THE FIRST CHAin'EK OF GENESIS. 



147 



But the Eiiojlish version, which Mr. Maunder had orenerallv 

 followed, as much misrepresented, as represented, what God had 

 written for our learning. There was much truth in the contention 

 of the Jews that the Hebrew Bil)le was the only inspired Word of 

 God. 



Mr. Maunder spoke of a Divine fiat on each day — not so the 

 Hebrew. The imperative ^ was never used. Again, the word 

 " create " in Hebrew was used about eighteen times outside the 

 chapter, l)ut never to denote a special Divine act, always to indicate 

 the production of things by a natural process. The one apparent 

 exception. Numbers xvi, 30, really supported this rule. The Targum 

 found in this Hebrew word the idea of selection. 



The continuity which the English version led Mr. Maunder to 

 believe to be absent from the chapter, on the contrary, was every- 

 where present. The so-called tenses of the Hebrew verbs were 

 almost entirely in the imperfect, and signify, according to Gesenius, 

 " the incoming," " the continuous," and according to the late Canon 

 Drivei', " the progressive continuance or development of the past," 

 or to Ewald, " the relatively progressive." Even the perfect tense 

 indicated " that which has been in the past, and is still going on," 

 while the expression " the generations of the heaven and the earth 

 in their being created " signified organic succession and completed 

 the proof of continuity. The first chapter of Genesis was, therefore, 

 as even Professor Haeckel perceived, an evolutionary document. 

 The intellectual Fathers of the Church saw this fact from the Greek 

 version, and St. Augustine said, "the animals were created b}^ a 

 process of growth, from imperfect to perfect forms, which the after 

 time brought forth." The tenses for each day's production are also 

 in the Hebrew causative voice, Hiphil, thus recognising all that 

 modern science tells us of the influence of environment. 



In relationship to the so-called creation of light, Mr. Maunder 

 says, "therefore the creation of , light involves the creation of 

 energy . . . that, therefore, which is hinted at here, is the 

 creation both of matter and energy," etc. Even the English Bible 

 showed this to be a mistake. The first verse of the chapter spoke of 

 " the heaven and the earth," that is the universe. The second came 

 down to the earth itself, and said, " the earth " (not the earth and 

 the heaven) was tohu va hohu, " waste and empty " " and darkness 

 was on the face of the deep," that is on the ocean deep — literally 



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