Chapter 5

[39]See also Howorth,The Mammoth and the Flood, and papers by Professor Prestwich inJournal Geol. SocietyandTrans. Royal Societyand by Andrews, Winchell, and others in America.

We may proceed to inquire as to whether the position which we have now reached is likely to be permanent, or may represent merely one shifting phase of opinion. For this purpose we may formulate these conclusions in a few general statements, merely referring to the evidence on which they are based, as any complete discussion of this would necessarily be impossible within the limits of this work. We may first summarise the present position of the matter as indicated by historical and scientific research, altogether independently of the Bible.[40]

[40]See articles by the author inThe Contemporary Review, December 1889, and inThe Magazine of Christian Literature, October 1890.

1. The recent discovery of the Chaldean deluge tablets has again directed attention to the statements of Berosus respecting the Babylonian tradition of a great flood, and these statements are found to be borne out in the main by the contents of the tablets. There is thus a twofold testimony as to the occurrence of a deluge in that Babylonian plain which the OldTestament history represents as the earliest seat of antediluvian man. As Lenormant has well shown, the tradition exists in the ancient literature of India, Persia, Phœnicia, Phrygia, and Greece, and can be recognised in the traditions of Northern and Western Europe and of America, while the Egyptians had a similar account of the destruction of men, but apparently not by water, though their idea of a submerged continent of Atlantis probably had reference to the antediluvian world. Thus we find this story widely spread over the earth, and possessed by members of all the leading divisions of mankind. This does not necessarily prove the universality of the Deluge, though every distinct people naturally refers it to its own country. It shows, however, the existence of some very early common source of the tradition, and the variations are not more than were to have been expected in the different channels of transmission.

2. Parallel with this historical evidence lies the result of geological and archæological research, which has revealed to us the remains and works of prehistoric men, racially distinct from those of modern times, and who inhabited the earth at a period when its animal population was to a great extent distinct from that at present existing, and when its physical condition was also in many respects different. Thus in Europe and Asia, and to some extent also in America, we have evidence that the present races of men were preceded by others which have passed away, and this at the sametime with many important species of land animals, once the contemporaries of man, but now known only as fossils. These ancient men are those called by geologists later pleistocene, or post-glacial, or the men of the cave and gravel deposits, or of the age of the mammoth, and who have been designated by archæologists palæolithic men, or, more properly, palæocosmic men, since the character of their stone implements is only one not very important feature of their history, and implements of the palæolithic type have been used in all periods, and indeed are still used in some places.

3. The prevalence among geologists of an exaggerated and unreasonable uniformitarianism, which refused to allow sufficient prominence to sudden cataclysms arising from the slow accumulation of natural forces, and which was a natural reaction from the convulsive geology of an earlier period, has caused the idea to be generally entertained that the age of palæocosmic men was of vast duration, and passed only by slow gradations and a gradual transition into the new conditions of the modern period. This view long was, and still is, an obstacle to any rational correlation of the geological and traditional history of man. Recently, however, new views have been forced on geologists, and have led many of the most sagacious observers and reasoners to see that the palanthropic period is much nearer to us than we had imagined. The arguments for this I have referred to in previous pages, and need not reiteratethem, here. A few leading points may, however, be noted. One of these is the small amount of physical or organic change which has occurred since the close of the palanthropic period. Another is the more rapid rate of erosion and deposition by rivers in the modern period than had previously been supposed. Another is the striking fact that a large number of mammals, like the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, seem to have perished simultaneously with the palæocosmic men, and this by some sudden catastrophe.[41]It has also been shown by Pictet and Dawkins that all the extant mammals of Europe already existed in the post-glacial age, but along with many others now altogether or locally extinct. Thus there seems to have been the removal over the whole northern hemisphere of a number of the largest mammals, while a selected number survived and no additions were made. Again, while at one time it was supposed that the remains of palæocosmic man and his contemporaries were confined to caverns and river alluvia, it is now known that they occur also on high plateaus and water-sheds, in beds of gravel and silt which must have been deposited there under conditions of submergence and somewhat active current drift, perhaps in some cases aided by floating ice.[42]Lastly, while, as must naturally be the case, in some places the remains of ancient and moremodern men are mixed, or seem to pass into each other, in others, as in the Swiss, Belgian and Lebanon caves and in the superficial deposits, there is a distinct separation, implying an interval accompanied by physical change between the time of the earlier and later men.

[41]Howorth,The Mammoth and the Flood.

[42]Prestwich on deposits at Ightham, Kent,Journal Geological Society, May 1889.

Such considerations as these, the force of which is most strongly felt by those best acquainted with the methods of investigation employed by geologists and archæologists, are forcing us to conclude: (1) That there are indicated in the latest geological formations two distinct human periods, an earlier and a later, characterised by differences of faunæ and of physical conditions, as well as by distinct races of men. (2) That these two periods are separated by a somewhat rapid physical change of the nature of submergence, or by a series of changes locally sudden and generally not long-continued. (3) That it is not improbable that this greatest of all revolutions in human affairs may be the same that has so impressed itself on the memory of the survivors as to form the basis of all the traditions and historical accounts of the Deluge.

This being the state of the case, it becomes expedient to review our ideas of the ancient Hebrew records, from which our early, and perhaps crude, impressions of this event were derived, and to ascertain how much of our notions of the Deluge of Genesis may be fairly deduced from the record itself, and how much may be due to more or lesscorrect interpretations, or to our own fancy. In connection with this we may also be able to obtain some guidance as to the value to be attached to the Hebrew document as a veritable and primitive record of the great catastrophe.

The key to the understanding of the early human history of Genesis lies in the story of the fall of man, and its sequel in the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, the beginning of that reign of violence which endures even to this day. From this arose the first division of the human race into hostile clans or tribes, the races of Cain and Seth, on which hinges the history, characteristics and fate of antediluvian man; and, as we shall see in the sequel, from this arose profound differences in religious beliefs, which have tinged the theology and superstitions of all subsequent times. Of course, in making this statement I refer to the history given in Genesis, without special reference to its intrinsic truth or credibility, but merely in relation to its interpretation in harmony with its own statements.

It is further evident that this tragic event must have occurred in that Tigro-Euphratean region which was the Biblical site of Eden[43]and that while the Sethite race presumably occupied the original home of Adam, and adhered to that form of religion which is expressed in the worship of Jahveh, the coming Redeemer and the expected 'Seed of the Woman,' the other race spread itself more widely, probably attainedto a higher civilisation, in so far as art is concerned, in some of its divisions, and sank to a deeper barbarism in others, while it retained the original worship of God the Creator (Elohim). Hence the Sethite race is designated as the sons of Adam (Beni ha Adam), the true and legitimate children of the first man, and the Cainites as Beni Elohim, or sons of God.[44]The mixture of these races produced the godless, heaven-defying Nephelim, the Titans of the Old Testament, whose wickedness brought on the diluvial catastrophe. These half-breeds of the antediluvian time were in all probability the best developed, physically and perhaps mentally, of the men of their period; and but for the Deluge they might have become masters of the world.

[43]Modern Science in Bible Lands, chap. iv.

[44]That this is the true meaning of the expressions in Genesis vi. I cannot doubt. See discussion of the subject in the work cited in previous note.

This question of different races and religions before the Flood is, however, deserving of a little farther elucidation. The names Elohim and Jahveh are used conjointly throughout the Book of Genesis except in its first chapter, and their mode of occurrence cannot be explained merely on the theory of two documents pieced together by an editor. It has a deeper significance than this, and one which indicates a radical diversity between Elohists and Jahvists even in this early period. In the earliest part of the human history, as distinguished from the general record of creation, the two names are united in thecompound Jahveh-Elohim, but immediately after the fall Eve is represented as attributing to, or identifying with, Jahveh alone the birth of her eldest son—'I have produced a man, the Jahveh,' and which may mean that she supposed Cain to be the promised manifestation of God as the Redeemer. Accordingly Cain and Abel are represented as offering sacrifice to Jahveh, and yet it is said in a verse which must be a part of the same document, that it was not till the time of Enos, a grandson of Adam, that men began to invoke the name of Jahveh. It would seem also that this invocation of Jahveh was peculiar to the Sethites, and that the Cainites were still worshippers of Elohim, the God of nature and creation, a fact which perhaps has relation to the so-called physical religion of some ancient peoples. Hence their title of Beni ha Elohim. Thus the division between the Cainite and Sethite races early became accentuated by a sectarian distinction as well. We may imagine that the Cainites, worshipping God as Creator, and ignoring that doctrine of a Redeemer which seemed confined to the rival race of Seth, were the deists of their time, and held a position which might, according to culture and circumstances, degenerate into a polytheistic nature-worship, or harden into an absolute materialism. On the other hand, the Sethites, recognised by the author of Genesis as the orthodox descendants of Adam, and invoking Jahveh, held to the promise of a coming Saviour, and to a deliverance from the effects of the Fall to be achieved by His means.

It is clear that, from the point of view of the author of Genesis, the chosen seed of Seth should have maintained their separation from a wicked world. Their failure to do this involves them in the wrath of Jahveh and renders the destruction of mankind necessary, and in this the whole Godhead under its combined aspects of Elohim and Jahveh takes a part. A similar view has caused the Chaldean narrator to invoke the aid of all the gods in his pantheon to effect the destruction of man.

These considerations farther throw light on the double character of the Deluge narrative in Genesis, which has induced those ingenious scholars who occupy themselves with analysis or disintegration of the Pentateuch to affirm two narratives, one Elohist and one Jahvist.[45]Whatever value may attach to this hypothesis, it is evident that if the history is thus made up of two documents it gains in value, since this would imply that the editor had at his disposal two chronicles embodying the observations of two narrators, possibly of different sects, if these differences were perpetuated in the postdiluvian world; and farther, that he is enabled to affirm that the catastrophe affected both the great races of men. It farther would imply that these early documents were used by the writer to produce his combined narrative almost without change ofdiction, so that they remain in their original form of the alleged testimony of eye-witnesses, a peculiarity which attaches also to the Chaldean version, as this purports to be in the form given by Hasisadra, the Chaldean Noah, himself.[46]

[45]See, for a very clear statement of these views, Professor Green inHebraica, January 1889, along with Dr. Harper'srésuméof the Pentateuchal criticism in the previous number.

[46]Translation of G. Smith and others. With reference to the preservation of this and the Hebrew narrative in writing, we should bear in mind that writing was an art well known in Chaldea and Egypt immediately after the Deluge, or at least between 2000 and 3000B.C., and that the Chaldean narrator speaks of documents hidden by Noah at Sippara before the Deluge.

Let us now inquire into the physical aspects of the Deluge, as they are said to have presented themselves to the ancient witness or witnesses to whom we owe the Biblical account of the catastrophe, and endeavour to ascertain if they have any agreement with the conditions of the great post-glacial Deluge of geology. Let it be observed here that we are dealing not with prehistoric events but with a written history, supposed by some to have been compiled from two contemporary documents, and corroborated by the testimony of the ancient Chaldean tablets copied by the scribes of Assurbanipal, apparently from different originals, preserved in very ancient Chaldean temples.

The preparation of an ark or ship, and the accommodation therein, not only of Noah and his family, but of a certain number of animals, is a feature in which most Deluge narratives agree. This implies a considerable advance in the arts of construction and navigation, but not more than wehave a right to infer from the perfection of these arts in early postdiluvian times, when it can scarcely be supposed that the new communities of men had fully regained the position of their ancestors before the destruction caused by the great Flood. Lenormant, however, remarks here:

'The Biblical narrative bears the stamp of an inland nation, ignorant of things appertaining to navigation. In Genesis the name of the ark, Têbâh, signifies "chest," and not "vessel"; and there is nothing said about launching the ark on the water; no mention either of the sea, or of navigation, or any pilot. In the Epopee of Uruk, on the other hand, everything indicates that it was composed among a maritime people; each circumstance reflects the manners and customs of the dwellers on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Hasisadra goes on board a vessel, distinctly alluded to by its appropriate appellation; this ship is launched, and makes a trial-trip to test it: all its chinks are calked with bitumen, and it is placed under the charge of a pilot.'

This remark, which I find made by other commentators as well, suggests, it seems to me, somewhat different conclusions. The Hebrews when settled, either in Egypt or in Canaan, were near to the sea-coast, and familiar with boats and with the ships of the Phœnicians. If, therefore, they persisted in calling Noah's ark a 'chest,' it must have been from unwillingness to change an old history derived from their Chaldean or Mesopotamian ancestors, or becausethey continued to regard the ark as rather a great box than a ship properly so called. On the other hand, it is likely that the particulars in the Chaldean account came from later manipulation of the narrative, after commerce and navigation on the Euphrates and Persian Gulf had become familiar to the Chaldeans. Thus in this as in other respects the Hebrew narrative is the more primitive of the two, and is consistent with the necessity of Divine instructions to Noah, which, if he had been familiar with navigation, would not have been necessary.[47]

[47]See also the evidence of an inland position of the writers in the record of creation in Genesis i., as stated in my work cited inprevious note.

As in the Chaldean version, the Biblical history begins with the specification of the ark. On this (Elohist) portion it is only necessary to say that the dimensions of the ark are large and well adapted to stowage rather than to speed, and that within it was strengthened by three decks and by a number of bulkheads, or partitions, separating the rooms or berths into which it was divided. Without, it was protected and rendered tight by coats of resinous or asphaltic varnish (copher), and it was built of the lightest and most durable kind of wood (gopher or cypress). Only two openings are mentioned, a hatch or window above, and a port or door in the side. There is no mention of any masts, rigging, or other means of propulsion or steerage. The Chaldean history differs in introducing a steersman,thus implying the means of propulsion as in an actual ship.

Noah is instructed, in addition to his own family, to provide for animals, two of every kind; but these very general terms are afterwards limited by the wordsuph,bemah, andremesh, which define birds, cattle, and small quadrupeds as those specially intended. Noah's ark was not a menagerie, but rather like a cattle-ship, capable perhaps of accommodating as many animals as one of those steamers which now transfer to England the animal produce of Western fields and prairies. The animals portrayed on the ancient monuments of Egypt and Assyria, however, inform us that, in early post-diluvial times, and therefore probably also in the time of Noah, a greater variety of animals were under the control of man than is the case in any one country at present.[48]In the passage referring to the embarkation, only the cattle and fowls are mentioned, but seven pairs are to be taken of the clean species which could be used as food.[49]The embarkation having been completed on the very day when the Deluge commenced, we have next the narrative of the Flood itself. Here it is noteworthy that God(Elohim) makes the arrangements, and Jahveh shuts the voyagers in.

[48]Houghton,Natural History of the Ancients, andTransactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology; also representations of tame antelopes, &c., on Egyptian monuments.

[49]This has been considered a later addition; but the practice of all primitive peoples has sanctioned the distinction of clean and unclean beasts, which is merely defined in the Mosaic law, not instituted for the first time.

The first note that our witness enters in his 'log' relates to his impressions of the causes of the catastrophe, which was not effected supernaturally, but by natural causes. These are the 'breaking up of the fountains of the great deep' and the 'opening of the windows of heaven.' These expressions must be interpreted in accordance with the use of similar terms in the account of creation in Genesis i., the more so that this statement is a portion regarded by the composite theory as Elohistic. On this principle of interpretation, the great deep is that universal ocean which prevailed before the elevation of the dry land, and the breaking up of its fountains is the removal of that restriction placed upon it when its waters were gathered together into one place. In other words, the meaning is the invasion of the land by the ocean. In like manner, the windows of heaven, the cloudy reservoirs of the atmospheric expanse, or possibly waterspouts, or even volcanic eruptions, and not necessarily identical with the great rain extending for forty days, as stated in the following clause. The Chaldean record adds the phenomena of thunder and tempest, but omits the great deep; an indication that it is an independent account, and by a less informed or less intelligent narrator. It is worthy of note that our narrator has no idea of any river inundation in the case.

At this stage we are brought into the presence ofthe question: Is the Deluge represented as a miraculous or a merely natural phenomenon? Yet, from a scientific point of view, this question has not the significance usually attributed to it. True miracles are not, and cannot be, contraventions or violations of God's natural laws. They are merely unusual operations of natural powers under their proper laws, but employed by the Almighty for effecting spiritual ends. Thus, naturally, they are under the laws of the material world, but, spiritually, they belong to a higher sphere. In the present case, according to the narrative in Genesis, the Flood was physically as much a natural phenomenon as the earthquakes at Ischia, or the eruption of Krakatoa. It was a miraculous or spiritual intervention only in so far as it was related to the destruction of an ungodly race, and as it was announced beforehand by a prophet. Had the approaching eruption of Krakatoa been intended as a judgment on the wicked, and had it been revealed to anyone who had taken pains to warn his countrymen and then to provide for his own safety, this would have given to that eruption as much of a miraculous character as the Bible attaches to the Deluge. In the New Testament, where we have more definite information as to miracles, they are usually called 'powers' and 'signs,' less prominence being given to the mere wonder which is implied in the term 'miracle.' Under the aspect ofpowers, they imply that the Creator can do many things beyond our power andcomprehension, just as in a lesser way a civilised man, from his greater knowledge of natural laws and command over natural energies, can do much that is incomprehensible to a savage; and in this direction science teaches us that, given an omnipotent God, the field of miracle is infinite. Assigns, on the other hand, such displays of power connect themselves with the moral and spiritual world, and become teachers of higher truths and proofs of Divine interference. The true position of miracles as signs is remarkably brought out in that argument of Christ, in which He says, 'If ye believe not My words, believe Me for the works' sake.' It is as if a civilised visitor to some barbarous land, who had been describing to an incredulous audience the wonders of his own country, were to exhibit to them a watch or a microscope, and then to appeal to them that these were things just as mysterious and incredible as those of which he had been speaking.

Returning to the Deluge, we may observe that such an invasion of the great deep is paralleled by many of which geology presents to us the evidence, and that our knowledge of nature enables us to conceive of the possibility of greater miracles of physical change than any on record, such as, for instance, the explosion of the earth itself into an infinity of particles, the final extinction of the solar heat, or the accession to this heat of such additional fierceness as to burn up the attendant planets. All this might take place without any interference with God's laws, but merely by correlations and adjustments of them, as muchwithin His power as the turning on or stopping of a machine is in the power of a human engineer. Further, such acts of Divine power may be related to moral and spiritual things, just as easily as any outward action resulting from our own will may be determined by moral considerations. The time is past when any rational objection can be made on the part of science to the so-called miracles of the Bible.

To return to the passengers in the ark. This must have been built on high ground, or the progress of the Deluge must have been slow, for forty days elapsed before the waters reached the ship and floated it. It is not unlikely that the ark was built on rising ground, for here supplies of timber would be nearer. It has puzzled some simple antiquarians to find dug-out canoes of prehistoric date on the tops of hills; but they did not reflect that the maker of a canoe would construct his vessel where the suitable wood could be found, since it would be much easier to carry the finished canoe to the shore than to drag thither the solid log out of which it was to be fashioned. So Noah would naturally build his ark where the wood he required could be procured most easily. The Chaldean narrator seems to have overlooked this simple consideration, for he mentions a launching and trial-trip of the ship, a sure mark that he is a later authority than the writer in Genesis.

The inmates of the ark now felt that it was moving on the waters, a new and dread sensation which must have deeply impressed their minds, and they soonbecame aware that the ark not merely floated, but 'went,' or made progress in some definite direction. Remark the simple yet significant notes—'The ark was lift up from the earth,' and 'the ark went upon the face of the waters.' The direction of driftage is not stated, but it is a fair inference, from the probable place of departure in Chaldea and that of final grounding of the ark, that it was northward or inland, which would indicate that the chief supply of water was from the Indian Ocean, and that it was flowing inward toward the great sunken plain of interior Asia, which, however, the ark did not reach, but grounded in the hilly region known to the Hebrews as Ararat, to the Chaldeans as Nisr. A curious statement is made here (Elohist) as to the depth of the water being fifteen cubits. Even in a flat country so small a depth would not cover the rising grounds; but this is obviously not the meaning of the narrator, but something much more sensible and practical. It is not unlikely that the measure stated was the water-draught of the loaded ark, and that as the voyagers felt it rise and fall on the waves, they may have experienced some anxiety lest it should strike and go to pieces. It was no small part of the providential arrangement in their case that in the track of the ark everything was submerged more than fifteen cubits before they reached it. Hence this note, which is at the same time one of the criteria of the simple veracity of the history. The only other remark in this part of the narrative relates to the entire submergenceof the whole country within sight, and the consequent destruction of animal life; and here the enumeration covers all land animals, and the terms used are thus more general than those applied to the animals preserved in the ark. The Deluge culminated, in so far as our narrator observed, in one hundred and fifty days.

His next experience is of a gale of wind, accompanied or followed by cessation of the rain and of the inflow of the oceanic waters.[50]The waters then decreased, not regularly, but by an intermittent process, 'going and returning'; but whether this was a tidal phenomenon or of the nature of earthquake waves we have no information. At length the ark grounded, apparently on high ground or in thick weather, for no land was visible; but at length, after two months, neighbouring hill-tops were seen.

[50]Genesis viii. 1, 2: 'And Elohim made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters abated,' &c.

The incident of sending out birds to test the recession of the waters deserves notice, because of its apparently trivial nature, because it appears with variations in the Chaldean account, and because it has been treated in a remarkably unscientific manner by some critics. It indicates the uncertainty which would arise in the mind of the patriarch because of the fluctuating decrease of the waters, and possibly also a misty condition of the air preventing a distinct view of distant objects. The birds selected for the purpose were singularly appropriate. The raven isby habit a wanderer, and remarkable for power of flight and clearness of distant vision. So long, therefore, as it made the ark its headquarters, 'going and returning'[51]from its search for food, it might be inferred that no habitable land was accessible. The dove, sent out immediately after the raven,[52]is of a different habit. It could not act as a scavenger of the waters and go and return, but could leave only if it found land covered with vegetation. As a domesticated bird also, it would naturally come back to be taken into the ark. Hence it was sent forth at intervals of seven days, returning with an olive leaf when it found tree tops above the water, and remaining away when it found food and shelter. The Chaldean account adds a third bird, the swallow—a perfectly useless addition, since this bird, if taken into the ark at all, would from its habits of life be incapable of affording any information. This addition is a mark of interpolation in the Chaldean version, and proceeded perhaps from the sacred character attached by popular superstition to the swallow, or from the familiar habits of the bird suggesting to some later editor its appropriateness. Singularly enough, the usually judicious Schrader, probably from deficient knowledge of the habits of birds, fails to appreciate all this, and after a long discussion prefers theBabylonian legend for reasons of a most unscientific character, actually condemning the perfectly natural and clear Biblical story as artificial and due to a recent emendation. He says: 'When the story passed over to the Hebrews, the name of the swallow has disappeared,' and 'it is only from the Babylonian narrative that the selection of the different birds becomes clear.' This little disquisition of Schrader is, indeed, one of the most amusing instances of that inversion of sound criticism which results when unscientific commentators tamper with the plain statements of truthful and observant witnesses.

[51]Margin of Authorised Version; less fully, 'to and fro' in the text.

[52]There is no reason to suppose, as some have done, a hiatus here in the narrative.

The uncertainty indicated by the mission of the birds seems to have continued from the first day of the tenth to the first day of the first month, when Noah at length ventured to remove the covering of the ark and inspect the condition of the surrounding country, now abandoned by the waters, but not thoroughly dried for some time longer. Still, so timid was the patriarch that he did not dare without a special command to leave his place of safety. I am aware that if the two alleged documents are arbitrarily separated it is possible to see here some apparent contradiction in dates; but this is not necessary if we leave them in their original relation.[53]

[53]See Green,Hebraica, l. c.

It will be observed that a narrative such as that summarised above bears unmistakably stamped upon it the characteristics of the testimony of an eye-witness. By whomsoever reduced to writing and finally edited, it must, if genuine, have come down nearly in its present form from the time of the catastrophe which it relates. It follows that the narrator leaves no place for the current questions as to the universality of the Deluge. It was universal so far as his experience extended, but that is all. He is not responsible for what occurred beyond the limits of his observation and beyond the fact that man, so far as known to him, perished. If, therefore, as some have held,[54]Balaam in his prophecy refers to Cainite populations as extant in his time, or if Moses declines to trace to any of the postdiluvian patriarchs the Rephaim, Emim, Zuzim and other prehistoric peoples of Palestine, we may infer, without any contradiction of our narrative, that there were surviving antediluvians other than the Noachidæ, whatever improbability may attach to this on other grounds, and more especially from the now ascertained extension of the post-glacial submergence over nearly all parts of the northern hemisphere.

[54]Motais,Déluge Biblique.

Let it also be noticed that beyond the prophetic intimation to Noah, and the one expression, Jahveh 'shut him in,' which may refer merely to providential care, there is, as already remarked, nothing miraculous, in the popular sense of that term; and that mythical elements, such as those introduced into the Babylonian narrative, are altogether absent. The story relates to plain matters of fact, which, if they happened at all, any one might observe, and for the proof of whichany ordinary testimony would be sufficient. It may be profitable, however, to revert here to the probable relation of this narrative to the geological facts already adverted to, and also its bearing on the mythical and polytheistic additions which we find in the Deluge stories of heathen nations.

Regarding the Biblical Deluge as a record of a submergence of a vast region of Eur-Asia and Northern Africa, at least, while no similar catastrophe has been recorded subsequently, it is unquestionable that submergences equally important have occurred again and again in the geological history of our continents, and have been equally destructive of animal life. It is true that most of these are believed to have been of more slow and gradual character than that recorded in Genesis, but in the case of many of them this is a very uncertain inference from the analogy of modern changes; and it is certain that the post-glacial submergence, which closed the era of palæocosmic man and his companion animals, must have been one of the most transient on record. On the other hand, we need not limit the entire duration of the Noachic submergence to the single year whose record has been preserved to us. Local subsidence may have been in progress throughout the later antediluvian age, and the experience of the narrator in Genesis may have related only to its culmination in the central district of human residence. Finally, if man was really a witness of this last great continental submergence,we cannot be too thankful that there were so intelligent witnesses to preserve the record of the event for our information.

It is needless, then, to enter into further details, though these are sufficient to fill volumes if desired, in proof of the remarkable convergence of history and geological discovery on the great Flood, which now constitutes one of the most remarkable illustrations of the points of contact of science proceeding on its own methods of investigation and Divine revelation, preserving the records of ancient events otherwise lost or buried under accretions of myth and fancy. I have already endeavoured to show that the earliest race of palæocosmic men, that of Canstadt, very fairly corresponds with what may have been the characteristics of the ruder tribes of Cainites, and that if we regard the Truchère skull as representing the Sethite people, we may suppose the Cro-magnon race to represent the giants, or Nephelim, who sprung from the union of the two pure types. I have also referred to the possibility that the Truchère race, so little known to us as yet, may have been a prot-Iberian people, possessing even before the Flood domestic animals, agriculture, and some of the arts of life, corresponding to what we find in the earliest postdiluvian nations. This is, indeed, implied in the fact that the postdiluvian nations present themselves to us at once with a somewhat advanced condition of the arts, especially in Chaldea and in Egypt. Such possibilities may serve to suggest to speculative archæologists that theycannot safely assume that all antediluvian or palæolithic tribes were barbarous or semi-brutal, or that there was a continuous development of humanity without any diluvial catastrophe. It is also somewhat rash to carry back the chronology of Egyptians and Babylonians to times when, as we know on physical evidence, the Valley of the Nile was an arm of the sea, and the plain of the Euphrates an extension of the Persian Gulf. It is fortunate for the Bible that such assumptions are not required by its history.

CHAPTER X

SPECIAL QUESTIONS RESPECTING THE DELUGE

In studying the literature relating to the Deluge, we are constantly met by questions as to its so-called 'universality.' Was it a local or universal Deluge and if universal in what sense so? This is a point in which neglect or ignorance of the necessary physical conditions has led to the strangest misconceptions.

It is obvious that there are four senses in which a catastrophe like the Deluge of Noah may be affirmed or denied to have been universal.

1. It may have been universal in the sense of being a deep stratum of water covering the whole globe, both land and sea. Such universality could not have been in the mind of the writer, and probably has been claimed knowingly by no writer in modern times. Halley in the last century understood the conditions of such universality, though he seems to have supposed that the impact of a comet might supply the necessary water. Owen has directed attention to the fact that such a deluge might be asfatal to the inhabitants of the waters as to those of the land. In any case, such universality would demand an enormous supply of water from some extra-terrestrial source.

2. The Deluge may have been universal in the sense of being a submersion of the whole of the land, either by subsidence or by elevation of the ocean bed. Such a state of things may have existed in primitive geological ages before our continents were elevated, but we have no scientific evidence of its recurrence at any later time, though large portions of the continents have been again and again submerged. The writers of Genesis i. and of Psalm civ. seem to have known of no such total submergence since the elevation of the first dry land, and nothing of this kind is expressed or certainly implied in the Deluge story.

3. The Deluge may have been universal in so far as man, its chief object, and certain animals useful or necessary to him, are concerned. This kind of universality would seem to have been before the mind of the writer when he says that 'Noah only, and they who were with him in the ark, remained alive.'[55]

[55]Genesis vii. 23.

4. The Deluge may have been universal in so far as the area and observation and information of the narrator extended. The story is evidently told in the form of a narrative derived from eye-witnesses, and this form seems even to have been chosen orretained purposely to avoid any question of universality of the first and second kinds referred to above. The same form of narrative is preserved in the Chaldean legend. This fact is not affected by the doctrine held by some of the schools of disintegrators, that the narrative is divisible into two documents, respectively 'Jahvistic' and 'Elohistic.' I have elsewhere[56]shown that there is a very different reason for the use of these two names of God. But if there were two original witnesses whose statements were put together by an editor, this surely does not invalidate their testimony or deprive them of the right to have it understood as they intended.

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