Mosaic cosmogony

“ The literal interpretation of the Mosaic Cosmogony is the very expression of a barbarian mind and people, relying so far on magic as to make all natural process of generation or production impossible, relying so far on natural processes as to make the fiat of supreme power evidently inapplicable. ”

“ Similarly, Science furnishes an instance in one who united naturalism in Geology with supernaturalism in Biology—Sir Charles Lyell. While, as the leading expositor of the uniformitarian theory in geology, he ignored wholly the Mosaic cosmogony, he long defended that belief in special creations of organic types, for which no other source than the Mosaic cosmogony could be assigned ”

“ T THE origin of our planet is a problem which has appealed to the intellect of thoughtful men from the most remote times, and the earliest recorded speculations concerning it—those of the Mosaic cosmogony—possess a peculiar interest, since they embody the views of the ancient Chaldeans, who were not only systematic observers of the heavens, but made practical use of their results. ”

“ He says, “We learn from scripture, that light pre-existed before this luminary (the sun) and that its subsequent condensation in his orb was a particular act of Almighty Power. The phosphorescence of minerals, buried since the origin of things in the bowels of the earth, coincides strictly with the Mosaic account of the creation. We shall therefore regard light as the first born element of chaos, as an independent essence, universally distributed through the mineral, vegetable, and animal world, capable of being disengaged from its latent state by various natural and artificial operations.” ”

“ We do not think it fully meets the necessities of the case, but it has unquestionably the merit of imaginative power, and is in full harmony with the nature of man's mind, and is therefore preferable to any theory which would assert the exact science of the Mosaic record by its anticipation of the theory of Laplace and Herschel, by which the earth existed before the sun was given as a luminary, and was independent of the sun for light. ”

“ According to the theory of Mosaic geology ultimately adopted by Hugh Miller, the 'beginning' spoken of in the first verse of the Bible corresponds to that period when the planet, wrapt in primeval fires, was about to enter upon the series of changes which is inscribed in the geologic record. The chaos, dark and formless, which preceded the dawn of organic existence upon earth, was no temporary inundation, no miraculous catastrophe, but an actual state of things of which the evidence still exists in the rocks. ”

“ Although the geocentric error of the Mosaic history was demonstrated by Copernicus, and thereby its authority as an absolutely perfect divine revelation was destroyed, yet it has maintained, down to the present day, such influence, that it forms in many wide circles the principle obstacle to the adoption of a natural theory of development. Even in our century, many naturalists, especially geologists, have tried to bring the Mosaic theory into harmony with the recent results of natural science, and have, for example, interpreted Moses’ seven days of creation as seven great geological periods. ”

“ Even the division of the elements, of the waters above the firmament, and of the waters below it, on the second day of creation, the permanent limitation of the sea for the formation and visible appearance of the dry land, necessarily imply a mighty revolution in the earth, and afford additional proof that the Mosaic history speaks not only of one but of many catastrophes of nature, a circumstance that has not been near enough attended to in the geological interpretation and illustration of the Bible.”—Schlegel, p. ”

“ It dealt with the appearance of mountains and the antiquity of the human race, explained the six days of the Mosaic creation as so many epochs preceding the actual state of the globe, and attributed the deluge to the filling up of cavities supposed to have been left void in the interior of the earth. ”

“ If we will attentively examine the fossil remains of fishes, animals, birds, and vegetables, so abundantly preserved entombed in the crust of our earth, we shall easily see the necessity of looking into the sepulchres of these primitive creatures if we would freely describe the “Mosaic Creation.” Many of their genera and species are now extinct: and those which remain seem to have dwindled down to mere dwarfs in comparison with their prototypes. ”

“ It is utterly impossible that the Mosaic record should have been constructed in order to suit the scientific discoveries of our own day. And those who honour science would be the last to admit that men of science have constructed their system on the lines of the Mosaic record. ”

“ The leading religions of the East which still survive, such as Buddhism, Brahminism, and Parseeism, have all their astronomy, geography, meteorology, and geology, existing as component parts of their several systems. Nor have there been wanting ingenious men who, though little tolerant of the various attempts made to reconcile the Mosaic account of creation with the discoveries of modern science, have looked with a favorable eye on the wild science of the false religions, and professed to detect in it at least striking analogies with the deductions of both the geologist and the astronomer. ”

“ The Scriptures speak of one creation only; and of that, directly and incidentally, in such terms as to leave no room for the supposition that any portion of the material universe was called into existence prior to the Mosaic epoch. They exhibit nothing from which an inference can be derived that all were not created at one epoch. The contrary supposition is not founded on any authority of inspiration, but upon conjecture or assumption. It is by some assumed that by the heavens Moses meant the orbs of our solar system only, or at most, the stars visible in the firmament to the unassisted eye. ”

“ The flora of the primordial world was expressly a part of the ‘Mosaic creation,’ and which is but little understood as yet. Some of the principal plants were of the fern and palm genera; but their size very far exceeded those now found growing. By closely examining these fossil plants, it will be found, that they increase in size and quantity as the period of their growth is distant from the time in which man was created: thus indicating an increasing temperature of the earth as we ascend in time. ”

“ It is idle for the representatives of our modern wisdom to close the debate and pretend that the question is settled, merely because the obscure phraseology of the Mosaic account clashes with the definite exegesis of “exact science.”
One fact at least is proved: there is not a cosmogonical fragment, to whatever nation it may belong, but proves by this universal allegory of water and the spirit brooding over it, that no more than our modern physicists did any of them hold the universe to have sprung into existence out of nothing ”

“ Instead then of one sun, and one world only, in the universe, as the unskilful in astronomy imagine, that science discovers to us such an inconceivable number of suns, systems, and worlds, dispersed through boundless space, that if our sun, with all the 265 planets, moons, and comets belonging to it, were annihilated, they would with difficulty be missed, by an eye that could take in the whole creation ”

“ The Mosaic history places this beginning of man at no great distance; and there has not been found, in natural history, any document by which high antiquity might be attributed to the human race. But this is not the case with regard to the inferior species of animals, particularly those which inhabit the ocean and its shores. ”

“ When we are in the midst of solar and astral systems and legends, it seems natural that a theory of cosmogony should commence with light rather than darkness—at least, as well that it should commence with light as with darkness. But no, the universal tradition seems against it. ”

“ Thus the lineage of every single life-form or principle in the universe runs unbroken back from the present of the Now to the present of monopyknosis. So great is the design of the kosmos that the entity which is now man or the atom was started on its journey to this culmination at the break of the Great Kosmic Day when the omni-pregnant wheels of monopyknosis first began to turn. ”

“ What man had actually seen, though but in dream or picture, would of course be described as seen by man: like all human history, it would, to borrow from Kurtz, be founded on eye-witnessing; and the fact that the Mosaic record of creation is apparently thus founded, [Pg 188] affords a strong presumption that it was in reality revealed, not by dictation, but by vision.
Nor, be it remembered, has the recognition of a purely optical character in the revelation been restricted to the assertion of any one theory of reconciliation. It was as certainly held by Chalmers and Dr. Pye Smith, as by Dr. ”

“ Nothing can be more childish, frivolous or contradictory.
Only a few years ago the Mosaic account was considered true, and Moses was regarded as a scientific authority. Geology and astronomy were measured by the Mosaic standard. The opposite is now true. The church has changed; and instead of trying to prove that modern astronomy and geology are false, because they do not agree with Moses, it is now endeavoring to prove that the account by Moses is true, because it agrees with modern astronomy and geology. ”

“ There are three different parties in the field, either directly opposed, or at least little friendly, to the men who honestly attempt reconciling the Mosaic with the geologic record. First, there are the anti-geologists,—men who hold that geological questions are to be settled now as the Franciscans contemporary with Galileo held that astronomical questions were to be settled in the seventeenth century, or as the doctors of Salamanca contemporary with Columbus held that geographic questions were to be settled in the fifteenth. ”

“ But every cosmogony is just an attempt to simplify matters, by ignoring the existence of these unknown substances, and mysterious forces; a process which science condemns, as utterly unphilosophical and absurd.
Astronomy has shown us our ignorance of the substances, or materials, of our own little globe. It has demonstrated that the whole body of the earth must have an average density equal to iron. As the rocks near the surface are much lighter, those toward the center must be heavier than iron, to make up this density. ”

“ But as Sirius, with its diameter of twelve million miles, must be larger than some of the nebulae will be when equally condensed, we must suppose rather that nebulae are forming and coming into the condition of bright and dead stars, much as apples or pears on a fruit tree are constantly growing and developing, so that the Mosaic description of the creation would probably apply in point of time only to our system, or perhaps to our globe, though the rest will doubtless pass through precisely the same stages. ”

“ But could we behold the Kosmos as it is beheld by its Creator, we should perchance find the whole encyclopedia of our science resting upon a few great, but simple laws; we should see that the whole universe, in all its infinite complication, is the fulfilment of perhaps a single simple thought of the Divine Mind, and that it is this unity pervading the diversity which makes it the Kosmos, Beauty. ”

“ An imaginative system of cosmogony, baseless as the fabric of a dream, is the creation of a moment; to dissipate it the work of ages in study and investigation. Less than a century ago philosophic scepticism could only vent itself in a sneer at the credibility of a tradition, or the fidelity of a manuscript; and the folklore of peasants, encrusted with the hoar of antiquity, was accepted by erudite mystics as the solution of cosmogony and the proof of our communion with the supernatural. ”

“ For while it has been the usual interpretation of the Mosaic account, that the world was brought into existence nearly at the same time with man and the other existing animals, geology throws back its creation to a period indefinitely but immeasurably remote. The question is not whether man has existed on the globe longer than the common interpretation of Genesis requires,—for here geology and the Bible speak the same language,—but whether the globe itself did not exist long before his creation ”

“ Amongst Protestant writers, too, this view of the Mosaic narrative has found no inconsiderable number of able advocates. It is defended by Doctor Buckland, the eminent Geologist, in his celebrated Bridgewater Treatise, by Doctor Chalmers in his Evidences of the Christian Revelation, by Doctor Pye Smith in his dissertations on Geology and Scripture, by the eloquent and original Hugh Miller in his interesting work on the Testimony of the Rocks ”

“ By uniting, under one point of view, both the phenomena of our own globe and those presented in the regions of space, we embrace the limits of the science of the 'Cosmos', and convert the physical history of the globe into the physical history of the universe, the one term being modeled upon that of the other. This science of the Cosmos is not, however, to be regarded as a mere encyclopedic aggregation of the most important and general results that have been collected together from special branches of knowledge. ”

“ It is now generally agreed by cosmogonists, commentators, biblical critics, and natural philosophers, that the substance of the earth certainly, and probably the materials of the Solar System, was first created in a chaotic state, and subsequently arranged in order. This opinion is very ancient and almost universal, found in all nations. ”