existence of man to a date remote from us by
many hundreds of thousands of years. It must be borne in mind that
these investigations are quite recent, and confined to a very limited
geographical space. No researches have yet been made in those regions
which might reasonably be regarded as the primitive habitat of man.
We are thus carried back immeasurably beyond the six thousand years of
Patristic chronology. It is difficult to assign a shorter date for the
last glaciation of Europe than a quarter of a million of years, and
_human existence antedates that_. The chronology of the Bible is thus
altogether obsolete."

The idea of a seven-days' creation was not confined to the Jews: it
was shared by the Persians and Etruscans. The division of the year into
months and weeks is a general, although not a universal practice. The
ancient Egyptians observed a ten-days' week, but the seven-days' week
was well known to them. The naming of the days of the week after the
seven Planets was noted by Dion Cassius as originally an Egyptian
custom, which spread from Egypt into the Roman Empire. The Brahmins of
India also distinguish the days of the week by the planetary names. This
division of time was purely astronomical. The Jews kept the Feast of
the New Moon, and other of their ceremonies were determined by lunar and
solar phenomena. We may be sure that the myth of a seven-days' creation
followed and did not precede the regular observance of that period.

There is one feature of the Hebrew story of creation which shows how
anthropomorphic they were. The Persians represent Ormuzd as keeping high
festival with his angels on the seventh day, after creating all things
in six. But the Hebrews represent Jehovah as _resting_ on the seventh
day, as though the arduous labors of creation had completely exhausted
his energies. Fancy _Omnipotence_ requiring rest to recruit its
strength! The Bible, and especially in its earlier parts, is grossly
anthropomorphic. It exhibits God as conversing with men, sharing their
repasts, and helping them to slaughter their foes. It represents him as
visible to human eyes, and in one instance as giving Moses a back view
of his person. Yet these childish fancies are still thrust upon as
divine truths, which if we disbelieve we shall be eternally damned!

Let us now examine the Creation Story internally. In the first place
we find two distinct records, the one occupying the whole of the first
chapter of Genesis