Handbook for Bible Students

“G” Entries

Genealogy, Importance of, to the Jews.—The promise of the land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob successively, and the separation of the Israelites from the Gentile world; the expectation of Messiah as to spring from the tribe of Judah; the exclusively hereditary priesthood of Aaron with its dignity and emoluments; the long succession of kings in the line of David; and the whole division and occupation of the land upon genealogical principles by the tribes, families, and houses of fathers, gave a deeper importance to the science of genealogy among the Jews than perhaps any other nation. When Zerubbabel brought back the captivity from Babylon, one of his first cares seems to have been to take a census of those that returned, and to settle them according to their genealogies. Passing on to the time of the birth of Christ, we have a striking incidental proof of the continuance of the Jewish genealogical economy in the fact that when Augustus ordered the census of the empire to be taken, the Jews in the province of Syria immediately went each one to his own city. The Jewish genealogical records continued to be kept till near the destruction of Jerusalem.—“A Dictionary of the Bible,” William Smith, LL. D., pp. 209, 210, Teacher’s edition. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, copyright 1884. HBS 198.9

Genealogy of Christ.—David’s successor was his son Solomon, and Matthew traces the genealogy through Solomon to Joseph; but the bar was put up against him at the time of the captivity and the last king, Jechoniah (1:11). Luke traces the genealogy, not through Solomon, but through another son of David against whom there was no bar, viz., Nathan (Luke 3:31; 1 Chronicles 3:5), and so on down to Mary, for only through her was the imposed condition fulfilled that Jesus should be “the fruit of David’s body.” And it could have been fulfilled only by some one in that line. Luke 1:32; Acts 2:30; Romans 1:3; Acts 13:23. It seems indubitable, therefore,-the “scholars” to the contrary notwithstanding,-that Luke does not trace the royal line of Joseph as does Matthew, but gives the lineage which belongs to Mary. HBS 198.10

But the other obstacle: while Mary was of a royal line, she was not of the royal lineage-the regular, legal, required lineage through which it was indispensable that descent must course-not of the Prince of Wales line, so to speak, if such an illustrative anachronism can be allowed. How, then, could her son get into that royal line? Why, by her marriage with some one who was in that line! And that is just what took place-the marriage with Joseph. HBS 199.1

The absolute necessity for the two genealogies thus seems apparent; but there is a seeming discrepancy which needs to be solved. According to Matthew 1:16, Joseph is the son of Jacob, and according to Luke 3:23 he is the son of Heli. He could hardly be the son of both. HBS 199.2

Joseph was the son of Jacob in the strict sense, for Matthew says: “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (1:16). But Luke does not say that Heli begat Joseph, but says, “Joseph, which was ... of Heli” (3:23), the translators gratuitously putting in the words, “the son.” Remembering the omnibus-content of the word “son” before noted, ¹⁴ manifestly we need to put into it the meaning which the situation here calls for, which is son-in-law; even as in 1 Samuel 24:16, where Saul says, “Is this thy voice, my son David?” when David was his son-in-law. So, as Joseph could not, by natural generation, be the son of both Jacob and Heli, and as it says that “Jacob begat Joseph” and does not say that Heli begat Joseph, the natural and satisfactory explanation is that Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli. HBS 199.3

There is another consideration that seems to add conclusiveness to the foregoing. The Jews, in constructing their genealogical tables, reckoned descent entirely in the line of males, and when the line passed from father to grandson through a daughter, the daughter herself was not named, but her husband was counted as the son of the maternal grandfather. Thus it is plain how Joseph, the actual son of Jacob, who married the daughter of Heli, is, as son-in-law, put in the genealogy as Heli’s son. HBS 199.4

Joseph’s right to the Davidic throne was not voided by the Jechoniah inhibition,-only the occupancy of it. Thus Jesus acquired the right to the throne of David through his reputed (step-)father, Joseph, and is eligible to sit on it as David’s son through Mary. As Wilkinson puts it: “By that marriage Jesus escapes the two barriers in the genealogy of Matthew, and walks over the one barrier in the genealogy of Luke. The two genealogies were necessary.”-“A Study in the Genealogy of Jesus,” Rev. William H. Bates, D. D., Washington, D. C. Reprinted from the Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1917. HBS 199.5

The line in Matthew is the regal line through Solomon, exhausted in Joseph. The line in Luke is the legal line through Nathan, an elder brother (2 Samuel 5:14), exhausted in Mary.—“The Companion Bible,” note on Matthew 1:6. London: Oxford University Press. HBS 199.6

Genealogy of Christ, According to Luke.—Godet, Lange, and many others take the ground that Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, rendering Luke 3:23 thus: Jesus “being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, [but in reality] the son of Heli.” In this case Mary, as declared in the Targums, was the daughter of Heli, and Heli was the grandfather of Jesus. Mary’s name was omitted because “ancient sentiment did not comport with the mention of the mother as the genealogical link.” So we often find in the Old Testament the grandson called the son. This view has this greatly in its favor, that it shows that Jesus was not merely the legal but the actual descendant of David; and it would be very strange that in the Gospel accounts, where so much is made of Jesus’ being the son and heir of David and of his kingdom, his real descent from David should not be given.—“A Dictionary of the Bible,” William Smith, LL. D., p. 210, Teacher’s edition. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, copyright 1884. HBS 200.1

Genealogy of Christ, Matthew and Luke Harmonized.—Later, and chiefly among Protestant divines, the theory was invented of one genealogy being Joseph’s, and the other Mary’s, a theory in direct contradiction to the plain letter of the Scripture narrative, and leaving untouched as many difficulties as it solves. The fertile invention of Annius of Viterbo forged a book in Philo’s name, which accounted for the discrepancies by asserting that all Christ’s ancestors, from David downward, had two names. The circumstance, however, of one line running up to Solomon, and the other to Nathan, was overlooked. Other fanciful suggestions have been offered; while infidels, from Porphyry downward, have seen in what they call the contradiction of Matthew and Luke a proof of the spuriousness of the Gospels; and critics like Professor Norton, a proof of such portions of Scripture being interpolated. Others, like Alford, content themselves with saying that solution is impossible, without further knowledge than we possess. But it is not too much to say that after all, in regard to the main points, there is no difficulty at all, if only the documents in question are dealt with reasonably, and after the analogy of similar Jewish documents in the Old Testament; and that the clues to a right understanding of them are so patent and so strongly marked that it is surprising that so much diversity of opinion should have existed. The following propositions will explain the true construction of these genealogies: HBS 200.2

1. They are both the genealogies of Joseph, i. e., of Jesus Christ, as the reputed and legal son of Joseph and Mary. One has only to read them to be satisfied of this. The notices of Joseph as being of the house of David, by the same evangelists who give the pedigree, are an additional confirmation (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:27; 2:4, etc.), and if these pedigrees were extracted from the public archives, they must have been Joseph’s. HBS 200.3

2. The genealogy of St. Matthew is, as Grotius most truly and unhesitatingly asserted, Joseph’s genealogy as legal successor to the throne of David, i. e., it exhibits the successive heirs of the kingdom, ending with Christ as Joseph’s reputed son. St. Luke’s is Joseph’s private genealogy, exhibiting his real birth, as David’s son, and thus showing why he was heir to Solomon’s crown. This is capable of being almost demonstrated. If St. Matthew’s genealogy had stood alone, and we had no further information on this subject than it affords, we might indeed have thought that it was a genealogical stem in the strictest sense of the word, exhibiting Joseph’s forefathers in succession, from David downward. But immediately we find a second genealogy of Joseph,-that in St. Luke’s Gospel,-such is no longer a reasonable opinion. Because if St. Matthew’s genealogy, tracing as it does the successive generations through the long line of Jewish kings, had been Joseph’s real paternal stem, there could not possibly have been room for a second genealogy. The steps of ancestry coinciding with the steps of succession, one pedigree only could in the nature of things be proper. The mere existence therefore of a second pedigree, tracing Joseph’s ancestry through private persons, by the side of one tracing it through kings, is in itself a proof that the latter is not the true stem of birth. HBS 200.4

When, with this clue, we examine St. Matthew’s list, to discover whether it contains in itself any evidence as to when the lineal descent was broken, we fix at once upon Jechonias, who could not, we know, be literally the father of Salathiel, because the word of God by the mouth of Jeremiah had pronounced him childless, and declared that none of his seed should sit upon the throne of David, or rule in Judah, Jeremiah 22:30. The same thing had been declared concerning his father Jehoiakim in Jeremiah 36:30. Jechonias therefore could not be the father of Salathiel, nor could Christ spring either from him or his father. Here then we have the most striking confirmation of the justice of the inference drawn from finding a second genealogy, viz., that St. Matthew gives the succession, not the strict birth; and we conclude that the names after the childless Jechonias are those of his next heirs, as also in 1 Chronicles 3:17. HBS 201.1

One more look at the two genealogies convinces us that this conclusion is just; for we find that the two next names following Jechonias, Salathiel and Zorobabel, are actually taken from the other genealogy, which teaches us that Salathiel’s real father was Neri, of the house of Nathan. It becomes therefore perfectly certain that Salathiel of the house of Nathan became heir to David’s throne on the failure of Solomon’s line in Jechonias, and that as such he and his descendants were transferred as “sons of Jechoniah” to the royal genealogical table, according to the principle of the Jewish law laid down [in] Numbers 27:8-11. The two genealogies then coincide for two, or rather for four, generations, as will be shown below. There then occur six names in St. Matthew, which are not found in St. Luke; and then once more the two genealogies coincide in the name of Matthan or Matthat (Matthew 1:15; Luke 3:24), to whom two different sons, Jacob and Heli, are assigned, but one and the same grandson and heir, Joseph, the husband of Mary, and the reputed father of Jesus, who is called Christ. HBS 201.2

The simple and obvious explanation of this is, on the same principle as before, that Joseph was descended from Joseph, a younger son of Abiud (the Juda of Luke 3:26), but that on the failure of the line of Abiud’s eldest son in Eleazar, Joseph’s grandfather Matthan became the heir; that Matthan had two sons, Jacob and Heli; that Jacob had no son, and consequently that Joseph, the son of his younger brother Heli, became heir to his uncle and to the throne of David. HBS 201.3

Thus the simple principle that one evangelist exhibits that genealogy which contained the successive heirs to David’s and Solomon’s throne, while the other exhibits the paternal stem of him who was the heir, explains all the anomalies of the two pedigrees, their agreements as well as their discrepancies, and the circumstance of there being two at all. It must be added that not only does this theory explain all the phenomena, but that that portion of it which asserts that Luke gives Joseph’s paternal stem receives a most remarkable confirmation from the names which compose that stem. For if we begin with Nathan, we find that his son, Mattatha, and four others, of whom the last was grandfather to Joseph, had names which are merely modifications of Nathan (Matthat twice, and Mattathias twice); or if we begin with Joseph, we shall find no less than three of his name between him and Nathan: an evidence, of the most convincing kind, that Joseph was lineally descended from Nathan in the way St. Luke represents him to be (comp. Zechariah 12:12). HBS 201.4

3. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was in all probability the daughter of Jacob, and first cousin to Joseph her husband. So that in point of fact, though not of form, both the genealogies are as much hers as her husband’s.... HBS 202.1

The following pedigree will exhibit the successive generations as given by the two evangelists: HBS 202.2

[Table from Adam to Joram (Matthew) and Jonan (Luke)] HBS 202.3

[Table from Ozias to Eleazar (Matthew) and Joseph to Mattathias (Luke)] HBS 203.1

[Table from Matthan (Matthew) and Joseph (Luke) to Jesus, called Christ] HBS 204.1

Thus it will be seen that the whole number of generations from Adam to Christ, both inclusive, is 74, without the second Cainan and Rhesa.—“A Dictionary of the Bible,” William Smith, LL. D., Vol. I, pp. 665-668. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1863. HBS 204.2

Genealogies of Christ.—There are two distinct genealogies given in the introductions of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels: the former, principally designed for the Jews, traces his pedigree as the promised seed, downward, from Abraham to David; and from him, through Solomon’s line, to Jacob, the father of Joseph, who was the reputed or legal father of Christ. Matthew 1:1-16. The latter, designed for the Gentiles also, traces it upward, from Heli, the father of Mary, to David, through his son Nathan’s line, and from David to Abraham, concurring with the former, and from Abraham up to Adam, who was the immediate “son of God,” born without father or mother. Luke 3:23-38. HBS 204.3

That Luke gives the pedigree of Mary, the real mother of Christ, may be collected from the following reasons: HBS 204.4

1. The angel Gabriel, at the annunciation, told the virgin, that “God would give her divine Son the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32); and this was necessary to be proved, by her genealogy, afterward. HBS 204.5

2. Mary is called by the Jews, [Hebrew word] io úë, “the daughter of Eli” (Lightfoot, on Luke 3:23); and by the early Christian writers, “the daughter of Joakim and Anna.” But Joakim and Eliakim (as being derived from the names of God, úaú[Hebrew word] Iahoh, and ia Al) are sometimes interchanged. 2 Chronicles 36:4. Eli, therefore, or Heli, is the abridgment of Eliakim.... HBS 204.6

3. A similar case in point occurs elsewhere in the genealogy. After the Babylonish captivity, the two lines of Solomon and Nathan, the sons of David, unite in the generations of Salathiel and Zorobabel, and thence diverge again in the sons of the latter, Abiud and Resa. Hence, as Salathiel, in Matthew, was the son of Jechoniah, or Jehoiachin, who was carried away into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, so in Luke Salathiel must have been the grandson of Neri, by his mother’s side. HBS 204.7

4. The evangelist himself has critically distinguished the real from the legal genealogy, by a parenthetical remark; [Greek words transliterated as follows] [Iaasous oon (hoos enomizeto, huios Ioosaaph, [all’ ontoos]) huios tou Haali]. “Jesus-being (as was reputed, the son of Joseph, [but in reality]) the son of Heli,” or his grandson by the mother’s side; for so should the ellipsis involved in the parenthesis be supplied.—“A New Analysis of Chronology and Geography,” Rev. William Hales, D. D., Vol. III, pp. 42, 43. London: C. J. G. & F. Rivington, 1830. HBS 204.8

Genesis, Unity of.—The positive and irrefragable argument for the unity of Genesis is that it is a continuous and connected whole, written with a definite design and upon an evident plan which is steadfastly maintained throughout. The critics attribute this to the skill of the redactor. But they impose upon him an impossible task. An author may draw his materials from a great variety of sources, form his own conception of his subject, elaborate it after a method of his own, and thus give unity to his production. But a compiler, who simply weaves together extracts selected from separate authorities, has not the freedom of the author, and cannot do the same kind of work. He is trammeled by the nature of his undertaking. He cannot reconstruct his materials and adapt them to one another; he must accept them as he finds them. And now, if these authorities, as is alleged, were prepared with different aims and from diverse points of view, if they are unlike in style and diction and discordant in their statements, he never could produce the semblance of unity in his work. The difference of texture would show itself at the points of junction. There would inevitably be chasms, and abrupt transitions, and a want of harmony between the parts. Such a work as Genesis could not have been produced in this way.—“The Unity of the Book of Genesis,” William Henry Green, D. D., LL. D., pp. 554, 555. London: Richard D. Dickinson, 1902. HBS 205.1

Genesis, Light on, from Babylon.—The marvelous discoveries of the last half-century have thrown a flood of light on the ancient Oriental world, and some of this light has necessarily been reflected on the book of Genesis. The monuments of Egypt, of Babylonia, and of Assyria have been rescued from their hiding places, and the writing upon them has been made to speak once more in living words. A dead world has been called again to life by the spade of the excavator and the patient labor of the decipherer. We find ourselves, as it were, face to face with Sennacherib, with Nebuchadnezzar, and with Cyrus, with those whose names have been familiar to us from childhood, but who have hitherto been to us mere names, mere shadowy occupants of an unreal world. Thanks to the research of the last half-century, we can now penetrate into the details of their daily life, can examine their religious ideas, can listen to them as they themselves recount the events of their own time or the traditions of the past which had been handed down to them. HBS 205.2

It is more especially in Babylonia and Assyria that we find illustrations of the earlier chapters of Genesis, as, indeed, is only natural. The Semitic language spoken in these two countries was closely allied to that of the Old Testament, as closely, in fact, as two modern English dialects are allied to each other; and it was from Babylonia, from Ur of the Chaldees, now represented by the mounds of Mugheir, that Abraham made his way to the future home of his descendants in the West. It is to Babylonia that the Biblical accounts of the fall, of the deluge, and of the confusion of tongues particularly look; two of the rivers of Paradise were the Tigris and Euphrates, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, and the city built around the tower which men designed should reach to heaven was Babel, or Babylon. Babylonia was an older kingdom than Assyria, which took its name from, the city of Assur, now Kalah Sherghat, on the Tigris, the original capital of the country. It was divided into two halves, Accad (Genesis 10:10) being northern Babylonia, and Sumir, the Shinar of the Old Testament, southern Babylonia.... HBS 205.3

At an early date, which cannot yet, however, be exactly determined, the Sumirians and Accadians were overrun and conquered by the Semitic Babylonians of later history, Accad being apparently the first half of the country to fall under the sway of the newcomers. It is possible that Casdim, the Hebrew word translated “Chaldees” or “Chaldeans” in the Authorized Version, is the Babylonian casidi, or “conquerors,” a title which continued to cling to them in consequence of their conquest.—“Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,” A. H. Sayce, M. A., pp. 19, 20. London: The Religious Tract Society, 1890. HBS 206.1

Geology, Assumptions of.—1. The whole science of the modern classification of the rocks into successive “ages” rests upon two pure assumptions: (a) That the action of the elements during all past time has been uniform with the present in character, perhaps in degree; (b) that there has been a development, or at least a succession, in the life upon the globe. HBS 206.2

2. The first of these assumptions is a point-blank denial of the record of the deluge. HBS 206.3

3. The second being the very backbone of the evolution theory, it is preposterous to bring in their geology as evidence for evolution. It is “circular” reasoning of the most glaring kind. HBS 206.4

4. From the Biblical standpoint this succession of life is but the classification or taxonomic series in the life of the antediluvian world. HBS 206.5

5. The various phenomena of canons and river gorges might reasonably have been accomplished within the limits of Biblical time, if the action of the elements began when the deposits were soft and freshly laid. HBS 206.6

6. The successive strata of coal have not been proved, and cannot be proved, to have been produced by growth in situ. The same may also be said of the limestones. On the contrary, both the limestones and the coal beds often give us unmistakable evidence that they were buried or formed suddenly in some extraordinary way. HBS 206.7

7. The fossils invariably supply us with specimens larger of their kind, and showing a far more complete all-round development, than their modern specific representatives, if they have any, whether crustaceans, vertebrate fishes, insects, reptiles, marsupial or placental mammals, or even man. HBS 206.8

8. Many of these relics of ancient life are found together in such vast numbers as utterly to preclude the supposition that they were accumulated in any ordinary way; while they are in just such position and numbers as we might expect if thousands of them had been drifted together on the surface of the water to the foothills of the great mountain ranges, and buried there by the storms of the subsiding deluge. HBS 206.9

9. The numerous examples of the sudden appearance of species, as well as the numerous breaks in life between successive formations, are just what we should expect if these arrangements are only taxonomic classifications in a complete world destroyed at one and the same time. HBS 206.10

10. All the “formations,” so far as we can judge, give us proofs of a milder and more equable climate than we have at present. HBS 206.11

11. All, save the Cambrian and Laurentian, which are largely metamorphic, give us very coarse conglomerates, unstratified, angular deposits, or large “traveled” boulders, which have usually been attributed to ice action, with all the involved absurdities of something worse than a “rotation of climates.” But all of these phenomena are readily accounted for on the hypothesis of a violent and universal deluge. HBS 206.12

12. The glacial theory, as generally received, involves so many absurdities that it is pronounced by one of the latest and best authorities to be “the wildest dream which a fertile imagination ever imported into science.” HBS 207.1

13. The discovery of well-developed human remains in Pliocene, perhaps Miocene, strata is one of the strongest possible proofs that these names do not and cannot possibly represent “ages,” but simply taxonomic classifications in the life of the antediluvian world. HBS 207.2

14. The lignites and coal seams of the Secondary and Tertiary rocks were undoubtedly covered up at the same time as the Carboniferous deposits, or the “true coal” formations, there being absolutely nothing save the visionary succession of life to prove that they were not contemporaneous. HBS 207.3

15. In short, the destruction of a whole world of magnificently developed plant and animal life by the violent waters of a universal deluge is seen to be not only possible, but scientifically certain. The evidence therefore explains the geological phenomena far more easily than a century of ingenious guessing along the lines of uniformitarianism has done. To plain common sense the rocky leaves of nature’s diary are even now becoming eloquent to the truth of Genesis, just as the monuments of Assyria and Egypt have these many years confirmed in thunder tones the truth of Old Testament history.—“Outlines of Modern Christianity and Modern Science,” George McCready Price, pp. 195-198. Oakland, Calif.: Pacific Press Publishing Company, copyright 1902. HBS 207.4

Geology, The Fossil World a Unit.—The broad, general fact is that the remains of man, and thousands of living species of plants and animals, are found in stratified rocks, spread out by flowing water, often sea water; but the place of these deposits, now high and dry, it may be thousands of feet above the sea level, has not been occupied by the sea since the dawn of scientific observation. Land and sea have at some time been all mixed up together, or have exchanged places. And, according to the best authorities of the day, such as Zittel, Fuchs, and Suess, nothing in the nature of a gradual tendency toward such a mutual exchange of land and water, is now going on anywhere on earth. Hence we have no natural way to account for this exchange of land and water, except by saying that something happened to our world long ago, before the dawn of recorded history, which was thoroughly different in kind as well as in degree from anything now going on. HBS 207.5

It is not necessary for us to discuss here the questions relating to the antiquity of man, as it is popularly understood. The question of how far back in geological time man actually lived, is for us, who have discarded the myth of the successive geological ages, wholly a false way of looking at the subject. Why should we attempt to decide whether Pliocene or Miocene or Eocene shells are found with these fossil human remains? HBS 207.6

That man lived in Western Europe contemporary with those giants of that older world, the elephant and the musk ox, the rhinocerous and the reindeer, the lion, the cape hyena, and the hippopotamus, at a time when most of our mountains had no existence, but their places were occupied by great stretches of ocean, while a soft, vernal climate mantled all the northern regions and clear within the arctic circle, are truths which all admit. Such facts are now found in the textbooks for our children in the public schools. HBS 207.7

The really important fact is that human remains are found fossil, just the same as other forms of life, and that there is absolutely no way of proving that these fossil men are not as old as any other fossils. HBS 207.8

Whatever proves the latter old, does the same for the former; but if we insist on the comparatively modern character of these fossil human remains, we must admit the same for all other fossils, because, as already shown, inductive science insists that the fossil world was a unit, and that man was contemporary with all alike. True science can never take us back of this state when all existed contemporaneously together; for it would require a supernatural knowledge of the past to discriminate among the fossils, and say that any particular group existed before the others, and occupied the world exclusively for ages before the others came into existence.—“God’s Two Books,” George McCready Price, pp. 161-163. Washington, D. C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1911. HBS 208.1

Geology, Theory of Uniformity Disproved.—1. The fossils found in the stratified rocks are, as a rule, very abnormal in their abundance, for exceedingly few fossils are now being made in our modern world. They are also abnormal in their (generally) splendid preservation, mere fragments being about all that our modern world can show as materials for fossilization. HBS 208.2

2. There is but one climate known to geology proper, and this climate was astonishingly mild and warm over the entire globe. HBS 208.3

“The spring Perpetual smiled on earth with verdant flowers.” HBS 208.4

But the elephants and other animals found frozen in the ice of northern Siberia are the best of contemporary vouchers that this climate was “abruptly terminated,” as Dana says, and became “suddenly extreme as of a single winter’s night.” Other considerations just as conclusively prove that this change of climate was not local, but world wide in extent. HBS 208.5

3. When looked at broadly, the fossils are seen to be quite generally larger and better developed than their nearest living representatives. And if we can hold sub judice the theory of successive geological “ages,” until this point also can be considered, we shall think it very significant that this splendid development is characteristic of the fossils of all the various formations, and that when we cross over into our modern era, the change in the fossils is just as sudden and complete as is that of climate. HBS 208.6

4. Deposits like those of the strata containing the fossils are not now being formed anywhere in our deep seas or oceans. The work of the Challenger expedition, with many subsequent investigations, has proved that in the deep ocean absolutely no true stratigraphical deposits are now being made. When we get out beyond the narrow continental shelf, from end to end over the whole ocean floor there is no gravel, no sand, no clay being shifted or deposited in modern times, nothing whatever to disturb the eternal calm of the silent waters. As Geikie remarks of the deposits now lying on the bottom of our modern ocean, “They have no analogues among the formations of the earth’s crust;” that is, these modern deposits are distinctly different in mechanical make-up from those beds which compose our dry land, laid down in the ancient time, although these latter contain abundant remains of animals that once lived in the deep waters of the ocean. HBS 208.7

5. Leading geologists, like Howorth and Suess, have critically examined the evidence supposed to indicate that gradual changes of land and sea level are now going on; and they have proved conclusively that such alleged changes are not now in progress. To quote the words of Suess himself: “The theory of the secular oscillations of the continents is not competent to explain the repeated inundation and emergence of the land;” for even in those localities, like Sweden and Greenland, whose coasts have been supposed to be rising or falling, “displacements susceptible of measurement have not occurred within the historic period.” HBS 208.8

In short, this prince of modern geologists, after an exhaustive examination of the scientific literature of all civilized countries, thus writes the epitaph of the old theory of the gradual and continuous exchange of land and water: “Thus, as our knowledge becomes more exact, the less are we able to entertain those theories which are generally offered in explanation of the repeated inundation and emergence of the continents.” HBS 209.1

Thus on five separate counts we have evidence of the bankruptcy of the theory of uniformity as an explanation of how the geological changes took place; and if we presently find, on a study of the geological “ages,” that these “ages” based on the fossils as time tickets are wholly mythical and unscientific, we shall not have to explain any “repeated” inundation and emergence of the continents, but can assign one major geological event as sufficient to explain the whole. For according to the familiar adage in logic known as Occam’s razor, or the law of parsimony, no more causes are to be admitted than are sufficient to explain the phenomena.—George McCready Price, M. A., in an article, “A Closed Question Reopened,” in the Biblical Review, July, 1919, pp. 442-444. HBS 209.2

Gerizim and Ebal.—Nothing is more striking to the traveler, even now, when he has climbed the high ridge of the watershed which separates the rounded hills and shut-in valleys of Bethel and Ai-that comparatively barren country-than the great change a few miles of travel brings about: corn lands of great extent and fine woods of olive trees, culminating in the central position of Shechem. The “terebinths of Moreh” of Abraham’s time are gone; but noble trees of olive, fig, and pomegranate have taken their place. Water is abundant, and therefore fertilizing mist is common. It would be a great feeding ground for the host of Israel, and was the abode of those Perizzites, “rustics” who do not appear to have had fortified towns. Joshua rears an altar, and afterward reads all the words of the law. The hills form a great amphitheater, space and verge enough for all, a natural sounding gallery for Joshua’s voice; every traveler can testify of this. I found that, standing on the slopes of Ebal, my men across the valley and on Gerizim could distinguish all I said. HBS 209.3

Interesting discoveries on both these mountains have been made by the officers of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Sir Charles Wilson, Major Anderson, and Major Conder. Of Ebal, the first-mentioned explorer says: HBS 209.4

“The summit of Ebal is a comparatively level plateau of some extent; there is no actual peak, but the ground rises toward the west. The view is one of the finest in the country, embracing Safed, Jebel, Jermk, and Hermon on the north; Jaffa, Ramleh, and the maritime plain on the west, the heights above Bethel on the south, and the Hauran on the east. There is a ruin consisting of an inclosure ninety-two feet square, with walls twenty feet thick, built of selected unhewn stones, without mortar. Nothing in this building connects it with the altar erected by Joshua.” Major Conder calls attention to a Moslem sacred site on the ridge of the mountain, not at its highest point, which is called the “Monument of the Faith,” and he thinks this the true site of the altar. Samaritan tradition places the altar on Gerizim; “but this title, ‘Monument of the Faith,’ may be due to the idea the Crusaders had that this was the Dan of Jeroboam’s calf temple.” We must not confuse the “altar” built by Joshua with the “great stone” which he afterward set up; but if we are to take the passage in Joshua 24:26 as indicating the site of the “altar,” then it was not on the hill, but in the valley, for the “great stone” was put up “under the oak that was by” (or in) “the sanctuary of the Lord,” and this oak would probably be Abraham’s oak. The heathen did erect altars and burn sacrifices on every high hill; but, as at Shiloh, the places selected for the altars to Jehovah were in valleys. HBS 209.5

Canon Tristram points out that “in the base of Mt. Gerizim is a very curious natural recess, eastward of the modern city, so regular that it looks as if hollowed artificially out of the rocky roots of the mountain, now a sacred inclosure of the Moslems, and called ‘The Pillar.’ Exactly opposite, in the base of Mt. Ebal, is a similar natural amphitheater.” Only Moslems are allowed to enter the inclosure on the Gerizim side. and they say there still stands a column. Modern Samaritans also assert that this is the true site of the “great stone” set up by Joshua. Two hundred years after Joshua we read of “the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem.” Judges 9:6. Fourth-century writers speak of a “praying place outside the city resembling a theater.” HBS 210.1

We are told Joshua wrote on the stones of the altar “a copy of the law of Moses.” Does that mean that he engraved the whole law on the stones? No. If we refer to Deuteronomy 27:2, 3, we shall see that the stones were to be covered with “plaister,” and on this “plaister,” the words would be written; the process, therefore, would be both easy and rapid. There is a great contrast between the barrenness of Mt. Ebal and the fertility of Gerizim. That may be due a good deal to the position of them. Ebal is steeper, and is the northern hill; Gerizim, the southern hill, so that was chosen for the mount of blessing, “life and light” being always associated with the south by the Jews. Gerizim was afterward chosen by the Samaritans for the site of their temple, and they claim, too, that it was the mountain on which Abraham offered up Isaac. This latter view has obtained some credence, but an examination of the Bible will show it could not be. Abraham was at Beersheba. It would be possible to reach Mt. Moriah, Jerusalem, in the three days spoken of; quite impossible to reach Shechem in that time, for remember, Abraham traveled on an ass. The distance alone between the two places is fatal to this theory, which was invented by the Samaritans to glorify the temple they had set up in opposition to that on Mt. Moriah. Standing on the plain, a small Moslem tomb cuts the sky line on the crest of Gerizim, and here are many ruins, with massive foundations; traces of a castle, some massive stones, called the “Twelve Stones,” which Samaritan traditions say were the stones set up by Joshua; and numerous cisterns. The “holy place” of the Samaritans is a sloping rock, which drains into a cistern. A mass of human bones was found lying in another inclosure. These “twelve stones” form a platform of unhewn masonry. The courses are four in number; no inscriptions were found on them. This platform is probably a portion of the Samaritan temple. Other ruins exist, most likely remains of the fortress Justinian erected there. Then there is the Samaritan “Holy of Holies,” for the people take off their shoes when they approach it. The Passover is still eaten there, but the community is becoming very small. HBS 210.2

“Toward sunset a few men in white surplices recite a form of prayer near the circular pit in which the lambs are roasted; then all the full-grown men join, prayer and prostrations continue till sunset, when the priest rapidly repeats the twelfth chapter of Exodus. The lambs are killed while the priest is speaking; they are skinned and cleaned, the bodies then placed in the pit till roasted; then the covering is taken off, the bodies drawn out and placed on brown mats; then they are taken to the trench and laid out in line between the two files of the Samaritans, who now have shoes on their feet and staves in their hands. Short prayers follow. They suddenly seat themselves, and commence to eat silently and rapidly until the whole is consumed.” HBS 210.3

Sir Charles Wilson mentions one fact as to the distance the human voice can here be heard: that “during the excavations of Mt. Gerizim the Arab workmen were on more than one occasion heard conversing with men passing along the valley below.”-“The Bible and Modern Discoveries,” Henry A. Harper, pp. 152-155. London: Printed for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund by Alexander P. Watt, 1891. HBS 211.1

Gnosticism, Definition of.—An eclectic system of religion and philosophy, existing from the first to the sixth century. It attempted, in order to commend Christian doctrine to the philosophical tenets of the age, a system of mediation between the two, by teaching that knowledge, rather than faith, was the key to salvation, and incorporating some of the features of Platonism, Orientalism, and Dualism with Christianity. The Gnostics held that God in himself is unknowable and unapproachable, but that all existences, material and spiritual, are derived from the Deity by successive emanations, or eons. Gnosticism borrowed certain elements from the current Persian philosophy, but more from the Greek doctrines connected with Neo-Platonic ideas of Logos and Nous. Christ was merely a superior eon.—New Standard Dictionary, art. “Gnosticism,” p. 1047. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1913. HBS 211.2

Gnosticism, Meaning of.—Gnosticism had its home in Egypt. A few things taken from Christianity were blended with Platonic philosophy, Jewish theology, and old Oriental theosophy. The word “Gnostic” comes from the Greek word gnosis, knowledge. They claimed a superior knowledge, but it was a science or knowledge “falsely so called.”-“The Bible and the British Museum,” Ada R. Habershon, p. 54. London: Morgan and Scott, 1909. HBS 211.3

Gnosticism, Peril of.—The crisis evoked by the assaults of Gnosticism was the greatest and most momentous in its consequences of all the convulsions to which Christianity was exposed in the course of its growth in the soil of antique civilization. Had Gnosticism not been overcome, then Christianity had forfeited its peculiar genius; torn loose from its historic foundation, it would have been drawn into the general vortex, thus perishing like the religions of collapsing paganism.—The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. IV, art. “Gnosticism,” p. 499. HBS 211.4

God, Names of.— HBS 211.5