GEOGRAPHY (jt-Og'ri-fy.). It is the Hebrews who present us with the earliest written informa tion of a geographical kind.
In the account of creation mention is made of a spot called Eden, out of which a river, after watering Paradise, ran, and 'from thence it' was parted, and became into four heads' (fountains) which sent forth as many rivers, Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, Phrat or Euphrates. Of these the last is the only stream that is identified. The high lands of Armenia would appear to have been the first known to the human family. Descending from these some may have gone eastward, others westward. The latter alone are spoken of in scripture. Coming south and west the progen itors of the world first became acquainted with the countries lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris, roughly termed Mesopotamia, whence they advanced still more south and west into Aram or Syria, Arabia, Canaan, and Egypt.
Profcssor Sayce says : "The geography of Genesis. starts from the north. It was upon the mountains of Ararat or Armenia that the ark rested, and it was accordingly with this region of the. world that our primitive chart begins." He claims that the tenth chapter of Genesis is eth nographical rather than ethnological. "It is de scriptive merely of such races of men as fell with in the horizon of the writer from a geographical point of view. We shall never understand the chapter rightly unless we bear in mind that its main purpose is geographical. In Hebrew as in other Semitic languages, the relation of a mother state to its colony, or of a tov:n or country to its inhabitants, was expressed in genealogical form.
The inhabitant's of Jerusalem wete regarded as 'the daughters of Jerusalem ;' the people of the east were 'the children' of the district to which they belonged.
"When therefore we are told that 'Canaan begat Sidon his first born,' and 'Heth,' all that is meant is that the city of Sidon and the Hittites to whom reference is made were alike to be found in the country called Canaan. It does not follow that there was any ethnological kinship between the Phcenician builders of Sidon and the Hittites from the north. Indeed we know from modern research that there was none. But the Hittite and the Sidonian were both inhabitants of Canaan, or as we should say, Canaanites; they were both ac cordingly'the childrenof Canaan.' " (Races of the Old Testament, pp. 39-4o.) We know that the Hebrews were widely ac quainted with the then known world, since col onies and individuals of their nation were spread over nearly the entire surface covered by ancient civilization, and identified with the Roman empire. The occasional, if not periodical, return of the Jews thus scattered abroad, or at least the rela tions which they would sustain with their mother country, must have greatly widened, and made less inaccurate, the knowledge entertained in Pal estine of other parts of the world. Accordingly we read (Acts ii :5, sq.), that, at the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, 'there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews out of every nation under heaven.' J. R. B.