A
re-revelation would be required. As to all other cosmogonies, Egyptian,
Indian, and Buddhistic, nothing can be more opposed in principle and in
detail than they are to the severe and stately simplicity and directness
of the Mosaic.
[Footnote 1: Not even, for example, by Professor Haeckel.]
[Footnote 2: How, for example, did the writer come to introduce the
adjustment of hours of daylight and seasons in the _middle_, after so
much work had been done? How did he come to place _birds_ along with
fish and water monsters, and not separately?]
We cannot, then, account for the narrative on human grounds; nor can we
suppose that any inspiring control would have given the author so much
truth, and yet allowed so much error.
All this points to only one of two possible conclusions: either the
narrative is not inspired at all, and is a mere misleading story, into
which the name of God is introduced by the author's piety--and so really
teaches us nothing, since it is not revelation; _or_ the narrative is,
as a whole, divinely dictated, and must be true _throughout_, if we can
only arrive by due study at its true meaning. That part of it is, or may
be, true, even on the most cursory study, is not denied; that it is
_all_ true will appear, I think, in the sequel.
But there is a shorter and simpler reason why the rejection of the
narrative in Genesis would be a direct blow to Christian faith.
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