Notes on Genesis | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 12, 1867

Notes on Genesis.

CHAPTER I, verse 2. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

“The silence of the Mosaic record on the particular history of our geological construction, allows free latitude to every speculation, and repels no philosophical investigator. It merely presents a few points and outlines, which nothing has yet occurred to disprove, although much has been observed, which it requires great talents, enlarged reasoning, and further knowledge to reconcile to them with precision, and to explain what may seem inconsistent. This, however, additional researches may be expected to effect; for it is probable that that theory will be found the truest, the most scientific, and the most satisfactory, which is the most co-incident with the Hebrew document.”—Turner.

How little the Mosaic account has to fear at present from the infant science of geology, may be learned from the words of an eminent geographer. ‘The pretended science of speculative geology, promises no certain results, since it oversteps the evidence of facts. The portion of the globe known to us, does not constitute, at the very utmost, the thousandth part of the entire mass. Our excavations do little more than scratch the surface of the earth; our geologists have surveyed with attention scarcely the half of Europe, or the tenth part of America and Asia; the observations which have been made are extremely few; and yet unbounded scope has been given to speculation. In the vast and unexplored recesses of the globe, it is possible that there may lie, concealed, agents so active and so powerful, that to them the various revolutions which the earth has undergone, may have been the work only of so many moments. As long as the interior of the globe remains unknown to us, the conclusion we may draw from facts observed on the surface, can be no more than probable in reference to these facts; but whenever we attempt to combine the conclusions, in order to form a general system, their uncertainty will clearly appear; for, opposite to a finite sum of probabilities, however strong we may suppose them, there shall arise an infinite sum of unknown terms, of which one alone may perhaps be sufficient to counterbalance all our probabilities.—Malte-Brun.

‘We certainly are not yet, possibly we may never be, competent to ascertain the exact mode and order of the divine operations in creating and preparing this world for the use of man. A power must have been exerted very different, at least in the mode and degree of its operation, from that by which the ordinary course of nature is now conducted. This I am sure of, that the progress of natural history, and the discovery of any laws of nature to which it may lead, will never be found ultimately subversive of the truth of Revelation. But prejudice, presumption, and rashness may give plausibility and currency to conclusions apparently inconsistent with the truth of scripture, and shake the faith of those in whom such dispositions prevail: against such causes of error I would earnestly warn my readers. Papal authority declared the theory of the earth’s motion was subversive of true religion—a monument of the rashness of supposing Scripture at war with a philosophic theory. The decrees of the popes did not stop the motion of the earth, nor has this overturned the Christian faith, though it may have shaken papal infallibility: ‘Time destroys mere opinions, while it confirms the verdicts of nature [and Revelation].’—Greaves.

Verse 12. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind.

“Yielding seed.] ‘The astonishing power with which God has endowed the vegetable creation, to multiply its different species, may be instanced in the seed of the elm; which produces 1,580,000,000 of seeds: each having power to produce the same number! The seeds of the third generation from one elm would be many myriads of times more than sufficient to stock the whole superficies of all the planets in the solar system.’—Dr. A. Clarke.

Verse 20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.

“Abundantly.] ‘There is a meaning here seldom noticed. Innumerable millions of animalcules are found in water. Eminent naturalists have discovered not less than 30,000 in a single drop! No creatures are so prolific as fishes. A tench lays 1,000 eggs, a carp 20,000, and Lewenhoek counted in a middling-sized cod, 9,384,000.’—Dr. A. Clarke.

Verse 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness.

“In our image.] ‘This similitude is to be sought for in the whole being of man; in his moral, intellectual, and corporeal constitution.’”—Gleig.

Verse 27. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

‘One of the most scientific and ingenious geologists of ancient or modern times, Cuvier, asserts that the human race cannot be more ancient than it is represented to be in the writings of Moses.”—Gleig.

‘With regard to the boasted antiquity of the Chinese, Gibbon remarks, ‘The historical period of China does not ascend above the Greek Olympiads.’ [B. C. 776.]

‘Dr. Hales finds that the historical period of the Hindoos goes no farther back than the deluge, or their Cali yug.—Jenks.

Verse 29. And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.

“Animal food seems not to have been generally allowed, till after the flood, or to have been desired or thought of before the fall. But it is not certain, either that no part of the sacrifices offered after that event were eaten, or that a rebellious race did not take the liberty of using animal food, before it was granted them.”—Scott.