The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science. Sir John William Dawson
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resembling them, because the nature of human thought and language render this necessary, not only to the unlearned, but in some degree to all; but this principle of adaptation can not be applied to plain material facts. Yet a confusion of these two very distinct cases appears to prevail almost unaccountably in the minds of many expositors. They tell us that the Scriptures ascribe bodily members to the immaterial God, and typify his spiritual procedure by outward emblems; and this they think analogous to such doctrines as a solid firmament, a plane earth, and others of a like nature, which they ascribe to the sacred writers. We shall find that the writers of the Scriptures had themselves much clearer views, and that, even in poetical language, they take no such liberties with truth.
As an illustration of the extent to which this doctrine of "accommodation" carries us beyond the limits of fair interpretation, I cite the following passage from one of the ablest and most judicious writers on the subject: [16] "It was the opinion of the ancients that the earth, at a certain height, was surrounded by a transparent hollow sphere of solid matter, which they called the firmament. When rain descended, they supposed that it was through windows or holes made in the crystalline curtain suspended in mid-heavens. To these notions the language of the Bible is frequently conformed. * * * But the most decisive example I have to give on this subject is derived from astronomy. Until the time of Copernicus no opinion respecting natural phenomena was thought better established than that the earth is fixed immovably in the centre of the universe, and that the heavenly bodies move diurnally round it. To sustain this view the most decisive language of Scripture might be quoted. God is there said to have 'established the foundations of the earth, so that they could not be removed forever' and the sacred writers expressly declare that the heavenly bodies arise and set, and nowhere allude to any proper motion of the earth."
Will it be believed that, with the exception of the poetical expression, "windows of heaven," and the common forms of speech relating to sunrise and sunset, the above "decisive" instances of accommodation have no foundation whatever in the language of Scripture. The doctrine of the rotation of solid celestial spheres around the earth belongs to a Greek philosophy which arose after the Hebrew cosmogony was complete; and though it occurs in the Septuagint and other ancient versions, it is not based on the Hebrew original. In truth, we know that those Grecian philosophers—of the Ionic and Pythagorean schools—who lived nearest the times of the Hebrew writers, and who derived the elements of their science from Egypt and Western Asia, taught very different doctrines. How absurd, then, is it thus to fasten upon the sacred writers, contrary to their own words, the views of a school of astronomy which probably arose long after their time, when we know that more accurate ideas prevailed nearer their epoch. Secondly, though there is some reason for stating that the "ancients," though certainly not those of Israel, believed in celestial spheres supporting the heavenly bodies, I suspect that the doctrine of a solid vault supporting the clouds, except as a mere poetical or mythological fancy, is a product of the imagination of the theologians and closet philosophers of a more modern time. The testimony of men's senses appears to be in favor of the whole universe revolving around a plane earth, though the oldest astronomical school with which we are acquainted suspected that this is an illusion; but the every-day observation of the most unlettered man who treads the fields and is wet with the mists and rains must convince him that there is no sub-nubilar solid sphere. If, therefore, the Bible had taught such a doctrine, it would have shocked the common-sense even of the plain husbandmen to whom it was addressed, and could have found no fit audience except among a portion of the literati of comparatively modern times. Thirdly, with respect to the foundations of the earth, I may remark that in the tenth verse of Genesis there occurs a definition as precise as that of any lexicon—"and God called the dry land earth;" consequently it is but fair to assume that the earth afterwards spoken of as supported above the waters is the dry land or continental masses of the earth, and no geologist can object to the statement that the dry land is supported above the waters by foundations or pillars.
We shall find in our examination of the document itself that all the instances of such accommodation which have been cited by writers on this subject are as baseless as those above referred to. It is much to be regretted that so many otherwise useful expositors have either wanted that familiarity with the aspects of external nature by which all the Hebrew writers are characterized, or have taken too little pains to ascertain the actual meaning of the references to creation which they find in the Bible. I may further remark that if such instances of accommodation could be found in the later poetical books, it would be extremely unfair to apply them as aids in the interpretation of the plain, precise, and unadorned statements of the first chapters of Genesis. There is, however, throughout even the higher poetry of the Bible, a truthful representation and high appreciation of nature for which we seek in vain in any other poetry, and we may fairly trace this in part to the influence of the cosmogony which appears in its first chapter. The Hebrew was thus taught to recognize the unity of nature as the work of an Almighty Intelligence, to regard all its operations as regulated by his unchanging law or "decree," and to venerate it as a revelation of his supreme wisdom and goodness. On this account he was likely to regard careful observation and representation with as scrupulous attention as the modern naturalist. Nor must we forget that the Old Testament literature has descended to us through two dark ages—that of Greek and Roman polytheism and of Middle Age barbarism—and that we must not confound its tenets with those of either. The religious ideas of both these ages were favorable to certain forms of literature and art, but eminently unfavorable to the successful prosecution of the study of nature. Hence we have a right to expect in the literature of the golden age of primeval monotheism more affinity with the ideas of modern science than in any intermediate time; and the truthful delineation which the claims of the Bible to inspiration require might have been, as already hinted, to a certain extent secured merely by the reflex influence of its earlier statements, without the necessity of our supposing that illustrations of this kind in the later books came directly from the Spirit of God.
Our discussion of this part of the subject has necessarily been rather desultory, and the arguments adduced must depend for their full confirmation on the results of our future inquiries. The conclusions arrived at may be summed up as follows: 1. That the Mosaic cosmogony must be considered, like the prophecies of the Bible, to claim the rank of inspired teaching, and must depend for its authority on the maintenance of that claim. 2. That the incidental references to nature in other parts of Scripture indicate, at least, the influence of these earlier teachings, and of a pure monotheistic faith, in creating a high and just appreciation of nature among the Hebrew people.
It is now necessary to inquire in what precise form this remarkable revelation of the origin of the world has been given. I have already referred to the hypothesis that it represents a vision of creation presented to the mind of a seer, as if in a series of pictures which he represents to us in words. This is perhaps the most intelligible conception of the manner of communication of a revelation from God; and inasmuch as it is that referred to in other parts of the Bible as the mode of presentation of the future to inspired prophets, there can be no impropriety in supposing it to have been the means of communicating the knowledge of the unknown past. We may imagine the seer—perhaps some aboriginal patriarch, long before the time of Moses—perhaps the first man himself—wrapt in ecstatic vision, having his senses closed to all the impressions of the present time, and looking as at a moving procession of the events of the earth's past history, presented to him in a series of apparent days and nights. In the first chapter of Genesis he rehearses this divine vision to us, not in poetry, but in a series of regularly arranged parts or strophes, thrown into a sort of rhythmical order fitted to impress them on the memory, and to allow them to be handed down from mouth to mouth, perhaps through successive generations of men, before they could be fixed in a written form of words. Though the style can scarcely be called poetical, since its expressions are obviously literal and unadorned by figures of speech, the production may not unfairly be called the Song or Ballad of Creation, and it presents an Archaic simplicity reminding us of the compositions of the oldest and rudest times, while it has also an artificial and orderly arrangement, much obscured by its division into verses and chapters in our Bibles. It is undoubtedly also characterized by a clearness and grandeur of expression very striking and majestic, and which shows that it was written by and intended for men of no mean and contracted minds, but who could grasp the great problems of the origin of things, and comprehend and express them in a bold