Aye, if they had only been there at that time! But Eli de Beaumont, a learned geologist, not convicted of so many blunders as the bishop, alleges that the whole of the system of Teanarus, including the elevation of Stromboli, and Ætna, has been formed since the catastrophe of the principal Alps; and that the volcanoes of Auvergne and the Vivarrus are of post-Adamic origin.[131] So the bishop's geology does not contradict what he thinks the Bible says after all. On the contrary, so far from geology contradicting a universal deluge, the best geologists speak of every part of the earth having been repeatedly under the sea, and they collect its fossils on the tops of the mountains.
But the bishop ought to know that hundreds of years ago, before geology was born, some of the most learned bishops and theologians of his own Church, as well as some of the chief scholars of the dissenters, following the most learned of the Hebrew rabbis, did not believe that the Bible taught that the deluge was universal. For instance, Bishop Stillingfleet, in his great work, Origines Sacra, says: "I can not see any urgent necessity from the Scriptures to assert that the flood did spread over all the surface of the earth. That all mankind, those in the ark excepted, were destroyed by it, is most certain, according to the Scriptures. The flood was universal as to mankind, but from thence follows no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the whole earth was peopled before the flood; which I despair of ever seeing proved." Matthew Poole says: "Where was the need of overwhelming those regions of the earth in which there were no human beings? It would be highly unreasonable to suppose that mankind had so increased before the deluge as to have penetrated to all the corners of the earth. It is indeed not probable that they had extended themselves beyond the limits of Syria and Mesopotamia. Absurd it would be to affirm that the effects of the punishment, inflicted upon men alone, applied to those places in which there were no men. If, then, we should entertain the belief that not so much as the hundredth part of the globe was overspread with water, still the deluge would be universal; because the extirpation took effect upon all the part of the globe then inhabited."
Nor does the language of the Bible necessarily convey the idea that the whole surface of the globe was covered with water. Dathe, professor of Hebrew (in his Opuscala ad Crisin, edited by Rosenmuller, 1795), says: "Interpreters do not agree whether the deluge inundated the whole earth or only the regions then inhabited. I adopt the latter opinion. The phrase all does not prove the inundation to have been universal. It appears that in many places kol is to be understood as limited to the thing or place spoken of. Hence all the animals introduced into the ark were only those of the region inundated."
But the most literal rendering of the language of Moses does not necessitate our belief that when he says that the waters covered the whole earth, arets, he meant the whole globe. The common Bible meaning of this word is land, country, or region, as the perpetually recurring phrases, the land, arets, of Havilah, the land of Nod, the land of Ethiopia, the land of Goshen, the land of Egypt, the land of Canaan, which occurs three hundred and ninety times, may convince every reader beyond the possibility of mistake. How now, from this word being used by Moses, could this learned bishop conclude that he necessarily meant to describe the globe? Moses says, "The waters prevailed upon and covered the whole country." The bishop translates, "covered the whole globe;" evidently in order to make Moses commit a blunder.
But reference is made to the expression, "All the high hills under the whole heavens were covered;" which the bishop will have it meant all the mountains under the moon.
But the popular use of the word "heavens," in Moses' day, had as little reference to universal space, as the word earth, or land, had to the whole globe. It meant simply the visible heavens over any place; and its extent was defined by the extent of the earth those visible heavens covered. Thus Moses himself defines it, Deuteronomy iv. 32: "Ask from the one side of heaven unto the other." Deuteronomy xxviii. 8: "Thy heaven over thee shall be as brass." Deuteronomy ii. 25: "This day I will begin to put the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven." And so commonly throughout the Bible, "the clouds of heaven," "the fowls of heaven," refer to the optical heavens. Such is the meaning in Genesis. Noah describes the deluge as it appeared to him, as covering all the hills within the horizon of observation, and Moses copies Noah's log-book.
The geologist adds his testimony to the existing evidences of the recent submergence of a large region of Persia and Turkey around the Caspian Sea, and its subsequent elevation. But it is no part of our business to show in what way God produced the deluge. Geology shows us, however, that the submergence of parts of the earth beneath the sea, and their subsequent elevation, is the most common of all geological phenomena; almost all existing continents and islands having been submerged.
The bishop is as far behind the age in his astronomy as in his geology. He blindly follows the Infidels of the last century in their attack on Joshua's miracle, arresting the sun and moon, as inconsistent with their science; which taught the immobility of the sun and moon, it seems, and was entirely ignorant of the modern discovery of the grand motions of the fixed stars, including our sun, and of the dependence of all the planets, including our earth and moon, upon that grand motion for the motive power of their revolutions.[132]
One wonders from what college the bishop came out ignorant of facts known to the boys of American common schools.
A great many of the bishop's blunders are occasioned by want of sense. The process is very simple. The sacred history is very brief. Only the headings of things are recorded. Much must be supplied by the common sense of the reader. The manners of the East are very different from ours. Three thousand years have greatly changed the face of the country. Ignore all this, and interpret the Pentateuch as though it consisted of the letters of Our Own Correspondent, and you will find difficulties on every page. Such is the style of Colenso's criticism. Assume that Moses gives a full and complete chronicle of all events which have happened since the creation, and then dispute the recorded facts because it can easily be shown he omitted many.