separate purposes appears plain from-(1), Facts left out; (2), The enlarged and varied arrangement of facts, in the second narrative. 1.-Facts left out. There is no mention of the earth being originally without form and void, nor of darkness upon the deep, nor of the command, "Let there be light." The fact of creation is simply stated: the moving of the Spirit, the ordination of day and night, the formation and operation of the firmament, are not spoken of; nor the gathering of water into seas, nor the appearing of dry land. Sun, moon, stars, are not even named, whether as lights or rulers. Creation of fish in the water, and the image of God in man, are passed by; nor is there any mention of the Sabbath. We are told, "It contains no error of cosmical science."1 2.-The enlarged and varied arrangement of Facts. There is no separation of days, they are all one day, chronology is not thought of. Birds brought forth by the water (i. 20) are placed (ii. 19) with the animals, and formed out of the ground. The latter statement is not incorrect, for though science affirms that fish were the progenitors of birds, not immediately, but through the lizard, they may be said to come from the ground as mother of all things. Animals are placed after man, and woman is formed of man, not with man from the ground. The special mention of woman, and the words, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife," are undoubtedly to sanctify marriage, and to make the position of woman one of purity and safety as to her husband. It is hard, indeed, to resist the conviction that the whole is a proemium to the narrative of temptation and ruin, and of redemption from ruin. Adam and paradise, temptation and transgression, ruin and redemption, are the central objects. Geologist, astronomer, or theologian who attempts to explain the Hebrew narrative, is bound to take it with all belonging to it. The entrance of evil is proved by a world of sadness. 1 "Notes on the Earlier Hebrew Scriptures,” p. 16: Sir G. B. Airy, K.C.B. Man a Living Soul. 271 Consider somewhat more deeply the nature and meaning of the second narrative. Man is "a living soul," the living or efficient soul in the flesh-body and soul being one man. Sometimes, as the soul is the efficient or chief, it is taken as title for the dead (Lev. xix. 28). The soul is not an exile from happier existence, and placed in the body to do penance for formerly committed sins, but is that which the self-movement of God Himself called into being by effectual interference when He made man. We rightly say-the cause was God. The material of the outer body was earth. The inner spiritual ground or consciousness was fashioned into the Divine form, image, or likeness, by Inspiration. The effected object was a human form, of flesh subsisting, with inner Divinely embodied spirit. If there was any man before this, he was not a true man. The peculiarity separating the real man from animals and angels, is that animals have a nature which is wholly used up in the necessary expenditure of life; but man, being spiritual, is not expended in natural use; angels are in the image of God, being sons (Job i. 6, xxxviii. 7); but man, the earthly one, in God's likeness has a bodily form. Thiswhich leads some of us erroneously to regard God as manlike, because we, in a sense, are God-like-means that the spirit-embodied man, being exalted above the material world yet not purely spiritual, stands between the impersonal bodily world and the personal bodiless spirits as the connecting link of all created beings (Ps. viii. 5, 6). Not only so, man being a law unto himself, while God was shining forth in his spirit, his life was in very deed the vision of God. This light was quenched in the Fall, and life became a dead life; but the living spirit, though in moulded dust, subsisted: that by restoration in Christ we may be transformed again and daily assimilated to God. Thus viewed, man is God-man, and when laid in the grave, is that grain of wheat out of which springs, by Divine energy, perfect and glorified humanity. In Christ's life, death, and resurrection, there is a manifest oneness with our own. In the Scriptural sense, we live and die in Christ, in and with Christ are buried, in by and with Christ we rise from the tomb, ascend to heaven, and dwell with God. Cattle, reptiles, beasts of the earth, are called "living souls;" but there was no embrace of love, no breath, no special moulding in their creation. They grew, every one after his sort, having life from God-nutritive life, sensuous life, but all by means of the earth. There was no in-breathing, whatever that may mean, nor spirit from Jehovah, whatever that may convey. As to man, there was creation of body, enduing with life, and inspiration of soul. Scripture traces man no further back than to Adam, from whom we all proceed. Adam is placed in paradise to dress and keep it. Through some strange influence, a brute becomes an intelligent speaking creature, a means of temptation, and a power by which man, who was to subdue evil, is himself overcome by evil. If the whole be counted an allegory, the underlying truth is not the less intense or real. The world, in consequence, seems a mingling of wrath and love, but love has supremacy; and Satan, who had been banished into narrower dominion (2 Peter ii. 4), thus setting himself to war against man (Eph. vi. 12), is to find that man whom he abused-man who began with lower powers, made yet lower by sin-shall attain to higher state than even that from which the tempter himself originally fell (Heb. ii. 5). Man is called "Adam," D, earth, because of the earth was formed that body which became a vessel to contain that life of the spirit and soul which is the image of God. Adam is the earthly one, in contrast with that second Adam who is the Heavenly One. The former was a living soul, the latter a quickening spirit (1 Cor. xv. 45). One is the likeness of God in an earthen vessel, the other is the likeness of God (Phil. ii. 6) in brightness of glory (2 Cor. iv. 6, 7; Heb. i. 3). Adam, and we in him, are not only in the form of God, but it is characteristic that, being in the form of God, we are still men: for Christ, by regeneration, is God-man; and we, through Christ, are by regeneration Godmen. This confirms the fact of our kinship with the whole earth, and' the promise of our elevation above the earth into the "house not made with hands." Hence, man is as other earthly things, yet above other earthly things. He lives, Three-fold Nature of Man. 273 in twofold relation: first, to all natural and physical life by special operation; and secondly, in Divine kinship and communion by inspiration. If we draw a little nearer, the truth appears in this form the entire life of nature, in its reciprocal action and varied powers, has unity in and from the great Architect. The vegetative life is subordinated to the animal life, and the animal to the spiritual. The human body contains all the powers of previously existing life; and these, being combined by special operation, constitute that organic individuality into which the Lord breathed: not making man a part of Godhead, but creating a spirit of likeness to the Godhead in moral and intellectual power. At our death this created spirit is separated from the mortal, and at our resurrection is joined to the immortal body. The soul is the body of the spirit, the flesh is the body of the soul; and so far as our soul is animal, it is the informing part of that which is corruptible; and in so far as it is spiritual, or the vessel containing the spirit, it is called the inner man. The narrative is the simplest story ever told, suited for the childhood of our race, and for children now, yet the grandest ever written, the most mysterious ever conceived. We have in it "truths that perish never," requiring thousands of years for fulness of growth. Many a discovery in science died, like a thing born out of due time, and lived not again till ages had passed away. These living things never die. They are a song of strangest sweetest melody which saddened yet gladdened the purest spirits of our race: God's psalm of life, giving glorious ideas, making deeps where was no depth nor inwardness. No argument as to the verity of these narratives-the former in historical reality, and the latter as containing symbols of mysterious and spiritual, yet actual events—will be deemed conclusive without the evidence derived from the cuneiform inscriptions, or "Chaldean Account of Genesis." The discovered tablets are fragmentary, and in a mutilated condition; not one is complete, and only a general view of the whole subject can be obtained. The inscriptions agree with the Scriptural account of Creation, and of the Fall; and S it is conjectured that every creative day had its own tablet. Taking the best known arrangement of the frag ments, according to subjects,1 we have I. An account of chaos and generation of the gods. 2. A fragment, perhaps of the second tablet, on the foundation of the deep. 3. The creation of land. 4. Part of the fifth tablet, giving the creation of the heavenly bodies. 5. Fragments of the seventh tablet, giving the creation of land animals. 6. Fragments of three tablets on the Creation and Fall of Man. 7. Fragments of tablets relating to the war between gods and evil spirits. The translation of the fragments of the first tablet is :I. "When above, were not raised the heavens; 2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up; 3. the abyss also had not broken open their boundaries; 4. the chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producingmother of the whole of them. 2 5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained; but 6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.” The other translated portions-except 8 " a plant had not grown, and order did not exist"-refer to the creating of gods. The three next tablets in the creation series are absent, there being only two doubtful fragments of this part of the story." It is conjectured that they contained an account of the bringing forth of light, of the firmament, of dry land, of plants. The fifth tablet gives the creation of the heavenly bodies as contained in Genesis under the fourth day; and a subsequent tablet, probably the seventh, records the creation on the sixth day. This double example leads to the inference that every day's work was recorded on a separate tablet, and in the Genesis order of the days. A tablet, thought to be 1 "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," pp. 62-100: George Smith. |