It may be said, however, that all this Biblical history, however it may accord with the little that remains to us of the written annals of early Oriental nations, is entirely at variance with those modern archæological discussions which point to an immense antiquity of the human race, and to a primitive barbarism out of which all human culture was little by little evolved; and which results of archæological investigation, while contradictory to the Hebrew Scriptures, are entirely in accord with the evolutionist philosophy. The prominence now given to such views as these renders it necessary that we should denote a special chapter to their discussion.
CHAPTER XIII.
UNITY AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
"These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nationsdivided in the earth after the flood."—Genesis x., 32.
The theologians and evangelical Christians of our time, and with them the credibility of the Holy Scriptures, are supposed by many to have been impaled on a zoological and archæological dilemma, in a manner which renders nugatory all attempts to reconcile the Mosaic cosmogony with science. The Bible, as we have seen, knows but one Adam, and that Adam not a myth or an ethnic name, but a veritable man; but some naturalists and ethnologists think that they have found decisive evidence that man is not of one but of several origins. The religious tendency of this doctrine no Christian can fail to perceive. In whatever way put, or under whatever disguise, it renders the Bible history worthless, reduces us to that isolation of race from race cultivated in ancient times by the various local idolatries, and destroys the brotherhood of man and the universality of that Christian atonement which proclaims that "as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive."
Fortunately, however, the greater weight of biological and archæological evidence is here on the side of the Bible, and philology comes in with strong corroborative proof. But just as the orthodox theologian is beginning to congratulate himself on the aid he has thus received, some of his new friends gravely tell him that, in order to maintain their view, it is necessary to believe that man has resided on earth for countless ages, and that it is quite a mistake to suppose that his starting-point is so recent as the Mosaic deluge. Nay, some very rampant theorists of some ethnological schools try to pierce Moses and his abettors with both horns of the dilemma at once, maintaining that men may be of different species, and yet may have existed for an enormous length of time as well. The recent prevalence of theories of evolution has, however, thrown quite into the background the discussions formerly active respecting the unity of man, but has, along with geological and archæological discovery, given increased prominence to those relating to the date of the origin of our species and the manner of its introduction.
The Bible gives us a definite epoch, that of the deluge, about 2000 to 3000 B.C., for all existing races of men; but this, according to it, was only the second starting-point of humanity, and though no family but that of Noah survived the terrible catastrophe, it would be a great error to suppose that nothing antediluvian appears in the subsequent history of man. Before the deluge there were arts and an old civilization, extending over at least two thousand years, and after the deluge men carried with them these heirlooms of the old world to commence with them new nations. This has been tacitly ignored by many of the writers who underrate the value of the Hebrew history. It may be as well for this reason to place, in a series of propositions, the principal points in Genesis which relate to the questions now before us.
1. Adam and Isha, the woman, afterward called Eve (Life-giver), in consequence of the promise of a Redeemer, commenced a life of husbandry on their expulsion from Eden, which, on the ordinary views of the Bible chronology, may be supposed to have occurred from 4000 to 5000 years before the Christian era; and during the lifetime of the primal pair, the sheep, at least, was domesticated. The Bible, of course, knows nothing of the imaginary continent of Lemuria, in which, according to some hypotheses, men are supposed to have had their birth from apes. A few generations after, in the time of Lamech, cattle were domesticated; and the metals copper and iron were applied to use—the latter probably meteoric iron; and hence, it may be, the Hindoo and Hellenic myths of Twachtrei and Hephæstos in connection with the thunderbolt. We learn, however, incidentally, as already mentioned, in the description of Eden in Genesis, chapter 2d, that there was a previous stone age, in which "flint, pearls or shell beads, and stream-gold" were the chief treasures of man, for this is implied in the "gold, bedolach, and onyx" of the land of Havilah. It is certain also, from the discoveries made in Assyria, on the site of Troy, and elsewhere, that the use of stone implements continued in Western Asia long after the deluge. In the time of Noah the distinction of clean and unclean beasts, and the taking of seven pairs of certain beasts and birds into the ark, imply that certain mammals and birds were domesticated. [108]
2. Before the flood, as already remarked, there was a division of man into two nationalities or races; and there was a citizen, an agricultural, a pastoral, and a nomadic population. Farther, the remarkable progress in the arts implied in the building of such structures as the Tower of Babel, and other temple and palace mounds in Assyria, and of the pyramids of Egypt, within a few generations after the deluge, proves that a very advanced material civilization and great skill in constructive arts had been reached in antediluvian times. [109]