d therein an account of the
origin of the world identical in its most important features with the
later accounts in our own book of Genesis.

These men have had the courage to point out these facts and to connect
them with the truth that these Chaldean and Babylonian myths, legends,
and theories were far earlier than those of the Hebrews, which so
strikingly resemble them, and which we have in our sacred books; and
they have also shown us how natural it was that the Jewish accounts of
the creation should have been obtained at that remote period when the
earliest Hebrews were among the Chaldeans, and how the great Hebrew
poetic accounts of creation were drawn either from the sacred traditions
of these earlier peoples or from antecedent sources common to various
ancient nations.

In a summary which for profound thought and fearless integrity does
honour not only to himself but to the great position which he holds,
the Rev. Dr. Driver, Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church at
Oxford, has recently stated the case fully and fairly. Having pointed
out the fact that the Hebrews were one people out of many who thought
upon the origin of the universe, he says that they "framed theories to
account for the beginnings of the earth and man"; that "they either did
this for themselves or borrowed those of their neighbours"; that "of the
theories current in Assyria and Phoenicia fragments have been preserved,
and these exhibit points of resemblance with the biblical narrative
sufficient to warrant the inference that both are derived from the same
cycle of tradition."

After giving some extracts from the Chaldean creation tablets he says:
"In the light of these facts it is difficult to resist the conclusion
that the biblical narrative is drawn from the same source as these other
records. The biblical historians, it is plain, derived their materials
from the best human sources available.... The materials which with other
nations were combined into the crudest physical theories or associated
with a grotesque polytheism were vivified and transformed by the
inspired genius of the Hebrew historians, and adapted to become the
vehicle of profound religious truth."

Not less honourable to the sister university and to himself is the
statement recently made by the Rev. Dr. Ryle, Hulsean Professor of
Divinity at Cambridge. He says that to suppose that a Christian "must
either renounce his confidence in the achievements of scientific