Genesis Disclosed posted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 08/26/2012 – 16:21 Genesis Disclosed
GENESIS DISCLOSED
BEING
THE DISCOVERY OF A STUPENDOUS ERROR WHICH
CHANGES THE ENTIRE NATURE OF THE
ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION OF MANKIND
ALSO SHOWING
A DIVINE LAW, PLAINLY LAID DOWN, PROVING THE
ERROR THAT ALL MEN HAVE DESCENDED FROM
ADAM AND EVE
BY
THOMAS A. DAVIES,
Author of
COSMOGONY, OR, MYSTERIES OF CREATION: BEING AN ANANLYSIS OF
NATURAL FACTS, STATED IN THE HEBRAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION,
SUPPORTED BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXISTING ACTS OF
GOD TOWARD MATTER. ANSWER TO HUGH MILLER, &c.
NEW YORK:
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
M.DCCC.LXXIV.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1874, by G. W. CARLETON & Co.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Stereotyped at the
THE WOMEN S PRINTING HOUSE
56, 58, and 60 Park Street,
New York.
Dedicated
TO
THE EVER LIVING GOD
AS A
VINDICATION
OF HIS
WORD, COMMAND AND LAW.
OF
REPRODUCTION AFTER HIS KIND
Gen. I. 24.
AND GOD SAID, LET THE EARTH BRING FORTH THE LIVING
CREATURE AFTER HIS KIND, &C.
CONTENTS
PREFACE –
Address to Readers –
Introduction –
Postulates to be proven –
First Postulate –
Second Postulate –
Third Postulate –
Fourth Postulate –
Fifth Postulate –
The Stupendous Error –
Eliminations and Substitutions –
Conclusion and Verification –
Result –
Eliminations Restored –
How the Bible has come to us
PREFACE
The Christian world have ever been in search for the pure word of God, and we have all supposed that it was contained in the Bible now in common use. The discoveries set forth in this work, however, will clearly show the following astounding facts: That the name of a class of human beings made in the account of the creation has been eliminated from that account, although that name was specially given by God himself. That the creative name [was] given in the same account to the man put into the Garden of Eden, although it occurs in the first eleven chapters of the Hebrew Genesis thirty-six times is not to be found in our Bible at all, having been eliminated from the account of creation as well as from the body of the Bible. That a very important word has also been eliminated, and another of opposite meaning substituted, by which the class of human beings above referred to has been left out of the creative account, and thus the whole nature and meaning of the Genesis on this subject changed. That by similar eliminations and substitutions the flood has been made universal. It will not be our object to trace back and find out where these stupendous errors have arisen, but to deal with them as they stand in our King James Bible, the whole discussion being confined to the misuse of two names and one word.
ADDRESS TO READERS
The importance of the subject under consideration would seem to call for some explanation of the reasons which have induced me, as a private individual, to put forth this work. There are those whose calling it is to teach the word of God as found in our Bible, and persons who read are supposed to look to them for explanations. And so it should be with the ordinary reader, whose knowledge of the subjects treated of cannot be as extensive as those who make them a study and a profession. It would then seem presumptuous, at first sight, for any one to call in question the current teachings and constructions held almost as a unit by the divines of the day, and also by those of former years.
But the subject treated of here is confined to such narrow limits that it may be regarded as a single point of construction on a single subject, running, of course, through the whole Bible that point is the introduction of the human family on the earth, as recorded in the Hebrew Genesis of creation. Divines and commentators have regarded the Genesis as an unexplained portion of the Scriptures, and proclaimed that it contained mysteries which might remain sealed to the human mind forever. This is a challenge for investigation, for study, and for research, as it cannot be supposed that the Book written for our instruction was so worded that it could not be understood by man, especially the historic portion of it.
About the year 1855, the encroachments of Geologic Science (so called upon the
theory of the Mosaic Creation) were such, that the Christian mind of the world was almost taken off its balance, and divines from the pulpit began to overthrow the Genesis by adhering to and admitting that the days of the Genesis were not days, but extended periods of time indefinite in their range, and subsequently preached Hugh Miller as the second or only Moses. This frightful condition of things, to my mind, would eventually lead to the overthrow of the Mosaic account and the Bible, in the minds of a vast number of persons who took the geologist s assumptions as facts, and made out a creation by their mode, and ignored the mode laid down in the Mosaic account.
On the first announcement of these geologic theories, my mind was drawn to the investigation of the Mosaic account of creation to see how this tide of unbelief could be arrested by facts within the account itself. I had no knowledge of the Hebrew, and the progress was slow. I obtained, however, a verified copy of the Hebrew, translated word for word, and the result of the comparison between the two revealed the fact that the King James translation of the first twenty-five verses of the first chapter has but one error in translation; that was found in the first verse and the second word in our Bible. The word the, In the beginning, etc., is interpolated, and is not found in the Hebrew. Nor did I discover any other errors in the first chapter, except in the 26th and 27th verses, which relate to the creation of mankind. A portion of these errors run through the first eleven or twelve chapters.
The result of these fifteen years of study and investigation into the Genesis was published in 1857, under the title of COSMOGONY; OR THE MYSTERIES OF CREATION: being an analysis of the natural facts stated in the Hebraic account of the creation, supported by the development of the existing acts of God toward matter. I only wish now that I had had at that tine more experience in writing, that I could have dressed up my ideas in a more rhetorical form, and presented them more acceptably to my readers. In that work I claimed that the Hebraic account of creation was in exact accordance with existing natural laws; that it was scientific beyond the knowledge of Moses, proving its inspiration; that no other mode of creation could be assumed by which an equilibrium would be maintained; that is, every portion should bear upon and support the other as it does now.
In that work, too, I pointed out the errors in translation, which bear upon and support the construction of the unity of the human family. Sixteen years have since rolled around, but I have never been able to banish the subject from my mind, nor cease my investigations. During that time I have sifted the subject till I think I have arrived at the bottom; for to my mind it is now clear, and the Genesis is no longer a mystery on this point. Every few years I would discover new points and see what I had never seen before, and every new discovery made more clear the preceding ones.
I was educated to the belief that from ADAM and EVE the whole human family had sprung, and that it was so stated in the Bible. I did believe it, and should have lived and died in that belief, had I not accidentally run against the subject in my investigations to disprove the geologic theories of creation. At first I was perplexed because I could find nothing in the Bible that said affirmatively that we have all descended from one man or one pair, or from a common parent. On the other hand, I found things
in the Hebrew that confused the English Bible. I worked on and on, comparing and unfolding ideas and expressions, which, though I had read them time and again for years and years, finally untangled themselves into a consistent elucidation, which I shall relate.
I have strongly debated with myself whether this Biblical discovery should reach the public eye for the present. Because the question of the unity of the race, though still in contest between men, is the construction and belief of most all religious sects, and possibly should be as long as they take the King James translation as their guide. Then there are so few who can understand the difference between an honest undertaking to correct errors of translation of portions of the Bible, and an infidel attack upon it, that very few would wish to breast this feeling in a social community. He has to encounter prejudices, ignorance, time-worn education, settled belief, and the natural uprising of feeling in every one s breast, that he has been found in error in what he believes as the result of education and his own reading. As an evidence of this, an old aunt of mine, good Christian, who read her Bible regularly and usefully, said, when she heard I had published my Cosmogony, Why, you don t say that Thomas has been writing a book against the Bible!
This is as near as the majority of people can judge of any such effort; and therefore the putting forth of such a work as this is by no means a pleasant undertaking, even though every word in it is true. The following are the reasons which impel me to it: The Genesis was written by Moses in the Hebrew language, and every word is the inalienable property of every human being on the face of the whole earth, and hence is my inalienable property. Whoever has taken away one word of this treasure by a misstated translation, has infringed those rights a mine, and has given the world a Bible made by men, and not the Bible made by God. This remark may be sweeping and severe, and needs explanation. If a word or two or more were mistranslated in such a manner as not to interfere with the general meaning or the sense, it would undoubtedly still be the word of God, and should be received as such.
But if on an important subject, such as the introduction of mankind into the creation, mistranslations occur in verse after verse, and chapter after chapter, and an important word left out from the Hebrew, and another of entirely different meaning inserted, by which means one principal act of God in creation is eliminated and set aside, and the whole meaning changed on this subject, the remark holds good. I shall show this to be so; and if I do, no one can say aught but that I am striving for the pure word of God, and claim it as my inalienable right. If I do not do this, I am prepared to take the consequences, socially and theologically, and the indignation of an offended God. To Him, on this subject, I am responsible directly and measurably to my fellow-men and the Christian world.
I feel the responsibility of my position keenly, but I am impelled to it by a sense of duty which accident has imposed upon me. Knowing what I do, and having found out what I have by an impulse ever worrying and working upon my mind, I should be guilty of a greater sin in keeping it to myself and telling no man, than if I should fail to do what I have said I can do to reveal the hidden mysteries of the Genesis, so long covered up to the world. Furthermore, I committed myself in my Cosmogony on the diversity of the human family, having then discerned just enough to make the assertion, but not sufficient to prove beyond all peradventure the fact from the Scripture itself.
Another reason why I put forth these facts now is this: No man living is free from the possibility of a mistake. If I should make one, it will be unintentional, though rest assured that every point has been weighed, reviewed, reweighed, analyzed, compared, and subjected to every conceivable test of which I am capable; then laid aside, thought over again and again, until every point has been worn threadbare. Still I may make an anti-Biblical, that is, an anti-Hebraic, statement, and if I do, I will thank any one, Jew or Gentile, Rabbi, Divine, or learned man, to inform me, that I may correct it at once. With these remarks, I consign the result of my investigations to the kind consideration of every one on the earth interested in the word of God.
Your humble servant,
THOMAS DAVIES.
INTRODUCTION
SOME readers on taking up this work will glance over the headings, read a line here and there, and then probably close it up, saying to themselves, This is the emanation of some infidel mind attacking the Bible. I will not read it. Some will read it out of curiosity, as they would a novel, to see what the author has to say, and how he says it. Some will skim over it in order to say that they have seen it and read it. While there are others who will he deeply interested in the subject, and read attentively with unbiased minds, and with a view of getting at the facts stated.
No one need expect to understand the problem by a casual reading, unless the author has greater success than he expects in presenting the facts in a clear light, for the whole is a connected chain of evidence, one link of which if left out, its unity is lost. Then, too, there is a difficulty in the way of ready apprehension. It is not like presenting a new subject where the reader is prepared to take in an idea because it is new. One set of ideas grounded in education and belief are to be eradicated, and a new set of ideas substituted in their stead. The reader s mind must be prepared to receive facts because they are facts, and if he does not find them so, to reject them altogether.
We have all been educated to the belief that the whole human family have descended from ADAM and EVE. This idea has been grounded in our minds by education, lisped in youth from the catechism, and continued in oft-repeated instruction from the pulpit. While the world was less informed than it is now, it was received without mental reservation. Education, observation, and the developed acts of God in this direction, and the persistent reproduction of different kinds of peoples, have stimulated inquiry, and serious doubt has seized upon many minds whether this was so, and if not, where the difficulty lay, and where it originated.
This doubt in the minds of many has resolved itself into open declarations, and such declarations have been supported by scientific proofs, quite satisfactory to many, while others have attempted the same proof on Scriptural grounds, based partly on the Hebrew and partly on the King James translation; so that the contest between the constructionists of the unity of the race and their opponents, has been carried on for years with great spirit.
Work after work and volume after volume have appeared, with no result except to make the discussion wider and more animated. Nor will any effort in this direction ever be successful, that is not carried on purely on facts within the Bible itself.
Here, then, must the whole subject rest for solution, as it is quite useless and a loss of time and intellect to undertake to move belief by any other arguments or proofs. Nor would this work ever have appeared, if the Hebrew Genesis did not within itself contain a clear solution of this long-contested and vexed problem. There is a current mode of reading Scripture, and teaching it by individual opinions, not found in the book itself, or even supported by anything that can be found in it. The moment a teacher branches off from that word, and evolves his individual opinions which he cannot support by Scripture, he is making an oration to men, and not teaching the word.
This remark is not made to criticise any one, but to prepare the mind of the reader to reject all in this work which may par take of individual opinion, not supported by the Hebrew Genesis, and be prepared to accept what lie will find there, no matter what open declarations may be used by others as expressions of indivi
dual opinion. All should remember that, if the Bible has been given to man for his instruction, it is his duty to read it for instruction and study, and comprehend its meaning. Every intelligent mind is responsible to his God to do this so far as he can understand it, asking instruction on such portions as are incomprehensible to him.
Then, what must be regarded as the position which the author takes in this discussion? Not as a teacher, for he does not pretend to teach. Not as a declaimer of individual opinions, for he knows how valueless they are upon this subject. Not an antagonist to the word of God, for that is his present effort to point out and support. Not to advance new and startling theories for fame and renown, for the substance of this work his teachings is as old as the world itself. Not to complain of any one for his belief, or of any teacher for his teachings, for the author has been with them, and of them. But having discovered in the word what he thinks will go far to end the controversy of the unity of the race, he now proposes to show what has been left be hind in the passage of the Genesis from the Hebrew to the English language.
This brings the author in controversy with men about the accuracy of their acts, and not in controversy with God and His acts, or the record of them. It is a controversy about the mechanical accuracy with which men entrusted with transposing the acts of God from the Hebrew language into the English language, have accomplished their mission. If they have not transposed accurately, they have not injured the word of God, but have simply failed to get the word in the new language. Though they may through error have done what has produced immense controversy, not one jot or tittle of God s word has been lost to the world, though it may have been suspended for a time.
The questions to be decided in this work are simple questions of fact: whether the King James translation is so faithfully done as to give the reader the same ideas as are contained in the Hebrew Genesis on the subject of the introduction of mankind in the creation, and the relative position of the man and woman placed in the Garden of Eden to that creation. There is no Christian who should not be deeply interested in these facts, whatever may be his particular creed, however limited may be his knowledge of the record in the one or in the other language.
A fact worthy of note in this place may be stated as a proof that the author has good reasons for believing, besides his own knowledge, that the positions that will be taken in this work as to these incorrect transpositions are true and cannot be controverted is that sixteen years ago he put forth his Cosmogony, and although this subject was not made a principal one, it was referred to, and the mistranslations were pointed out. The subject being comparatively new to him at that time, lie was not over-confident, and he sent the work broadcast, giving it to Divines, Jew Rabbis, Hebrew scholars, and learned men, with the urgent request to early inform him of any error the book contained in this respect. Many took it with the promise that they would do so. No man has ever answered, to this day, pointing out an error.
The following propositions, it is believed, will be shown conclusively:
First. That the Hebrew name ADAM, in Genesis i. 26, was a name given by God Himself to a class, and should have been retained in its place in the translation. Instead of which the term man is used, which has many and various meanings.
Second. That the Hebrew term HA-ADAM or THE ADAM, in Genesis i. 27, denoted and stood for the individual placed in the Garden of Eden, and instead of retaining his name in that important place, it has been changed by the translators to man.
Third. That the Hebrew term HA-ADAM or THE ADAM, being a proper name for an individual, and sometimes called ADAM without the article, is variously translated or transformed to the man, man, and men in succeeding chapters of the Genesis.
Fourth. That the act of making ADAM the class in the Genesis i. 26, was an independent act of God in the creation and has no necessary connection with the succeeding act of creating recorded in Genesis i. 27.
Fifth. That the translators have dropped the very important word AND altogether, which stands at the begining of the Hebrew Genesis i. 27 and substituted the word SO in its stead, thereby changing the relation between the 26th and 27th verses of Genesis.
Sixth. That by dropping the word AND and substituting the word So in its stead, the principal act of God in the creation, recorded in the Genesis i. 26, is eliminated and set aside, making this act in this verse a declaration or peroration of what was to be done in the 27th verse.
Seventh. That by these transformations, eliminations, and substitutions, the whole sense of the Genesis, on the subject of the introduction of mankind in the creation, has been changed and mutilated almost beyond recognition.
Eighth. That the LAW OF REPRODUCTION, which regulates and verifies the Hebrew Genesis on this subject, being among the first and most important emanating from God, has, as far as the knowledge of the author extends, been entirely ignored, or at least has remained unnoticed.
Regarding the time at which the King James translation was made, and the settled views as to the origin of mankind then prevalent, it is not surprising that the translators allowed change of words and interpolation of others to make it conform to what they conceived it should be. The subject in the Hebrew partakes very much of the character of a mathematical problem, where terms are used the definitions for which are found remote from where they are used. Substitutions of these meanings solve the equations, whereas, if these are not observed and not made, the problem remains unsolved.
The subject at best is a perplexing one, without a key; with that, all is plain. No one will attribute to the translators any other motive than to harmonize the Bible as a whole from their stand-point of knowledge and construction. The construction of the unity of the race consequent upon this translation is a great drawback, and to many a bar to belief in the Bible, they being ignorant of any change from the original word, so decided as to alter the whole meaning on this subject.
It may be asked, and very properly, what effect will all this have upon the Bible and Christianity? The effect upon the Bible would be to make it agree with the acts of God in the reproduction of mankind, as far as history records, and relieve it from apparent antagonism to these acts where no proof exists. Errors of construction or of teaching are mere frictions upon the great balance-wheel of Christianity, and the sooner corrected the more accelerated will be its motion and the more powerful will be its action. But there is still a more important question to be asked, and that is, Is this the word of God?
POSTULATES TO BE PROVEN.
FIRST POSTULATE.
That the Hebrew Genesis, as well as our present English Bible, records a Divine Law of reproduction for the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and for mankind, by which law, and in accordance with it, each separate kind of men and women now persistently reproduced, have been so reproduced after his kind since the day of creation.
SECOND POSTULATE.
That the Hebrew Genesis records the making or creating of two ADAMS. The one named by God himself, and that name explained by Moses as standing for a class, male and female man, in the day of creation. The other, the name of the individual man placed in the Garden of Eden, and in the Hebrew Genesis most generally called HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, and sometimes called ADAM without the article prefixed.
THIRD POSTULATE.
That ADAM, named by God and standing in the Hebrew Genesis i. 26 for a class male and female man, was the embodiment of the males and females who were the heads of reproduction of the various kinds of men and women now found on the earth, except the Hebrews, a
nd reproduced ever since in accordance with and carrying forward God s word, command, and law of reproduction after his kind.
FOURTH POSTULATE.
That the Genesis i. 27 is devoted exclusively to the account of the creation of the heads of the Hebrew kind. That HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, was a male, created and placed in the Garden of Eden with EVE, his wife. That there were other male and female Hebrews created as recorded in the same verse. That Noah and his family became the second heads of the ADAM and EVE line of reproduction after the flood.
FIFTH POSTULATE.
That the Hebrew Genesis records the destruction of the generations of ADAM and EVE, except Noah and his family, but nothing more of the human creation.
ACKNOWLEDGED POSTULATE.
That there is not one word in the Bible that declares in terms that all men and women have descended from one man, or one pair, or are of common parentage.
FIRST POSTULATE.
That the Hebrew Genesis, as well as our present English B records a Divine law of reproduction for the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and or mankind, by which law, and in accordance with it, each separate kind of men and women flow persistently reproduced have been so reproduced after his kind since the day of Creation.
We have read the Genesis for nearly fifty years as was supposed understandingly, and for over thirty years critically investigating every word and every sentence. It is safe to say that this reading and hearing read of this chapter has extended to hundreds of times, if not to a thousand times. Still, this great and important law of reproduction repeated three times in that chapter escaped our notice, and probably never would have been observed but for the following circumstance: This last spring, 1873, while listening to the reading of that chapter by the Rev. Dr. Cooke, in St. Bartholomew s Church, we followed him closely as he read along, every word and idea being familiar. He passed over the law of reproduction the vegetable kingdom, and over the same for the creations of the fifth day. But when he opened on the 24th verse, which reads: And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, etc., a flood of light burst upon our mind, and, absorbed in reflection, we lost the reading of the balance of the chapter.
After services, we returned home, took up the Bible, read the chapter over, and to our amazement found this law of reproduction three times repeated. The first expression was, Do I know anything about the Genesis after all? By subsequent reflection we found that this was not the discovery of an error but the discovery of a new fact, and we at once determined to again renew and continue our investigation with redoubled energy. Whether this law is new or not to others we have no means of determining, but we have never seen it referred to in any work, or spoken of from the pulpit in the light we read it now.
There is, however, no one principle more familiar to the observation of men than the operation of this law; no one principle upon which we all so much depend. It is the beginning and the ending of all our calculations based in the operations of Nature. It is the Alpha and Omega of all certainty. Do we sow the seed, not knowing what kindkind will be the result? Does the Caucasian propagate and not know what kind of a child will be born to him?
As examples: Do we sow the grass seed, and expect thistles to spring from the germs? Do we plant corn, and expect to find wheat in the ears? Do we plant the apple seed, and expect the sturdy oak as the tree? Do we breed from the cow, and expect the ass? Do we breed from the sheep, and expect the goat? Do we breed from the hen, and expect the horse? Does the fair-skinned Caucasian marry the fair- skinned Caucasian and expect the Negro for a progeny? Does the Mongol marry the Mongol and expect the Caucasian for his progeny?
Or these examples: Do we plant corn, and expect the alligator? Do we plant the apple seed, and expect an ox? Do we sow the grass seed, and expect a human being? Do we breed from the cow, and expect a peach tree? Do we breed from the sheep, and expect the moccasin snake? Do we breed from the hen, and expect the Indian? Does any human being marry his fair bride and expect as his progeny any one of these things?
No. We sow the grass seed and expect and get the grass of the kind we sow. We plant the corn, and expect and get the kind we plant. We plant the apple seed, and we expect and get the kind of apple we plant. We breed from the sheep, and we get the kind we breed from. We breed from the hen, and we get the kind we breed from. The fair-skinned Caucasian marries the fair-skinned Caucasian, and the same kind is the progeny – a fair skinned Caucasian. The Negro marries the Negro, and the same kind is the progeny – a Negro. The Mongol marries the Mongol: the same kind is the progeny – a Mongol.
If kinds are mixed in production, the result will be mixed. If one kind predominates over another in reproduction, the result will tend to that kind, and if continued the weaker kind will run out and disappear.
This law of reproduction, upon which we all so firmly depend, is not a law of chance, nor the result of trials by the Creator to establish and make it effective. It was proclaimed on the threshold of creation, and on the day of the making or creating of each kind to which the law applies. It was in full force on that day, and, as one of the unchangeable laws emanating from this high Source, has continued unchanged and unvariable to the present moment, and will continue during all existences which are reproduced. As we see its operation, so has every human being seen its operation. Ages past have witnessed it and depended upon it, nor has that dependence ever been disappointed in the violation of the law. Our experience, and the want of evidence to the contrary, confirm the fact that this law applies to all reproductions. We quote the passages of Scripture which contain this law, both for the vegetable and animal kingdoms, as well as for mankind:
Gen. i. 11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen. i. 21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and. God saw that it was good.
Gen. i. 24. And God said, LET THE EARTH BEING FORTH THE LIVING CREATURE AFTER HIS KIND, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his hind, and. it was so. shall be produced? Do we breed the animal, not knowing what
This is the King James translation, and seems plain, but the Hebrew is still plainer in the last verse, which applies to the human race. We give them literally:
Gen. 1. 11. And said God, Let sprout forth the earth grass of green herbage, seeding seed tree of fruit making fruit to its kind, which its seed in it upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen. i. 21. And created God the sea monsters, the great, and every soul of the life which creeping, which brought forth abundantly, the waters to their kind, and every fowl of wing to its kind: and saw God that good.
Gen. 1. 24. And said God, LET BRING FORTH THE EARTH SOUL OF LIFE TO ITS KIND. Cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth to its kind: and it was so.
It will be observed that the expression soul of THE life, is used for the creations of the fifth day, while in those of the sixth day, when mankind were made a created, it is soul of life. What the difference is, if there be any, we are unable to find out from the inspired word itself. We therefore do not pretend to make an explanation, but pass on with the remark that words are not engraved in that record without they have a meaning, though we may not readily see it.
The last law stands at the head of the creations of the sixth day. But this is not all. God not only gave mankind a law by which thei
r reproduction should be governed, but gave them a command to increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth. What condition would poor humanity have been in, to follow this command, if no law had been devised and established by which it could be carried out. The law would seem a necessity following the command.
If there had been no record of the law as there is none of gravitation, we would conclude that there must have been such a law established in the day of creation, because of its operation or result.
Can a child be born without a law of God to regulate its growth and birth? We all know that reproduction is now carried on in the human family, and has been through the range of all history, in exact accordance with some law of God upon the subject. Is this, then, the law of reproduction required by mankind to increase and multiply and replenish the earth?
LET THE EARTH BRING FORTH THE LIVING CREATURE AFTER HIS KIND, or as the Hebrew states it, LET BRING FORTH THE EARTH SOUL OF LIFE TO ITS KIND.
What meaning can be attached to this portion of God s word, if it does not stand for reproduction in the human family, when man is a living creature of God, and man is a soul of life. Although this law is a prominent law plainly laid down in Scripture, as far as our knowledge extends it has received no notice, and has been a dead letter upon the record. Further than this, the construction of the unity of the race, or that the various kinds of men have all descended from ADAM and EVE, is in deadlock with the law. Is this deadlock in the word itself, or is it in a manism imposed in error upon our King James translation? Is it a deadlock in the inspired Hebrew, or is it a deadlock in the translation? The word of God never stultifies itself, and whatever mutilations it may undergo in its transmission into another language, the original word stands. Nor can any such changes, or constructions based upon them, change either the Divine law or its operation.
If this be so – and we cannot see how it can be otherwise – how has this thing happened? We think we can give a satisfactory answer to the question. In the first place (and where it commenced we cannot tell), the world has been educated to the idea that we have all descended from ADAM and EVE. Some have controverted the idea upon various hypotheses based upon arguments outside the Bible. They have all been unsuccessful, because the assertion could not be disproved, and the King James translation aided the construction; and the world has gone forward under this teaching, till the idea has become stereotyped upon the minds of almost all believing Christians. All have read the Bible with the 26th and 27th verses of Genesis, which relates to the creation of man, as one verse in substance, made so by the translators eliminating the word AND, and the placing of the word SO in its stead, at the beginning of Gen. i. 27, as will be seen hereafter.
No questions have been asked, and no remonstrance made, so far as we know. The people have been educated on one act of God, in the creation of mankind, instead of two acts, and of course the theology of the unity of the race has been maintained. There is not, in all probability, one reader in a million, except he be a teacher, who has ever compared the Hebrew text of the Genesis with the King James translation; and if he had, might not have seen the discrepancy. Under the construction of the unity, the Genesis i. 24, which contains the law of reproduction of the human race, has been construed, probably – if it has had any construction – to relate to the brute creation instead of to mankind, overlooking the fact that there must be a law of this kind somewhere, to give vitality to God s word, and that man is a living creature of God, and man is a soul of life.
We can readily see how these errors have been maintained by reference to our individual case. It was nearly thirty years of comparison of the Hebrew text with the literal translation, referring to them both in all our investigations, before we discovered the substitution of SO for AND at the beginning of Genesis 1. 27; and over thirty years till we discovered the law of reproduction of the human family. Others probably would have accomplished it quicker or not at all, but this is the fact.
There is not a single married man, whether he be teacher of the construction of the unity, or a believer in it, who does not practically use this law of reproduction in his own mind, and depend upon it as much as he does upon the rising and setting of the sun. He expects his progeny to be of his own kind, and he is never disappointed. But practically he applies the teachings and belief to others he knows not of, that their progeny was at some time in violation of the law, while he feels secure in its efficiency towards himself.
Before we shall have done with this subject, we hope to be able to show that this construction of the unity of the race is an error, and is not due to the Bible, even independent of the law of reproduction; with that law recognized, it is a still graver error. It has not been our purpose to single out this particular construction, or attack it. It is one of the incidental points in the discussion that will correct itself when our King James Bible is corrected of its errors of translation from the Hebrew text.
What is a kind, as spoken of in the law of reproduction of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and of mankind or the living creature or soul of life? Is man a living creature of God? Webster defines creature to mean, That which is created; every being beside the Creator, or every thing not self-existent. The sun, moon, and stars, the earth, animals, plants, light, darkness, water, etc., are the creatures of God. If these be the creatures of God, what is a living creature? The answer is an axiom: anything made or sustained by God that has life.
Let those, then, who are willing to deny that the living creature spoken of in Genesis i. 24 does not apply to mankind, deny it; we are not responsible for such denial; we stand by the word as it is, and believe, where inspiration says, Let the earth bring forth the living creature or soul of life after his kind, that it means what it says, and that the living creature or soul of life should be brought forth after his kind, and that man, being a living creature of God, should be bound in being brought forth by this command, and in obedience to this law.
This law, being established on the day of creation, applied to the normal condition of mankind on that day; and no doubt the law would have been carried out in strict obedience, and only the various kinds of men then made would have been reproduced after his kind, but for the fall of ADAM and EVE, when hybridity between kinds commenced and has continued ever since. The first example is recorded in the marriage of the sons of God to the daughters or descendants of ADAM and EVE, as will be seen hereafter.
The question may be mooted, that kind, as used, means that trees should reproduce trees, that animals should reproduce animals, and that man should reproduce man. If this was the class of ideas intended to be conveyed, why was it not so expressed? Why was not this form and shape given to the law? If we admit that whatever is reproduced in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, or of mankind, is by the law, or is the work of God, our observation must be our guide to determine what the law works upon. We see the work going on before our eyes, and we depend upon results by what has been, will be; and hence we must admit the constant recurrence of results as of and governed by a law, or deny the existence of a supreme and sustaining Being.
Now, what do we find in the operations of Nature? We find that trees reproduce trees, that vegetables reproduce vegetables, that animals reproduce animals, and that man reproduces man. But do we find nothing further? Yes, we find a lower subdivision of reproductions than such a law of classification makes: we find not only that trees reproduce trees, but they are reproduced after his kind whose seed is in itself; we find not
only that animals reproduce animals, but that each kind of animal reproduces itself. We find, too, that not only man reproduces man, but we find that various kinds of men reproduce themselves persistently, and have done so during the range of all history.
We take the word as corresponding with the acts of God as we see them developed, and accept without cavil that these acts are in accordance with and flow from the law of reproduction, after his kind. That kind means any separate and distinct line of existence that continues to be reproduced and has been so reproduced during all history. We find no difficulty in giving force, vitality, and meaning to the term when we apply it to the ordinary transactions of life. We say kinds of apples, kinds of peaches, kinds of pears, kinds of grass, kinds of animals, kinds of sheep, kinds of any and every thing; and finally, kinds of men and women. Why, then, can we not give it force, vitality, and meaning when we find it in the word of God?
When, then, we find the law so plainly laid down, Let the earth bring forth the living creature, or soul of life, after his kind, shall we hesitate to acknowledge the law, acknowledge that man is a living creature of God, or soul of life of God; acknowledge that kind is a subdivision o mankind as we see them reproduced after his kind at this time throughout the earth? Had we not rather examine the subject and ourselves to see if there has not been an error in our reading, an error in our construction, or an error in our comprehension, of this important command and law. Whether we have so carefully scrutinized the Hebrew inspiration that we can set aside and ignore this portion of God s word, and satisfy ourselves by saying that our construction and our translation of the Hebrew is right, although in deadlock with the law, and of its operation before our eyes.
We must then conclude that there were kinds of people made in the day of creation as well as kinds in the vegetable and kinds in the animal kingdom, as it is not supposable that a law would be framed by an All-wise Being to operate upon that which did not exist. As the laws of God are continuous and unchanging, we also conclude that kinds of men have always existed as we know they now exist, and that the law of reproduction, after his kind, has been in constant force and operation since the day of its establishment. This is the reasoning upon the subject; the facts we will show hereafter from the record itself.
SECOND POSTULATE.
That the Hebrew Genesis records the making or creating of TWO ADAMS – the one named by God Himself, and that name explained by Moses as standing for a class male and female man in the day of Creation. The other, the name of the individual man placed in the Garden of Eden, and in the Hebrew Genesis most generally called HA-ADAM or THE ADAM, and sometimes called ADAM without the article prefixed.
The announcement of the fact that there are two ADAMS named in the Hebrew will astonish many; but the astonishment will be still greater when they are informed that the King James translation calls also for the same number. We have searched carefully to ascertain if ADAM the class was used in any other portions of the Bible except in the two places where it occurs in the Genesis, but without success. These two places are, the first in Genesis i. 26, and the second where the name is defined in Genesis v. 2. There are other places where the term is used where the individual s name ADAM would seem to be inapplicable; but we would not take the responsibility of saying that the meaning in those places should be ADAM male and female man. It is a singular fact, too, that God Himself gave that name to this class male and female. There is in contrast with this, that it is not stated in the record who named HA-ADAM or THE ADAM of the Garden of Eden.
The only safe rule to be adopted in reading an inspired record, where we may or may not get at the exact meaning, is to give full force to every term and expression – not to eliminate a term because we do not understand it. On this principle can any one explain why this name ADAM, occurring in the Genesis i. 26, was eliminated from its place there, and why it was retained in Genesis v. 2, where the name is defined?
We will, however, examine the two principal acts of creation recorded in Genesis i. 26 and in Genesis i. 27. We say they are different and principal acts, because the acts of creating and making are different, and the subjects were different. For the class ADAM in Genesis i. 26 was made in that verse, and created in Genesis v. 2, where the term is defined; while HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, and male and female, were created in Gen. i. 27, and made in the Genesis ii. 7, 22, of the dust of the ground, and EVE from the rib of THE ADAM. So that both acts in the two verses were making and creating, whatever was made or created in each.
What the difference of creating and making consisted in, or whether there was any difference, we cannot say; but such is the record, and so we read it. We conclude there was a difference from this quotation:
Gen. ii. 3. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.
The following are the only two verses of Genesis i., which record the making or creating of mankind:
Gen. 1. 26. And God said, Let us make ADAM in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen. i. 27. AND God created HA-ADAM in His own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created He them.
This is the inspired record, and these are the names used in the Hebrew. God has placed them there, and man has obliterated them and expunged them from His holy record in the King James translation. The name of the class ADAM, occurring but once in this account, can be clearly identified both in its position and in its meaning. Are Christians entitled to the word of God as written by inspiration, or are they to accept the garbled manisms of forestalled construction? We claim the God name ADAM, anywhere and everywhere, into whatever language the word of God may be translated, as a name not to be altered, changed, or fixed up in some other shape, to prove a construction not warranted, if these names are retained in the places where God has put them. The clear, distinct, and unmistakable definition of this name given by God Himself is explained by His inspired writer, Moses, as follows:
Gen. v. 2. Male and female created He them and blessed them, and called their name ADAM, in the day when they were created.
What genuine truth can there be, in any transcription of Gen. i. 26, that does not contain either the name ADAM or the definition given of it here? Can there be urged any objection to a name given by God Himself, that it should not appear in what purports to be His revelation? If this name had been retained, then the verse would read in this respect:
Gen. i. 26. And God said, Let us make ADAM, etc.
And if the meaning or definition of the name given by Moses had been used instead, then it would read:
Gem i. 26. And God said, Let us make male and female man, etc.
But, says the constructionist, male and female man are created in the next verse, and how can that be? Never remembering that by this inquiry he assumes to direct God in His creation, and calls Moses to account for his accuracy. Those who cannot gain a consistent idea from the record as it stands in the Hebrew, would do well to consider whether that be due to a want of research in themselves, or whether it should be charged as a defect upon the Creator and His inspired recorder. In other words, whether the Hebrew record is to be changed at will to bring it into coincidence with our own views of what it should he, or stand as God has given it to us through His inspired writers.
What, then, have been the mutilations of
these two verses relating to the creation of mankind? We give them as they appear in our English Bible:
Gen. i. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have do minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that ereepeth upon the earth.
Gen. i. 27. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
From this it will be seen that there are three very important eliminations in these two verses, and still more important substitutions for original Hebrew names and terms. The first is the striking out in Gen. i. 26 of ADAM (male and female man, Gen. v. 2) and substituting man in its stead. The second, the striking out the Hebrew word Vay, meaning and at the beginning of Gen. i. 27, and the substitution of the English word So in its stead; and, third, the striking out of the Hebrew name HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, and the substitution of the word man in its stead.
To any reader who never saw the Hebrew, man in the Genesis i. 26 would be considered identical as a term, and as identical in meaning with man in Gen. i. 27; and so it is in fact in the translation and we will soon give the reason. We now ask the question vital to the subject: Is ADAM, defined as male and female man, identical as a term and in meaning with HA-ADAM, THE ADAM or ADAM the individual man placed in the Garden of Eden? We say decidedly, and most emphatically, No! They are neither the same term – the one being ADAM, the other HA ADAM, in the Hebrew; nor are they the same in meaning – the one being the God name of a class male and female, the other being the name of a single male man.
Under the eliminations and substitutions pointed out, our King James Bible is made to declare that these two terms are identical as terms, and as identical in meaning ; and this was accomplished in a way not at all creditable to the translators – whoever they were, first or last -in our humble judgment. This necessity called for a radical change in the text. Instead, therefore, of retaining the God word AND at the beginning of Gen. i. 27, they eliminated it, and placed in its stead the manism So. Thus merging the Genesis i. 26 into the Genesis i. 27, and making but one act of creating and making instead of two; or in other words, making the first a declaration of intention to do what was done in the second.
It will be seen that the word So could not have been used if the Hebrew names ADAM and HA-ADAM had not been stricken out, and a common term substituted for both; and this accounts for the translators not using these Hebrew names in the forepart of the Genesis. This word So is an utter stranger to the word of God, an well it should be, when it makes the supposed inspired record declare that ADAM, male and female man, is identical with HA-ADAM, the individual. Even though the terms and creative acts had been the same, so far as man could judge, it would be an unwarrantable transgression for any one to eliminate the word AND from the record and substitute its diametrically opposite in meaning, the word So, in its stead.
To make this point more clear, the translators had retained ADAM in Gen. i. 26 and placed ADAM as representing the individual in Gen. i. 27, and then used the word So at the beginning of the last-named verse, without any further explanation of the meaning of the two terms. Would the reader conclude that ADAM in the one verse was identical with ADAM in the other? Most certainly he would, and he would be bound to do so. Then, when man is substituted in each in the place of ADAM and HA-ADAM, can the ordinary reader get any other idea than that man in each is identical in meaning?
What, then, is the effect of these eliminations and substitutions upon the record of the creation of mankind as a whole? They make good the construction generally received by various religious sects and the Christian world knew it, that all mankind have descended from ADAM and EVE. If the construction be as true as the premises from which it is drawn, and the Christian world knew it, there would be nothing more to write about on this subject. Such, unfortunately, is not the case. All readers of the English Bible suppose they have been reading the unmutilated and true word of God respecting the creation of mankind, never for one moment suspecting that they were reading what has no place in the original inspired writing.
The positive effect of such eliminations and substitutions has been the wiping out of the record in the translation a principal act of God in the creation of mankind contained in the Hebrew. For whatever construction men choose to place upon the Genesis i. 26, there is one thing certain: that it does record some act of God in this direction. Those who will construe it as a soliloquy, Let us make ADAM, etc., with out an act or intent of an accomplished act, are at liberty to do so. But Moses generally wrote to record, and not to mystify. Therefore, when he writes, And God said: Let us make ADAM (male and female man) to have dominion, etc., we conclude that this means something. We have, too, the highest authority for our belief, and that authority is no less than God Himself. And God said, Let us (the Godhead) make something. What? Answer: ADAM (male and female man) to have dominion, etc. Is this a deception, or a truth? Did God do what lie said He was going to do, or did He not? We believe He did do just what lie said He was going to do, namely, make ADAM (male and female man).
The Genesis i. 26 we regard as complete in itself, expressing all that is necessary for the bringing into existence the subject matter named. If no other verse was written, giving further account of the creating or making of mankind, no one would pretend that this was not enough to show to man the time and position of the bringing into existence this particular line of created beings. By looking the whole account of the Genesis through, we find expressions preceding the act of making, such as
Gen. i. 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament, etc.
Gen. i. 11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, etc.
Gen. i. 4. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament, etc.
Gen. i. 20. And God said, Let the earth bring forth abundantly, etc.
Gen. i. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature, etc.
In none of these is the word make or made used; but made is used in most affirmative acts of making. As examples
Gen. i. 7. And God made the firmament, etc.
Gen. i. 16. And God made two great lights, etc.
Gen. i. 25. And God made the beast of the earth, etc.
Gen. i. 26. And God said, Let us make ADAM, etc.
Neither the word make nor made is any where used in the Genesis i., except to an affirmative act of making. The recorded declaration of intention to make, by an all-wise God, would seem to be not only useless, but worse. Of course, He had the intention to make what He did make, and if every creation or making was preceded in the record by a declaration of this import, it would be mainly taken up with verbiage of this nature. It is neither the rule, nor is there a single instance of it in the whole of the first chapter of Genesis. When God said, Let us make ADAM in our image, after our likeness, etc., we take the declaration as equivalent to the act. In other words, if He said He would make ADAM, He did make them; and if he created HA-ADAM male and female, He did create them.
For ourselves, we will not dispute the record, and we firmly hope that God will hold us guiltless, if we nail our belief to His sacred word, and read it just in accordance with the words laid down, even though the whole world dispute it or gainsay it. We then read the Genesis i. 26 and Genesis i. 27 separately and independently as they stand, as there is nothing in Scripture demanding that they should be read otherwise.
This act in Genesis i. 26 is, then, a principal act of God in creation, and should sta
nd out in as bold relief as any other principal act; it being separated from the succeeding one in Genesis i. 27 by the word AND, which indicates, if permitted to have its proper place in the record, an additional act. But by using the word So instead of AND, and the word Man for ADAM (male and female) and for HA-ADAM, this principal act is eliminated from the English record; and those who have read the King James translation have been entirely in the dark as to this one act of God in the creation of mankind.
Having then, we think, shown clearly that the Gen. i. 26 was not written for nothing, and that it records one act of God in the making of mankind, we pass from it to the consideration of what act or acts are recorded as having been done in Genesis i. 27. The act in Gen i. 26 was the making of whatever was made, and the act or acts in Genesis i. 27 was the creating of what ever was created. The differencve we can not explain Scripturally, though we have our individual opinion upon the subject. We read Scripturally, as the record stands:
Gen. 1. 27. AND God created HA-ADAM in His own image, in the image of God created He him. Male and female created He them.
HA-ADAM being the Hebrew name in this verse, is readily recognized as the individual man placed in the Garden of Eden, and this name is uniformly used in every place with two exceptions, where he is referred to in Gen. ii. Ha being the in English, THE ADAM is the proper English name, though he is also frequently called ADAM in the Hebrew. In every such case known, it is plain to see that it is intended for an individual, as for example:
Gen. iv. 1. And Adam knew his wife; and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten man from the Lord.
It would be somewhat ridiculous to use the other ADAM in this verse, or substitute its meaning; but in order to see how it would look on paper, we will do so.
Gen. iv. 1. And male and female man knew his wife; and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
HA-ADAM, THE ADAM, or ADAM, are all correctly used to denote the man of the Garden of Eden; while ADAM (male and female), occurring in Gen. i. 26, and Gen. v. 2, is a specific name given by God, and, as far as we know, occurs nowhere else in the Bible. The reason for its non-appearance may be found in the fact that ADAM (male and female man), as will be seen hereafter, are the heads of lines of reproduction of all other kinds of peoples not Hebrews, and the Old Testament records the history of the Hebrew kind.
The Genesis i. 27 records three separate acts of creation.
First. The creation of HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM.
Second. The creation of male.
Third. The creation of female.
There is no Scriptural connection between the male and female created here and the male and female made in Gen. i. 26. From the reading it would be reasonable to conclude that the male and female was of the same kind as HA-ADAM; that the creating of HA-ADAM was complete with the announcement, and that the male was not a repetition of the creation of HA-ADAM. From which we conclude that HA-ADAM was not created twice, hut that the male or males referred to were distinct creations also. This will be referred to under the Fourth Postulate.
What we have undertaken under this postulate is to show the making or creating of two ADAMS. We have spoken of the first in Gen. i. 26, and the second follows almost as a matter of course.
The HA-ADAM of the Hebrew is THE ADAM of the English, or simply ADAM, as he is known to the world, being the first man created or made, and generally supposed to be the father of all mankind. Although he was Scripturally the first man made on the day of creation, he is not declared anywhere to be the only man so made. Whereas, we think the Scripture clearly states, if we read the whole as contained in the Hebrew, that there were more Hebrew males made on the day of creation than HA-ADAM or THE ADAM. The particle THE before the name of ADAM would indicate particularization of this individual as distinct from the other ADAM male and female. This, however, is incidental, and is by no means controlling evidence on this subject.
The great injustice done to Christianity by these eliminations of terms and names, and the substitutions whereby the sense is lost, does not end with the two verses we have considered. The name of THE ADAM, instead of being continued through the account, is variously rendered, the man, man, men, men s or Adam, according to circumstances, to make the record conform to the errors in the Genesis i. 26, 27. A critical mind discovering this name in the Hebrew carried forward in uniformity, except where it is called ADAM simply, would naturally ask why were these various terms used to denote an individual? In the first place, they do not denote an individual, nor were they intended to denote an individual. They are the offspring of the greater error.
The reader will s by turning over to the chapter Eliminations and Substitutions in Genesis, how many transformations the proper name THE ADAM has undergone in the hands of the translators. He will also see how beautifully clear and distinct the account of the creation of mankind appears when the Hebrew names are retained in their places, and the word So no longer chains the two verses of Genesis i. 26, 27 together as a single act of God. This will be seen in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, corrected in these respects in the end of this work.
We quote the definitions given by Webster for the term man, so profusely used by the translators:
1. Mankind; the human race; the whole species of human beings; beings distin guished from all other animals by the powers of reason and speech, as well as by their shape and dignified aspect. When opposed to woman, man sometimes denotes the male sex in general.
2. A male individual of the human race, of adult growth or years.
3. A male of the human race. Used often in compound words or in the nature of an adjective, as a man-child; men-cooks; men-servants.
4. A servant or attendant of the male sex.
5. A word of familiar address.
6. It sometimes bears the sense of a male adult of some uncommon qualifications, particularly the sense of strength, vigor, bravery, virile powers, or magnanimity, as distinguished from weakness, timidity, or impotence of a boy, or from the narrow- mindedness of low-bred men.
7. An individual of the human species.
8. Man is sometimes opposed to boy or child, and sometimes to beast.
9. One who is master of his mental powers, or who conducts himself with his usual judgment. When a person has lost his senses, or acts without his usual judgment, we say he is not his own man.
10. It is sometimes used indefinitely, without reference to a particular individual; any person, one. This is as much as a man can desire.
11. In popular usage, a husband.
12. A movable piece at chess or draughts.
13. In feudal law a vassal; a liege subject or tenant.
From the various definitions of man, it will be seen at once how many constructions can be placed upon it. Instead of using the specific God name ADAM for the class male and female, this diffused term is substituted; and instead of using the name of the individual man placed in the Garden of Eden, the same term is used to denote him. Hence any of these definitions can with rhetorical truth he substituted; and the question is, will these substitutions be the truth? Will they convey the idea that is conveyed by the use of the names found in the Hebrew? We think not, and therefore by the use of this word man for these names, the translators have left behind the pure word of God, and given to the world for a Bible what is not the word of God in these respects.
We then say that we have clearly proven, both by the Hebrew text and by the translation, that there are in both, two ADAMS – the one being male and female man, the other being the name of an individual male man, that they have no Biblical connection with each other. As will be seen hereafter, they have been eliminated from their proper p
laces in the translation by which the sense of the Genesis has been confused, if not lost entirely from the Hebrew text.
THIRD POSTULATE.
That ADAM, named by God and standing in the Hebrew, Gen. i. 26, for a class male and female man, was the embodiment of the males and females who were the heads of reproduction of the various kinds of men and women now found on the earth, except the Hebrews, reproduced ever since, in accordance with, and carrying forward God s word, command, and law of reproduction after his kind.
THE normal reading of the two verses we have been considering, would lead to the conclusion that there was more intended to be conveyed by all these names and expressions than the bringing into existence of one man and one woman. At best there is no proof on the face of them that this was all that was done by the two acts there recorded; on the contrary, it is plain that this was not so. We believe that there never would have arisen even a question upon the subject of the origin of mankind, if the Hebrew names and the word AND had been left in our King James translation where they occurred in the Hebrew, and the law of reproduction had been applied to the subject. The whole question must, and should, be decided purely upon Scripture, and on that, and on that alone, we rely for our proofs.
We think, then, it can be clearly shown from the Scripture
First. That Cain and Seth, sons of ADAM and EVE, did not marry their sisters, but married Hebrews not descended from them.
Second. That the sons of God, mentioned in the Genesis vi. 2, were neither Hebrews nor descendants of ADAM and EVE, but were descendants of a different kind of people, whose head in reproduction is to be found in ADAM, male and female, on the day of creation.
Third. That the law of reproduction, after his kind, is a Divine law, and that its violation was, and by inference is, an offence in the sight of God.
Fourth. That reproduction has been confined within certain limits, even among kinds by the Mosaic law of prohibition of marriage of near akin, and that that law has existed from the creation.
In support of these positions we quote:
Gen. vi. 1. And it came to pass when HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM (of the Garden of Eden), began to multiply upon the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them.
Gen. vi. 2. That the Sons of God saw the daughters of HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, and that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
Gen. vi. 3. And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with ADAM, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
Gen. vi. 4. And there were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of HA-ADAM or THE ADAM, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Gen. vi. 5. And God saw that the wickedness of HA ADAM, or THE ADAM, was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually; and it repented God that He had made HA-ADAM or THE ADAM, on the earth, and it grieved him at His heart.
Gen. vi. 7. And the Lord said, I will destroy HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, whom I have created from the face of the earth, FROM ADAM UNTO beast and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
In the first, second, and fourth verses above, the translators have substituted men for HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, found in the Hebrew. In the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh, they have inserted man for the same! We have said enough about mutilation, and only refer to the fact. The question arises, was God pleased at the marriage of the daughters of HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM of the Garden of Eden, whether they were the daughters of ADAM and EVE, or whether they were descended from them? We see by this account that He was exceedingly displeased, even to repenting that he had made HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM. There are two points to be noticed in this narrative as the cause of God s anger.
First. That the sons of God took wives of the daughters of HA-ADAM or THE ADAM, that is, married them.
Second. That the daughters bore children of the sons of God.
This, God declared to be a great wickedness, and one sufficient to destroy the HA-ADAMs, or THE ADAMS, by a flood. If, then, ADAM and EVE were the only two made on the day of creation, and they were commanded by God to increase and multiply and replenish the earth, why should God be so angered and declare it a wickedness for any of the descendants of ADAM and EVE to marry each other, to carry out His command, and have children, as in this case. If the sons of God were the descendants of ADAM and EVE, what possible sin could there have been in obeying the command of God?
On the construction that ADAM and EVE were the only pair made on the day of creation, who were the sons of God to marry except their daughters or their descendants? The simple act of marrying or having children under these circumstances could not have been the sin, and as sin was committed, and a grievous sin, too, what did it consist in? What law of God did these acts violate? As the sin is impossible in this direction, let us turn in another and see if we can discover any command of God that will make such an act a sin; or in other words, let us see if we can discover a relationship that would make it so by any declared law of God.
Let us suppose that the sons of God were not the same kind of people (for we use the Scriptural phrase and not an ethnological one), and that their kind had their head in production in the ADAM male and female, on the day of creation. How will this solve the question? Is there any law of God that would make such an act a sin? Is there any law that governs the production of children ? We think there is, and one which has been overlooked entirely:
Gen. i. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the soul of life or the living creature after his kind, etc.
In the case under consideration, the descendants of ADAM and EVE, being assumed as one kind, and the Sons of God not descended from ADAM and EVE, but from ADAM, male and female, another kind, can we see how, by their marriage and having children, this law of reproduction was violated? If they were of different kinds of people, their children would not belong to either kind, but would be hybrid Hebrews and hybrid sons of God. The children not being reproduced after his kind would be a violation of the law of reproduction as stated in the day of creation.
In this view of the case it becomes imperative to examine the law of reproduction, and see whether it is a Divine law, and whether it was intended to apply to mankind. The constructionists of the unity say No – that it was only applicable to the brute creations of the sixth day. Let us, then, put the law down, and look at it, read and see what Moses says:
Gen. i. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature or soul of life after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
We now ask any candid mind to say, if this was intended alone for cattle, beasts of the earth, and creeping things, whether the verse in the following shape would not cover entirely such a supposition.
Gen. i. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind : and it was so.
This covers the entire ground of the brute creation, that they should be brought forth after his kind. Then what becomes of the first portion of the verse, and of what possible use was it to express this idea, that while the amended verse expresses all that the constructionists of the unity require, there is still a very important part of the verse left out, which they do not require and do not want, nor have they paid any attention to it? Remember that this law stands at the very head of the creations of the sixth day, wherein nothing but living creatures were to be brought into existence. Then
has Moses made a mistake by making the law cover mankind, or did he intend it should apply to them? The constructionists deny that it thus applies, by which, in substance, they indicate that Moses has said what he did not mean. For there is no questioning the fact that mankind are living creatures of God.
Then we see this law in practical operation in the various kinds of men and women reproduced on the earth, and have been so reproduced during all knowledge; a law, too, which every man depends upon to decide the character of his progeny. We must again record our adherence to this Divine law of God and give it full force and scope, relying upon observation to teach us what kinds mean when applied to the human race. No attempt shall come from us to contract the law or misapply it; the only field for its explanation being found in the unchanging acts of God in this direction, the safest and best authority for any construction.
To our mind this law is of the same importance and binding effect for observance as either of the ten commandments, or any other high moral law. To ignore it or deny its application is to destroy what we regard as the most important law of existence and continuance of the human family, displaying the supreme wisdom of God.
The anger of God at the marriage and producing children of the sons of God by the daughters of HA-ADAM, not only seems to prove the law of reproduction, but also proves that the sons of God were not the same kind of people as the Hebrews ADAM and EVE, and their descendants.
For, His declaring it a wickedness shows there was a command and law violated, and there is no other law that we know of, or can conceive of, that could be violated by any other supposition; and as we find a law relating to the production of children, we must conclude that this is the law that was violated. Hence the sons of God were not descendants of ADAM and EVE, and must he accounted for as having descended from ADAM MALE and FEMALE, their making being recorded in Gen. i. 26.
The marriage of Cain and Seth with their sisters is a necessary consequence of the human race having descended from ADAM and EVE. We will see whether such (to us in this day) repulsive supposition is borne out by Scripture. The record nowhere asserts the fact, and the idea is a manism.
Leviticus xviii. 1. And God spake unto Moses, saying,
Leviticus xviii. 2. Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus xviii. 3. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.
Leviticus xviii. 4. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord.
Leviticus xviii. 5. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.
Leviticus xviii. 6. No one shall approach to any that is near of him to him to uncover their nakedness.
Leviticus xviii. 9. The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home or horn abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness.
Leviticus xviii. 10. The nakedness of thy son s daughter, or of thy daughter s daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness.
Leviticus xviii. 11. The nakedness of thy father s wife s daughter, begotten of thy father (she is thy sister), thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
Our space does not allow of further quotations from this chapter, which is filled with denunciations of God, that it was against His statutes and judgments for near akin to marry or be given in marriage. Why were these laws not proclaimed earlier than 1490 years before Christ? The fair inference is that they were not violated until, as recorded, it was done in the land of Egypt.
Lev. xviii. 3. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.
Lcv. xviii. 4. Ye shall do my judgment and keep my ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your God.
Are the commands, judgments, and statutes of God variable, changing, uncertain, and made to fit circumstances? We have always been taught, and so have read, that they are eternal, from everlasting, to everlasting, unchangeable and unchanged. It mattered not what date they reached humanity: they were the same from the beginning, and would continue so to the end. We believe that all natural and moral laws have existed forever, and that their operation commenced with the creation, and that they will always continue. At the same time we freely leave others to believe in accordance with their information and the promptings of their own consciences.
We therefore conclude that the marriage of Cain or Seth with their sisters or near akin, as laid down in Leviticus xviii., would have been in violation of God s commands, statutes, and judgments, and that hence HE provided other Hebrews in the creation, by which neither these laws nor the law of reproduction after his kind would be violated. These Divine laws force the construction of Gen. i. 27, and make it necessary that more Hebrews should have been created than ADAM and EVE, and that their creation must be found in the words male and female created He them, Gen.i. 27.
As we have been taught so we believe, that man is a free agent to violate or obey Divine statutes, ordinances, and judgments. That his capability to violate is based in Divine law, which gives, him the ability to do so, equally with his ability to obey. That the choice lies with him which laws of God he will obey, or which violate, whatever he does being done in accordance with existing laws, moral or natural. It might be a pertinent inquiry, if hybridity was in violation of the laws of God, why did He make the law? The answer is found above. We might as well ask the question, If eating the forbidden fruit was against God s will or law, why was the law made allowing THE ADAM to eat it?
It is well known what the calamitous results to progeny are from marriages of near akin in kind. And it is equally well known that hybrids run to impotency. Then is there nothing in these well-known facts to assure us that they are antagonistic to natural laws? If we will draw no sound lesson from the acts of God in nature, will we refuse to regard them as Divine laws, when we find them laid down in Scripture, verified by our daily experience? Had we not better see whether we have read the word aright, than discard the acts of God on our conceited reading? While we have always seen these acts in uniformity, we gain new ideas from reading; and as is well known, all do not read the Scriptures alike, and hence we may doubt our construction and reading of Holy Writ, but we never need doubt the acts of God w see and know.
Then, if we do not set aside this portion of God s word, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, where shall we look for the origin in the day of creation of the beginning of the kinds of men and women now found on the earth, being persistently reproduced after his kind. If this law be regarded and received by men, how shall we apply it? Can we admit its binding nature, and still give no scope for its foundation and operation? Shall we say the law was made and is still in existence, and deny the creation of its subject and its efficacy in Nature? Should we not rather search in the creative account for that subject, and thread Nature to discover its application?
Then, for what purpose does Moses re cord the making of ADAM male and female man in Gen. i. 26, and creating THE ADAM and male and female in Gen. i. 27? To be merged into the making of one man and one woman, whose progeny, according to the law of reproduction, must be of one kind, while the various kinds of peoples reproduced in accordance with the law make the supposition a deadloc
k with it.
A law of God can he traced as truly backward to the creation as it ever worked forward from it.
By restoring to our Bible the names and terms which God placed in the original, and giving full scope and force to the law of reproduction, we have a beautifully consistent and true account of the creation of mankind, and of their reproduction to the present hour. Whatever of kinds of men and women are now upon the earth, each of these kinds will be found in origin, in one or the other of Gen. i. 26, or Gen. i. 27.
The flood, which has been construed as destroying all of the human race except Noah and his family, has been the great stumbling-block in the way of such an acceptance of the word, and probably was the real author of the eliminations and substitutions we have referred to. We shall see, when we come to this part of the subject, wherein that reading is not borne out by the record.
We then conclude that the Genesis i. 26 was written for information to man, that a class of people, male and female, were, made by God to people the world. He did not leave them simply made to take care of themselves by chance, or without laws to empower them to reproduce themselves. His inspired recorder of his acts informs us that He made them male and female, commanded them to increase and multiply, and replenish the earth, and also tells us of the command of God in what manner they should evolve the progeny from the parent, that the progeny should be of the kind of the parent, and they again should be parent to other progeny of the same kind. Thus chains of human beings should extend from the creation to the end, each chain of the same kind. When we have seen one link in any one chain, we have substantially seen every other link from the beginning to the end. No evolution from the one to the other could possibly take place, because the laws of God are unchanging forever.
FOURTH POSTULATE
That the Genesis i. 27 is devoted exclusively to the account of the creation of the heads of the Hebrew kind. That HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, was a male created and placed in the Garden of Eden, with Eve his wife. That there were other male and female Hebrews created, as recorded in the same verse. That Noah and his family became the second heads of the ADAM and EVE line of reproduction after the flood.
Thu proof of this postulate mainly depends upon the recognition of the Divine law of reproduction after his kind. If this law, or a law regulating reproduction of the human species, be ignored and set aside, we could expect from Noah anywhere and at any time in his line of reproduction, the Negro, the Hottentot, the Australian, the Mongol, or the Indian. And by thus setting aside this law, any one of the advocates of the unity of the race could in like manner be rewarded in their little family circle. If this could be accomplished by man, he might then turn his attention to the vegetable or animal kingdoms, and reproduce from any one of either, all others that he might crave for his wants.
While men have practically denied this law of reproduction, and have, been endeavoring to prove just what we have above stated in respect to Noah s line, and in order to aid such proof, have been setting forth to the world a garbled account as of Moses, God has been pursuing his uniform, unchanging course in the execution of His creative law of reproduction, in all the departments of His creation to which it applies. We then give force, vitality, and meaning to the law, and regard all facts based upon it as truths.
In considering tins postulate, we take the Genesis i. 27, on which it depends as it appears in the Hebrew, and not as it appears in the translation. If the Genesis i. 26 be not read as it stands in the Hebrew record also, our proof would fall to the ground. The law of reproduction applying equally to both, each must be read as a class of creations and makings, however small or large that class may have been. The machinery of the Genesis is so accurately balanced, that every part must be considered as a whole, and complete as a whole, or confusion is the result.
The following facts as they appear in the record must be admitted.
First. That the class ADAM, male and female man, were made in Genesis i. 26.
Second. That HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, and the class male and female, were created Genesis i. 27.
Third. That the making and creating of these two classes were different acts, being separated from each other by the word AND.
Fourth. The recognition of the Divine law of reproduction. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind.
Fifth. To recognize the fact as stated by Moses, Genesis v. 1: This is the book of the generations of ADAM (the individual). In the day that God created ADAM, in the likeness of God made He him; and that the book gives a true account, as stated, of the generations of ADAM.
No one will deny that these four points are in the Hebrew record, the construction which some may put upon them having no relation to the fact. Nor have we assumed any more premises than are to be found in the pure word of God in the Hebrew, though they are quite different, and would scarce be recognized, in the translation.
On the fifth point hangs a very large burden of our proof, and we may remark that in looking at this declaration, and giving it full scope, many things will be made clear and intelligible which otherwise would remain hidden or confused. The true meaning of it seems to be, Now readers, take particular notice; I, Moses, am going to give in this book an accurate account of the generations of ADAM and EVE, and you must not read me that I am going to give an account in generation of any one else. Then if we credit him, we must assume that, as far as he gives an account of these generations, he did it accurately, and none others are to be assumed or added.
The Hebrews have generally been arranged under the Caucasian head. From all that we can gather from the Bible and other sources of information, we think the Hebrew kind is one of the kinds intended in the Divine law of reproduction. They have always been, and are at this day, a distinct people, both in character and in reproduction. We think this is the generally received opinion, and more especially of the Jews, a conventional branch of the Hebrews.
This people are the chosen of God, and why? The reason for the choice cannot be assigned, but what has been done with and through them can be gleaned from their history, threaded through the Old and into the New Testament. The representative man of the Hebrew kind in the day of creation was HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM placed in the Garden of Eden. After God had made mankind upon the earth, it became necessary that he should manifest Himself to them in some way, to accomplish the end of their creation. To do this He chose ADAM and EVE, and placed them in the Garden of Eden, and from all we can learn to manifest Himself to them, and teach them His Divine will or law.
He did so; He proclaimed His law, and the penalty for its violation. The law was violated and the penalty followed. If, then, His specially created and chosen pair could not withstand temptation, what could He expect others, not so favored, would do under like circumstances? Through this pair and the progeny, His design evidently was to publish to mankind His moral laws, to reflect Himself and His attributes to all generations of men. What was applicable to them was to be alike applicable to all; what was to be their happiness in obedience was to be the happiness of all created; what their penalties for disobedience, were the penalties to all.
He spoke the universal word to mankind, when He spoke to one man and one woman chosen for that purpose. What He commanded to them, He commanded to all – what He promised to them, He promised to all; what He wished of them, He wished of all; in fine, that they were the chosen representatives of the human family, to witness the presence of God, and receive from Him the command of obedience to his will, and the results of that test were to
apply equally to all men.
We do not suppose that our individual theology will square with most received theologies, but, in our crude way, this is the substance of what we gather from the record. Nor is it expected to agree with any theology founded upon a single passage of Scripture. It would be truly a great discovery, if any one should be able to harmonize the various views and constructions which are claimed to be founded on the word of God. We do not wish to be considered as laying down any particular theology, or endeavoring to support one. All we propose to do is to state facts found in the inspired Hebrew record, which we believe exactly in accordance with those facts, leaving others to exercise the free will that God has given them to accept or reject them; to act in conformity to them, or ignore them. This is the principle of the privilege which God gave to ADAM and EVE and to all mankind.
We have shown, we think, clearly, in the previous postulate, that Cain could not have married his sister without violation of Divine statutes and judgments of the Levitical law of marriage of near akin. But we propose now to show that he could not have married his sister, because, when he was married, no such being existed.
Gen. iv. 16. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
Gen. iv. 17. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch, and he builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.
If Moses had not closed the subject of the daughters of ADAM and EVE, our imagination might have supplied one for the wife of Cain. But the first mention of daughters to them is recorded:
Gen. v. 4. And the days of ADAM, after he had begotten Seth, were eight hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters.
No daughters were therefore recorded as born to ADAM and EVE, until after the birth of Seth; and how long after, the record does not state. We do not intend to be so narrow, as to claim that every one of ADAM and EVE s generations are laid down in the book; but we do hold, that as far as Moses did record them, the record is true. He having pointedly called attention to the fact that he was giving the generations of THE ADAM, is it justice even to a common historian to interpolate upon his work others whom he does not mention; and, still more, is it for any one professing to be a believing Christian in the accuracy of revelation, to add as against the express warning of the inspired writer?
Who, then, will assume to force into the word of God, daughters of THE ADAM, before the inspired writer informs us they were born unto him? Moses, in his stepping aside from this narrative, has warned his readers not to insert in his record, because he declares what he says is the record of the generations of THE ADAM. The construction of the unity of the race, upon the mutilations we have seen, requires that Cain should have married a daughter of ADAM and EVE when, by the authority of Moses, no such daughter had been born. Are such constructions and teachings calculated to inspire confidence in the truth of Holy Writ, and hence to advance the cause of Christianity? We think not.
Further than this, Cain not only married his wife, but builded a city before daughters were born unto ADAM and EVE; so says the record in chronological order of statements. The matter resolves itself into this: that Moses says Cain did marry a woman in the land of Nod, east of Eden. He also says, ADAM and Eve had no daughters born at that time. The question arises, who did he marry? The constructionists of the unity of the race say that he married a daughter of ADAM and EVE. As the dispute is between them and Moses, we shall not interfere, but simply pass on and record our belief that he married a Hebrew woman created for that purpose, in the class of Gen. i. 27: Male and female created He them, in order that he should reproduce Hebrews after his kind.
Let us now examine the record as to the creation of the Hebrew kind.
Gen. i. 27. AND God created HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, in His own image, in the image of God created He him. Male and female created He them.
It cannot be denied, considering the law of reproduction, that THE ADAM was the representative man of the Hebrew kind, and was therefore a Hebrew himself. That EVE was the representative woman of the same kind, and therefore a Hebrew woman. Their generations were consequently He brews. Cain was a Hebrew, Seth was a Hebrew, and Noah and his family were Hebrew, because their generations are traceable through the Old and into the New Testament, where they are recognized as Hebrews, or Jews, the same thing in reproduction.
Let any normal reader take up the Genesis i. 27, without ever having heard any construction put upon it and what would be his reading of it? Would he gain the idea that it meant the creation of one man and one woman? We think not. But that opinion is of no account, without we can show why. In the first place, suppose there was only this much of
Gen. i. 27. And God created THE ADAM in His own image, in the image of God created He him.
Would there be a consistent and complete idea presented to the reader? Would this be an act of creation complete in itself, and would it be sufficient to declare and make intelligible the creation of THE ADAM? Would not the idea conveyed be as clear as that in
Gen. v. 1. This is the book of the generations of ADAM. In the day that God created ADAM, in the likeness of God made He him.
We think the idea is clear, and the creation complete by the announcement. If this be so, then THE ADAM was created as stated, and that creation was complete. Now, what else was done? Male and female created He them. Is the account true or untrue? Was male and female created also as stated, or were they not? The account says they were; we therefore believe it, and so say that THE ADAM was created, and he was a male creation; and, in addition, male and female were created.
But the constructionists of the unity say, That THE ADAM was created to be sure as THE ADAM, but afterwards as the male, for this verse only calls for the creation of one man and one woman. That is, that THE ADAM was created twice, and the woman once. As we said in the case of Cain, this is a question between them and the record; they have the right to accept it or reject it. All we claim is the right to read it as it stands, and believe it accordingly; and consequently, we record our belief in the accuracy of it, and say that God created THE ADAM, and that He also created the Class: Male and female created He them. That every word in the Genesis i. 27 stands for a meaning of itself; that there is no repetition or tautology; that there was no work of God done over twice, and Moses meant just what he said in the record.
These being Hebrews, furnished Hebrew women for wives of Cain and Seth, and their generations wives and husbands for the generations of ADAM and EVE, to carry out the law of reproduction, and not violate the prohibitory law laid down in Leviticus, of marriage of near akin. Nor do we pretend to say how many Hebrews were made in the beginning, but we have sufficient confidence in the wisdom of God to believe that He made as many as was necessary to carry out His design of creation without scrimping Himself to such numbers as would cause the violation of His fundamental laws on the very threshold of creation.
While Genesis i. 27 gives the account of the creation of ADAM and EVE, the specification of the mode and manner of their making is recorded in another part of Scripture:
Gen. ii. 7. And the Lord God formed HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and THE ADAM became a living soul.
Gen. ii. 22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from THE ADAM, made He a woman, and brought her unto THE ADAM.
Gen. ii. 23. And THE ADAM said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was take out of man.
As a verification of the law of reproducti
on applying to the human race, we see the expression used when THE ADAM was made, in Genesis ii. 7, namely, that he became a living soul. The expression in the Hebrew in that law is, the soul of life. If there is any difference, we cannot apprehend it.
It is conceded that THE ADAM of the Garden of Eden was the first man made on the day of creation. Enough, however, for us to know, to gain a correct understanding as to the fact as laid down in the record, that he was made on the sixth day; and his creation is recorded in Genesis i. 27, and the manner of making ADAM and EVE is recorded in Genesis ii. 7, 22. The general scope of the reading of Genesis i. 26 would indicate that when God said, Let us make ADAM male and female man, that all were included in the class except the Hebrews, and that the separate record of the creation of THE ADAM and male and female, applied to the chosen people of God.
If we will not place our own judgments and constructions superior to the word of God, we have sufficient here to satisfy all the phenomena connected with the human race. We need not vaunt ourselves that we can explain or understand all, but we can read the word of God as given to us, and as it stands, and be thankful that He has thus far revealed His ways and His works, that we may glean a few rays of light to show us the outlines of His creation, and cause us to know the source from whence we came. He has also given us eyes to see and ears to hear. Let us use the former to verify, but not to destroy, His word.
FIFTH POSTULATE
That the Hebrew Genesis records the destruction by flood of the generations of ADAM and EVE, except Noah and his family, but nothing more of the human creation.
The construction that has been put upon this portion of the Genesis is that the flood was universal over the whole face of the earth and destroyed everything on it except what was preserved in the ark. This, however, is the broad and careless reading of the account. What was to be destroyed, and what was destroyed, were defined so clearly, and the limits of destruction so plainly laid down by the inspired writer, that when they are pointed out they are unmistakable; and, in our opinion, there should be but one conclusion as to the extent of the flood.
Nor do the constructionists of the unity of the race claim more in respect to the destruction of mankind than that the generations of ADAM and EVE were so destroyed, since they claim there were no other people on the face of the whole earth. That God, in order to destroy the few people laid down by Moses as the generations of ADAM and EVE – knotted together as they always were till after their dispersion from the tower of Babel – should thus destroy all His created work in the two hemispheres to accomplish this object, to say the least, according to our ways of thinking, was unnecessary, and a waste of creative wisdom.
Moses, in his accuracy of the record of the destruction, has, however, relieved God and the account of any such supposition. The point, then, of difference between the constructionists of the unity and their opponents respecting the flood is, whether it was universal over the face of the whole earth, both agreeing that the descendants of ADAM and EVE were destroyed, except Noah and his family, and everything in their connection necessary to such destruction.
Then the question resolves itself into this: Moses having given an account of the creating of other peoples than ADAM and EVE, and given an account of the destruction of the generations of the latter by saying that they were to be destroyed for certain specific reasons, and winding up the account by declaring that they were destroyed – whether man would be justified in putting into that destruction peoples who were not to be destroyed and who are not named in the list destroyed. The question is not as open in the record as this, even, for the destruction is confined within very narrow limits, which no invention or sophistry of man can expand.
What are those limits?
Gen. v. 1. This is the book of the generations of ADAM. In the day that God created ADAM, in the likeness of God made He him.
Gen. vi. 7. And God said, I will destroy HA-ADAM, THE ADAM, whom I have created from the face of the earth; FROM ADAM UNTO beast and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
Gen. vii. 21. And all flesh died that moved up the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM.
If there ever was a glaring error foisted upon the world by translators, it occurs just here in the account of the flood. By referring to the eleven chapters of Genesis, in the latter end of this book, the reader will see the unwarrantable use made of the word man, instead of the name HA ADAM or THE ADAM. These two verses above read in the translation thus:
Gen. vi. 7. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
Gem vii. 21. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and EVERY MAN.
Such a wide departure from the word of God would make the blood tingle in the veins of every Christian on its discovery. No man will deny that THE ADAM is not in the original inspiration in these verses, nor that man is substituted for it in the translation. Now what effect is produced upon our Bible by the use of the word man for THE ADAM. If God, in His wisdom, made more men and women in the beginning than ADAM and EVE, the translation declares that EVERY MAN was destroyed, instead of every descendant of ADAM and EVE, or THE ADAM, as the record is. This flatly denies the Mosaic account, if more were made in the beginning than ADAM and EVE, while it makes good the construction of the unity of the race, since Noah would, in accordance with that construction, be the second head of the human family.
Hence we see that the translators, instead of following the Hebrew in its names and terms, start out from Gen. i. 26 with the idea of a unity of the race, and make every portion of the Genesis conform to that idea, even to the elimination of words and the substitution of others to accomplish; it. They have well and thoroughly performed their task in this respect, but have done so at the expense of the pure word of God, which they have left behind. They have eliminated one of His principal acts in creation. They have dropped God names from the account, and substituted their manisms, and finally, to crown their work, have erased from the record of the flood its vital essence, and made it conform to their other eliminations and substitutions.
It would be unfortunate if the record of the flood was to be adjudged upon isolated passages. It must be taken as a whole, and judged of by what was to be destroyed and what was so destroyed. For example:
Gen. vi. 13. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
No one would construe that the end of all flesh is come meant precisely what it says, because that would involve the total destruction of mankind, when we know that Noah and his family were saved. I will destroy them with the earth certainly does not mean that God destroyed the earth, or intended to do so. The limits of the destruction were clearly marked out by Moses in the Genesis v. 1, Gen. vi. 7, and Gen. vii. 21. Who will then add or put into the account more than the inspired writer has done, or who will spread the boundaries of the flood farther than he has done, to accomplish the end intended?
If he says the descendants of ADAM and EVE were to be, and were, destroyed, who will add other people, if they existed, which we think the account plainly calls for? Moses seems to have apprehended this very differently wh
en he announces that This is the book of the generations of ADAM, etc. As much as to say, there are other people, and you must understand that I am only writing about the generations of THE ADAM and what I say must be confined to them. If there had not been others on the earth, of what use would be the warning, as it would follow, as a matter of course, that he wrote of THE ADAM? If the inhabitants of London were to be destroyed by Divine edict in like manner, and the historian had headed the account, telling the world that he was going to relate not only the causes, but give a full account of the transaction, would we under stand him correctly if he said all flesh was destroyed and everything else except eight individuals, who were excluded from the destruction, and some animals? Suppose, too, that he used broader language than the description required, would that language, although meant to be in exact accordance with facts, destroy more than was destroyed, or was proclaimed as to be destroyed?
We therefore conclude that the flood did no more in the way of destruction than is stated by Moses, namely: that it was brought on to destroy the descendants of ADAM and EVE, except Noah and his family, and that it did what it was commissioned to do, and no more. If Moses had said, as the translators have it, that it destroyed every man except Noah and his family, Noah would at once become the head of the human race, and we should lay down our pen. But as it is, whoever has written every man in God s record, instead of every THE ADAM, has given a very inaccurate idea of what is contained in the Hebrew. He has eliminated God s word, and substituted his manism, and the Christian world have been reading it under a false meaning.
Now, let us examine the record as to what disposition was made of Noah, his family, and their generations, and see if there were not other people and other nations than the Hebrews existing immediately after the flood. From the tenor of this record, it would seem that God determined to disperse the Hebrews throughout the world, and especially after they had manifested an intention of building a city for themselves and a tower that would make them conspicuous.
Gen. xi. 3. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
Gen. xi. 4. And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
Gen. xi. 5. And the Lord came down to see the city which the children of HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM (by translators, men), builded.
Gen. xi. 6. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Gen. xi. 7. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another s speech.
Gen. xi. 8. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Gen. xi. 9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
The whole tenor of these seven verses is a comparison with other peoples and with other things. Go to, let us make brick. Go to, let us build a city. Let us make a name. And why? Lest we be weakened and made unable to make ourselves equals with others, by being scattered abroad upon the lace of the whole earth. It would be a self-evident fact, that if there were no other peoples on the earth beside Noah and his family, and their immediate descendants, that they would have one language. It would be unnecessary to state that fact, except language was to be a means of accomplishing the end which God had in view.
And what is language? The definition is plainly given in Gen. xi. 7: Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another s speech. Hence, language, Scripturally, means the ability to communicate one with another by language, or speech. From this we can determine the grounds and reasons for this act of God toward the Hebrews. First, He would arrest the building of their city and tower by confounding their language, that they could not communicate with each other; and second, in their dispersion over the earth, that He gave them other languages, that they might be able to communicate with those who spoke the languages given to them.
Now, let us see what became of Japheth, one of the Sons of Noah, according to this distribution. After giving his generations in Gen. x. 2, 3, 4, we find:
Gen. x. 5. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands: every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
Who were the Gentiles, and why are they found in nations so soon after the flood that the sons of Japheth should be sent among them, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations ? The Gentiles here are like the Sons of God in Gen. vi. 2: peoples evidently not Hebrews, or descendants of ADAM and EVE.
The constructionists of the unity of the race will tell you that the expression isles of the Gentiles does not mean that the Gentiles occupied those islands at that time, but that they did occupy them afterwards, and before Moses wrote the account. The normal reading is clear that the Gentiles owned the islands if they did not occupy them, and the general reading would be that they occupied them. Is this reading contradicted by any other passage of Scripture? We think not; and hence we must take Moses at his word, and give this passage its full force. By doing this, doubtful passages in conflict must yield.
Similar disposition was made of the sons of Ham:
Gen. x. 20. These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.
And, finally, the disposition of the sons of Shem, under the same decree of God:
Gen. x. 31. These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.
And now comes the summing up of this whole matter of the distribution of the Hebrews after the flood, consequent upon their attempt to establish a nation of themselves:
Gen. x. 32. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
There is but one plain proposition in respect to this passage: Could anything he divided that did not exist? Can this expression be warped by any possible means into the following, which is what is claimed it should be on the construction of the unity of the race? –
These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and from these did all the nations of the earth spring after the flood.
Moses clearly declares mathematically that there was a divisor and a dividend. The divisor being the families of the sons of Noah, and the dividend being the nations of the earth. Now, if there was no dividend (nations of the earth), how could there have been a divisor; or if there were no nations in the earth, why divide?
We cannot imagine language more clear, definite, and conclusive than this, to express what was the evident intention of God in confusing the language of the Hebrews at the tower of Babel; the language delegated or assigned to each allotment being the guide of division of the nations of the earth, by the generations of Noah. There would be no difficulty in understanding this division, were it not for the construction of the unity; on that construction, it has no positive meaning, except the one usually assigned to it, that these people were distributed upon the earth, but the nations into which they were sent are entirely ignored. Even the Gentiles are denied existence at that time, although from the language, we would infer that they inhabited the isles
spoken of. From all these facts put together and viewed as a whole, our reading is, that the flood destroyed the descendants of ADAM and EVE, except Noah and his family. For reasons only known to God, they were split up into fragments, and sent broadcast over the earth; He having provided them with languages that made such an act practicable in their division among the nations.
THE STUPENDOUS ERROR.
WHATEVER construction has been placed by Jew or Gentile upon the Genesis respecting the creation of mankind, whether it be of the unity of the race, or a diversity of origin, it has no force to dispel or correct the great error that has crept into our King James translation on this subject. These views may have had much to do with its origin, and very much to do with the maintenance of it to support these views. But an error is an error, wherever it occurs; and is great, just in proportion to the importance of the subject involved.
No one word in the English language has probably ever performed so signal a purpose for good or for evil, as the apparently insignificant word So has done in our Bible, to eliminate a true meaning and control a false one. Nor will it be denied by any one that it is the very antipodes in meaning of the Hebrew word Vay (and), whose place it has usurped. It being a usurper and a stranger to the pure Word of God, we shall not spare him if we can use our pen to demolish him, and point out his false position in the record, and the still falser influence he has swayed over Christian people who, like myself, have read through him, believing that this was a part of the Word of God.
The machinery of the Genesis respecting the earlier mankind in the Hebrew is accurate and without fault; making the acts of God in Nature harmoniously agree with the record. In this respect it may be compared with the delicate works of a finely constructed watch movement in entire unison and beautiful motion, from the mainspring to the balance-wheel, which has marked off the entrances and exits of every individual man and woman, from the day of creation to the present moment. An unskilled mechanic has carelessly dropped the pebble So into these delicate works in the record of them, breaking the mainspring, smashing the parts generally, and arrested the motion of this accurately moving God-written machinery.
Who has done this thing? There are hut two sides to this question – the false and the true, and nothing intermediate. Does the Genesis i. 27 in the Hebrew begin with VaySo takes its place, and proclaims to the readers of the Bible, I have stricken out one of God s principal acts in creation, and I say there was but one man and one woman made on that day. I have taken this sceptre into my own hand, and you must read under my rule and under my dictation. I am the alpha and omega of my construction, and no one must question the unity of the race.
Presumptuous usurper, the armored Goliath, a wolf in sheep s clothing. Your plausible assumption has drawn millions of Christian minds to your support and defence. Your sceptre and rule have bound them like slaves to your standard; and the eagerness with which they have fought under your banner but proves their sincerity as Christians battling for the supposed Word of God. You have reigned king over that portion of the account relating to the creation of mankind. You, the smallest of words, have been the greatest usurper, the most wanton deceiver, the most powerful as well as the worst and most supreme of all the kings of errors.
HOW HAS THIS HAPPENED?
There never was a case requiring more of Christian leniency and forbearance than the one under consideration. Some will undoubtedly attribute the errors spoken of to an intention to make the Scriptures conform to a theology. This is a short-sighted view of the case, for no man would risk before the world his reputation in this matter, if he had done this intentionally, and no one will make such a charge, knowing what it means, and understanding the imputation which it contains. Men sometimes, in the zenith of worldly reputation on certain subjects, are frequently very far from being capable of undertakings thrust upon them.
Nor do we believe that any particular man or combination of men, who have undertaken the translation of the Scriptures from original tongues, are reprehensibly responsible for these errors. Far back in the ages past, some individual, or individuals, have looked over the original inspiration and read it or translated it, supposing that they had at sight comprehended the entire scope of its meaning. The seed of error was in all probability planted here, and as in men are more prone to copy what they suppose to be inspiration than confute it, the first error, which cannot be traced, has grown by oft repetitions and teachings into established fact.
This lapse of time has been covered by no less than thirty thousand versions or readings of the Scriptures, and the most natural inquiry is, how is it possible that these errors have escaped the observation of such a long line of learning? The man who could answer this inquiry would be fully competent to write the inspiration.
The answer may be measurably made in this wise: If the present Hebrew be acknowledged as the true copy of the inspiration, then the errors pointed out are errors. But if the Hebrew be wrong, then the translation may or may not be right.
We have never seen any attack or questioning of the Hebrew text on this subject, and hence have assumed it as a conceded truth. We have spoken of the translators of the King James Bible, and it might be assumed that we regarded them as responsible. To a certain extent they are, but their instructions were to follow mainly the Bishop s Bible then in use (as will be seen hereafter), and from the directions given and the shape the whole transaction took, the object to be attained was not so much to procure a correct translation from the original tongues from the foundation, as to appease public clamor against the discovered errors of the Bishop s Bible.
The early idea inculcated that ADAM and EVE were the first and only human beings made, was a natural result from the Genesis being the commencement of the history of the Hebrews, and the Old Testament almost exclusively treats of them. This idea, having been assumed without critical care, gradually became stereotyped upon the minds of Biblical scholars, and assumed by them as much a Scriptural fact as though it had been stated in terms. Hence, all translators and Biblical students became in a measure incapacitated to examine normally the Hebrew record on this subject, and therefore we say that no reprehensible responsibility should rest upon any of them for these errors. (and)? Is AND found at the beginning of this verse in our translation? No. This word
ELIMINATIONS AND SUBSTITUTIONS.
We give below the eliminations from the Hebrew, and the substitutions in English in the first eleven chapters of Genesis of all names and terms essential to a correct understanding of the introduction of mankind in the creation, and also as affecting ADAM placed in the Garden of Eden, continued till after the flood. It must not be assumed by the reader that the whole of the King James translation of the Bible abounds in like eliminations and substitutions; for, on the contrary, as far as we know – not having examined other portions critically – we hope the meanings are substantially retained. This subject seems to have been misapprehended, or at least has been mistranscribed from the Hebrew.
Hebrew terms eliminated Substitutions.
Gen. i. 26. ADAM Man.
Gen. i. 27. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. i. 27. Vay (And) So.
Gen. ii. 5. Adam Man.
Gen. ii. 7. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. ii. 7. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. ii. 8. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. ii. 15. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. ii. 16. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. ii. 18. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. ii. 19. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. ii. 19. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. ii. 20. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. ii. 21. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. ii. 22. Ha-Adam Ma
n.
Gen. ii. 22. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. ii. 23. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. ii. 25. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. iii. 8. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. iii. 9. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. iii. 12. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. iii. 20. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. iii. 22. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. iii. 24. Ha-Adam The man.
Gen. iv. 1. Ha-Adam Adam.
Gen. v. 1. Adam Men.
Gen. vi. 1. Ha-Adam Men.
Hebrew terms eliminated Substitutions.
Gen. vi. 2. Ha-Adam Men.
Gen. vi. 3. Adam Man.
Gen. vi. 4. Ha-Adam Men.
Gen. vi. 5. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. vi. 6. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. vi. 7. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. vi. 7. Adam Man.
Gen. vii. 21. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. vii. 23. Adam Man.
Gen. viii. 21. Ha-Adam Man s.
Gen. viii. 21. Ha-Adam Man s.
Gen. ix. 5. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. ix. 5. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. ix. 6. Ha-Adam Man s.
Gen. ix. 6. Adam Man.
Gen. ix. 6. Ha-Adam Man.
Gen. xi. 5. Ha-Adam Men.
Where ADAM occurs in the Hebrew text, it refers to the individual Ha-Adam, except in Gen. i. 26 and Gen. v. 2, where it means by special definition, as we have shown before, male and female man. HA- ADAM in the above is apparently sometimes used to denote the generations of ADAM and EVE.
CONCLUSION AND VERIFICATION.
On a subject so important as the one under discussion, and the variety of opinion entertained about it, it would be presumptuous to assume that individual effort at elucidation might produce much more than a ripple upon the vast ocean of idea that has been expended upon it. Expanded as this ocean is, and deep as has been and are its currents, it would seem of the gravest importance that some chart should be settled upon by the Christian world to aid the confused believer in its navigation. There are millions floating along in these currents, each supported in his belief, because others believe as he does, who never turned a thought towards the source of that belief, or ever took the trouble to investigate its foundation.
Education to an idea, and a pantomime repetition of it, is the extent of their knowledge, and they rest content, believing they are brilliantly educated in the stupendous conceptions, designs, and laws of the living God, by such tangent touchings to the word.
You may exhume from the bowels of Biblical truth the most brilliant diamond, and ask them to examine it, and if it shadows against their preconceived opinions, they will glance at it, and exclaim, Deception! The more ignorant they are, the quicker will be their conclusions, and the more determined their opposition. There are others who will listen, but with a strong determination not to accept any thing but such as they believe. These will say, Well, suppose the construction of the Genesis has been wrong or not clearly made out, why disturb it? I find enough in the Bible to satisfy me, and many have lived and died in this belief. Rusty, sluggish, and indolent Christians! For what end has the Bible been given to man? To teach error, or to teach truth; to believe as error, or to believe as truth? From neither of these two classes of believers, either as believers or as Biblical scholars, will these pages be of any service, even though they were clothed all over with the pure word of God.
There is, however, a very large class of intellectual and intelligent Christians who read the word, not in pantomime, but with the power of intellect which God has bestowed upon them. They investigate, they probe, not being satisfied with the deadlock of the acts of God recorded in a language in which inspiration did not write with His acts in Nature. They delve still deeper, and see if these acts have been rightly transcribed into the new language. They balance and compare, they seek for definitions of terms, and keep on delving, working, and unfolding, believing always that the All-wise God would never give to man a work for his study that he could not comprehend the statements which are given therein for his comprehension.
If this work should then develop one grain of truth, it would ensure a candid reading and ready reception by this class of inquiring Christians. They have been ever vigilant to grasp whatever is truth, and endeavor to conciliate apparent contradictions. Their aim always being to prove God s word to be in accordance with, and a parallelism to, His acts. That while all acknowledge those acts to have been unchanging for all time constituting His law, these laws in Nature are as binding as the written laws in His word. He then will find the jewel of great price, who will discover the harmony between His acts in Nature, and the Divine written word.
He will unearth a great Biblical truth who will show Divine authority written in the Bible, that two steps in a line of reproduction are two points in an unvarying line backward to the day of creation.
The first and greatest difficulty to the general reader in the endeavor to comprehend the statements herein contained, to show this and other points upon which it depends, is a want of knowledge of the Hebrew. Some may possess this knowledge, while a vast majority have no conception of it, and possibly some may not even be aware of the fact that the original inspiration of the Genesis was written first in that language. They may say, and with great force, How do I know that the statements of this man are true, when the Bible has been translated by eminent Hebrew scholars, and that translation has received the silent acquiescence of so many able divines and men skilled in that language for such a length of time. The weight of evidence is against him, and he does not present a single certification that his statements are true or his translations are correct.
True: nor does be intend to do so, and the reason will be readily understood. For, instead of endeavoring to make others think as he does, or read as he does, he is giving to those who are willing to look at what he has found in the Genesis, after more years of investigation than any one man probably has spent upon it, that they may be able to concentrate their labors upon the vital points necessary to a solution of the problem so long acknowledged as unsolved. The reader, however, is referred to page 30 of introduction. [the Cosmogony Eli]
Nor does the verification extend to the general translation. We assume all that as correct, leaving it to others to show wherein it is wrong, if it be so. The whole matter we have to do with is contained in the misuse in the translation of two names and one word. The substitution of other words, for them and their eliminations, have caused the whole difficulty.
We can show to the reader who never saw the Hebrew how he can verify the two names we speak of within the English Bible, and he will only be left to find out whether this one other word is rightly transposed from the Hebrew; and we think we can almost conclusively show that it is not from the translation. The two names are ADAM male and female man and HA-ADAM or THE ADAM, the individual placed in the Garden of Eden, and the one Hebrew word meaning AND, stricken out at the beginning of Genesis i. 27, and the substitution of the word SO in its stead.
The reader will naturally exclaim, Is this all, and is it possible that so insignificant a mistranscribing should make any essential difference in meaning? We answer, Yes, this is all. For by the leaving out the name ADAM male and female man, in the day of creation, and the name HA-ADAM in various places in the Genesis, and the substitution of SO for AND, the following results must necessarily be the construction placed upon the translation:
First. That a principal act of God in creation, that of making ADAM male and female man, is eliminated and stricken out.
Second. The creative name of THE ADAM the individual is in like manner eliminated.
Third. By the use of the word SO for AND, the making of the class ADAM in Genesis i. 26 is declared to be the same act of God as the creating of HA-ADAM the individual in Genesis i. 27.
Fourth. By eliminating the name HA-ADAM in other portions of the Genesis, and substituti
ng men and man, the flood is made universal; that is, made to destroy all men, instead of destroying the generations of HA-ADAM or THE ADAM.
The natural inquiry of any ordinary reader of history, either sacred or profane, should and would be, if the idea occurred to him, Why have the translators translated a proper name at all, and as they have done so, sometimes rendering HA-ADAM, ADAM, Sometimes man, sometimes the man, and sometimes men? If the original Hebrew name was to be abandoned in the English, why not have used the same term for the same name where it occurred? If the reader asks the question, he must satisfy himself with an answer; we only state the facts of the case.
VERIFICATION FROM THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION.
This verification is important to the reader, who has no means of judging of the accuracy of the translation from the Hebrew to the English. We think we can prove what the Hebrew should be in the instances under consideration, from so much of the Genesis as has been transcribed correctly. Then as to the name ADAM male and female man:
Gen. v. 2. Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name ADAM, in the day when they were created.
This is the translation, and, so far as we can see, it is a correct transcription from the Hebrew; the name ADAM occurring there as it does here. The only part of Gen. i. relating to the making and creating of mankind, is the following in the translation:
Gen. i. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen. i. 27. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
We then see that ADAM, being a name as stated in Gen. v. 2, and that its definition is male and female man, has no place in either of these two verses, being the DAY when they were created. Then, knowing the fact by Divine authority that it should be there, where will you place it without reference to the Hebrew? You could not place it in the Genesis i. 27, where man occurs, because that is a single man, as the translation asserts. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him: ADAM, being defined as male and female, and this term man is a single male governed by him. Nor can it be taken as the male and female in the same verse, because they stand for persons not named. But suppose we do assume that this male and female represent ADAM, how are we to account still for this name in the DAY of creation, and what significance are we to give to man in the Genesis i. 26? Man there means a class, for they were to have dominion, And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, etc.
Then, if man in Gen. i. 27 was the same as man in Gen. i. 26, then he was to have dominion, etc., and the true statement, And let them have dominion, etc., is a plain contradiction. The reader can see, then, that he cannot place the name ADAM, male and female, for man, in the Genesis i. 27, nor for male and female in the same verse, because these are placed there without names. The only place left is man in Gen. i. 26, and there is just where ADAM occurs in the original Hebrew text. Our assertion of the fact is therefore corroborated without a knowledge of the Hebrew, and any one possessing that knowledge can easily deny our statement if it is not so.
Now, in respect to the individual created as man in Gen. i. 27. The question with the reader is, to inquire whether one man was created by this account, and if so, had he a name or designation in the Hebrew. It is correctly stated in many places in the Genesis, that it was an individual and that his name was THE ADAM. Then, the reader might ask, why was not that name used in the translation as well as in the Hebrew, to denote the fact? We say it was so used in the Hebrew, and is there put down as HA-ADAM – Ha being THE in the English language – so that HA-ADAM was the Hebrew name which in English is THE ADAM. The necessity of the insertion of the Hebrew term, when it occurs in the Hebrew, to denote this individual, must be done and repeated in the translation to give an accurate conception of the subject. The reader will see, without references by us or quotations, that where his individuality occurs in the translation, he is more frequently called the man, man, and men, than ADAM, and never once in the translated Genesis, THE ADAM.
A normal reader would therefore conclude that there was something very singular in the fact that this name ADAM, or THE ADAM, was not persistently used to designate the individual and he would undoubtedly claim the right to insert in his own reading of Genesis either of these names, uniformly, for the purpose of understanding it, without any reference to Hebrew names left out in the translation, and other terms substituted. For these reasons, the conclusion is inevitable that some uniform term or name should be used for the individual placed in the Garden of Eden, and that name should be THE ADAM, or ADAM. The elimination of these Hebrew terms, and the substitution of others will be clearly set forth in the eleven chapters of Genesis in the back of this work, and if they are not correct, any errors can be easily pointed out.
The striking out of And, and substituting So, cannot be made as clear to the reader as we would wish, without a reference to the Hebrew. Still, we think, as applied to the translation, after the name ADAM shall be placed where God put it, and HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM not denied its place, the two verses would assume such a form that the word So would be inapplicable, and give no sense as an English word. We quote them with the names restored, retaining the word So.
Gen. i. 26. And God said, Let us make ADAM male and female man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen. i. 27. So God created HA-ADAM, or THE ADAM, in His own image, in the image o God created He him; male and female created He them.
As a rhetorical question, any one can decide it as well as, and probably better than, the author. But as a Biblical question it is easily decided. By the elimination of the word AND and the substitution of the word SO, in Genesis i. 27, whoever has done it substantially has said to Moses, You did not know what you were writing about, and did not understand your subject. You should not have used the word AND in that place, but should have used the word SO, because we know God did not mean anything by the Genesis i. 26, except as a declaration of intention of what He did do in Genesis i. 27. We shall therefore take out your word AND and put in our word SO.
And so, too, the constructionists of the unity of the race say of Moses substantially the same thing, when they read God s law of reproduction, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind. Now, Moses wrote this, of course, but he did not mean what he says, because we have always considered the living as applying to the brute creation, the fishes, the fowls, and the creeping things. Those we see and know are reproduced in kind as he says, and in accordance with the law. But we have always read, and so believe, that ADAM and EVE were the only man and woman made on the day of creation, and if this law of reproduction be made applicable to the human race, then all men and women now on the earth would be of one kind. No, Moses never meant that law should apply to the human race.
So we might expect, from what we have seen, that the translators would have put in the following, if they had not finished the subject by what they have done: Let the earth bring forth the living creature, except man, after his kind; for no one would probably go so far as to declare, except he be an enthusiast, that man is not a living creature of God. These illustration
s show the necessity of setting aside individual opinions upon the reading and construction of plain passages of Scripture. When we find a positive statement, like the law of reproduction, give it full force, without it is positively confined within limits by another statement.
The reader can easily verify the law of marriage of near akin laid down in Leviticus xviii., and can decide for himself whether the statutes and judgments of God were from the beginning, or whether they have been made to fit cases as they occur. With these explanations he will be enabled to gain a reasonably clear conception of the subject. But if he should fail still in his confidence in the Hebrew eliminations and English substitutions, and take sufficient interest in the subject, he can apply to any Hebrew scholar to verify the statements herein contained.
SUMMARY.
Having gone through with this subject, and handled it in such a way, we hope, as to place men on their guard not to interpolate, not to eliminate, not to substitute, and not to place their individual opinions against the recorded word of God, we are now prepared to sum up the evidences which we have gleaned from the record. And we are willing to acknowledge, being so fearful of individual bias and the operation of individual opinion where the word of God is concerned, that we almost shrink from the responsibility. But truth is potent. And if the things stated here be the truth, our responsibility will end with the declaration of it, while that of others will begin, who have held the contrary, and see these facts. We then determine the following as we read the record:
First. That there was a creation by the fiat of God in six grand divisions. Each division was made or created in time called days, and these days were sub divided into periods called light, darkness, evening, and morning.
Second. That these creations were to accomplish certain great and glorious ends. Parts were to remain as created or made, and other portions were to continue by changes.
Third. Mankind were made or created to continue by changes.
Fourth. Continuance by changes in the human species, required and received a law regulating these changes from step to step. This is the law of reproduction after his kind.
Fifth. The operation of these laws must be judged and determined by observation, in like manner with all other natural laws.
Sixth. That observation shows that different kinds of men and women are produced on the earth. We must assume, even without revelation, that 4 is a Divine law, and it must not be claimed as having changed, unless we have positive proof. It becomes a still more binding law when we find it laid down in the inspired record.
Seventh. We have shown two classes of male and female as created or made in the day of creation: ADAM male and female and THE ADAM, and also male and female.
Eighth. The former class has been ignored and eliminated from our Bible, which shows but one act of God in the creation of mankind, when it should record two.
Ninth. We have not yet received in our English Bible the pure word of God on this subject, as found in the Hebrew, from these and other causes of elimination to which we have referred.
Tenth. These continued errors have bound our Bible to the declaration of the unity of the race in ADAM and EVE.
Eleventh. The flood only destroyed their descendants, and did not destroy all flesh or every man, from the normal reading of the account.
Twelfth. That the Bible nowhere states in terms that the human family have descended from one man, or one pair, or from a common parent. Hence it is not Biblical that we have all descended from ADAM and EVE, except through the eliminations and substitutions spoken of.
Thirteenth. By these eliminations and substitutions, the Bible has been warped out of its true meaning, and Christians have been reading these manisms, instead of the pure word of God.
Fourteenth. We claim as a finality, that the Hebrew names and terms should be restored, and these manisms rooted out. That every term and name found in the original record should he cherished and retained in its place, as a jewel of priceless value. When this is done, theologies and constructions will take care of themselves but no theology or construction should deprive the Christian, or any other man, of the pure and unadulterated word of God.
RESULT
ADMITTING that the Christian world is brought to the knowledge of the main postulates, which we think have been proven, and that they find the eliminations of ADAM the class, and THE ADAM the individual, and of the single word AND (which after all governs the whole case), and that for these terms in the original Hebrew other terms have been substituted, which have changed the whole meaning of the Genesis, as regards the introduction of mankind into the creation. What is the result?
On the one hand are the various sectarian denominations, with the learned Divines almost to a unit reading the King James translation of the Bible, and grounding their belief upon these substitutions. On the other hand is an equally large number who, though they believe in the Bible generally, and are well grounded in the Christian faith, do not believe the construction placed upon it, that all kinds of men and women have descended from ADAM and EVE, this not being one of the fundamental articles of the Christian faith.
So intimately is this construction connected with the Bible, and so bold and pointed are the declaration of its advocates that this is what the Bible calls for, that a charge of disbelief in this construction is received as a charge of disbelief in the Bible. This leads to acrimonious feeling, and acts incidentally and strongly on a belief in the Bible truths in other respects, and is a serious impediment to the universal reception of the Christian faith. This has been progressing for years, till the Genesis has become a gladiators ring, and the whole world is looking on to see the result. Meantime others, seeing the extent of this contest, and the persistency with which each party holds to its belief, are entering to dispute other portions of the sacred word.
All this has a pernicious and serious effect upon Christianity itself. Time and effort winch should be devoted to the extension of the Christian faith, are lost in the vain effort to extinguish opposition to this construction. The opponents are backed by the acts of God in Nature, and by an admitted principle that He is unchanging in these acts, and their experience confirms them in that position. They see various kinds of men and women differing in physical organization, produced and reproduced, the one never producing the other, and no history, sacred or profane, recording the adverse. They say that the construction given to Scripture, where nothing to the contrary is stated, should be in exact accordance and in parallelisms with the revealed word and, the acts of God in Nature.
The advocates of the unity of the race, on the other hand, admit the production and reproduction of the various kinds of men and women as now found upon the earth – admit this through all history, but claim that the change took place in the hiatus from the creation to where history became reliable. Reading the Scripture upon the substitution we have spoken of, this becomes a necessity to protect and make good this supposition. They assert that God changed His law of reproduction somewhere in the generations of Noah, but cannot point to the time or place or fact of such change. This position, when investigated, becomes a simple assertion, a manism, without one word of proof, either sacred or profane, to sustain it, and should have no weight in deciding a Biblical fact, nor should it even have weight towards founding belief.
The subject, then, stripped of this manism, leaves it open to be decided upon Biblical ground, and upon that alone should it be decided. In this view of the question, they may well ask themselves, why have the eliminations referred to in Genesis been m
ade, and why was it necessary to eliminate at all? Why not have placed the names of the two ADAMS in the English where they occurred in the Hebrew? Why not have retained the word AND instead of substituting the word SO. The most important question, however, is, Have we founded our construction upon the pure word of God, or upon these manisms?
We believe that no one will be held responsible for this construction made in good faith on the supposed word of God, for we have once believed in that construction. Such belief of the unity of the race on this ground is highly commendable. The responsibility only begins with the discovery of the error. Let us look at the subject in the light that this construction has been based on error, and that the Genesis, and the Bible as a whole, is relieved of it by a return to the eliminations from the Hebrew record. The constructionists of the unity yield nothing, for they have persistently declared that the Genesis was an unexplained portion of Scripture. What do they gain if this gives a consistent reading and a clear understanding of what has not been understood? They gain just what they have wanted, and declared they wanted in their proclamation, that Genesis was unexplained, and the honest portion of the world would say to them, You have done the best you could to support the supposed word of God.
What would their opponents gain? Just nothing. For they get what they have believed and what by their own efforts they have endeavored to show, but which they have not shown to conquer, by any arguments or proofs which they have educed. The contest, therefore, over the unity of the race must be regarded as an undecided battle between the contestants, neither side having brought forth proofs or arguments that vanquished the other. Each has been contending, as we believe, with false weapons, while the smooth stone out of the brook has remained unnoticed, unheeded, and untried.
If this reading and construction be received by the Christian world, we may well say that a millennium has come. The eyes of all will be turned to the Bible as a book of inspiration agreeing with the acts of God In Nature, and by agreement in this respect reflect favorably upon the whole. Dissensions will cease, sects will no longer be divided, the problem of Genesis will be declared solved, and the great stumbling block to belief at the very threshold of creation and Divine truth be removed.
How, then, will this reading be received? Will Christians still go on and claim the King James translation infallible? Will they still continue to read and teach manisms instead of the pure word of God? Will they consent to the eliminations and substitutions we have pointed out as being the photograph of Divine inspiration? Will the combatants over the sacred word be willing to lay off their armor, and agree upon the pure word of God from the Hebrew? God only knows, and time alone can reveal the result.
ELIMINATIONS RESTORED
As we have said before, the eliminations of Hebrew names and words extend only to the following, which is as far as our subject goes:
ADAM, male and female man.
HA-ADAM, or The Adam, the individual.
VAY, meaning AND.
We give hereafter the first two and also parts of the remaining eleven chapters of Genesis wherein these names and this word AND are restored to their places, and have taken out the substitutions which have been placed there in their stead. We shall give at the same time, in notes to each verse, the rendering of these terms by the translators, so that the reader can make the ready comparison without referring to the Bible. Every one will admit that the name of au individual is not a subject of translation; and here was one of the grounds which has led to the stupendous error.
ADAM, male and female, is left out but once, while THE ADAM has never been allowed a place in the Bible at all, although this name occurs in the first eleven chapters no less than THIRTY-SIX times. In the face of this fact, our Bible has been presented to us as the correct transcription of the word of God. The name HA-ADAM, translated THE ADAM, by which he was created, has been denied a place in God s record of the transaction, or even in the Bible! He has been called man, the man, men, men s, and Adam, but never once THE ADAM. To say the least, this is a very singular circumstance. Any reader would naturally ask why this was done? It matters not if injustice in this respect has been inflicted upon him, it is not too late now to make amends. We shall place his name as THE ADAM just where it occurs in the Hebrew, but we shall not change his name when it also occurs in the Hebrew as ADAM.
GENESIS
CHAPTER I
1. IN BEGINNING, God created the heaven and the earth.
2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8. And God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit AFTER HIS KIND, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed AFTER HIS KIND, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, AFTER HIS KIND: and God saw that it was
13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years;
15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth.
18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, AFTER THEIR KIND, and every winged fowl AFTER HIS KIND: and God saw that it was good.
22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24. And God said, LET THE EARTH BRING FORTH THE LIVING CREATURE AFTER HIS KIND, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth AFTER HIS KIND: and it was so.
25. And God made the beast of the earth AFTER HIS KIND, and cattle AFTER THEIR KIND, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth AFTER HIS KIND and God saw that it was good.
26. And God said, Let us make ADAM (Male and female man, Gen. v. 2; by translators man), in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over t
he cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27. AND (By translators, So) God created THE ADAM (By translators, man) in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29. And God said, Behold, I have given yon every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of tile air, and to every thing that creepeth upon tile earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31. And God saw every thing that he had made, arid, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. good.
CHAPTER II
1. Thus the heaven (By translators, heavens) and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
4. These are the generations of the heaven (By translators, heavens) and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heaven. (By translators, heavens.)
5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and ADAM (By translators, there was not a man) was not, to till the ground.
6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7. And the LORD God formed THE ADAM (By translator s, man) of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and THE ADAM (By translators, man) became a living soul.
8. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put THE ADAM (By translators, the man) whom he had formed.
9. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which encompasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12. And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that encompasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth towards the cast of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
15. And the LORD God took THE ADAM (By translators, the man), and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.
16. And the LORD God commanded THE ADAM (By translators, the man), saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18. And the LORD God said, It is not good that THE ADAM (By translators, the man) should be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.
19. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the earth; and brought them unto THE ADAM (By translators, Adam) to see what he would call them: and whatsoever THE ADAM (Adam) called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20. And THE ADAM (Adam) gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; And TO (By translators, but for) ADAM (The same in Hebrew and English) there was not found a help meet for him.
21. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon THE ADAM (By translators, Adam), and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.
22. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from THE ADAM (man), made he a woman, and brought her unto THE ADAM (the man).
23. And THE ADAM (Adam) said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man (Hebrew-ish).
24. Therefore shall a man (Hebrew-ish) leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25. And they were both naked, THE ADAM (the man) and his wife, and were not ashamed.
CHAPTER III
8. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and THE ADAM (Adam) and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9. And the LORD God called unto THE ADAM (Adam) and said unto him, Where art thou?
12. And THE ADAM (the man) said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
17. And unto ADAM (The same in Hebrew and English) he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life:
20. And THE ADAM (Adam) called his wife s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21. To (Unto) ADAM (Adam) also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
22. And the LORD God said, Behold, THE ADAM (the man) is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:
24. So he drove out THE ADAM (the man): and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
CHAPTER IV
1. And THE ADAM (Adam) knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man (Hebrew-ish) from the LORD.
25. And ADAM (Adam) knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
CHAPTER V
1. This is the book of the generations of ADAM (Adam). In the day that God created ADAM (man), in the likeness of God made he him:
2. Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name ADAM (Adam), in the day when they were created.
3. And ADAM (Adam) lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
4. And the days of ADAM (Adam) after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
5. And all the days that ADAM (Adam) lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
CHAPTER VI
1. AND it came to pass, when THE ADAM (men) began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2. That the sons of God saw the daughters of THE ADAM (men) that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3. And the LORD said, My Spirit shall not always strive with ADAM (man), for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
4. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of THE ADAM (men), and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men (Hebrew-ish) which were of old, men (Hebrew-ish) of renown.
5. And God saw that the wickedness of THE ADAM (man) was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6. And it repented the LORD that he had made THE ADAM (man) on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart.
7. And the LORD said, I will destroy THE ADAM (man) whom I have created from the face of the earth; FROM ADAM UNTO (both man and) beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
CHAPTER VII
21. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every THE ADAM (man):
23. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both ADAM (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.
CHAPTER VIII
21. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for THE ADAM S (man s) sake; for the imagination of THE ADAM S (man s) heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
CHAPTER IX
5. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will 1 require it, and at the hand of THE ADAM (man); at the hand of every man s (Hebrew-ish) brother will I require the life of THE ADAM (man).
6. Whoso sheddeth THE ADAM S (man s) blood, by ADAM (man) shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he THE ADAM (man).
CHAPTER XI
5. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of THE ADAM (men) builded.
HOW THE BIBLE HAS COME TO US
REGARDING the Hebrew kind as being the sole agent of God to bring into existence and present to man His inspired word of the Old Testament it becomes interesting to follow up the autograph manuscripts on parchment of the inspired writers and their copies to the present day, and ascertain, as far as possible, how much of them are retained in our translations. These manuscripts have long since disappeared, and none of them now exist. We have, therefore, to depend upon the apograph copies, and upon the multiplied copies made from them at various periods; and finally, for ourselves, depend upon their translations into the English language.
Whoever reads any translation for the mere purpose of criticism, would do well not to read at all. But he who reads to discover the true meaning, may be compelled to criticise and even complain. Fundamentally, we regard the reading of Scripture should be governed by two rules:
First. Whatever relates to natural facts should be read as agreeing with the developed acts of God in Nature, except they be claimed as special departures recorded as miracles.
Second. Whatever relates to morals should be read under the strict control of moral responsibility, imprinted by God on the conscience of every individual.
If the Scripture was read under these two rules, we should have deeper study into Nature where God transcribes for Himself, and less of general and more of pointed criticism to correct whatever of wrong may have crept into translations by intention or accident of men.
The inspiration of the Old Testament was first written in the Hebrew language, and has been continued and preserved in that language to the present day. Some slight changes have been made in the forms of the letters and in other respects, to render the reading more exact and comprehensive. All, however, agree, with very few dissenters, comparatively, that the Hebrew text is a daguerrotype of all the inspired ideas, and may be set down as absolutely correct in this respect. It is unnecessary to inform the reader that some errors in transcription may have been, and probably were, made and may have been continued.
Regarding the scrupulous care taken of them, it is equally reasonable to suppose that those errors would have been discovered in the lifetime of the parchment on which they were written, and hence corrected. This may be said more particularly of the Pentateuch, which contains the Genesis. It was held in great veneration by the Jews, and was read in their synagogues from the earliest times.
These copies were of two kinds those for the use of the synagogue, and those for the use of private individuals; the first being made on skins and in rolls, the second being on vellum, parchment, or on paper, in a square form.
HOW COPIES WERE MADE
We quote from Horne, In., vol. i. p. 216:
The copies of the law must be transcribed from ancient manuscripts of approved character only, with pure ink, on parchment prepared from the hide of a clean animal, for this express purpose, by a Jew, and fastened together by the strings of clean animals: every skin must contain a certain number of columns of prescribed length and breadth, each column comprising a given number of lines and words: no word must be written by heart or with points; or without being first orally pronounced by the copyist: the name of God is not to be written but with the utmost devotion and attention, and previously to writing it, he must wash his pen. The want of a single letter, or the redundance of a single letter, the writing of prose as verse or verse as prose, respectively, vitiates a manuscript: and when a copy has been completed, it must he examined arid corrected within thirty days after the writing has been finished, in order to determine whether it is to be approved or rejected. These rules, it is said, are observed to the present day by those who transcribe the sacred writings for the use of the synagogue. The form of one of these rolled manuscripts (from the original among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 7619) is here given:
It is a large double roll containing the Hebrew Pentateuch, written with great care on forty African skins. These skins are of different breadths, some containing more columns than others. The columns are one hundred and fifty-three in number, each of which contains about sixty-three lines, is about twenty-two inches deep, and generally more than five inches broad. The letters have no points, apices, or flourishes about them. The initial words are not larger than the rest; and a space equal to about four lines is left between every two books. Altogether, this is one of the finest synagogue rolls that has been preserved to the present time.
THE SQUARE MANUSCRIPTS,
which are in private use, are written with black ink – either on vellum or on parchment or on paper, and of various sizes – folio, quarto, octavo, and duodecimo. Those which are copied on paper are considered as belonging to the most modern; and frequently have some one of the Targums or Chaldee paraphrases, either subjoined to the text in alternate verse, or placed in parallel columns with the text; or written in the margin of the manuscript. The characters are for the most part called the square Chaldee; though a few manuscripts are written with rabbinical characters, but these are invariably of recent date.
Of the various Hebrew manuscripts which have been preserved, few contain the Old Testament entire; the greater part comprise only particular portions of it, as the Pentateuch, five Magilloth and Haphtaroth or sections of the Prophets, which are read on the Sabbath days; the Prophets or the Hagiographa.
THE GREEK MANUSCRIPTS
The same author remarks: The Greek manuscripts which have descended to our time are written either on vellum or on paper; that their external forms vary like the manuscripts of other ancient authors. The vellum is either purple-colored or of its natural hue, and is either thick or thin. Manuscripts on very thin vellum were always held in the highest esteem. The paper also is either made of cotton or the common sort manufactured of linen, and is either glazed or laid (as it is technically termed); that is, of the ordinary roughness. Not more than six manuscript fragments on purple vellum are known to be extant.
Nearly the same mod
e of spelling obtains in ancient manuscripts which prevails in Greek printed books.
Very few manuscripts contain the whole of either the Old or New Testaments. By far the greater part have only the four Gospels, because they were most frequently read in churches; others comprise only the Acts of the Apostles, and the catholic epistles; others, again, have the Acts, and St. Paul s Epistles; but a few contain the Apocalypse, in connection with other books, and fewer still contain it alone, as this book was seldom read in the churches. Almost all of them, especially the now ancient manuscripts, are imperfect, either from the injuries of time or from neglect.
All manuscripts, the most ancient not excepted, have erasures and corrections; which, however, were not effaced so dexterously, but that the original writing may sometimes be seen. When these alterations have been made by the copyist of the manuscript, they are preferable to those made by later hands. These erasures were sometimes made by drawing a line through the word, or what is tenfold worse, by the penknife. But besides these modes of obliteration, the copyist frequently blotted out the old writing with a sponge, and wrote other words in lieu of it; nor was this practice confined to a single letter or word. * * * Authentic instances ale on record in which whole books have been obliterated, and other writing has been thus substituted in the place of the manuscript so blotted out; but when the writing was already faded with age they preserved these manuscripts without further erasure.
THE GREEK SCRIPTURES
Of the few manuscripts known to be extant which contain the Greek Scriptures (that is, the Old Testament according to the Septuagint version, and the New Testament), there are two which pre-eminently demand the attention of the Biblical student, for their antiquity and intrinsic value, viz.: The Alexandrian manuscript, which is preserved in the British Museum, and the Vatican manuscript deposited in the library of the Vatican Palace at Rome.
It will be seen that these manuscripts are founded in inspiration, and that the Hebrew has greatly the advantage in the accuracy of its transmission over the Greek. These differences we shall not enter into; first, because we do not possess the knowledge requisite to do so; and, second, this is beyond the range of our subject. Almost all writers, however, seem to agree that the Hebrew inspiration has been transmitted in comparative purity, and on that we have depended for our purposes.
THE FIRST ENGLISH BIBLE
COVERDALE S BIBLE
BIBLIA. The Bible, that is, the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament faithfully and truly translated out of the Douche and Latyn in to the Englishe. [Zurich] M.D. XXXV. folio.
Horne In., vol. ii., Part 1, Chap. I., p. 34: This first English translation of the entire Bible was made from the Latin and German, and dedicated to King Henry the VIII. by Myles Coverdale, who was greatly esteemed for his piety, knowledge of the Scriptures, and diligent preaching; on account of which quality, King Edward VI. subsequently advanced him to the See of Exeter. * * * He further declared that he had neither wrested nor altered so much as one word for the maintenance of any manner of sect, but had with a clean conscience translated out of the foregoing interpreters, having only before his eyes the maintenance of the Holy Scriptures. * * * This is the first English Bible allowed by royal authority in the year 1536.
THE BISHOP S BIBLE
This being the Bible from which our King James version was mainly taken, we will go no further hack to speak of other versions in the modern European languages. Horne says, vol. ii., Part 1, Chap. I., p. 36: In the year 1568, the Bible proposed by Archbishop Parker three years before, was completed. This edition, according to Le Long, was undertaken by royal command. * * * In the performance, distinct portions of the Bible, at least fifteen in number, were allotted to select men of learning and abilities, appointed, as Fuller says, by the Queen s commission; but it still remains uncertain who, and whether one or more, revised the rest of the New Testament. Eight of the persons employed were bishops, whence the book was called the Bishop s Bible, or the Great English Bible.
THE KING JAMES BIBLE
The same author continues: The last English version that remains to be noticed is the authorized translation now in use, which is commonly called King James Bible. He succeeded to the throne of England in 1602: and several objections having been made to the Bishop s Bible, at the conference held at Hampton Court in 1603, the king in the following year gave orders for the undertaking of a new version, and fifty-four learned men were appointed to this important labor; but before it was completed, seven of the persons nominated were either dead or had declined the task; for the list as given by Fuller comprises only forty-seven names. All of them, however, were pre-eminently distinguished for their piety, and for their profound learning in the original languages of the sacred writings. And such of them as survived till the commencement of the work, were divided into six classes. Ten were to meet at Westminster, and to translate from the Pentateuch to the Second Book of Kings. Eight, assembled at Cambridge, were to finish the rest of the historical Books, and the Hagiographa. At Oxford, seven were to undertake the four greater prophets, with the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the twelve minor prophets. The four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocrypha, were assigned to another company of eight, also at Oxford; and the epistles of St. Paul, together with the remaining canonical epistles, were allotted to another company of seven, at Westminster. Lastly, another company at Cambridge were to translate the apocryphal books, including the prayer of Manasseh. To these six companies of venerable translators the king gave the following:
INSTRUCTIONS
1. The ordinary Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishop s Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the original will permit.
2. The names of the prophets and the holy writers, with the other names of the text, to be retained, as near as may be accordingly, as they are vulgarly used.
3. The old ecclesiastical words to be kept, as the word church not to be translated congregation.
4. Where any word hath divers significations that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most eminent fathers, being agreeable to the propriety of the place and the analogy of faith.
5. The division of the chapters to be altered either not at all, or as little as may be, if necessity so require.
6. No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek word, which cannot without some circumlocution so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.
7. Such quotations of places to be marginally set down as shall serve for the fit references of one scripture to another.
8. Every particular man of each company to take the same chapter or chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himself where he thinks good, all to meet together to confer what they have done, and agree for their part what shall stand.
9. As any one company hath despatched any one book in this manner, they shall send it to the rest to be considered of seriously and judiciously, for his majesty is very careful on this point.
10. If any company, upon the review of the book so sent, shall doubt or differ upon any places, to send them word thereof, to note the places, and then withal to send their reasons; to which, if they consent not, the difference to be compounded at the general meeting, which is to be of the chief persons of each company, at the end of the work.
11. When any place of special obscurity is doubted of, letters to be directed by authority, to send to any learne
d in the land for his judgment in such a place.
12. Letters to be sent from any bishop to the rest of his clergy admonishing them of the translation in hand, and to move and charge as many as being skilful in the tongues have taken pains in that kind, to send them particular observation to the company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford, according as it was directed before in the King s letter to the Archbishop.
13. The directors of each company to be the Deans of Westminster, and Chester for Westminster, and the King s professors in Hebrew and Greek in the two universities.
14. These translations to be used when they agree better with the text than the Bishop s Bible; viz., Tindal s, Coverdale s, Matthew s, Whitchurch s, Geneva.
15. Besides the said directors before mentioned, three or four of the most ancient and grave divines of either of the universities not employed in translating, to be assigned by the vice-chancellor upon conference with the rest of the heads, to be overseers of the translation, as well Hebrew as Greek for the better observation of the 4th rule above specified.
The translation commenced in the spring of 1607 and the completion of it occupied almost three years.
The whole theory of these regal instructions, and the effort, has, in our humble judgment, been grounded in a radical error. That error consisted is this: They were directed, if we read those directions rightly, to follow the Bishop s Bible mainly. This is the incidental error. But the vital one was, that they were to translate according to their best understanding, derived from their knowledge of the original tongues and, where differences of opinion existed, to compound those differences. We think all readers will agree that this was the substance of the instructions.
Suppose, as is claimed by some writers, that there was but one skilled Hebraist (Lively) among the whole number of translators, and as he died before much was done, there was then not one. That on his death, Hugh Broughton, fellow of Christ College, Cambridge, the only remaining skilled Hebraist in England, proffered his assistance in the important work, and his services were rejected. Assuming these as facts, in what condition was this body of translators to transcribe the pure word of God from the Hebrew? The answer may be found in one point, at least, in the eliminations and substitutions which passed through their hands in the Genesis which we have pointed out.
All of them were undoubtedly skilled Greek and Latin scholars; and the strong inference is, that they were guided by the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Scriptures, and set aside entirely the original Hebrew. This is certainly the most charitable conclusion to arrive at, under all the circumstances. Nor can they be held reprehensibly responsible as faithful translators, if they followed the instructions of His Royal Highness, King James. They entered upon their task in regal fetters, and emerged from it, producing what he commanded. The bare idea of compounding the word of God to us is so repulsive, that we may speak too strong on the subject. There is no positive proof, so far as we know, that any portion of the Scripture was so compounded. The instructions, however, under which these translators acted, whether they followed them or not, throws a dark cloud of distrust over what they produced, or even let pass through their hands. For we do not know what was, or what was not, compounded; what was, or what was not, translated from original tongues, or what was blindly followed from the Bishop s Bible. If those instructions had been simple, and to the effect that the translators were to make a faithful translation from the original tongues, and any portions clearly doubtful should be put down in the original letters and words, to be left for future explanations, the result would have been different, and such a course would have secured the confidence of the Christian world.
At the time of this translation, but little attention was paid to the study of the Hebrew. It has since received more consideration, and the land now abounds with skilled Hebraists. This has brought out many valuable criticisms, and there never has been a time more opportune than time present enlightened age to collate all of them that will bear the test of truth, and present the word of God as nearly pure, if not altogether so, as the work of man can make it. This, however, can never be done to gain the entire confidence of the Christian world, under the direction of any sect, or of any self-constituted body of men.
We have already of admitted truth a vast book, with comparatively few errors. These should he gradually eradicated when they become definitely settled upon as errors. How is this to be done? Not by any regal authority or regal command. Not by any religious sect, nor by any self -constituted body, nor by any one man. The Bible is the common inheritance of all Christians, and the Old Testament, of the Hebrews. We hope to live and see the dawn of that day, when those who are most interested in the correction of these errors shall move to a conference upon them. That this conference shall be open to every Christian denomination throughout the world, and to the Hebrews on the Old Testament. If this attempt be made, let no king, potentate, sect, or man control the undertaking. Let the word of God control.
THE END.