180 REV. JOHN TUCKWELL, M.E.A.S., ON MODERN THEORIES 



and fi.Lrurative language, but never appears to betray the least 

 recognition of any detailed use of myth, legend or fable. The 

 story of the world before man ; the creation of man himself ; 

 his rebellion against his Maker ; the corruption of the 

 antediluvian world ; the Ueluge ; the re-populating of the earth; 

 the rise of the great nations of antiquity ; and the history of 

 the Israelitish nations, whatever forms of speech are used, are 

 all treated as matters of historic fact. 



But the human mind is supposed to stumble at some of 

 these things; and so it has been offered relief on the principle of 

 historic progress. 



First with regard to the pre-Israelite world. It is premised 

 that since history and the exact description of scientific 

 facts are comparatively modern developments of literary 

 ingenuity, these records may all be treated as legendary. 

 But fortunately it has been possible to test this negation at 

 more than one point. The remarkable jDi'ogi^ess of modern 

 science has enabled us to see that Genesis i, is, allowing for 

 certain verbal formula?, an exact orderly and precise account of 

 the creation of the world from its gaseous condition to the 

 close of the Quaternary period. Or again, tested by modern 

 geological research, the Deluge is found to have been a fact and 

 not a fable. 



Then witli regard to the later records mainly concerned with 

 the history of the two Israelitish nations and the founding of 

 the Christian faith, no unbiassed reader can deny that from 

 Abraham down to the seer of Patmos the Scripture does profess 

 to give us exact history. The story of the Patriarchs ; the 

 deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt; their settlement in the 

 land of Canaan ; their national histories ; the ministries of their 

 prophets ; the personalities of their great men — Saul, David, 

 Solomon and Hezekiah; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and even 

 Jonah and Daniel, are treated as strictly historic. Even the 

 Xew Testament writers and speakers never betray the least 

 suspicion that their supposed ancestors were mythical "epony- 

 mous heroes " or the records concerning them, legends or fables. 



Why these records should not continue to be read as historic 

 in the absence of any inexorable evidence from newly discovered 

 truth it is not easy to see. But for those unable to do so it has 

 been premised on the principle of historic progress that the 

 Hebrew nation could not possibly have started its national 

 existence in tlie way described. It is premised that originally 

 they must have been only a small obscure nomadic tribe highly 

 susceptible to the superstitions supposed to be begotten of a 



