Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 7

[23:6] The Hindoo ark-preserved Menu had _three_ sons; Sama, Cama, and Pra-j.a.pati. (Faber: Orig. Pagan Idol.) The Bhattias, who live between Delli and the Panjab, insist that they are descended from a certain king called Salivahana, who had three sons, Bhat, Maha and Thamaz. (Col.

Wilford, in vol. ix. Asiatic Researches.) The Iranian hero Thraetona had _three_ sons. The Iranian Sethite Lamech had _three_ sons, and h.e.l.len, the son of Deucalion, during whose time the flood is said to have happened, had _three_ sons. (Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, pp. 70, 71.) All the ancient nations of Europe also describe their origin from the _three_ sons of some king or patriarch. The Germans said that Mannus (son of the G.o.d Tuisco) had _three_ sons, who were the original ancestors of the three princ.i.p.al nations of Germany. The Scythians said that Targytagus, the founder of their nation, had _three_ sons, from whom they were descended. A tradition among the Romans was that the Cyclop Polyphemus had by Galatea _three_ sons. Saturn had _three_ sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; and Hesiod speaks of the _three_ sons which sprung from the marriage of heaven and earth. (See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 509.)

[23:7] See chap. xi.

[23:8] "It is of no slight moment that the Egyptians, with whom the Hebrews are represented as in earliest and closest intercourse, had no traditions of a flood, while the Babylonian and h.e.l.lenic tales bear a strong resemblance in many points to the narrative in Genesis." (Rev.

George W. c.o.x: Tales of Ancient Greece, p. 340. See also Owen: Man's Earliest History, p. 28, and ch. xi. this work.)

[24:1] See Taylor's Diegesis, p. 198, and Knight's Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 107. "Plato was told that Egypt had hymns dating back ten thousand years before his time." (Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 185.) Plato lived 429 B. C. Herodotus relates that the priests of Egypt informed him that from the first king to the present priest of Vulcan who last reigned, were three hundred forty and one generations of men, and during these generations there were the same number of chief priests and kings. "Now (says he) three hundred generations are equal to ten thousand years, for three generations of men are one hundred years; and the forty-one remaining generations that were over the three hundred, make one thousand three hundred and forty years," making _eleven thousand three hundred and forty years_. "Conducting me into the interior of an edifice that was s.p.a.cious, and showing me wooden colossuses to the number I have mentioned, they reckoned them up; for every high priest places an image of himself there during his life-time; the priests, therefore, reckoning them and showing them to me, pointed out that each was the son of his own father; going through them all, from the image of him who died last until they had pointed them all out." (Herodotus, book ii. chs. 142, 143.) The discovery of mummies of royal and priestly personages, made at Deir-el-Bahari (Aug., 1881), near Thebes, in Egypt, would seem to confirm this statement made by Herodotus. Of the thirty-nine mummies discovered, one--that of King Raskenen--is about three thousand seven hundred years old. (See a Cairo [Aug. 8th,] Letter to the London Times.)

[24:2] Owen: Man's Earliest History, p. 28.

[24:3] Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 185.

[24:4] Ibid. p. 411.

[24:5] Owen: Man's Earliest History, pp. 27, 28.

[24:6] Goldzhier: Hebrew Mytho. p. 319.

[24:7] Ibid. p. 320.

[25:1] Translated from the _Bhagavat_ by Sir Wm. Jones, and published in the first volume of the "Asiatic Researches," p. 230, _et seq._ See also Maurice: Ind. Ant. ii. 277, _et seq._, and Prof. Max Muller's Hist.

Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 425, _et seq._

[25:2] See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 55.

[25:3] See Thornton's Hist. China, vol. i. p. 30, Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 205, and Priestley, p. 41.

[25:4] Priestley, p. 42.

[26:1] Bunce: Fairy Tales, Origin and Meaning, p. 18.

[26:2] The _oldest_ Greek mythology, however, has no such idea; it cannot be proved to have been known to the Greeks earlier than the 6th century B. C. (See Goldzhier: Hebrew Mytho., p. 319.) This could not have been the case had there ever been a _universal_ deluge.

[26:3] Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. 72-74. "Apollodorus--a Grecian mythologist, born 140 B. C.,--having mentioned Deucalion consigned to the ark, takes notice, upon his quitting it, of his offering up an immediate sacrifice to G.o.d." (Chambers' Encyclo., art, _Deluge_.)

[26:4] In Lundy's Monumental Christianity (p. 209, Fig. 137) may be seen a representation of Deucalion and Pyrrha landing from the ark. _A dove and olive branch_ are depicted in the scene.

[27:1] Chambers' Encyclo., art. Deucalion.

[27:2] Baring-Gould: Legends of the Patriarchs, p. 114. See also Myths of the British Druids, p. 95.

[27:3] See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 99.

[27:4] Mex. Antiq. vol. viii.

[27:5] Myths of the New World, pp. 203, 204.

[27:6] See Squire: Serpent Symbol, pp. 189, 190.

[28:1] Count de Volney says: "The Deluge mentioned by Jews, Chaldeans, Greeks and Indians, as having destroyed the world, are one and the same _physico-astronomical event_ which is still repeated every year," and that "all those personages that figure in the Deluge of Noah and Xisuthrus, are still in the celestial sphere. It was a real picture of the calendar." (Researches in Ancient Hist., p. 124.) It was on the same day that Noah is said to have shut himself up in the ark, that the priests of Egypt shut up in their sacred coffer or ark the image of Osiris, a personification of the Sun. This was on the 17th of the month Athor, in which the Sun enters the Scorpion. (See Kenrick's Egypt, vol.

i. p. 410.) The history of Noah also corresponds, in some respects, with that of Bacchus, another personification of the Sun.

[28:2] See Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 268.

[29:1] "In America, along with the bones of the _Mastodon_ imbedded in the alluvium of the Bourbense, were found arrow heads and other traces of the savages who had killed this member of an order no longer represented in that part of the world." (Herbert Spencer: Principles of Sociology, vol. i. p. 17.)

[29:2] Darwin: Descent of Man, p. 156. We think it may not be out of place to insert here what might properly be called: "_The Drama of Life_," which is as follows:

Act i. Azoic: Conflict of Inorganic Forces.

Act ii. Paleozoic: Age of Invertebrates.

{ Scene i. Eozoic: Enter Protozoans and Protophytes.

{ " ii. Silurian: Enter the Army of Invertebrates.

Primary { " iii. Devonian: Enter Fishes.

{ " iv. Carboniferous: (Age of Coal Plants) Enter First _Air_ breathers.

Act iii. Mesozoic: Enter Reptiles.

{ Scene i. Tria.s.sic: Enter Batrachians.

Secondary { " ii. Jura.s.sic: Enter huge Reptiles of Sea, Land { and Air.

{ " iii. Cretaceous: (Age of Chalk) Enter Ammonites.

Act iv. Cenozoic: (Age of Mammals.) { Scene i. Eocene: Enter Marine Mammals, and probably { _Man_.

Tertiary { " ii. Miocene: Enter Hoofed Quadrupeds.

{ " iii. Pliocene: Enter Proboscidians and Edentates.

Act v. Post Tertiary: _Positive_ Age of Man.

{ Scene i. Glacial: Ice and Drift Periods.

{ " ii. Champlain: _Sinking Continents_; Warmer; { Tropical Animals go _North_.

Post Tertiary { " iii. Terrace: Rising Continents; Colder.

{ " iv. Present: Enter Science, Iconoclasts, &c., &c.

[29:3] Draper: Religion and Science, p. 199.

[29:4] Ibid. pp. 195, 196.

[30:1] Huxley: Man's Place in Nature, p. 184.

[30:2] Paschel: Races of Man, p. 36.

[30:3] Tylor: Early History of Mankind, p. 328.

[30:4] Ibid. pp. 329, 330

[30:5] We know that many legends have originated in this way. For example, Dr. Robinson, in his "Travels in Palestine" (ii. 586), mentions a tradition that a city had once stood in a desert between Petra and Hebron, the people of which had perished for their vices, and been converted into stone. Mr. Seetzen, who went to the spot, found no traces of ruins, but a number of stony concretions, resembling in form and size the human head. _They had been ignorantly supposed to be petrified heads, and a legend framed to account for their owners suffering so terrible a fate._ Another ill.u.s.tration is as follows:--The Kamchadals believe that volcanic mountains are the abode of devils, who, after they have cooked their meals, fling the fire-brands out of the chimney. Being asked what these devils eat, they said "_whales_." Here we see, _first_, a story invented to account for the volcanic eruptions from the mountains; and, _second_, a story invented to account for the _remains of whales found on the mountains_. The savages _knew_ that this was true, "because their old people had said so, and believed it themselves." (Related by Mr. Tylor, in his "_Early History of Mankind_,"

p. 326.)

[31:1] "Everything of importance was calculated by, and fitted into, this number (SEVEN) by the Aryan philosophers,--ideas as well as localities." (Isis Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 407).

[31:2] Each one being consecrated to a _planet_. First, to Saturn; second, to Jupiter; third, to Mars; fourth, to the Sun; fifth, to Venus; sixth, to Mercury; seventh, to the Moon. (The Pentateuch Examined, vol.

iv. p. 269. See also The Angel Messiah, p. 106.)

[31:3] Each of which had the name of a _planet_.