The Meeting-Place of Geology and History Part 5

CHAPTER VIII

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 pa.s.sed 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 doc.u.ment 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ment ent.i.tle 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 princ.i.p.al points of this accordance are the following. The Chaldean account implies that the anger of the G.o.ds, 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 Cus.h.i.te 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-Phnician 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 doc.u.ments. On all these grounds scientific archaeologists 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 a.s.sumptions 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 a.s.syrian 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 a.s.syriologist 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 archaeologist 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 a.s.syrian research has not corroborated every historical statement which we find in the Old Testament, any more than cla.s.sical archaeology 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 doc.u.ments, 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments in possession of the priestly cla.s.s. 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 Archaeology_, 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 repet.i.tion 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 G.o.ds, 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, e-kura had not been constructed;

7 Erech had not been built, e-ana had not been constructed;

8 The Abyss had not been made, e-ridu had not been constructed;

9 (As for) the glorious house, the house of the G.o.ds, 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 palaeocosmic 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 archaeological 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 l.u.s.tre 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 doc.u.ments 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 G.o.d,' while they often appear as G.o.ds or demi-G.o.ds in the early history of the heathen nations; but the fact remains that then, as now, the rare appearance of G.o.d-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.