Geology and the Bible; by D. T. BOURDEAU

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 5, 1867

Geology and the Bible;

By D. T. BOURDEAU

Or, A Pre-Adamic Age of Our World Doubtful.

Geology is “the science of the structure and materials of the earth.” Genuine Geology is as true as the Bible, and it does not contradict the Bible; for truth cannot contradict truth. Yet it is strange that some should pretend that there is a discrepancy between this science and the Bible; and it is stranger still that some professing to believe the Bible, should adopt views purporting to be based on Geology, which are antagonistic to plain Bible facts, and yet claim that there is harmony between their views and the Bible.

These inconsistencies arise from the fact that all that passes for Geology is not Geology. Geology as a science is only in its infancy, and there is much that claims to be Geology, which is but an abuse of that science, and, to use the language of an apostle, is “science falsely so-called.” Of this science we should beware, especially as its tendency is to lead us away from the Scriptures of truth.

And in our judgment there can be no greater and more dangerous abuse of Geology, than the idea which makes this science teach that our world is more than six thousand years old; that there was a pre-Adamic age consisting of immense periods of time, represented by the six days of creation, during which there lived mammoth beasts, and a race of human beings much larger than men now living, indicated by huge skeletons, occasionally found in the bosom of the earth. We consider that this view is dangerous for the following reasons:

1. It contradicts the Bible record of creation, which says that in six days, and not six immense periods of time, God made heaven and earth and all that in them is. See Gen. 1, and the fourth commandment. Mark! the Bible says that God made heaven and earth, as well as all that in them is, in six days. It is in the beginning of the first day, therefore, that God created the heaven and the earth, as spoken of in Gen. i, 1.

One very important feature of history which is to be handed down to posterity, is that it be written in plain language, and free from expressions which would lead the reader astray; and when God causes a history to be written, he will, of course, characterize it with this essential qualification. Consequently, when Moses, actuated by the Spirit of God, called those periods in which Jehovah wrought, days, he simply meant days, and nothing else. Again, the days of creation were composed of the “evening and the morning,” just as our days are.

But the same term which is used to denote the length of the periods in which God wrought, is also used to denote the length of the period in which he rested. If, therefore, the six days of creation were immense periods of time, or millions of years, the seventh day was also an immense period of time. And as Adam was created on the sixth day, he must have lived a part of an immense period of time, one whole immense period, the seventh day, and hundreds of years besides. How much would this make? One million of years, at least. But the Record says, “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.” Gen. v, 5.

2. The idea of a pre-Adamic period of our world, as above described, is also dangerous in that it leads men to overlook the degeneracy of our race, the idea of a flood in which perished a mighty and long-lived race, and the idea that men were once larger and stronger than they now are, as can be seen by tracing back the pages of history, whether sacred or secular, and by our own experience. All know, or should

know, that this generation is inferior in strength and build to former ones, and that the race is still degenerating; so that the achievements of this age are not owing to the unwonted physical or mental power of its inhabitants, but to the benefits of the experience of all past ages, as well as of the present.

When we therefore find mammoth human skeletons, we need not trace them to a pre-Adamic age, neither need we overlook Geology, nor have Geology contradict the Bible. But both Geology and the Bible speak to us with one harmonious voice, telling us that we are sadly fallen and degenerate; that there was once a flood; that God is just and will punish the violators of his laws.

In the light of this view, we can read the following extracts from an old work entitled “The Wonders of Nature and Providence,” with thrilling interest. In speaking of the period before the flood, the writer says, on pp. 67, 68,

“First, in the book of Genesis, 6th chapter, verse 4th, it is said, there were giants in the earth in those days! This was previous to the deluge, and the inhabitants of that time lived to the age of many hundred years. There can be no doubt that the people of that age possessed a hardiness of constitution, and a robustness of person, quite unknown to the present inhabitants of any part of the globe. From this very circumstance of longer date of life, greater magnitude of person might be expected as the natural result. If so, where then is the absurdity of supposing them to be, in general, persons of greater stature? If at the present day, there are found persons who are exceptions to the common size of men, of which Dr. Adam Clarke, of London, gives us the account, in his Scripture comment upon the subject of giants; viz.; that ‘he had known a young man who measured eight feet and six inches in height. . . . If, therefore, at this day such a monster of a man is known to exist, how much more may we say, and with confidence too, that in those ages when men lived longer on the earth, there were exceptions to the general size of men of a more monstrous and astonishing description?’ The author then proceeds to give a Bible account of giants and nations of giants in olden times, in which men are proved to have been from eight to fifteen feet high.

On pp. 65, 66, the author refers to a “memoir read before the academy of sciences at Rouen, in which M. Le Cat gives the following account of giants:”

“Profane historians have given seven feet of height to Hercules, their first hero. . . . The giant who was shown in Rouen in 1735, measured eight feet and some inches. The emperor, Maximin, was of that size; Shenkins and Platernus, physicians of the seventeenth century, saw several of that size, and Giropius saw a girl who was ten feet high. The body of Orestus, according to the Greeks, was eleven feet and a half; the giant Galbers, brought from Arabia to Rome under Claudius Cæsar, was near ten feet, and the bones of Lecondella and Pusia, keepers of the garden of Sallust, were but six inches shorter. Funnam, a Scotchman who lived in the time of Eugene II., king of Scotland, measured eleven feet and a half; and Jacob Le Maire, in his voyage to the straits of Magellan, reports that on the 17th of December, 1615, they found at Port Desire several graves covered with stones; and having the curiosity to remove the stones, they discovered human skeletons of ten and eleven feet long. . . . Rioland, a celebrated anatomist, who wrote in 1614, says, that some years before there was to be seen in the suburbs of St Germain the tomb of the giant Isoret, who was twenty feet high. In Rouen, in 1509, in digging in the ditches near the Dominicans, they found a tomb containing a skeleton whose skull held a bushel of corn. . . . Platernus, a famous physician, declares that he saw at Lucerne the true human bones of a subject which must have been at least nineteen feet high.”

Huge skeletons have also been found in this continent, from the coast of the Atlantic in the East, to the wide-spread prairies in the far West. Quite recently a “charnel house” is said to have been found in the stone quarries on the east bank of the Connecticut, showing that men were once larger than they are now. See Central Christian Advocate of Nov. 14, 1866. Facts of the same nature might be greatly multiplied. But let these suffice for the present.

D. T. BOURDEAU.