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 KINDâ€
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!â€
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 individual 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, and 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 kind
shall be produced? Do we breed the animal, not knowing what kind
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.
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 their
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 stand 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
places 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 deadlock 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.â€
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 reproduction 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 when 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.â€
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 Vay (and)? Is AND found at the beginning
of this verse in our translation? No. This word So 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.â€
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.
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
Man.
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!â€
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.â€
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 substituting 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.â€
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.â€
“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.â€
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 illustrations 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 made, 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.â€
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 good.
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 the 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.
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.â€
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 mode 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.â€
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.â€
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.’â€
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 learned 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.â€
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.
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 (1874), Thomas A. Davies