- https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31885/31885-h/31885-h.htm
- [17:1]Sir William Jones, the first president of the Royal Asiatic Society, saw this when he said: “Either the first eleven chapters of Genesis, all due allowance being made for a figurative Eastern style, are true, or the whole fabric of our religion is false.” (In Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 225.) And so also did the learned Thomas Maurice, for he says: “If the Mosaic History be indeed a fable, the whole fabric of the national religion is false, since the main pillar of Christianity rests upon that important original promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent.” (Hist. Hindostan, vol. i. p. 20.)
:2]Mr. Smith says, “Whatever the primitive account may have been from which the earlier part of the Book of Genesis was copied, it is evident that the brief narration given in the Pentateuch omits a number of incidents and explanations—for instance, as to the origin of evil, the fall of the angels, the wickedness of the serpent, &c. Such points as these are included in the cuneiform narrative.” (Smith: Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 13, 14.)
[2:1]Origen, a Christian Father who flourished about A. D. 230, says: “What man of sense will agree with the statement that the first, second, and third days, in which the evening is named and the morning, were without sun, moon and stars?” (Quoted in Mysteries of Adoni, p. 176.)
[2:2]“The geologist reckons not by days or by years; the whole six thousand years, which were until lately looked on as the sum of the world’s age, are to him but as a unit of measurement in the long succession of past ages.” (Sir John Lubbock.)
“It is now certain that the vast epochs of time demanded by scientific observation are incompatible both with the six thousand years of the Mosaic chronology, and the six days of the Mosaic creation.” (Dean Stanley.)
[2:4]The number SEVEN was sacred among almost every nation of antiquity. (See ch. ii.)
[5:1]“Our writer unmistakably recognizes the existence of many gods; for he makes Yahweh say: ‘See, the man has become as ONE OF US, knowing good and evil;’ and so he evidently implies the existence of other similar beings, to whom he attributes immortality and insight into the difference between good and evil. Yahweh, then, was, in his eyes, the god of gods, indeed, but not the only god.” (Bible for Learners, vol. i. p. 51.)
5:2]In his memorial sermon, preached in Westminster Abbey, after the funeral of Sir Charles Lyell. He further said in this address:—
“It is well known that when the science of geology first arose, it was involved in endless schemes of attempted reconciliation with the letter of Scripture. There was, there are perhaps still, two modes of reconciliation of Scripture and science, which have been each in their day attempted, and each have totally and deservedly failed. One is the endeavor to wrest the words of the Bible from their natural meaning, and force it to speak the language of science.” After speaking of the earliest known example, which was the interpolation of the word “not” in Leviticus xi. 6, he continues: “This is the earliest instance of the falsification of Scripture to meet the demands of science; and it has been followed in later times by the various efforts which have been made to twist the earlier chapters of the book of Genesis into apparent agreement with the last results of geology—representing days not to be days, morning and evening not to be morning and evening, the deluge not to be the deluge, and the ark not to be the ark
[9:2]Mr. Smith says, “Whatever the primitive account may have been from which the earlier part of the Book of Genesis was copied, it is evident that the brief narration given in the Pentateuch omits a number of incidents and explanations—for instance, as to the origin of evil, the fall of the angels, the wickedness of the serpent, &c. Such points as these are included in the cuneiform narrative.” (Smith: Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 13, 14.)
9:3]Smith: Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 88.
[17:1]Sir William Jones, the first president of the Royal Asiatic Society, saw this when he said: “Either the first eleven chapters of Genesis, all due allowance being made for a figurative Eastern style, are true, or the whole fabric of our religion is false.” (In Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 225.) And so also did the learned Thomas Maurice, for he says: “If the Mosaic History be indeed a fable, the whole fabric of the national religion is false, since the main pillar of Christianity rests upon that important original promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent.” (Hist. Hindostan, vol. i. p. 20.18:2]”Cosmogony” is the title of a volume lately written by Prof. Thomas Mitchell, and published by the American News Co., in which the author attacks all the modern scientists in regard to the geological antiquity of the world, evolution, atheism, pantheism, &c. He believes—and rightly too—that, “if the account of Creation in Genesis falls, Christ and the apostles follow: if the book of Genesis is erroneous, so also are the Gospels.”)