Fi:b. 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



131 



Br Richard A. Peoctor. 



I AM a little troubled about tlie Victoria Institute. I 

 fear that society is uot going quite in the way originally 

 intended for it. A paper was recently read before the 

 society which seems open to decided objections, by those 

 who insist upon the literal accuracy of Bible statements. 

 In this paper Mr. St. Chad Boscawen pointed to monu- 

 mental evidence proving that from as early a period as 

 .'5750 B.C. there existed a Semitic population in the city 

 of Ur of the Chaldees, whence the Bible says that 

 Abram's family sprang. " The inscriptions found at the 

 neighbouring city of Larsa, relating to the trade and 

 commerce of its people, showed them to have spoken a 

 language akin to the Hebrew, and to have borne personal 

 names strikingly like those of the Hebrew patriarchs. 

 lu religion, though not Monotheists, they certainly had a 

 purer creed than that of their Turanian-Akkadian 

 neighbours, and at the head of their Pantheon was the 

 supreme God Ilu or El, whose name like that of El and 

 Jehovah among the Jews, entered into the conaposition 

 of many personal names." Mr. Boscawen went on to 

 show that in 2280 B.C. Clialda-'a was invaded by the 

 Elamites, and a dynasty of Elamite kings was established, 

 of which Kudur-Mabug and Eriaku, or Arioch, were 

 members, " The fall of this dynasty caused by the 

 defeat of Kudur-Mabug and Eriaku, by Khammurabi in 

 B.C. 2120, would seem to synchronise well," said Mr. 

 Boscawen, " with the defeat of Chedorlaomer recorded in 

 Genesis xiv. The migration of Abram must therefore 

 have fallen within this period of IGO years." 



* * * 



All this looks at first " very pleasant and conformable." 

 The various points considered in Mr. Boscawen's paper 

 may be considered, as Mr. Boscawen claims, " to show 

 that the record of Abram's migration in the book of 

 Genesis is in perfect agreemcTit with the state of 

 Chaldajan and Western Asiatic history revealed to us by 

 the anonuments." "With excellent Bishop Peter of 

 Rumtifoo, "I do not say it ain't ; but time my christian 

 friends ! " A Semite population in the year 3750 B.C., and 

 Abraham migrating into Egypt between 2280 and 2120 

 B.C. ! Shem was the only Semite living at the time of 

 the Flood. Now the bible says distinctly that two years 

 after the Flood Arpachsad was born; thirty-five years 

 later Shelah ; thirty years later Eber ; thirty-four years 

 later Peleg ; thirty years later Reu ; thirty-two years 

 later Serug ; thirty years later Nahor ; twenty-nine years 

 later Terah ; and seventy years later Abram, Nahor, and 

 Haran. This gives (throwing one year in between each 

 birth) not more than 300 years from the Flood to 

 Abraham's birth (which happened therefore fifty years 

 before Noah died). Now Abraham only lived 175 years, 

 dying therefore not more than 475 years after the Flood 

 (and twenty-seven years before Shem himself). How 

 Mr. Boscawen and the Victoria Institute can reconcile 

 these figures with the existence of a Semitic race 1,530 

 years before the earliest possible date for Abraham's 

 migration, passes all comprehension. The call of 

 Abraham took place when he was ninety-nine years old, 

 not more than 40(1 years after the Flood, so that Mr. 

 Boscawen would have us believe in a Semitic race or 

 tribe, and in Semitic cities, 1150 years before the Flood, 

 and 1152 years before the fir.stborn of Shem, the father 

 of the Semitic race, was born. He cannot mean an 

 antediluvian tribe of Semites, for he speaks of Abraham 



as belonging to this tribe. The Victoria Institute have 

 got the whole afEair mixed up strangely. 



* * * 



I\Iy attention has been directed by several correspon- 

 dents to a mistake — in reality a clerical error— respecting 

 the Feast of Tabernacles in the article on the " Religion 

 of Science," Knowledge, New Series, No. I., p. 2, col. 2. 

 I seem to speak there of the Fast of Tabernacles, saying 

 that " the enforced gloom of the Fast of Tabernacles 

 (when not to fast was to inciir death) corresponded with 

 the mourning among Sabaistic nations as the sun neared 

 the season of his second Passover, his transit across the 

 equator from glory to gloom." In reality the first "fast " 

 was a misprint for " feast," and the opening words should 

 have run, " the enforced gloom of the day of atonement 

 near the season of the Feast of Tabernacles." In an 

 article on the "Origin of the Week," in my "Myths 

 and Marvels of Astronomy," the correct relation between 

 the observances of the first month (or month of the 

 ascending passover) and those of the second month (or 

 month of the descending passover) will be found c^)rrectly 

 indicated. 



* * * 



The association between the two passovers, though the 

 .second lost the distinctive name which doubtless it had 

 possessed among the Egyptians and Chalda-ans, is too 

 obvious to be overlooked. In the tenth day of the first 

 month (following the vernal equinox ns near as the moon 

 would allow) every man was to take a lamb, and to keep 

 it up until the fourteenth day of the same month. (The 

 words "keep it up" must not be misunderstood in a 

 festive sense). That day was the Passover interpreted 

 by Moses in a special way (just as he interpreted the 

 Sabbath rest in two special ways) to prevent the people 

 from retaining the original idea, which was doubtless 

 that of the passover of the sun ascending as Lord of the 

 Year. On the fifteenth day began the Feast of Unleavened 

 Bread which lasted for seven days, during which daily 

 s icrifices (besides the burnt sacrifice offered each morning 

 to the rising sun as Lord of the Day) were offered, " food 

 of the offering made by fire, of a sweet savour uuto the 

 Lord " according to their strange anthropomorphic ideas 

 of Deity. Now the seventh month bore the same 

 relation to the autumnal equinox, or to the sun's 

 descending passover, which the first month bore to 

 the vernal. We find accordingly that on the tenth 

 day of this seventh month, there was appointed a special 

 day of mourning or affliction, the day of atonement. Just 

 as the sacrifice to the rising sun as Lord of the Day was 

 balanced by an evening sacrifice to the same orb when 

 setting, so the special spring observances in regard to the 

 sun ascending above the equator as Lord of the Tear, were 

 balanced by special autumn observances in the regard to the 

 same orb when about to descend below the equator. And 

 naturally the day consecrated to the descending passover 

 of the sun god, though belonging to a season of thn,nks- 

 giving for the fruits of the year, was made a day of 

 affliction. An offering made by fire was presented to the 

 Lord (to Jehovah by the Jews, but to the Sun God by 

 the originators of the observance). And thus solemnly 

 were the people adjured to afflict; themselves (for atone- 

 ment according to the law of Moses, but because of the 

 dying of the sun's power according to the Chalda>ans and 

 earlier Egyptians) — "Ye shall do no manner of work in 

 that same day ; for it is a daj' of atonement, to make 

 atonement for you before the Lord your God. For 

 whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that 

 same day, he shall be cut pff from his people. And 



