Mosaic Cosmogony not of Egyptian origin. 61 



ticeof sacrificing the same animal, for we find a heifer among the 

 sacrifices of Abraham (Gen. xv. 9.) The proofs of the existence 

 of Fetishism in Egypt in the time of Moses, and that the 

 Egyptians knew not the God of the Hebrews, are complete. 

 In Exodus viii. 26., we find Moses saying to Pharaoh, " shall 

 we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, 

 and will they not stone us .?" In Exodus xii. 12. we find the beasts 

 called the gods of Egypt; and in Exodus xxxii., we find 

 Aaron, in consistency with the idolatry which he had witnessed 

 in Egypt, making a golden calf, and saying to the Hebrews, this 

 is thy God. Also, when Moses first presents himself before 

 Pharaoh in Exodus v., we find the latter denying all know- 

 ledge of the God of the Hebrews. 



Shall we, then, conjecture that Moses borrowed theology from 

 the Hebrews on the one hand, and geological science from the 

 Egyptians on the other, to compound out of them that brief but 

 unique and perfect system of both, which is presented to us in the 

 1 St chapter of Genesis ; or, is it possible that we could adopt 

 any conjecture more absurd, and this, too, in utter destitution of 

 all proof that the Egyptians possessed any knowledge of geology 

 in the sense in which we use the term ? 



The result of our inquiry is, that the geology of Moses has 

 come down to us out of a period of remote antiquity before the 

 light of human science arose; for, to suppose that it was bor- 

 rowed from, or possessed by, any other people than the remark- 

 able race to which Moses himself belonged, involves us on all 

 hands in the most inextricable difficulties and palpable absurdi- 

 ties*. Of that race, it has been long since justly remarked, 



• We believe that the opinion of Calmet may be maintained by very ex- 

 tensive and highly satisfactory internal evidence, that IVI oses, in the book of 

 Genesis, has transmitted to us the successive writings of the earlier Patriarchs, 

 just as the Prophets, who succeeded him, have transmitted to us that book 

 and his own writings. We believe, likewise, with Bishop Gleig, that the 

 opinion generally entertained of the late invention of alphabetical writing, is 

 no other than a vulgar error, and that such writing must have been practised 

 before the flood of Noah. 



Sir William Jones, when he hazarded the conjecture, or rather opinion, 

 that the language of Noah is probably entirely lost, must have quite over- 

 looked the internal evidences, that the original language of Geneses can be no 

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