholly unlike any of those with which we are familiar. There are
hosts of creations at every era, and there has never been a period from
the mystical “Beginning,” when the creative force has ceased from its
operations. At one period we see nothing superior to shell-fish and
sea-worms, and for a time the work of creation seems ended; but another
set of rocks unfold themselves, and show us myriads of molluscs,
especially of the arm-footed kind, trilobites and graptolites,
stone-lilies and corals. Again a change comes over created things:
mountains are upheaved, but no grass grows upon their sides, the ocean
bed is contracted, and the waters are tenanted by innumerable swarms of
fishes, for the most part unlike any which now exist. This dynasty of
the fishy tribe gives place in time to the “age of ferns and mosses,” and
the lizard race makes its appearance; but it is not till we come to the
“secondary group of rocks” that we meet with the fish-lizards and the
predacious plesiosaur, the bird-beaked saurian, and the labyrinthodon.
Ages roll on, ages past all calculation, and new families of molluscs,
fishes, and reptiles put in their appearance for the first time:
ammonites and belemnites among the molluscs; eryons and horse-shoes among
crustaceans; pterodactyls, teliosaurs, steneosaurs, and megalosaurs among
reptiles, with here and there a sort of opossum, the first type of the
mammal family. In the air flew the giant pterodactyl; on the dry land
stalked the ponderous megalosaurus; in the sea whole hosts of marine
lizards pursued their carnivorous instincts. Huge turtles crept along
the muddy coasts, and strange fishes swam in the deep ocean; but no man
existed; no flocks fed upon the mountains; no birds carrolled in the
groves. The lordly lion commanded not in the forest; the majestic eagle
was not the king of birds. The master spirits were saurians, whose sway
was universal; and this brings us to the third great era, that of the
tertiary rocks. This third series of rocks contain fossils more and more
nearly allied to existing plants and animals; we meet with mammals in
considerable numbers, but by far the largest number of them are
thick-skinned, and, as a rule, they were both more bulky and longer in
the legs than those which now exist.
Coming at last to the age of man and existing species, we still find the
work of creation has not ceased. Every new manufacture brings forth some
new form of plant or animal, so that creative force can no more cease
from operation than any other form of force. If God is the Creator he
must create; there can be no _was_ or _has been_ with deity; deity must
of necessity be always the universal _Now_, the great _I am_. Infinite
love must always be loving, for love without loving is no longer love.
Infinite power must always be potential, for to remit the potentiality of
power is to lose the power. Power and force are not latent faculties,
but active only. In man it is otherwise, because man, as man, has a
beginning and therefore an end, and the works of such a creature must
have the same limits; but power, as power, cannot possibly begin and end;
if it has a beginning that beginning must be the result of _previous_
power, which is absurd; and if it has an end it is no longer power, which
is a contradiction.
Man is the creature of a day, and when the day is over it can be said of
man he _was_, and of the works of man they _once were_. As with man
there is a past, so must there be a future. To every _was_ there must
belong a _shall be_. Man, therefore, can be an inventor, a doer, a
maker, and cease inventing, doing, making, as he can cease living, or
exhaust the limit of his faculties; but God cannot be a creator one day
and not another, a doer yesterday and not to-morrow, an agent at one time
and not another, or his works would have a past, and if a past a future
also; and whatever has a past and future must belong to time; nay more,
whatever has a past and future must of necessity be finite, limited, and
imperfect. If God is infinite, the great “I Am,” the “same yesterday,
today, and for ever,” it can never be said of His operations they once
were, but are now ended; He was once a Creator, but is so no longer; His
power to create was once active in its potentiality, but has ever since
been in abeyance. Every faculty of the infinite, every act and attribute
must itself be infinite, with no remission, and no shadow of turning. To
say that God ended His work of creation on the sixth day and ceased from
His labour, is to predicate change in the unchangeable, limitation in the
infinite, rest in activity, repose in motion. It is to humanise deity,
mortalise immortality, temporise eternity, limit infinity, and make a
past to the everlasting “Now.” It is to make God a man, differing only
in degree; eternity time, differing only in extension; the ever present a
mere _now_ between a “was” and a “will be.” Facts, therefore, as well as
reflection must show the untruth of the dogma that for six days God was a
creator, and then ended His work, and ceased from His labour.
(2.) _The Fall_.
As a supplement to the cosmogony, comes the legend of the Fall. Of
course, the object of this tale is to account for the fancied
imperfection of the works of God. The gist of the matter is this: Adam
and Eve were commanded to abstain from a certain tree growing in Eden.
This abstinence was to be the test of their obedience. The devil tempted
Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, and Eve induced Adam to do the same.
In consequence of this disobedience, God cursed the serpent whose form
Satan had assumed;—he cursed the ground, causing it to bring forth thorns
and thistles; cursed Eve in her instincts of love and maternal functions,
and Adam in assigning him the toil of working for his daily bread. Over
all came the sentence of death: “By one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin” (Rom. v., 12).
According to this legend, “death is the wages of sin.” It was Adam’s
apostacy that brought both sin and death into the world, but neither sin
nor death can possibly be due to such a cause. Adam’s apostacy could not
bring “sin” into the world. _The very act of disobedience is a proof
that_ “_sin_” _already existed_. The sin preceded the overt act, was the
cause of it, and the cause must inevitably exist before its effect. It
was sin that produced apostacy, and not apostacy which produced sin.
Take the case of Cain: It is said that Cain slew his brother Abel. What
would be thought of the logician who should affirm that because Cain slew
Abel, hatred was introduced into the heart of man, and that death should
follow as a perpetual punishment? Should we not reply, it was because
Cain hated Abel that he rose up and slew him? The passion of hatred
preceded the act of murder. It was malice aforethought, and if anything
resulted from the misdeed, it was not hatred but contrition, not thoughts
of evil but thoughts of bitter grief. Hatred was the cause of murder,
and murder the parent of sorrow. So with Adam and Eve. If there had not
been already “an evil heart of unbelief,” there never would have been an
act of disobedience. Eve sinned, not because she was innocent, but
because she was sinful. She disobeyed, not because she was obedient, but
because her heart “was not right with God.” The bare act was nothing,
the sin was there already, and if she had never eaten of the tree, the
thought of her heart would have been sin. It is not true, therefore,
that sin is the consequence of Adam’s apostacy, inasmuch as it produced
the apostacy itself. By one man’s disobedience sin did _not_ enter into
the world, neither is it true that death is “the wages of sin.”
Below the surface of the earth for the depth of some six or eight miles,
thousands and millions of once living creatures lie buried in the rocks;
creatures which lived and died before man had any being. Of these
creatures, myriads were carnivorous; and one specimen, at least, has been
disinterred of a fossil animal inclosed in the body of another, by whom
it had been devoured for food.
Hence, death existed long, long before the very creation of man; millions
upon millions of animals were buried in the rocks before Eve was made of
the sleeper’s rib. So says geology, and what is the testimony of
physiology?
Every leaf and blade of grass, every drop of water, and even the
invisible air, are crowded with insects and animalcules; insomuch that
not a leaf can be eaten, not a drop of water can be drank, not a gasp of
air can be inhaled, without destroying the life of some insect creatures.
If, however, only one insect or animalcule died before the Fall; if by
the effect of earthquake or volcano, the force of tempest, the rending of
rocks, the slip of an avalanche, the fall of a tree, or even by accident,
one animal lost its life, the point is proved; for that one animal at
least died, and therefore death was not the consequence of a disobedience
not yet incurred.
Again, it is well known that carnivorous beasts and birds of prey have an
anatomy adapted to their predacious habits. Their teeth or beak, their
paws or talons, their whole structure and digestive organs, prove that
they live on carrion, and a lion could no more eat straw like an ox, than
an ox could eat carrion like a lion. If, therefore, there was no death
before the Fall, we are reduced to one or other of these dilemmas: Either
there were no animals that lived on prey, or else at the Fall all
predacious animals were wholly recreated, their teeth and jaws were
re-constructed, their beaks and talons, their organs of deglutition and
digestion; in short, their entire anatomical structure. A gratuitous
assertion wholly incapable of proof, and contradicted by every animal
fossil in the pre-Adamite world.
(3.) _The Noachian Flood_.
What we said of the cosmogony we repeat under this head also: it is not
our intention to enter upon this subject at any length. It has been
proved to demonstration that no single trace of such a cataclysm can be
detected in the rocks or features of the earth; but all these rocks and
all these features bear their testimony against such an event.
No doubt the stratified rocks speak of the agency of water, but that
agency was not the deluge. No doubt the gravel and the boulders found so
extensively accumulated over the northern hemisphere were carried from
their native places by the force of water; but that water was not the
flood. No doubt traces of marine animals may be discovered on every high
mountain, no matter how far that mountain may be distant from the main
ocean; but these fossils were not deposited there by the breaking up of
the great deep and the 40 days of incessant rain which fell upon the ark.
These fossils extend downwards for some six or eight miles in depth, and
how could a flood of some few months in duration make such a deposit?
The fossils of the rocks are all deposited in the nicest order; those of
one period are never mixed with the fossils of another. No antiquarian
could sort his specimens with more order. No museum could observe more
method in its arrangements. A deluge would sweep down everything in
confusion and bury plants, animals, and minerals in one common ruin; such
is not the character of the rocks—every fossil reveals the rocks from
which it was dug, and every rock will tell the searcher what fossils he
may expect to find there.
We are told that the animals taken into the ark were the same as those
which existed on the earth when the flood came, and that the animals
preserved by Noah were the parents of existing species; but the fossils
of the rocks are wholly different to any existing specimens of plant or
animal. Shell fish are found upon inland mountains, but not the shell
fish of our present system. Bones of animals are found far from the
native haunts of the living creatures, but they are altogether strange
bones, and never belonged to the animals of the ark. They are all relics
of extinct species, and amongst all the fossils no trace of man can be
detected. No trace of the houses built by Cain and his offspring. No
trace of the iron and brass instruments forged by Tubal-Cain and his
descendants. We find traces of the most delicate leaves of plants,
traces of birds, and beasts, and creeping things; but none of man, or of
the works of man. If the same flood swept away both man and beast, bird
and fish, reptile and insect, tree and boulder, how is it we never find
them buried in the same bed—overwhelmed in the same grave? Demonstration
could not go further. The whole earth from its lowest depth to its
surface denies the universality of the flood, and not one particle of
proof can be pointed out in confirmation of the legend.
Moses says that the fountains of the great deep were broken up (Gen.
vii., 11). He believed that there was a subterranean abyss of water
under the earth, {14a} and the Rev. William Kirby, in one of the
“Bridgewater Treatises,” {14b} actually attempts to justify this notion.
It would be an insult to the understanding of our reader to waste
arguments on such a hypothesis. It is enough to state it, and it must
fall with the weight of its own worthlessness.
Again. Moses says, “And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth,
and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered.
Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail, and the mountains were
covered” (Gen. vii., 19, 20). Moses says the depth of the water was 15
cubits, and that all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were
covered. Of course the writer was ignorant of that simple principle,
known now to every schoolboy, that water finds its level. He supposed
that it would follow the irregularities of the earth’s surface, here
investing a mountain and there dipping into the valleys, so that a
uniform depth was preserved throughout, the highest hills being covered
with a depth of 15 cubits like the valleys. We must, per force, believe
this, or we are driven to the more unlikely hypothesis, that Moses
supposed a level of some 30 feet deep of water would suffice to cover the
loftiest mountains. {15} Whichever solution is taken, the inference is
the same—that the statement is wholly irreconcilable with science.
Once more. After the waters had prevailed for about a year, Noah sent
forth a dove, and the dove came back to the ark with an “olive leaf
plucked off” (Gen. viii., 11). This olive tree withstood the pelting
rain, withstood the rush of the subsiding water, withstood the wind that
drove the waters back to their abyss; but what is stranger still, it
blossomed under water, and when its head was left towering above the
flood which enveloped its trunk, its branches had put forth leaves.
Probably the grass was not injured by the flood, as the beasts were
dismissed from the ark to find their own food. Strange that trees and
herbs, covered with a depth of 30 feet of water, should grow just as well
as in the sunshine; but small inconsistencies of this sort are as nothing
to the glaring impossibility of the whole legend.
Many other examples of a similar contrariety might be added, but the mere
multiplication of evidence can serve no useful purpose when enough has
been brought forth to establish the point in question. We might refer to
the miracle of Joshua (x., 12.) in proof of the vulgar notion that it is
the sun which moves over the earth, not the earth round the sun; we might
direct attention to Gen. ix., 13, in proof that Moses supposed the
rainbow to be a miraculous exhibition of God’s power in confirmation of
his covenant with Noah; or we might dwell on the 2nd Epistle of Peter
(iii., 10–12) to show that the prince of the Apostles believed that the
heavens could be burnt with fire, like the roof of a house, and the
elements be melted by fervent heat. We might cite a whole host of verses
to prove that the Scripture writers believed the earth to be a vast plane
with an abyss, and the whole rigidly fixed on a solid foundation wholly
immovable.
Or we might turn to the physiological notions of the Bible writers to
show that they were no more in advance of the period than their notions
of astronomy, geology, and general history. They referred intellectual
operations to the kidneys or reins:—“My reins instruct me in the night
season” (Ps. xvi., 7). The affections they ascribe to the heart, and
bodily pain to the bones. They believed epilepsy to result from
demoniacal possession; that mandrakes provoked fecundity in women (Gen.
xxx., 14–16; Cant. vii., 13.); that peeled withes, placed before pregnant
ewes, would affect the colour of their lambs (Gen. xxx., 37.); that ants
eat corn and lay up for themselves a store for winter (Prov. v., 6.);
that bees can be generated from a dead carcase (Judges xiv., 8.); that
falling meteors or stars prognosticate evil (Ezek. xxxii., 7.; Matt,
xxiv., 29.); that spittle contains a charm to cure blindness and other
maladies (John ix., 6, 7.; Mark vii., 33–35.; viii., 23, 24.); and that
the stars exercise an influence on the lot of our life (Judges v., 20).
But to enumerate all the instances of contrariety between Scripture and
science would occupy more than all the pages of the present pamphlet;
suffice it to say, that every false notion of the age is endorsed as an
inspired fact, and no single error is corrected, or new truth brought to
light. We must now leave this part of our subject and proceed to the
next division.