LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE 229 



record, nor is the foundation of it, can hardly be 

 questioned. It is highly probable, if not certain, 

 that Berosus relied upon one of the versions (for 

 there seem to have been several) of the old Baby- 

 lonian epos, extant in his time ; and, if that is 

 a reasonable conclusion, why is it unreasonable to 

 believe that the two stories, which the Hebrew 

 compiler has put together in such an inartistic 

 fashion, were ultimately derived from the same 

 source ? I say ultimately, because it does not at 

 all follow that the two versions, possibly trimmed 

 by the Jehovistic writer on the one hand, and by 

 the Elohistic on the other, to suit Hebrew require- 

 ments, may not have been current among the 

 Israelites for ages. And they may have acquired 

 great authority before they were combined in the 

 Pentateuch. 



Looking at the convergence of all these lines of 

 evidence to the one conclusion that the story of 

 the Flood in Genesis is merely a Bowdlerised 

 version of one of the oldest pieces of purely 

 fictitious literature extant ; that whether this is, 

 or is not, its origin, the events asserted in it to 

 have taken place assuredly never did take place ; 

 further, that, in point of fact, the story, in the 

 plain and logically necessary sense of its words, 

 has long since been given up by orthodox and 

 conservative commentators of the Established 

 Church I can but admire the courage and clear 

 foresight of the Anglican divine who tells us that 



