ne Hutoric Character of the Pentateuch. - BiblicalStudies.org.uk

398 The Hutoric Cha,.acte,. of the PentatetlCh. [APm.,
sent a floating chest, inscribed with the name Noe, within
which are seated a man and a woman. Toward them a
bird is flying with a twig; while another bird is seated on
the ark.l
Without going further into details, we may add that
these accounts are, of necessity, entirely independent of
each other and of the Bible. Their differences are u
striking as their analogies; and yet they all concur on the
great fondamental fact&, and supply the fragments of the
whole event recorded in the scriptures. Snch a coincidence
of testimonies from the four quarters of the globe, destitute
of a foundation, were a greater marvel than the flood.
Bunsen is constrained to say, in connection with his
examination of these legends: "Our previous researches
will not permit us to doubt that the oldest Hellenic tra·
dition abont the flood of Dencalion, was a legendary
reminiscence or that great hiltorical deluge." I And we
may, without hesitation, adopt the closing statement or
Delitzsch: "A survey of all these traditions aeauree os tbat
the flood was an historical event which had struck deep
root in the memory of the nations; that the recollection of it
extended from Armenia to Britain, and from China aCl'088
Eastern Asia to America; and that the Biblical narrative of
this event, in its freedom from all mythological and merely
national elements, is the most faithful and purely historical
representation of. a tradition which had spread through all
the nations of the world.'"
1 Kitto's Cycloped. of Bib. Lit., Article" Ark." It belongs to &he time ,.
Septimius Severus. Winer's Real· Worterbuch, "Noach!'
I Egypt's Place, Vol. IV. p.435.
I DelitzllCb, Die Genesis, p. 245. He calls attention to the traditional ..
enco to the rainbow's significanco in the Greek lpu, from .rp., to ClOD ned (I
derivation sinctioned by Passow), Iris being the mesaenger bet_n godI aDd
men; in the German legend. which makes the rainbow the greG bridge, CI'eIII4
by the Gods, connecting heaven and earth, which must be broken in pee.
before the earth can perish; in one Indian tradition, which calls it Indra'l
weapon, which he placed by hit side after the baule with the demon., and ia
another Indian legend which makes it the path of the gods. Be also tIbI
notice of a remarkable agreement of the Babyloniah and ChIDeee reckoning"
Digitized by Googi e