259

GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.

Genesis and its Authorship. Two Dissertations: I. On the import of the introductory chapters of the Book of Genesis. II. On the use of the names of God in the Book of Genesis, and on the unity of its authorship. By JOHN QUARRY, A.M., Rector of Middleton, and Prebendary of Cloyne. London: Williams and Norgate. 1866.

THE time was, when the existence of marine shells on elevated localities was considered such an irrefragable proof of the universality of the deluge, that Voltaire could find no other argument to overthrow it than the absurd supposition that pilgrims left them there on their return from the Holy Land. Since then the advance of Geological science has worked a complete revolution of opinion. The tendency of the age is no longer to cling to evidences of the truth of Scripture, which may be accounted for by other explanations, but to receive without examination any doubts which may be cast on the credibility of the Mosaic narrative. The anticipation of this tendency led some in the infant days of geology to look with jealousy on scientific investigation, but such jealousy has long since been acknowledged to be misplaced. If those who accept GOD's revelation as a revelation of undoubted truth will only be content to join with geologists in investigating the earth's history, as brought to light by science, there will be nothing to fear from fair and candid inquiry.

Many explanations have been given already of the first chapters of Genesis, which destroy all inconsistency between divine revelation and the discoveries of science. Some difficulties may attach to each, arising from the imperfect state of our knowledge. All cannot be equally true, although each may contain some portion of truth. Probably the true explanation has not yet been discovered, but when the reconciliation can be explained in many different ways, the probability that a reconciliation exists greatly preponderates over the improbability that what we and our fathers have believed on the authority of the Bible is nothing but a fable or a myth. Let us remember, that in the Bible God reveals truth, not for the gratification of intellectual curiosity, but for the moral conduct of our lives. That which is revealed could never have been learnt by human science, whilst in the revelation that which science could discover may have been veiled in dark sayings, for the very purpose of stimulating the intellects of men. The apparent discrepancies, too, between science and revelation may further have been permitted for the special trial of our faith, which is exercised, and often increased by the discussion of the questions to which they

give rise. It is the knowledge of Himself as Creator of the world, and not of the process by which at His command creation took its form, that God has revealed in the Bible; and therefore, whichever of the many theories respecting the Mosaic narrative of creation we may receive, our faith need not be shaken in the absolute and perfect truth of all that is revealed.

Another dissertation on the Book of Genesis lies before us,-Mr. Quarry's "Genesis and its Authorship"-which consists of two parts: the first treating of the import of the introductory chapters; and the second, of the use of the names of GOD in the Book of Genesis and the unity of its authorship. Although we cannot admit many of Mr. Quarry's conclusions, yet it is a very ingenious compromise, and written in a reverent tone; his position is to grant that the doubts of sceptics are well founded, and that the introductory chapters of Genesis are only allegorical and not historically true, and then he argues, that notwithstanding this, the fact still remains that it is GOD's revelation given to men by the hand of Moses.

Matters which are discoverable by human reason and the means of investigation which God has placed within the reach of our faculties are not the proper subjects of revelation; and matters which do not concern morals or bear on our spiritual relation towards GoD are not within the province of revealed religion. What therefore God intended to reveal by Moses was simply the fact that He was the Creator of the world. The order of creation was quite a secondary matter, and one which might be left for science to discover, but in order that men might understand that God was the Maker of all things, it was necessary to arrange the works of creation in some order, and that was done,-Mr. Quarry assumes, under the poetical imagery of the six days' work. The six days represent, therefore, a sixfold and exhaustive division of the works of creation, and not a temporal succession of days or even periods during which they were created. The advantages of such a view are represented by Mr. Quarry to be a release from all the difficulties arising from astronomical science or the successions of organic creation brought to light by geological discoveries, whilst at the same time, it exempts us from all anxiety in respect of any theories of the formation or transmutation of species by developement or selection, and also meets any argument against the credibility of the Scripture narrative which an infidel might allege from any possible future discovery of a greater antiquity of the human species than has hitherto been assigned to it. The actual priority of any particular creatures to others does not, therefore, enter into this view, since the principle is to group together the like organizations of all periods.

The great design which Moses had in view was to give the children of Israel just notions of GOD and to guard them against the

idolatry which was prevalent all around. The belief that God was the Creator of all things, and as such, was alone to be worshipped, would be a preservative against the idolatrous service which was paid to His creatures. It was needful to set forth the formation of the heavens and the earth as the first effect of God's creative power, because these things were exalted into self-existing Gods by the ancient systems of theosophy. Light, too, with its kindred heat, was worshipped as elemental fire. The sky or firmament had its special numen, or rather was itself a God. The sun and the moon were the Osiris and Isis of the Egyptians, and all these the lawgiver intended to show were not Gods but the works of the Great Creator.

Mr. Quarry lays considerable stress on the fact that the sabbatical rest of GOD was figurative, and if so, the six days' work must have been of a like nature. Anything like a rest on GoD's part after the Creation is contradicted by the SAVIOUR's words: My FATHER worketh hitherto and I work." The sustaining and providential government of the world which never ceased was as real a work as that of creation. The rest, therefore, can only mean the completion of all that was made without toil or labour, but simply by the will of Him Whose voice called them into existence. The hebdomadal division of time, Mr. Quarry brings some arguments to show, originated in Egypt, where each day was sanctified by a special dedication to a heathen deity; and to break off all association of the week-days with this idolatrous worship, Moses consecrates each working day to the glory of GoD, by connecting it with one of the great works of creation according to the sixfold partition which he adopts, whilst he devotes the seventh to the worship of GOD and enforces the sabbatical institution by the rest of GOD Himself, which followed the works of creation.

The arrangement of the cosmogony was therefore made as a special adaptation to the needs of those to whom it was first given. Being clothed in figure, it was equally true under all the various physical theories which have in succession prevailed, whereas if any one theory had been adopted, it would have been unmeaning during the prevalence of the rest. If it had been expressed in language which was fully consistent with the present discoveries of science, it could not have been understood by those to whom it was first given, and for many ages it must have remained a dark enigma. Even if it fully harmonized with the present stage of astronomical and geological science, when these have advanced further towards perfection, the record must again become untrue, whereas a figurative cosmogony would be equally fitted to all times and all stages of scientific development.

Mr. Quarry produces some authorities to prove that his theory of a figurative cosmogony is not new, but has been advanced without reproof in all ages. Philo, Irenæus, Origen, S. Augustine,

Procopius of Gaza, Cajetan, Lord Bacon, Henry More, Stillingfleet, Burnet, and Calmet, have all more or less supported it. A passage quoted from S. Augustine is remarkable as asserting the simultaneous creation of all things.

"The alternation of these days," he says, "is not to be understood of a succession of time, but of the variety that exists in the works of GOD, the historian having subsequently in his discourse divided that which God did not divide in the accomplishment of His work; for GOD created all things simultaneously, whilst by one act of His will, He provided for all the manifold variety of all species, in which will, all things were made without time, which from their very origin GOD ceases not to disperse throughout all time."

Mr. Quarry's theory might stand, we think, beside others which have been invented by Hugh Miller, Professor Hitchcock, and others. It is an ingenious method well worked out of reconciling the Mosaic records with the discoveries of science without diminishing from the authority of God's revelation. Whether it be the true solution or not, we cannot undertake to decide. It is enough that when so many reasonable explanations of the difficulties raised by sceptics have been advanced, the Christian's faith in the credibility of Scripture has nothing to fear from the discoveries of

science.

But whilst we can speak with approbation of this portion of Mr. Quarry's work, we regret that as we proceed our confidence in his judgment declines. We hoped that his theory of the Mosaic cosmogony was but the introduction to a vindication of the historical accuracy of the Book of Genesis, but great was our disappointment to find that, strenuously as he maintains the divine origin and the unity of the Book of Genesis, he allows all the early history of the human race to evaporate into allegory.

By those who divide the authorship of the Book of Genesis between the Elohistic and Jehovistic writers the first chapter is ascribed to the former, and the second to the latter. If these two accounts are inconsistent with each other, no compiler would have connected them as successive parts of the same continuous narrative. They come to us, not on the authority of the original writers, supposing the Jehovistic and Elohistic theory to be correct, but on that of the writer who adopted and compiled them. If, therefore, they cannot be contradictory, they must be capable of a reconciliation. The first chapter is intended to show that all things were created by GoD, and its order is figurative; but the second gives us an historical account of the order in which they were made.

The first particular for which Mr. Quarry claims attention is the suppletory or tentative character of the order and progress of the divine operations represented in the second chapter. The cosmical creation is assumed (verse 4) to have already taken place, but the

new-made earth is devoid of vegetation, (verse 5.) This deficiency is ascribed to the existence of a twofold want, viz., that of rain and of a man to till the ground. The first is provided for by the mist, which went up from the earth and watered the face of the whole ground, and the second is also supplied by the formation of the man. At first the man is only a lifeless figure, but life is added by the breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. The barren earth is now watered, and a man is found to till the ground. Next the earth is clothed with vegetation, for the LORD plants a garden in Eden eastward. Here is a dwelling-place for man furnished with all trees needful for ornament or sustenance. Provision is moreover made for his moral probation in the two trees which were planted in the midst the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To secure the fertility of the garden thus amply furnished, the mist is not sufficient, but a stream is caused to spring up and flow through the garden, sufficiently copious to form the heads of the four chief rivers of the earth. But man is a social being and was made with instincts for the continuance of his kind; he needs a companion and a wife, and therefore GOD determines to supply this want also; but first He produces from the ground various kinds of beasts and birds, and brings them to Adam to see what he would call them. The formation of all these creatures having failed in providing a suitable mate for the man, a different plan is then adopted, and woman is formed out of the man by the withdrawal of a rib during a deep sleep which fell upon Adam. The man and the woman have now but one want, though as yet they knew it not as such-they were both naked and were not ashamed.

The next point towards which Mr. Quarry attracts attention is, that in these two accounts of the creation, not only the order of events is different, but the gradual and tentative mode of proceeding, whereby wants are supplied and deficiencies are provided for as they arise, is wholly diverse in character. In the first the operations are absolute and complete. The word is simply spoken and the work is done, whilst in the second a divine anthropism pervades the narrative. The moulding process of man's formation suggests the idea of a human workman moulding an image of plastic clay, and when the image is completed GOD proceeds, as one would endeavour to restore life to a half-drowned person, by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. When the garden of Eden is to be provided, He does not speak the word, "Let the earth bring forth grass," but after the manner of a gardener, GoD first plants the garden and then causes to grow from the ground all trees that were useful for ornament or fruit. When the woman is formed, the action is as that of a surgeon performing some nice operation. Again this anthropism is seen in the human representation of GOD walking in the garden in the cool of the day and