Geology Sustains the Genesis Account of the Creation

Because of recent geological discoveries, some persons imagine that the Science of Geology conflicts with the Genesis account of the Creation. Among those discoveries is that of a man whose photograph is given in the revised edition of Dana's Geology, and who lived in the South of France, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Quaternary era, which was the geological period next preceding our own. In its relation, therefore, to those discoveries the period of Man's existence upon the earth has become a subject of great interest; for, it must be admitted that the truths established by geological science are, at least, as worthy of acceptance as was the Copernican theory of Astronomy, in its time, as opposed to the Ptolemaic system.

As a sincere Christian of the Roman Catholic Communion, we entertain profound veneration for the Bible. But, as everywhere throughout the Sacred Books of the Hebrews and the Writings of the Apostles appear expressions and conceptions framed upon the standpoint of the Creation, as recorded in Genesis, which can only be interpreted by the latest results of geological science, we are satisfied that our readers, who calmly and dispassionately consider the subject, will find with us that nothing could be more absolutely coincident with the Genesis account of the Creation than are the discoveries of Geology.

The first eleven chapters of Genesis give in brief outline a history of Man, from the Creation of our First Parents to the time of the migration of Abraham from the valley of the Euphrates to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea; and constitute an introduction to the religious history of a special branch of the Semitic [1] family. This general introductory history is composed of a number of separate fragments or statements arranged in consecutive order, without chronology; and embodies a selection from the traditions and records of the ages preceding Abraham of what was considered in his family to be historic concerning the creation of the Universe and of the first Man. We may reasonably presume that these records, carefully selected and carefully preserved, were brought by Abraham from the valley of the Euphrates into the land of Palestine; and constituted his Family Bible—the beginning of the Sacred Books of the Hebrews.

Notes

[1] Semitic: See the (New York) "Princeton Review," for July, 1880, under the heading "The Edenic Period of Man": an article written by the late Professor MacWhorter, one of the most eminent of the Semitic scholars of his day.