ORIGINES BIBLIC.S.
'THE chronology and geography of Holy Writ is full of difficulty, whether its representations be compared with the accounts of the different inspired writers or with the statements of more fallible authorities. To reconcile the discrepancies as regards the latter science, is the object of Mr. BEIM; and his Origines Biblicce may be regarded as an attempt to lay down a system of Scripture Geo- graphy from the .internal evidence of the Scriptures themselves. The author has brought much learning and some ingenuity to the task, mimesis(' with not a little of the undistiuguishing zeal which le:larks the ardent system-monger.
Like the fanatics who expected the Bible to furnish them with specific directions for all mundane matters, including law and
civil government, Mr. BEKE considers that the sacred volume
contains the materials of its commentary within itself. Ile has therefore avoided all examination of the German school of Ration- alism; not so much lest his lueubrations should be tinged with their spirit, as on account of his disapprobation of their views. Here is an abstract of his own mode of reasoning from internal evidence.
One great geographical difficulty is to reconcile the received position of the Ark's resting-place, Ararat, with the site of the Tower of Babel. When Noah left his habitation, he and his
family are said to have reached the plain of Shiner, by journeying "from the East :" but if Babylon be, as it is supposed to be, the
site of the tower, where the language of mankind was confounded
and the race itself dispersed, then he must have travelled frons the North. Mr. BEKE overcomes the difficulty by asserting, that
there is no Scriptural warrant for saying that tile " city and tower of Babel, the Babel of Nimrod, and the Babel or Babylon of Ne- buchadnezzar, were identical ;" and by endeavouring, to prove that, accoi ding to natural circumstances, Babylon could not have existed at the time the tower of Babel was undertaken. The present (supposed) site of the city is overflowed by the waters of the Euphrates when the river is at its height ; and, says Mr. Rim " the ruins of Babylon are then inundated so as to render many parts of them inaccessible by converting the vallies amongst them into morasses." The country was probably in a very much worse condition during the first ages after the Flood. But yet higher ground may be taken, and the physical impossibility shown,
We behold continually, in all parts of the world, the formation of countries through which great rivers take their course ; and we know that the whole of the alluvial soil about the lower parts of those countries has, at some time or other, been brought down and deposited by the rivers. There can be no dill. culty, therefore, in asserting, that the low lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, for a considerable distance from their mouths, could not have existed in early ages, but must have been gradually formed by the encroachment, on the Persian Gulf, of the alluvial soil brought down and deposited by those mighty rivers. The extent of this alluvial soil can of course be easily ascertained ; and we may ob- tain, consequently, the means of determining what was the extent northward of the Persian Gulf at some former period ; though, from our inability to calculate the rate at which the new laud has been formed, we may not be able to arrive at any certain conclusion as to the period when the change from sea to land of any portion of the country actually took place.
Historical facts, however, tend to prove that the land has pretty rapidly gained upon the sea. NEA.RC I7S estimated the distance from the mouth of the Euphrates to Babylon at little more than two hundred miles (but the ancient standard of measure is not a settled matter). It is now at least three hundred in a straight line. The case is stronger with Charax. When this city, first named Alexandria, was built by ALEXANDER, it was ten stadia only from the sea ; iii the time of JUBA, the land had so gained upon the Persian Gulf that the distance was fifty stadia; in PL1 NY'S age it had increased to one lanolred and twenty stadia, —there being no place (he continues) whew the depositions of rivers accumulate more quickly or in greater quantities*. From all this it may be inferred, that in the time of NIMROD the site of Babylon the mighty, " the glory of the kingdoms," was under water. Or even if it were physically possible to found a city, was it likely, in that early age of the world, that a population suffi- ciently numerous, and commercial motives sufficiently strong, should have existed to raise the mounds and embankments which would be necessary even now to render the place habitable? Such is a specimen—and we must add, a favourable specimen— of Mr. BEKE'S mode of reasoning. Those who wish to ascertain the range of mountains where the ark rested, the manner in which NOAH would naturally descend from time heights, the route by which he journeyed to the plain of Shiner, and where Shiner itself is situated, together with those persons who are curious as to the progressive steps by which the earth was peopled, and a variety of matters too abstruse for the columns of a newspaper, must refer to the volume. Such readers as wish to discover the true position of the Garden of Eden, to be informed as to the wood of which the ark was most probably made, and some other matters equally recondite, twist go to the appendix.
• Nec ulla in partc plus aut celeausprofeccro krrre fluminibus IlAunuts, lib. VL c. 27.
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