" More than this cannot be made out on _any_
interpretation that accords with facts. It seems so clear to me that
this is so, that I hardly need refer to the use of the terms the
"_waters brought forth"_ and the "_earth brought forth"_ and the phrase
in chapter ii. 5--the Lord made every plant _before it grew_.
If, as we have been long allowed to suppose, God spake and the water and
earth were _at once_ fully and finally peopled with animals where before
nothing but plants had existed, and so on, I should hardly have expected
the use of words which imply a gradual process--a gestation and
subsequent birth (so to speak) of life-forms.
How the _order_ in which the events are recorded stands in relation to
the subsequent history of life-development on earth, and what its
significance may be, I will consider later on. First I will conclude the
argument for the general interpretation of the narrative.
2. _The Second Genesis Narrative._
I have only one more direct argument to offer; but I think it is a very
important one. The first division of Genesis ends with the Divine
commands creating man and the day of rest which followed. The narrative
ending at chapter ii. verse 3 (the division of chapters here, as
elsewhere, is purely arbitrary), we have at verse 4 of chapter ii, what
has been loudly proclaimed as _another_ account of _the same_ Creation,
which, it is added (arbitrarily enough--but _any_ argument will do if
only it is against religion!) is contrary to the first.
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