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The Making of a Nation The Beginnings of Israel's History by Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
Chapter 1 DIFFERENT THEORIES OF CREATION.
Every early people naturally asked the questions, How were things made? How were men created? First of all, Who made the world? They necessarily answered them according to their own dawning knowledge.
The most primitive races believed that some great animal created the earth and man. In the Alaskan collection in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania there is a huge crow, sitting upon the mask of a man's face. This symbolizes the crude belief of the Alaskan Indians regarding the way man was created. The early Egyptians thought that the earth and man were hatched out of an egg. In one part of Egypt it was held that the artisan god Ptah broke the egg with his hammer. In another part of the land and probably at a later date the tradition was current that Thoth the moon god spoke the world into existence. The earliest Babylonian record states that:
The god Marduk laid a reed on the face of the waters,
He formed dust and poured it out beside the reed;
That he might cause the gods to dwell in the dwellings
of their heart's desire,
He formed mankind.
Later he formed the grass and the rush of the marsh and the forest.
Then he created the animals and their young.
The Parsee teachers held that the rival gods, Ahriman and Ormuzd, evolved themselves out of primordial matter and then through the long ages created their attendant hierarchies of angels. The philosophers of India anticipated in some respects our modern evolutionary theory. Brahma is thought of as self-existent and eternal. He gradually condenses himself into material objects, such as ether, fire, water, earth and the elements. Last of all he manifests himself in man. The Greek philosophers were the first to attempt to describe creation as a purely physical, generative process. They taught the evolution of the more complex from the simpler forms. Plato and Aristotle believed in a transcendental deity and found in the world indications of a vital impulse toward a higher manifestation of life-man.
Michael Angelo, with wonderful dramatic power, in his painting in the Sistine Chapel at Rome has portrayed how lifeless clay in form of man, when touched by the finger of God, by sheer vitalizing power is transformed into a living soul.
Very different yet equally impressive is the modern scientific view. The origin of matter and of life is so absolutely unknown that scientists have not as yet formulated definite theories concerning it. Even the theories regarding the origin of the solar system are still conflicting and none is generally accepted. The old nebular hypothesis is discredited and the theory of the spiral movement of the solar matter seems to be confirmed by phenomena observable in the heavens. The one principle generally held by scientists is that, given matter and life and some creating force, our present marvelous complex universe has come into being according to laws usually called natural. These laws are so invariable that they may be considered unchanging.
Even more definitely established is the so-called theory of evolution which is based on the careful observation and comparison of countless thousands of natural phenomena. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica it is the history of the physical process by which all living beings have acquired the characteristics, physical, mental, moral, and spiritual, which now distinguish them. It recognizes the gradual development from the simplest to the most complex forms. It is merely an attempt to describe in the light of careful observation and investigation the process of growth by which the world and the beings which inhabit it have grown into what they are.
A comparison of the Hebrew account of creation with those of other races and times is extremely suggestive.
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Chapter 1 DIFFERENT THEORIES OF CREATION.
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Chapter 2 THE PRIESTLY STORY OF CREATION.
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Chapter 3 THE EARLY PROPHETIC STORY OF CREATION.
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Chapter 4 A COMPARISON OF THE TWO ACCOUNTS OF CREATION.
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Chapter 5 MAN'S CONQUEST AND RULERSHIP OF THE WORLD.
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Chapter 6 THE NATURE OF SIN.
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Chapter 7 THE DIFFERENT THEORIES REGARDING THE ORIGIN OF SIN.
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Chapter 8 THE ORIGIN OF SIN ACCORDING TO THE STORY IN GENESIS 3.
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Chapter 9 THE EFFECTS OF SIN UPON THE WRONG-DOER.
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Chapter 10 GOD'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE SINNER.
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Chapter 11 THE MEANING OF THE STORY OF CAIN.
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Chapter 12 THE MAKING OF A CRIMINAL.
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Chapter 13 THE CRIMINAL'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY.
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Chapter 14 THE WAYS IN WHICH SOCIETY DEALS WITH THE CRIMINAL.
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Chapter 15 HOW TO DEAL WITH CRIMINALS.
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Chapter 16 THE TWO BIBLICAL ACCOUNTS OF THE FLOOD.
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Chapter 17 THE CORRESPONDING BABYLONIAN FLOOD STORIES.
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Chapter 18 HISTORY OF THE BIBLICAL FLOOD STORIES.
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Chapter 19 AIM OF THE BIBLICAL WRITERS IN RECOUNTING THE FLOOD STORY.
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Chapter 20 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST IN THE NATURAL WORLD.
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Chapter 21 THE PROPHETIC STORIES ABOUT ABRAHAM.
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Chapter 22 THE MEANING OF THE EARLY PROPHETIC STORIES ABOUT ABRAHAM.
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Chapter 23 THE PROPHETIC PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM.
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Chapter 24 THE TENDENCY TO IDEALIZE NATIONAL HEROES.
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Chapter 25 THE REASONS FOB MIGRATION.
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Chapter 26 THE TWO BROTHERS, JACOB AND ESAU.
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Chapter 27 THE MAN WITH A WRONG AMBITION.
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Chapter 28 JACOB'S TRAINING IN THE SCHOOL OF EXPERIENCE.
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Chapter 29 THE INVINCIBLE POWER OP AMBITION AND PERSEVERANCE.
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Chapter 30 THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF AMBITION.
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Chapter 31 THE QUALITIES ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS.
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Chapter 32 THE LIMITATIONS AND TEMPTATIONS OF JOSEPH'S EARLY LIFE.
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Chapter 33 THE CALL OF A GREAT OPPORTUNITY.
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Chapter 34 THE TEMPTATIONS OF SUCCESS.
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Chapter 35 THE STANDARDS OF REAL SUCCESS.
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Chapter 36 THE EGYPTIAN BACKGROUND OF THE BONDAGE.
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Chapter 37 THE MAKING OF A LOYAL PATRIOT.
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Chapter 38 THE SCHOOL OF THE WILDERNESS.
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Chapter 39 MOSES' CALL TO PUBLIC SERVICE.
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Chapter 40 THE EDUCATION OF PUBLIC OPINION.
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