ON THE SPURIOUS BIBLE 213 



On the first day to which all the phenomena of a 

 perfect day is given, that is, one half of the earth was 

 illuminated by a central illuminating body, a sun, 

 giving an evening and a morning was created the 

 heaven and the earth and light, " and there was evening 

 and there was morning, one day." "And God called 

 the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." 1 



Having already created the heaven on the first day, 

 God is stated to have again created the heaven, i.e. 

 the firmament, with the object of dividing the waters 

 which were above from the waters which were below. 

 The conception being that it was necessary to have 

 waters above to permit rain to fall in the future. 

 There is no idea that this reservoir of water would 

 be exhausted in time, and that it must be necessary 

 to replenish it, in order to permit the continuous 

 phenomenon of rain. And this work was the work 

 of the second day. That is, " there was evening and 

 there was morning, a second day." 



The earth was supposed to be a mixture of water 

 arid the more solid material, the whole maybe assumed 

 to be in a condition of mud. It was necessary to 

 divide the water from the mud to allow of the exist- 

 ence of the solid dry land. So God made this division, 

 and he called the dry land, Earth, and the gathering of 

 the waters, Seas. He also created vegetation, which 

 yielded seed, and fruit trees, each tree bearing fruit 

 after its kind. And this was the work of the third 

 day, for " there was evening and there was morning, 

 a third day." 



Now comes the very remarkable mistake made by 



1 The quotations from the Bible are from the revised edition. 



