The rationalist objects to the long lives of the patriarchs, but he does not say why. Nor is there any reason why a man should not be constituted to live nine hundred as well as seventy years. It is a question of the sovereign power of God, on which mere reasoning is absurd. The longevity of the patriarchs would have rendered the peopling of the earth easier, as well as the communication of true knowledge more secure. But the skeptic does not even state the difficulty with any accuracy; for the earth must have been peopled from two persons, or at any rate from six since the flood, according to the Mosaic account.
After that, five hundred years, four hundred, and so on; and on the division of the earth in Peleg’s days, two hundred years were the allotted term of man’s life; and, ere long, “threescore years and ten.” But if we take the flood as the point of departure, the universal tradition, Mythology, and worship of men confirm the account of Moses, and of the existence even of the three sons of Noah.
The statements of ancient Eastern writers, preserved for the most part in Josephus and Eusebius, are as clear and distinct as possible, confirming the account of Moses even to the sending forth of the birds. And the traditional mythology of Egypt, Greece, and all the neighboring countries preserve the various facts and words connected with the flood, the ark, and Noe; tracing up their history each one to this same personage, making a god of him. And the eight became, in a remarkable manner, the sacred divine number in Egypt (the great converter of Mosaic history into fabular divinities), while he is in many fables represented as hid in an ark from the fury of a mythical representative of the deluge, and coming out by a new birth, and celebrated as the inventor of wine. A sacred ship was carried in procession in many places. The very word “ark” (in Hebrew, הָבֵּת teba) having given its name to many of the places in which these superstitious memorials of it were preserved. The preservation of the ark on Ararat is recorded by the most ancient historical records in existence; and in various places where temples connected with these events were erected, a large cleft was shown, through which the waters of the deluge are said to have retired.
In the east the general historical account was preserved more clearly and fully; a very natural result of the fact, that it was from thence, according to the Mosaic account, that the various colonies of the human race started whereas in Greece and places connected by colonies with it, each (though stating it in a way which, even to their own serious writers, proved it a far earlier history) attributed it to the first king of their own colony, and localized it. But they all agree in doing the same, each for his own colony; thus proving its universality, and in many instances acknowledging that their founder came from Egypt, and in one case in a very peculiar ship thence held sacred—the very one which was carried in procession in the rites of Isis, in which the ark and the deluge were celebrated.
Besides this, the tradition of a deluge is universal all over the world. I may add, that the ablest naturalists, such as Cuvier, allege it to have been universal. Where does this universal tradition come from? Whence its connection with the author of the human race preserved in an ark, and beginning again the history of man who had perished by a deluge?
I may add, that there is an ancient medal of a city in Asia Minor, called by the Greek name of the “ark,” on the reverse of which you have an ark, with a man and woman in it; the top taken off, and a bird flying with a small bough in its bill, and another resting on the ark: a man and woman are also outside, come down on the dry ground. All these, remark, are heathen notices of the deluge.
The skeptic suggests physiological difficulties as to the peopling of the earth.
Some physiologists have thought, on physiological principles, that the earth must have been probably more populous at the time of the deluge than now; but to such mere probable calculations it is really useless to have anything to say. The population of the earth increases so much more rapidly uncles’ some circumstances than under others; so amazingly faster, too, in proportion to the space over which the population has to spread; or, on the other hand, diminishes from oppression or misery; that assertions made offhand as to possible numbers, really prove nothing else than the disposition of the objector. The skeptic—who has not confidence in scripture, because he will not believe it to be God’s word, and who has great confidence in these surmises, because he is sure they are man’s—considers the latter, of course, certain, the former of no authority, and talks of demonstrations; though as to demonstration, for instance of the antediluvian population, it is a mere absurdity to talk of it. Does he suppose he has any demonstration that there has been no deluge; the testimony to which, and even to the Mosaic account of which, is everywhere, and the proofs of which, according to the authority of such men as Cuvier, are everywhere also? All this shows simply the will to make objections, and the hardihood of objectors.
I have already shown that there are proofs from universal tradition throughout the whole world of this great event. Some geologists have very likely rejected it; but it most certainly is not the case with all. Of the ablest there are those who do not. I do not doubt its universality; so that I leave any reply, founded on a contrary idea, aside.
Scripture states, that “all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Now this last may be a figurative expression for a very extraordinary quantity of rain from clouds; but it is either descriptive of what for quantity would be a miracle (for it uses an expression never repeated), or else it is some miraculous out-letting of water other than from the clouds. The expression, “All the fountains of the great deep were broken up,” if it is not some miraculous outpouring of the sea itself, must mean some outbreak of waters from below, which, as never repeated, is to be called, so far as such events can be, miraculous.
The skeptic says, “from the clouds and perhaps from the sea,” as if clouds were certainly one source of the waters of the flood; and, if there were anything else, the thing to be added was the sea. Now something the clouds is certainly mentioned. Would any one suppose, from the skeptic’s words, that if it were not the sea, it certainly was some divinely-caused outbreak of waters from some hidden source? He certainly does not dream of a “miraculous creation and destruction of water.” Be it so. But why, then, two words? Does not the narrative speak of some outburst of water known on no other occasion? What is the fact? It speaks neither of clouds nor sea. But, besides rain, it speaks of the fountains of the great deep being broken up, and the windows of heaven opened. It is never said, the water drained back into the sea; but that “the waters returned from off the earth continually:” and declares the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. That is, the narrator does present it as having its source and its arrest in the extraordinary intervention of God—call it “miracle,” or what you please.
In a word, it is certain that the sacred writer does, in the distinctest way, point out some very overwhelming outbreak of waters from an extraordinary source.
The reader may remember, that when God began to form the world, what subsisted as already created was one vast mass of waters, called “the deep:” “darkness was upon the face of the deep,” and “the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.” The earth stood, indeed, by God’s power, out of the water; but what unknown mass of waters was engulphed is not stated, nor what were the waters which were above the firmament or expanse. Whatever store of waters there was below broke forth over the earth, and from above came down upon it. The skeptic’s statement of the passage is a total misrepresentation of it.
He states, that the ark was not of dimensions sufficient to “take in all the creatures,” more exactly the animal race belonging to the dry land. It has been proved, over and over again, that it was. It has been calculated that it was a vessel of more than forty-two thousand tons, being four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five broad, and forty-five high; eighteen times as much as the largest man-of-war, one of which can stow, say, a thousand men, with provisions, for a very much longer time than the flood lasted, besides an immense weight of guns, shot, &c.; so that it is evident that the ark could easily have received the animals that could not live in the water.
As to the dispersion of animals, the discovery of many remains of different kinds, as of large elephant species, embedded in ice in Siberia—hyaenas and their prey in a cavern in Yorkshire—has remarkably confirmed the deluge. The extinction of many species and introduction of others in the most unlooked-for way, renders such speculations of no weight whatever.