XXI.

THE DELUGE.

THE Mosaic account of the Deluge differs from that of the creation in one point, which is not quite immaterial. The creation and formation of the earth occurs in the pre-human age; Moses therefore could only give an account of it in consequence of a Divine Revelation, which either was vouchsafed to him, or, as we have seen is more likely, had already been vouchsafed to the first men, and was handed down by them to posterity. Such a revelation was not necessary in the case of the Deluge. Noah and his family were eye-witnesses of all its details, and, no doubt, handed on the narrative of their experiences to their descendants. Moses could therefore write down an account of the Deluge, simply by repeating the tradition which had come down to him from Noah, and without having received any divine revelation on the subject. Perhaps he may have discovered a manuscript already in existence, giving an account of this and some other events, and may have simply included this older writing in his narrative, without making any, or any important, alterations on it. The whole character of the description of the Flood, its circumstantiality and breadth, its picturesqueness and attention to detail, gives us the impression that it is, if not the description given by an

eye-witness, at least the transcription of a narrative which had been carefully passed on by an eye-witness.1 According to the chronological statements in Genesis, Abraham might have heard from Noah's lips the narrative of this great event. We may begin by supposing it probable that this narrative would be accurately handed down in the family of the patriarch, so that we may safely say that Moses could get the information for his narrative from a good source.

We are confirmed in this favourable opinion of the historical value of the Mosaic record by the legends of the Deluge among other nations, which stand in a similar relation to the Mosaic narrative as do their accounts of the creation to the Mosaic account. Although much which has been collected and affirmed about these Flood - legends, and about their relation to the Biblical narrative," will not stand criticism,3 yet there still remain several of such legends; and the fact that they exist, and agree with the narrative in Genesis, in the main points, and in peculiar details, can only be explained on the supposition that there was a common source for them all; and this can be no other than the tradition which the nations took with them when they departed from the home of their ancestors. But if all the records are compared, the Mosaic clearly gives us the impression of being rela

1 "The narrative of the Flood is like a carefully-kept diary."-Kurtz, Geschichte des A. B. i. § 26. Herder calls it "a journal out of the ark." 2 Lüken, Traditionen, p. 170. Stiefelhagen, Theologie, p. 528. Zöckler, Op. cit. p. 321. For the Babylonian account of the Deluge, discovered by G. Smith, see Fr. Lenormant, Le Déluge et l'Epopée Babylonienne, Paris 1873. (Correspondant, 1873. N. S. T. 54, p. 324.) Jahrb. für Deutsche Theologie, 1873, 69.

3 Cf. Dillmann, Genesis, p. 145. L. Diestel, Die Sündfluth und die Flut sagen des Alterthums, Berlin 1871.

tively the truest and most historical. "The legends of the Flood among various peoples," says Delitzsch with truth, “are corrected by the Biblical record, just as they, in their turn, afford proof of its historical truth. For the same foundation underlies the heathen legends of the Flood, only they are mythologically exaggerated, and thereby so transformed that the moral meaning of the event is lost; the locality is brought as near as possible to the home of the nation, the idea of a general Flood is more or less lost in that of a national and particular Flood, and the national manners and customs are carried back to the time before the Flood. But the Biblical record, with its freedom from all mythological and national elements, is the true and purely historical reflection of the great universal tradition."1

I will also quote an interesting observation of Humboldt's "The ancient legends of the human race, which we find dispersed throughout the whole world like the fragments of a great shipwreck, are of the deepest interest to the philosophical inquirer into the history of mankind. Like certain families of plants which preserve the type of a common ancestry in spite of the influences of height and the differences of climate, the cosmogonic traditions of nations everywhere display a similarity of form and feature which moves us to admiration. The most various languages, apparently belonging to entirely isolated tribes, give us the same facts. The essential part of the record which treats of the destroyed peoples, and the renewal of nature, hardly varies at all; but each nation has given to it its own local colouring. On the largest 1 Genesis, 3rd ed. p. 242 (4th ed. p. 199).

a

continents, and on the smallest islands, it is always the highest and nearest mountain on which the remains of the human race took refuge, and the event becomes more recent as the people are more uncivilised; so that what they know about themselves covers shorter space of time. No one who has observed with care the Mexican antiquities, which existed before the discovery of the New World, who has visited the interior of the forests on the Orinoco, who knows how small and isolated are the European colonies, and is acquainted with the condition of the tribes who have remained independent, can possibly be tempted to ascribe the existing resemblances to the influence of the missionaries and of Christianity on the national traditions." 1

This much, therefore, may be assumed as certain. In the narrative given in Genesis of the Deluge, a tradition has been transcribed which goes back to the accounts given of the event by eye-witnesses; and the form in which this tradition is given reproduces it more truly than do the traditions of other nations. We may even go so far as to say, that the tradition was handed down unaltered from the time of Noah to that of Moses, in the family of the patriarchs, and among the people of Israel, and that therefore the Mosaic record was a true reproduction of this tradition. Let us now see

1 Reise in die Aequinoctial-gegenden, iii. 408.

2

2 I cannot enter here into a discussion of the theory that two or three different accounts of the flood have been amalgamated in the record in Genesis, of which one estimates the duration of the Flood to have been a year, another sixty-one days. (See Dillmann, Genesis, p. 137.) I think that, theologically speaking, we may consider as admissible the theory that the narrative in Genesis, although historical in all essential points, contains legendary elements with regard to details which are not of

whether, as has often been asserted, there are any sure scientific conclusions which would justify us in disputing the truth of what the Bible says about the Deluge.

I shall continue the subject which was treated of in my last lecture by first discussing the relation of scientific conclusions to the Biblical record; and for that purpose I must mention the points in chaps. vi.

to ix. in Genesis which we have to consider.

1. God says that He will destroy man and the animals from the face of the earth. "And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die." Noah is to take a pair of each kind of animal, and seven of the clean animals, that is, the animals for sacrifice,'-with him into the ark, "to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth." And then the narrative goes on: "And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." 2

2. The following is stated as to the duration and religious importance-for instance, in the statements about the size of the ark, and such like. Then with respect to these details, we are not told how each actually took place, but what impression the men who lived at the time when Genesis was written gathered as to these details from the tradition. In the text, however, in comparing the Biblical record with the results of natural science, I have treated the former as being strictly historical.

"Three pairs, with one extra seventh individual, which it is supposed was a male animal intended for sacrifice."-Delitzsch, Genesis, p. 213. * Gen. vii. 23.