12 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



explain why the coincidences should be so numerous and the resemblances so 

 striking. The symbol of the ark and the tree and serpent, and the fish, and 

 even the idols which commemorate these early facts are found too often for 

 us to believe that there was not among the nations of the East at least a common 

 origin for them all, and it yet remains to be shown whether the same symbols are 

 not also to be found in other lands. 



So, too, the names of the first ancestors among the ancient nations of the 

 East are significant of the name of the first ancestor who is mentioned in the 

 Bible. 



It is not always the case that the record of these nations goes back of the 

 flood, yet generally the head or founder of each nation bears a name which 

 strikingly resembles both in the consonants employed, and perhaps even in the 

 pronunciation, either the Adam or Noah of our Scriptures, and we may suppose 

 all to have orally signified the same person. Among the Greeks, he is Inachus;* 

 in Crete, Minos ; among the Etruscans, Minerfu ; in India, Tenu ; in Egypt, 

 Mna ; in Germany, Mannus, and over each nation he bears the same relation as 

 the head of the first dynasty, the first ancestor, and king, and the lawgiver, and 

 in some cases he is called the great navigator and ruler. 



Thus, as we enter upon the subject, we are confirmed by the testimony of 

 history and the evidences of archaeology, the symbols and records of the oldest 

 nations bearing testimony for us. 



It is then among these historical records that we shall seek for our evidences- 

 Other authors have traced these, and Max Miiller has gathered many of them 

 into separate volumes of essays and reviews. It is probable that as to the Aryan 

 race, and the various oriental religions, this assertion that the facts of the Bible 

 may be recognized in them will not be really disputed. 



Dr. Spiegel, the learned German editor and translator of the Zend Avesta 

 has shown most conclusively that there is a coincidence. He maintains that this 

 resemblance is found in the following particulars : the creation, the garden of 

 Eden, the two trees, the deluge, Noah's ark, and the four ages of the world. 

 The coincidence in the account of the creation consists in this : that the world 

 was created in six days in Genesis and in six periods of time in the Avesta. In 

 Genesis the creation ends with the creation of man ; so it does in the Avesta. 

 The Garden of Eden, and the Paradise of the Zoroastrians are alike, and the 

 rivers Pishon and Gihon may be identified as the Indus and the Jaxarties, known 

 to geographers of this day. The two trees in the garden are recognized in the 

 trees known to the Iranians as the "Gaokerena," bearing the white Haoma, 

 and the "Painless tree," out of which the Indians believe the world to have 

 been created. 



The deluge is also mentioned, and Dr. Spiegel compares the Thraetaona of 

 the Persians, who divided his land among his three sons, to the Noah of the 

 Bible. He thinks also that the four ages of the Persians coincides with the four 



Philip Smith's Ancient History, Vol. I, p. 85. 



