Age and Source of Chaldean Account. 293 that 'the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field.'"1 The Assyrians, who made these tablets, acknowledge that they borrowed from Babylonian sources; the greater part being copied in the age of Assurbanipal, B.C. 670. It is certain that the Babylonians, in the period about B.C. 2000 to 1500, believed in a story similar to that in Genesis. We may, therefore, regard it as settled for ever that the Bible account of the Divine Creation of Man, of his Temptation and Fall by means of an evil spirit or serpent, are not modern inventions. It follows that the doctrine of redemption recorded by Moses (Gen. iii. 15) in connection with the Transgression and Fall, disposes of the error as to Christianity having been evolved from human consciousness, apart from Divine or Supernatural influence. The essentials of our faith are all fore-shadowed in the primeval record. The superiority of the Mosaic record may be seen by reading, as specimen, a fine passage from fragments of the fifth tablet, an account of the fourth day of creation." 4 Obverse I. "It was delightful, all that was fixed by the great gods. 2. Stars their appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged. 3. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations, 4. twelve months (or signs) of stars in three rows he arranged, 5. from the day when the year commences unto the close. 6. He marked the position of the wandering stars (planets) to shine in their courses, 7. that they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one, 8. the positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him. 1 "The Five Great Monarchies of the Eastern World," vol. i. p. 154: George Rawlinson, M.A. "The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” pp. 22, 28: George Smith. 2 Ibid. p. 100. • Ibid. p. 69. 9. And he opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded 10. the fastenings were strong on the left and right. II. In the mass (ie. the lower chaos) he made a boiling, 12. the god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed, 13. to fix it also for the light of the night, until the shining of the day, 14. that the month might not be broken, and in its amount be regular. 15. At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night, 16. his horns are breaking through to shine on the heaven. 17. On the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell, 18. and stretches towards the dawn further. 19. When the good Shamas (the sun) in the horizon of heaven, in the east, 20. . . . formed beautifully and . . . Now read from the Bible, Gen. i. 14-19-" God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness : and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." It seems hardly credible that the determined resolve to be rid of miracles, inspiration, prophecy, everything supernatural, Why the Account in Scripture is Retained. 295 should lead any man to regard Moses as having obtained his theology and cosmology from a jumble of serpent-worship, devil-worship, and Babylonian myth; yet, "some have gone so far as to argue that the Mosaic account was derived from it. Others, who reject this notion, suggest that a certain 'old Chaldee tradition' was 'the basis of them both.' If we drop out the word 'Chaldee' from the statement, it may be regarded as fairly expressing the truth. The Babylonian legend embodies a primeval tradition, common to all mankind, of which an inspired author has given us the true groundwork in the first and second chapters of Genesis." 1 There are a few persons who say-" Theologians retain the Genesis account to prop up the theory of the Fall and of Satan's personality-retain it against reason; and if the book of any other religion gave an account of a speaking serpent, and of woman formed from the side of man, the whole would be counted an absurdity." Doubtless, but these marvels, even if regarded as allegorical, are certainly true in their deep meaning; really live in moral and physical events now operating. They are written in a manner so as to be understood by children, yet with depths for profoundest minds; are related in a Book which holds and will hold the world in awe; are connected with a scheme wonderfully comprehensive and mysterious; are the only accepted narrative which sufficiently explains the sin, the misery, the past and future of mankind. If you take away the ancient narrative, deny the recorded events, refuse the essential meaning, assert that there is no record of the universe having received damage, what then? You are without any explanation of that in man which leads to devil-worship, and of those almost universal traditions which relate of sin entering by means of an evil principle. Nor do you get rid of marvels; the gradual growth of the universal mind of humanity, as asserted by some philosophers, and the redemption and sanctification affirmed with better authority by Christians, are nobler works, more lustrous in beauty and goodness, greater marvels, than any old wonder. These "The Five Great Monarchies of the Eastern World," vol. i. p. 182: George Rawlinson, M.A. supernatural works have stimulated the mind of Europe to all its highest efforts. They go home to the hearts of men in all ranks of society, in all countries. The most practical men that the world has ever seen maintain that the knowledge of those old mysterious transactions was handed down to Moses through a tradition which had become the almost exclusive possession of the few who retained their faith in the primitive religion; the tradition being confirmed and probably enlarged to him by new revelation. In full confidence we retain our faith, revere the narratives, the ceremonies, the symbols in which it is embodied. Our confidence is further warranted because the verity and reality of both narratives are foundation of the whole spiritual building which Scripture erects. The first narrative is full of spiritual reality and instruction, extending from the fact that God did frame the worlds (Heb. xi. 3), until it arrives at the startling statement that this frame encloses a spectacle of such vast import that angels learn the manifold wisdom of God (Ephes. iii. 10). The reality underlying the second narrative manifests itself not only in the symbolistic and allegorising exegesis of patristic theology, but especially in the doctrines of Holy Scripture. The creation of heaven and earth is the fact on which rests the declaration that we shall see a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. xxi. 1). The beginning of all things is treated as the beginning of manifestation concerning the mystery of the Divine nature (John i. 1). The Spirit brooding over the waters and bringing forth life, prefigures the continual operation of God in our souls (John iii. 5). The springing up of light is an analogue of the glory and the light in the city of God (Rev. xxi. 23). The birth of land from the sea (Gen. i. 9) reminds us of all things being made new, and of there being no more troublous things like the sea (Rev. xxi. 1). The springing up of plants (Gen. i. 11) is a figure of the tree with food for all nations (Rev. xxii. 2). The sun, the moon, the stars, are a witness of mystery not yet fully known (Rev. xii. 1, xxi. 23). The Sabbath rest is symbol of the rest that remaineth (Heb. iv. 9, 10). Who will forego the hope which is set forth in the fact of paradise? (Luke xxiii. 43). From the Growth of Divine Truth. 297 Our ground, out of which we were formed, we shall again arise, re-formed, other than this body, of a higher essence: personal identity residing within the inner man, not the earthly outside (1 Cor. xv. 24-44). In material substance we are like all flesh, yet all flesh is not the same flesh, even as the stars are not all suns (ver. 39, 40). The rivers of paradise flow into one river of life. The tree of death, by the tremendous death on Calvary, has become a veritable Tree of Knowledge; and we have access unto the Tree of Life with twelve manner of fruits. Not once, but a hundred times, are the actual facts, in their reality and their doctrinal truth, recorded in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Prophets, the Gospels. All these fruitful interpretations would be unfruitful and no interpretation, did they not grow out of the real actual germ-God made the world and all things that are therein. The physical is alphabet of the spiritual. All the works of the Most High are two and two, one against another (Ecclus. xxxiii. 15). "Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet; Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet." The whole becomes more wonderful when compared with Auguste Comte's famous but erroneous law of scientific progress. Every science, he says, passes to perfection by three stages the theological, the metaphysical, the positive. Biblical science is the very reverse of this, and founded on the most positive and simple statements which it is possible to make. The whole race of man, and afterwards Israel in particular, were dealt with in the directest, most real, and positive manner. Those were the true days of sacred positivism. The Lord is declared to be One God, Nature is a work of creation and order, a living expression of the might and omnipresence of the Deity. The visible world is not self-dependent, but in relation and subjection to higher spiritual power. He who doubts may compare the simplicity and reality of Genesis with the myths, poems, rhapsodies, of all other nations. From that positive was a transition into the metaphysical: the prophets are witnesses. Then appeared Jesus who, with perfect truth, established the world's theological school. His piety rested on true wisdom, and that wisdom was based on positive fact. Our knowledge of it is like a view in a glass |