The attempt to get over the difficulties of the literal method, in the instance that was just now before us, by abandoning it at one point only, that of the meaning of the word ‘day,’ has three disadvantages. First that of abandoning a principle while loudly and energetically professing to maintain it. Secondly that of addressing itself to one particular, and not to the whole of the subject. And, thirdly, that of being, in itself, surpassingly preposterous. For who ever did doubt, or could doubt, that in the place referred to, the word ‘day’ means, and was intended to mean, the space of our twenty-four hours? Is not this the meaning attributed to the word in the reference made to the first chapter of Genesis in the Decalogue? And are we not told, in the body of the narrative itself, with the most emphatic iteration, that the period of time intended by the word is what is comprised in the evening and morning?
On the other hand the historical method of interpretation explains satisfactorily, both why the work is divided into days, and why the constituent parts of each day are spoken of. This was done, because to do so was in conformity with archaic modes of thought and expression.
In this there is nothing forced or strained. Above all it is perfectly true. It also explains everything.
The attempt to place all we know of the stratification of our earth, of the series of changes that have been effected in the relations of the sea and land, and in extinct Floras and Faunas, on the further side of ‘the beginning’ of the first verse of this first chapter of Genesis, is equally portentous. Here again, all the difficulties of the narrative are left wholly unexplained, and the student is referred to an arbitrary, and contextually impossible, assumption, and told that it contains a sufficient answer to every objection. This interpretation makes the explicit statements of the subsequent account direct contradictions to the (by the supposition) implicit meaning of the first verse. One cannot but think that those who propound an interpretation of this kind have no suspicion of the mischief they are doing. It is impossible that its worse than hollowness could, in any case, escape detection one moment beyond the time that a man, who has but a very small store of knowledge, begins to think. And then, as all experience proves, the revulsion that ensues against such teaching (and revulsions of this kind generally reach the subject itself also, on behalf of which such teaching is advanced) is out of all proportion to the gain—and what kind of gain is it?—temporarily secured from ignorant and unthinking acquiescence.
Of course, the word ‘beginning,’ just like the word ‘day,’ and all the rest of the narrative, was intended to be taken by the rude people to whom the pictures of which the narrative is composed were submitted, precisely in the sense in which it was always taken by them; that is to say in the sense in which plain words are taken by plain people. And then arises the question we have been considering, How is all this to be taken by ourselves?
As our ideas rest on a different basis, that of scientific demonstration, we can acknowledge, in respect of any particular, that we are ignorant, either of the modus operandi, or of the time required for the operation, or of both. But Moses could not do this: he could deal with these matters only in conformity with the requirements of his purpose, and with the facts of the times.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE DELTA: DISAPPEARANCE OF ITS MONUMENTS.
Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be cast down.—St. Mark.
The respective fortunes of the monuments of Upper Egypt and of the Delta have been very different.