Some mistakes of Moses by Ingersoll Robert Green 1833-1899

Author:Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833-1899
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Bible, Free thought
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : C. P. Farrell
Published: 1879-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

XIX.

BACCHUS AND BABEL.

s soon as Noah had disembarked, he proceeded to plant a vineyard, and began to be a hus bandman ; and when the grapes were ripe he made wine and drank of it to excess ; cursed his grandson, blessed Shem and Japheth, and after that lived for three hundred and fifty years. What he did during these three hundred and fifty years, we are not told. We never hear of him again. For three hundred and fifty years he lived among his sons, and daughters, and their descendants. He must have been a vener able man. He was the man to whom God had made known his intention of drowning the world. By his efforts, the human race had been saved. He must have been acquainted with Methuselah for six hun dred years, and Methuselah was about two hundred and forty years old, when Adam died. Noah must himself have known the history of mankind, and must have been an object of almost infinite interest; and

yet for three hundred and fifty years he is neither directly nor indirectly mentioned. When Noah died, Abraham must have been more than fifty years old ; and Shem, the son of Noah, lived for several hundred years after the death of Abraham ; and yet he is never mentioned. Noah when he died, was the oldest man in the whole world by about five hundred years ; and everybody living at the time of his death knew that they were indebted to him, and yet no account is given of his burial. No monument was raised to mark the spot. This, however, is no more wonderful than the fact that no account is given of the death of Adam or of Eve, nor of the place of their burial. This may all be accounted for by the fact that the language of man was confounded at the building of the tower of Babel, whereby all tradition may have been lost, so that even the sons of Noah could not give an account of their voyage in the ark ; and, consequently, some one had to be directly inspired to tell the story, after new languages had been formed.

It has always been a mystery to me how Adam, Eve, and the serpent were taught the same language. Where did they get it ? We know now, that it re quires a great number of years to form a language;

SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.

that it is of exceedingly slow growth. We also know that by language, man conveys to his fellows the impressions made upon him by what he sees, hears, smells and touches. We know that the language of the savage consists of a few sounds, capable of expressing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as love, desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt. Many centuries are required to pro duce a language capable of expressing complex ideas. It does not seem to me that ideas can be manu factured by a deity and put in the brain of man.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.