CHAPTER I 

 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 



RICHARD SWANN LULL 



PROFESSOR OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY, YALE UNIVERSITY 



THE Mosaic account of the creation, which has been and is 

 yet of wide acceptance, would give us a very recent date for 

 man's advent on this planet. The strictest interpretation of 

 this account is that of Doctor John Lightfoot, a profound 

 Biblical scholar, vice-chancellor of Cambridge University in 

 1654, who is often quoted because of the exactness of his 

 findings. As a result of careful searching of the Scripture, 

 Doctor Lightfoot was led to declare that "Heaven and earth, 

 centre and circumference were made in the same instance of 

 time, and clouds full of water, and man was created by the 

 Trinity on the 26th of October 4004 B. c. at 9 o'clock in the 

 morning." 



One questions, however, not the Scriptural account but the 

 exactness of its interpretation. The researches of oriental 

 scholars are bringing more and more into evidence the his- 

 torical truth of the Old Testament narratives, and are estab- 

 lishing from other lines of evidence the historical character of 

 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other Hebrew patriarchs, but 

 they are also tracing back into a more and more remote 

 period the history of the Near Eastern peoples, as the result 

 of the extensive excavations, with their treasure trove, which 

 are being carried forward in these venerable abiding places of 

 mankind. 



