general remarks can here be offered. Some difficulties are imaginary,
the inventions of special pleading. In these the commentaries of modern
rationalists abound. They are to be set aside by fair interpretation.
But other difficulties are real, and should not be denied or ignored by
the honest expositor. If he can give a valid explanation of them, well
and good; but if not, let him reverently wait for more light, in the
calm assurance that the divine authority of the Pentateuch rests on a
foundation that cannot be shaken. To deny a well-authenticated narrative
of facts on the ground of unexplained difficulties connected with it is
to build on a foundation of error.

(A.) Of the difficulties connected with the first part of
Genesis some are _scientific_. Such is the narrative of the
creation of the world in six days. Respecting this it has
already been remarked (Ch. 10, No. 3) that with all who believe
in the reality of divine revelation the question is not
respecting the truth of this narrative, but respecting the
interpretation of it. As long ago as the time of Augustine the
question was raised whether these days are to be understood
literally, or symbolically of long periods of time. The latter
was his view, and it is strengthened by the analogy of the
prophetic days of prophecy.

Another difficulty relates to the age of the antediluvian
patriarchs, which was about tenfold the present term of life for
robust and healthful men. According to the laws of physiology we
must suppose that the period of childhood and youth was
protracted in a corresponding manner; since in man, as in all
the higher animals, the time of physical growth--physical growth
in the widest sense, the process of arriving at physical
maturity--has a fixed relation to the whole term of existence.
After the deluge, in some way not understood by us, the whole
course of human life began to be gradually quickened--to run its
round in a shorter time--till the age of man was at last reduced
to its present measure. All that we can say here is that we do
not know how God accomplished this result. He accomplished it in
a secret and invisible way, as he does so many other of his
operations in nature. On the discrepancy between the Masoretic
Hebrew text, the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and that of
the Septuagint, in respect to the genealogical