It is our purpose in this series of studies to trace the progress of events as related in the Bible from the dawn of history down to the opening of the New Testament era. The aim will be not to give a mere catalogue of facts, but rather to show the relation of cause and effect, and to unfold the development of the divine purpose which extends through all the history in the Bible. We recommend the student, first of all, to read the preface to this book.
Turning back to the beginnings of Bible history we notice six events between the Deluge and the Exodus. We begin with the Deluge as the starting-point of history. Back of that event is a land of shadows. We have so little knowledge of the world before the flood that its history cannot be written. But since that fact we tread upon firm ground, having both the Bible and secular history to confirm each other.
I. THE DELUGE. With regard to this event we note:
1. The fact of a general deluge is stated in Scripture (Gen. 7.), and attested by the traditions of nearly all nations. Compare the story of Xisuthros in Berosus; the record in the Chaldean tablets; the Greek myth of Deucalion; the Mexican tradition; and the legends of the North American Indians.[A]
2. The date is given in reference Bibles (following Archbishop Ussher) as B. C. 2348. This is probably incorrect. It may have been a thousand years earlier. But as archæologists are not yet agreed, we give Ussher's chronology, here and elsewhere, merely as a convenience in the arrangement, not as accurate.
3. Its cause was the wickedness of the human race (Gen. 6. 5-7). Before this event all the population of the world was massed together, forming one vast family and speaking one language. Under these conditions the good were overborne by evil surroundings, and general corruption followed.
4. Its extent was undoubtedly not the entire globe, but so much of it as was occupied by the human race (Gen. 7. 23), probably the Euphrates valley. Many Christian scholars, however, hold to the view that the Book of Genesis relates the history of but one family of races, and not all the race; consequently, that the flood may have been partial, as far as mankind is concerned.
5. Its purpose was: 1.) To destroy the evil in the world. 2.) To open a new epoch under better conditions for social, national, and individual life.
II. THE DISPERSION OF THE RACES. (B.C. 2247?) 1. Very soon after the deluge a new instinct, that of migration, took possession of the human family. Hitherto all mankind had lived together; from this time they began to scatter. As a result came tribes, nations, languages, and varieties of civilization. "The confusion of tongues" was not the cause, but the result of this spirit, and was not sudden, but gradual (Gen. 11. 2, 7).