The Dispersion.—The building of the tower of Babel is no myth, but a veritable reality. A portion of the mighty fabric still stands, a mountain of ruins, attesting to the vast amount of work it required in its construction. The story is told in few words, and those words cover centuries. The people engaged in its construction spoke one language, but when this language was confounded the empire was rent asunder. The narrative seems to teach the use of but one language on the whole face of the earth. Dr. F. H. Hedge, in his sermon on "the Great Dispersion," says, "Moreover, the phrase 'the whole earth,' as commonly used in the Bible, is not to be taken in an absolute or scientific sense. It is not intended to include the entire globe, or even the greater part thereof, but is loosely employed to designate the whole of that particular portion which the writer or speaker has in his mind at the time. In the present case it denotes the country bordering on the Tigris and the Euphrates."[131] If the views of this eminent theologian be correct, then, by the same principle of interpretation the unity of language spoken of, is limited to the country bordering on the Tigris and the Euphrates.
There is no necessity of a supernatural aid for the origination of language. Under the view already advanced, when the animals were brought to Adam, he readily gave them names, for he had received language from his predecessors, and now, being an especially chosen person, his endowments would lead him to a more vigorous application of its use.
It is not incredible that God could have fashioned the world and peopled it with myriads of beings in a period of six days of twenty-four hours each. It is not incredible that a cataclysm could destroy every living creature, save an appointed few, and cover the remotest boundaries of the earth. It is possible for God to do anything save that which is inconsistent with his character. What is possible for God to do, and what He does, are two very different things. What He has done can only be told from the evidences which He has left. What He might have done is only speculation. Man can only judge from the facts presented to him. He observes the course of nature, and from these observations his conclusions are drawn.
The world of nature and the spirit of revelation, when properly understood, are seen to be in harmony. Man is not to close his eyes and refuse to be guided by science, and with blind credulity accept the tales and prejudices of his grandfathers.
Note.—Dean Stanley, an eminent divine of the Church of England, in his discourse at the funeral of Sir Charles Lyell, takes unusual grounds for a theologist. He is reported as saying that there were and are two modes of reconciling the letter of Scripture with geology, but each has totally and deservedly failed. One of these attempts to wrest the words of the Bible from their real meaning, and force them to speak the language of science; the other attempts to falsify science to meet the supposed requirements of the Bible. But there is another reconciliation of a higher kind, or rather an acknowledgment of the affinity and identity which exist between the spirit of science and the spirit of the Bible. First, there is a likeness of the general spirit of the Bible truths; and, secondly, there is a likeness in the methods. The frame of this earth was gradually brought into its present condition by the slow and silent action of the same causes which we see now operating through a long succession of ages beyond the memory and imagination of man. We do not expect this doctrine to agree with the letter of the Bible. The early biblical records could not be literal, prosaic, matter-of-fact descriptions of the beginning of the world. It is now clear that the first and second chapters of Genesis contain two narratives of the Creation side by side, differing from each other in almost every particular of time and place and order. It is now known that the vast epochs demanded by scientific observation are incompatible both with the six thousand years of the Mosaic chronology and the six days of the Mosaic Creation. The discoveries of geology are found to fill up the old religious truths with a new life, and to derive from them in turn a hallowing glory.
GLOSSARY
OF
SCIENTIFIC AND DIFFICULT TERMS USED IN THIS VOLUME.
Adjunctive, having the quality of joining.