THE PALANTHROPIC AGE IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY
The time was when the earlier books of the Hebrew Scriptures stood
almost alone in their notices of the creation and antediluvian times,
and when critics could quietly take for granted that they were
altogether mythical. This state of things has now passed away from the
minds of the better informed, and it may be profitable before proceeding
farther to glance for a moment at some of the recent corroborations, if
they may be so called, of the Bible history from altogether unexpected
quarters.
In the first place, there can now be no doubt that the order of
creation, as revealed to the author of the first chapter of Genesis,
corresponds with the results of astronomical and geological research in
a manner which cannot be accidental.[30] This old document thus stands
in the position of a prophecy which has been fulfilled in its details.
Besides this, the discovery of the similar though not identical
Chaldean creation tablets throws a remarkable and interesting side-light
on the whole question. The Chaldean tablets are unquestionably very
ancient, and borrowed from still older documents from which they are
alleged to have been copied. But they and the Genesis narrative are
independent of each other. Neither can have been copied from the other.
Thus there must have been a still more ancient common source of the
narrative, and, as I have elsewhere urged,[31] the greater simplicity
and monotheistic character of the Hebrew document entitle it to the palm
of the higher antiquity.
[30] For evidence of this I may be permitted to refer to my work, _The
Origin of the World_.
[31] _Modern Science in Bible Lands._
With reference to the antediluvian age and the Deluge, while the Bible
is here only in accord with almost universal tradition, and this in
reference to an event which if it occurred at all must have fixed itself
in the memory of the survivors, it is in remarkable accordance with very
ancient Chaldean writings commemorative of the same event. Some
principal points of this accordance are the following. The Chaldean
account implies that the anger of the gods, or some of them, against an
evil race of men was the cause of the catastrophe. It gives it a
universal character, so far as the sphere of observation extended. It
represents the survivors as saved in a ship or ark. It represents
Hasisadra, its Noah, as sending out birds to ascertain the subsidence of
the waters. In all these points and many others the Chaldean account
agrees with the Biblical in representing antediluvian men, or some of
them, as civilised, possessing domestic animals, and competent to
construct large ships.
When we leave the Deluge and come to the postdiluvian or neanthropic
period, similar coincidences occur. The foundation of a primitive
Cushite or Akkadian kingdom in the Euphratean valley, the dispersion of
men according to their families and their languages, the early kingdoms
contemporary with Abraham, mentioned in the narrative of his campaign to
recover the captives taken from the cities of the plain, the extremely
early use of the arrow-headed characters in Asia, of the hieroglyphic
writing in Egypt, and of a proto-Phœnician or early Hebrew alphabet
among the Mineans of ancient Arabia, tend at once to vindicate the Bible
history, and to show how at a very early period this history may have
been rendered permanent in written documents. On all these grounds
scientific archæologists are beginning to attach more value than
formerly to the Hebrew annals, and to recognise them as true historical
accounts of the times to which they relate.
It may seem rash to make such a statement at a time when it is well
known that many divines of repute avow themselves as believers in the
theory that the earlier Biblical books are of comparatively late
composition. But Science will have her way in a matter of this kind,
whatever literature or criticism may say, and she is beginning strongly
to lift her voice against the destructive criticism of the Pentateuch.
In a recent article, Professor Sayce, one of the best-informed experts
in these subjects, uses the following language:
'Naturally, the "higher criticism" is disinclined to see its assumptions
swept away along with the conclusions which are based upon them, and to
sit humbly at the feet of the newer science. At first, the results of
Egyptian or Assyrian research were ignored; then they were reluctantly
admitted, so far as they did not clash with the preconceived opinions of
the "higher" critics. It was urged, unfortunately with too much justice,
that the decipherers were not, as a rule, trained critics, and that in
the enthusiasm of research they often announced discoveries which proved
to be false or only partially correct. But it must be remembered, on the
other side, that this charge applies with equal force to all progressive
studies, not excluding the "higher criticism" itself.
'The time is now come for confronting the conclusions of the "higher
criticism," so far as it applies to the books of the Old Testament, with
the ascertained results of modern Oriental research. The amount of
certain knowledge now possessed by the Egyptologist and Assyriologist
would be surprising to those who are not specialists in these branches
of study, while the discovery of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets has poured a
flood of light upon the ancient world, which is at once startling and
revolutionary. As in the case of Greek history, so too in that of
Israelitish history, the period of critical demolition is at an end, and
it is time for the archæologist to reconstruct the fallen edifice.
'But the very word "reconstruct" implies that what is built again will
not be exactly that which existed before. It implies that the work of
the "higher criticism" has not been in vain; on the contrary, the work
it has performed has been a very needful and important one, and in its
own sphere has helped us to the discovery of the truth. Egyptian or
Assyrian research has not corroborated every historical statement which
we find in the Old Testament, any more than classical archæology has
corroborated every statement which we find in the Greek writers; what it
has done has been to show that the extreme scepticism of modern
criticism is not justified, that the materials on which the history of
Israel has been based may, and probably do, go back to an early date,
and that much which the "higher" critics have declared to be mythical
and impossible was really possible and true.'
In point of fact a much stronger position might be held in favour of
Genesis, and we shall find in comparing it with the monuments of the
palanthropic and early neanthropic ages that its statements vindicate
themselves as derived from original contemporary documents, which were
under no obligations to the literature or philosophy of those later
times, to which they have been relegated by some of the critics.
Let us inquire a little more in detail into the general features of
these early historic notices.
For the purposes of this inquiry we may content ourselves with the
consideration of the ancient Hebrew documents incorporated in the Book
of Genesis, and the remains which have been preserved of the old
Chaldean literature. Both of these represent an antediluvian period of
long duration.[32] Both refer the primitive seats of population to the
Euphratean region of Western Asia. Both terminate the antediluvian age
with a great diluvial catastrophe. These are sufficient points of
general agreement to make it probable that both originated in one
fundamental history, or at least were based on attempts to describe the
same events. Otherwise there are great differences. The Chaldean
accounts have a prolix iteration, which makes it probable that they were
prepared for popular and liturgic use, and may not fairly represent the
original documents in possession of the priestly class. They also
naturally introduce all the _personnel_ of the Chaldean pantheon, and as
this must have been a thing of gradual growth it gives them an air of
recency, though we know that they are very old. The Hebrew version, on
the other hand, is monotheistic, and has an aspect of severe simplicity
in striking contrast to the florid and popular Chaldean version.
[32] Hommel has proved (_Journal of the Society of Biblical Archæology_,
1893), what has always been suspected, that the ten patriarchs of
Berosus are the same with those of the Sethite line in Genesis.
We may first notice what history can tell of the palanthropic age,
supposing this to be the same with that historically known as
antediluvian. The account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis is
altogether general, and has no local colouring. It evidently refers to
the whole history of the making of the earth. The second chapter, on the
other hand, begins at verse 4 the special history of man, and opens with
a picture which is not, as some have rashly supposed, a repetition of
the previous general account of creation, and still less contradictory
to it, but a statement that immediately before the introduction of man
the earth had been in a desolate and comparatively untenanted state,
that state to which we know it had been reduced by the glacial cold and
submergence.
Thus the two accounts of the creation of man, that in which he appears
in his chronological position in the general development, and that in
which he takes a first place, as introductory to his special history,
are not contradictory, but complementary to each other; and the latter
refers wholly to man and the creatures contemporary with him in the
palanthropic age. It is in accordance with this, and no doubt intended
by the editor to mark this distinction, that the name Elohim is used in
the general narrative, and Jehovah Elohim in the special one. The
failure of so many critics to notice this distinction, which must have
been so plain to the primitive historian himself, is a marked
illustration of the blindness of certain nineteenth-century savants, so
full of their own special knowledge, yet so careless of science and
common sense.
It would even seem that this distinction appeared in the Chaldean
Genesis as well; for fragments of what has been called a second Chaldean
Genesis have been found which seem to correspond with the statements of
the second chapter of Genesis.
The following is an extract from this second Chaldean or Akkadian
Genesis as translated by Pinches:[33]
1 The glorious house, the house of the gods, in a glorious place
had not been made;
2 A plant had not been brought forth, a tree had not been created;
3 A brick had not been laid, a beam had not been shaped;
4 A house had not been built, a city had not been constructed;
5 A city had not been made, a foundation had not been made
glorious;
6 Niffer had not been built, Ê-kura had not been constructed;
7 Erech had not been built, Ê-ana had not been constructed;
8 The Abyss had not been made, Ê-ridu had not been constructed;
9 (As for) the glorious house, the house of the gods, its seat had
not been made--
10 The whole of the lands were sea.
[33] _Expository Times_, December 1892
This may be supposed to correspond with the Hebrew verses following:
And no plant of the field was yet in the earth.
And no herb of the field had yet sprung up.
For Jahveh Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth.
And there was not a man to till (irrigate) the ground.
And there went up a vapour from the earth, and watered the surface
of the ground.
This is the Hebrew idea of the condition of the great Mesopotamian plain
after the pleistocene submergence, and before the appearance of man. The
Chaldean version refers to the same region, but is more elaborate and
artificial, and brings in the historic cities of a later time. This
difference alone would induce us to suppose that the Hebrew record may
be a better guide for our present comparison.
The Hebrew writer in the first place gives us to understand that a
period of comparative desolation preceded the appearance of man, a great
winter of destruction preparatory to a returning spring. He then
proceeds to localise primeval man by placing him in Eden, the Idinu of
the Chaldean accounts, which we also recognise by the geographical
indications of the Euphrates and Tigris as its rivers, with two
companion streams which can scarcely be other than the Karun and the
Kerkhat. Thus the Bible and the Chaldean account agree in their locality
for the advent of man, for Idinu was the ancient name of the plain of
Babylonia. It has been objected to this locality that much of this
region is low and swampy, and has only recently become land by the
encroachment of the rivers on the head of the Persian Gulf. But if our
Biblical authority really refers to palanthropic man, we must bear in
mind that in the post-glacial period the continents were higher than
now, and the Babylonian plain must have been a dry and elevated
district, in all probability forest-clad. We must also bear in mind that
Eden was a region of country, and that the 'garden' or selected spot
'eastward in Eden' may have been some rich wooded island surrounded by
the river streams, and producing all fruits pleasant to the taste and
good for food. In any case the modern objections to the site are based
on entire ignorance of its geological history, and only serve to show
how much better informed the ancient writer was as to antediluvian
geography than his modern critics.[34]
[34] See, for full discussion of this, _Modern Science in Bible Lands_,
by the author.
It is scarcely necessary to say that this Biblical environment of
primitive man corresponds with the requirements of the case. In a genial
climate and sheltered position, and supplied with abundance of food, the
first men would have the conditions necessary for comfortable existence
and for multiplying in numbers.
We have also in the description of one of the rivers of Eden a hint as
to a few of the wants of early man beyond mere food and shelter. We are
told that the district traversed by this river produced gold, bedolach,
and the shoham stone. I have elsewhere shown that this river must be the
Karun, draining the Luristan mountains, and that the productions
indicated must have been 'native gold and silver, wampum beads, and jade
and similar stones suitable for implements.'[35] Thus we have here a
picture which may well represent the origin and early condition of our
palæocosmic men. But the parallel does not end here.
[35] _Modern Science in Bible Lands._
According to the history, man falls, and is expelled from Eden, is
clothed with skins, and becomes an eater of animal food. Next we find
murderous violence, and a consequent separation of the primitive people
into two tribes, one of which migrates to a distance from the other and
adopts different modes of life. Finally, we have a mixture of the two
races, leading to a powerful and terrible race of half-breeds, or metis,
who filled the earth with violence.[36]
[36] Genesis vi. 1-6.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF
THE SITE OF EDEN AS DESCRIBED IN GENESIS]
In one point only have we reason to doubt whether this old history
fairly represents the palanthropic age. It notes the invention of
musical instruments, the use of metals, the domestication of animals as
already existing in the antediluvian period. Of these we have little or
no archæological evidence. The only musical instrument of this period
known is a whistle made of one of the bones of a deer's foot, and
capable of sounding a tetrachord or four notes, and we have no certain
evidence of metals or domesticated animals. We must bear in mind that
there may have been more civilised races than those of the Cro-magnon
type, and that the latter evince an artistic skill which if it had any
scope for development may have led to great results. The native metals
must have been known to man from the first, though they must have been
rare or only locally common; and many semi-barbarous nations of later
times show us that it is only a short step from the knowledge of native
metals to the art of metallurgy, in so far as it consists in treating
those ores that in weight and metallic lustre most resemble the metals
themselves. It is also deserving of notice that no other hypothesis than
that of antediluvian civilisation can account for the fact that in the
dawn of postdiluvian history we find the dwellers by the Euphrates and
the Nile already practising so many of the arts of civilised life. In
connection with this we may place the early dawn of literature. Without
insisting on the documents which the Chaldean Noah, Hasisadra, is said
to have hid at Sippara before the Deluge, we have the known fact that in
the earliest dawn of postdiluvian history the art of writing was known
in Chaldea and in Egypt. This at once testifies to antediluvian culture,
and shows that the means existed to record important events.
There is, perhaps, no one of the vagaries now current under the much
abused name of evolution more opposed to facts, whether physical or
historical than the notion that, because 3000 years B.C. we have
evidence of an advanced civilisation in Chaldea and in Egypt, this must
have been preceded by a long and uninterrupted progress through many
thousands of years from a savage state. Two facts alone are sufficient
to show the folly of such a supposition. First, the intervention of that
great physical catastrophe which separates the palanthropic and
neanthropic periods; and secondly, the testimony of history in favour of
the arts of civilisation originating with great inventors, and not by
any slow and gradual process of evolution. According to all history,
sacred and profane, many such inventors existed even in the palanthropic
and early neanthropic ages, and transmitted their arts in an advanced
state to later times. The Book of Genesis testifies to this in its
notices of Tubal Cain and Jubal; and the monuments of Chaldea and Egypt
show that metallurgy, sculpture, and architecture were as far advanced
at the very dawn of history as in any later period. It is true that
Genesis represents its early inventors as mere men, albeit 'sons of
God,' while they often appear as gods or demi-gods in the early history
of the heathen nations; but the fact remains that then, as now, the rare
appearance of God-given inventive genius is the sole cause of the
greater advances in art and civilisation. Spontaneous development may
produce socialistic trades' unions or Chinese stagnation, but great
gifts, whether of prophecy, of song, of scientific insight, or of
inventive power, are the inspiration of the Almighty.
We have in the closing part of the Bible story of the antediluvian age
even an intimation of the deterioration of climate and means of
subsistence towards the end of the period. Lamech, we are told, named
his son Noah--rest or comfort--in the hope that by his means he should
be comforted, because of the ground which the Lord had cursed. That
curse provoked by the sons of man he may have recognised as fulfilled in
the gradual deterioration of the climate toward the close of the
palanthropic age. There are here surely some curious coincidences which
might be followed farther, did space permit.
We now come to the close of the whole in the Deluge; and as this has
been made in our own time the subject of much discussion, and as it
contains within itself the whole kernel of the subject, it merits a
separate treatment.