The mode or manner of the communication of these truths to the divine historian has been the subject of much inquiry and discussion ; and it has been suggested, with much apparent reason, that the details of the creation presented to us by Moses were brought to his knowledge by means of a series of visions, in like manner as the events of futurity were disclosed to the minds of the prophets of old, who recorded them for our instruction. If we analyse the record, it will be found to have all the characteristics of a visional revelation of past events ; for, with exception of the divine fiats which he heard, Moses describes only that which may have been optically presented to him—the earth unformed and unfurnished—the Spirit of God brooding on the face of the waters—the earliest dawn of light—the elevation of the clouds —the first appearance of dry land and land vege tation—the dissolution of the clouds above in the atmosphere, and the unveiling of the orbs of hea ven—the swarming out of the Saurian reptiles— and the first appearance of the quadruped mam mals, and of man ; while those items of the crea tion which he could not have seen, such as the submarine invertebrate and vertebrate animals, and insects, are not mentioned.
It has been suggested by Hugh Miller, that there is a peculiar fitness in a revelation made by vision for conveying to the various generations of man that were to come into being throughout a long series of ages, an account of the creation which was to be received by multitudes who were to live and die in ignorance of the truths of physical sciences, such as geology and astronomy, as well as by those who, at a later period, are qualified to verify the description by the light of those sciences. The prophet, by describing what he had actually seen in plain and intelligible language, shocked no pre viously existing prejudice that had been founded on the apparent evidence of the senses—while, on the other hand, an enlightened age, when it had discovered the key to the description, would find it optically true in all its details. Had it been more real and accordant with scientific truths, the evi dence of inspiration would perhaps have been more striking to men of the present day; but to the many generations of those who were ignorant of those facts of science it would most probably have been rejected as absurd and fabulous. What,' observes Hugh Miller, would sceptics such as Hobbes and Hume have said of an opening chapter in Genesis that would describe successive periods—first of mollusks, star lilies, and crustaceans, next of fishes, next of reptiles and birds, then of mammals, and finally of man ; and that would minutely portray a period in which there were lizards bulkier than elephants, reptilian whales furnished with necks slim and long as the bodies of great snakes, and flying dragons, whose spread of wing greatly more than doubled that of the largest bird ? The world would assuredly not receive such a revelation.' This subject will be found discussed in The Ter timony of the Rock s ; The Mosaic Record in Harmony with the Geological; Sermons in Stoner; The Genesis of the Earth and Man.
The Scriptures do not, as already observed, fix the age of the earth, or supply any means by which we could calculate the length of time that has elapsed since 'the beginning, or the first ap pearance of any of the several items of the crea tion, with the exception of that of Adam ; and as regards his birth, the biblical records have unfolded to us that nearly six thousand years have passed away since he became an inhabitant of the earth.
Facts, however, have recently come to light, on which reasonings have been founded to establish the proposition that, though the extent of the human era most have been short indeed when com pared with the vastness of the geological ages, yet some of the human race must have tenanted the earth at a time long anterior to that assigned by the Bible records to have been the date of Adam's birth. Mr. Leonard Horner's experimental re searches in Egypt, instituted with a view to ascer tain the depths of the sedimentary deposits in the valley of the Nile, have brought to light relics of works of art and specimens of man's handiwork, such as pieces of pottery and sculpture, that tend to prove the existence of intelligent manufacturers at a period of time that could not be less than eleven or twelve thousand years. But the pre mises from which this conclusion has been deduced are too uncertain and fallible to warrant such an extension of the commonly received age of man. The rate of accretion of sedimentary deposits of a river like the Nile is subject to so many varying external influences, that, as a measure of time, it may be most fallacious, and no reliance can be placed upon it as disproving the record of Moses.
But more importance has been ascribed to the discoveries in the gravel quarries of Abbeville and Amiens in the north of France, and also in Suffolk in England, of flint implements, such as hatchets, spears, arrow-heads, and wedges of rude manufac ture, associated in undisturbed gravel, with the bones of extinct species of the elephant, rhinoceros, and other animals, whose remains are found in the diluvium formed by the last great geological revolu tion. If these implements are of artificial origin, they afford strong evidence that the races of men by whom they were manufacturered, were the con temporaries of animals which geologists affirm could not have existed within the Scripture term of human life. Nevertheless, many of those best acquainted with geological phenomena and the knowledge to be derived from them, have not admitted that this association of a mixture of the flint implements with the extinct animal remains is conclusive evidence of the co-existence in life of the manufacturer of the implements with those animals—and affirm that mere juxtaposition is no evidence of contemporaneity, when no remains of the human frame is to be found in the same place. The age of the diluvium, also, in which these remains have been discovered, uncertain as it was before, has been rendered still more so by the pre sence of these human relics in it. So that the question remains open ; and the Scripture chrono logy of the human era, though rendered doubtful, has not been conclusively displaced.