THE DELUGE
IN THE
LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE.

A Discourse.

BY
WILLIAM DENTON.

WELLESLEY, MASS.:
DENTON PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1882.

THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE.

If the Bible is God's book, we ought to know it. If the Creator of the universe has spoken to man, how important that we should listen to his voice and obey his instructions! On the other hand, if the Bible is not God's book, we ought to know it. Why should we go through the world with a lie in our right hand, dupes of the ignorant men who preceded us? It can never be for our soul's benefit to cherish a falsehood.

Science is, perhaps, the best test that we can apply to decide the question. Science is really a knowledge of what Nature has done, and is doing; and since the upholders of the divinity of the Bible believe that it proceeded from the Author of nature, if their faith is true, it cannot possibly disagree with what science teaches.

Science is a fiery furnace, that has consumed a thousand delusions, and must consume all that remain. We cast into it astrology and alchemy, and their ashes barely remain to tell of their existence. Old notions of the earth and heavens went in, and vanished as their dupes gazed upon them. Old religions, old gods, have become as the incense that was burned before their altars.

I purpose to try the Bible in its searching fire. Fear not, my brother: it can but burn the straw and stubble; if gold, it will shine as bright after the fiery ordeal as before, and reflect as perfectly the image of truth.

The Bible abounds with marvellous stories,—stories that we should at once reject from their intrinsic improbability, not to say impossibility, if we should find them in any other book. But, among all the stories, there is none that equals the account of the deluge, as given in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Genesis. It towers above the rest as Mount Washington does above the New-England hills; and, as travellers delight to climb the loftiest peaks, I suppose that many would be pleased to examine this lofty story, and see how the world of truth and actuality looks from its summit.

According to the account, in less than two thousand years after God had created all things, and pronounced them very good, he became thoroughly dissatisfied with every living thing, and determined to destroy them with the earth. He thus expresses himself: "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." Again he says to 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."

Why should the beasts, birds, and creeping things be destroyed? What had the larks, the doves, and the bob-o-links done? What had the squirrels and the tortoises been guilty of, that they should be destroyed?

He proceeds to inform Noah how he will do this: "And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." And we are subsequently informed that "every thing that was in the dry land died." But why not every thing in the sea? Were the dogs sinners, and the dog-fish saints? Had the sheep been more guilty than the sharks? Had the pigeons become utterly corrupt, and the pikes remained perfectly innocent? It may be, that the apparent impossibility of drowning them by a flood suggested to the writer of the story the necessity of saving them alive.

But Noah was righteous; and God determined to save him and his family, eight persons, and by their instrumentality to save alive animals sufficient to stock the world again after its destruction.

To do this, Noah was commanded to build an ark, three hundred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty high. It was to be made with three stories, and furnished with one door, and one window a cubit wide. Into this ark were to be taken two of every sort of living thing, and of clean beasts and of birds seven of every sort, male and female, and food sufficient for them all.

There are differences of opinion about the length of the cubit: most probably it was about eighteen inches; but taking it at twenty-two inches, the largest estimate that I believe theologians have made, the ark was then five hundred and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet eight inches broad, and fifty-five feet high. Leaving space for the floors, which would need to be very strong, each story was about seventeen feet high; and the total cubical contents of the ark were about one hundred and two thousand cubic yards. Scott, in his commentary, makes it as small as sixty-nine thousand one hundred and twenty yards; but the necessity for room was not as well understood in his day. Each floor of the ark contained five thousand six hundred and one square yards, and the three floors sixteen thousand eight hundred and three square yards, the total standing-room of the ark.

Into this were to be taken fourteen of each kind of fowl of the air or bird. How many kinds or species of birds are there? When Adam Clarke wrote his commentary, two thousand three hundred and seventy-two species had been recognized. Ornithology was then but in its infancy, and man's knowledge of living forms was very limited. Lesson, according to Hugh Miller, enumerates the birds at six thousand two hundred and sixty-six species; Gray, in his "Genera of Birds," estimates the number on the globe at eight thousand. Let us not crowd Noah, but take the six thousand two hundred and sixty-six species of Lesson. Fourteen of each of these would give us eighty-seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-four birds,—from the humming-bird, the little flying jewel, to the ostrich that fans the heated air of the desert,—or over five for every yard of standing-room in the ark. If spaces were left for the attendants to pass among them, to attend to the supply of their daily wants, the birds alone would crowd the ark.

But, beside the birds, there were to be taken into the ark two of every sort of unclean beast and fourteen of every sort of clean beast. The most recent zoölogical authorities enumerate two thousand and sixty-seven species of mammals, or, as they are commonly called, beasts. Of cetacea, or whale-like mammals, sixty-five; ruminantia, or cud-chewers, one hundred and seventy-seven; pachydermata, or thick-skinned mammals, such as the horse, hog, and elephant, forty-one; edentata, like the sloth and ant-eater, thirty-five; rodentia, or gnawers, such as the rat, squirrel, and beaver, six hundred and seventeen; carnivora, or flesh-eaters, four hundred and forty-six; cheiroptera, or bats, three hundred and twenty-eight; quadrumana, or monkeys, two hundred and twenty-one; and marsupialia, or pouched mammals, like the opossum and kangaroo, one hundred and thirty-seven. If we leave out the cetacea, that live in the water, and the cud-chewers, which are the clean beasts, we have one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five species; and male and female of these, a total of three thousand six hundred and fifty.

But, besides these, there were to be taken into the ark fourteen of every kind of clean beast. And what are clean beasts? The scriptural answer is, animals that divide the hoof and chew the cud; and of these at least one hundred and seventy-seven species are known. Fourteen of each of these added, make a total of six thousand one hundred