Show historical value valise of the pentateuch we ive do not realize that without the pentateuch P enta we are in the dark as to the creation of the world of man of the origin of evil points which sorely puzzle philosophers now and for which no solution is possible apart from bible history not only th this i s but it is the only reliable narrative of a period of two thousand five hundred and fifty three years year s the history of two thousand three hundred and 5 sixty nine years of this time is comprised in the B book ook of genesis it seems from the fifth chapter of genesis that methuselah was contemporary p with adam about two hundred and fifty years with noah about six hundred and one hundred with shem shem lived one hundred and fifty years into the time of abraham so that abraham had the story of the first things only second hand from adam himself As the oldest historian of the world was a hebrew we see the importance of this close connection of the nation with the father of the race and also one apparent reason creaso n for the great age of the antediluvian patriarchs it was necessary to a faithful transmission of history their a average age was eight hundred and fifty years each afie tradition of the flood is more widely spread than that of any other event of the worlds history all nations agree in in its outlines and very many in the more minute details as the account of the raven and dove but what this widespread wide spread tradition signifies we should have guessed in vain but for the graphic pen of the hebrew historian to himton him too is the world indebted for the great outlines of primitive hi history to I 1 without which the modern student would lose loae himself in the labyrinthine way he has described the division of the I 1 earth after the flood how europe and I 1 north northern e rn asia fell to japheth central asia to shem and africa to ham I 1 shem was as the progenitor of the hebrews arabians syrians assyrians As syrians persians and lydiana Lyd ians japheth was the h father of the caucasian races the t tradition ra ed i tion of the arabs ascribed to him eleven sons who were ere the parents of as many or nations was the father of cush whose descendants appear to have settled in southern asia and ethiopia of mizraim whose hose children peopled a part of africa I 1 of who ho also was the head of an african race and of canaan from whom sprang the phoenicians Phoenicia ns the history of moses alone gives us its an account of the origin of language of the great assyrian empire of the calling of the hebrew people the oldest livin living 11 nation of the world this is the earliest authentic record of war about 1913 B C between and the of sodom of moses account of the destruction of sodom and gomorrah the writer says I we have recently been furnished with a striking proof of the historical accuracy of the pentateuch even in those parts of the narrative which partake of the miraculous in in the results of the united states kal exploring loring expedition to the river jordan and the dead sea conducted by lieutenant lynch of the navy we entered says the intelligent commander of the expedition upon the sea with co conflicting nal nfl ig op inions one of the party was skeptical another I 1 think a professed unbeliever in the account after twenty two days d ays close investigation lives ti gation if I 1 am not mistaken we were N ere unanimous in the conviction of the tr truth of the scriptural account of the dea ruction of the cities of the plain lieutenant lynch considers that the inference from the scripture account that the chasm which is now filled by the dead sea was a plain which was sunk and overwhelmed when these cities were destroyed is fully sustained by the extraordinary character of the soundings obtained in that sea the bottom of the larger ani and deeper portion lies fully thirteen hundred feet below the surface A ravine runs through it in a line corresponding with the bed of the jordan from which the inference is obvious that the channel of the jordan sank down or rushed into the chasm made by a bituminous volcanic explosion t the h e waters helping rather than quenching the conflagration the sinking of the plain of the jordan formed it a bed for a lake sixty or seventy miles long from ten to eighteen wide to aie the sacred historian we are indebted for the earliest earlie it history of that strange people the arabs whose anomalous character would be unexplainable without the light thrown upon it by his narrative the agreement between the sacred writer and profane history in the egyptians is is remarkable it may be traced in the story of joseph under the nameon name of hermes herme s and in that of moses himself the lawgiver of the work it is is supposed that the celebrated phoenician sage sage is but a name for moses es and also musa eus whose disciple was the greek orph orpheus eus the egyptian superstition and mosaic revelation found in the orphic fragments is thus accounted for the wr writer I 1 ter of this article suggests the thought that moses was not only the father of history but al also the human author of alphabetical writing and since there is no prior trace of it t that hat the decalo decalogue ue v was as the original specia specimen en of written tte n langu language ae given to men Prin cLion review |