The Early Narratives of Genesis 95 Time does not permit me to enter into the details of the story of man’s origin in Genesis, but I have already indicated the general point of view from which I think this narrative is to be regarded. I t would be well if those who speak of disagreement with science would look to the great truths embedded in these narratives which science may be called up- on to confirm. There is, for example: (1) The truth that man is the last of God’s created works —the crown and summit of Goc’is creation. Does science con- tradict that? (2) There is the great truth of the unity of the human race. No ancient people that I know of believed in such unity of the race, and even science until recently cast doubts upon it. How strange to find this great truth of the unity of the mankind confirmed in the pages of the Bible from the very beginning. This truth holds in it already the doc- trine of monotheism, for if God is the Creator of the beings from whom the whole race sprang, He is the God of the whole race that sprang from them. (3) There is the declaration that man was made in God’s image—that God breathed into man a spirit akin to His own —does the science of man’s nature contradict that, or does it not rather show that in his personal, spiritual nature man stands alone as bearing the image of God on earth, and founds a new kingdom in the world which can only be carried back in its origin to the divine creative cause. (4) I might cite even the region of man’s origin, for I think science increasingly points to this very region in Baby- lonia as the seat of man’s origin. Is it then the picture of the condition in which man was created, pure and unfallen, and the idea that man, when introduced into the world, was not left as an orphaned being—the divine care was about him—t hat God spake with him and made known His will to him in such forms as he was able to apprehend—is it this that is in contradiction with history? I t lies outside the
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