Naamah and Nimrod. A defense of the faith of our fathers...

Front matter

A DEFENSE OF THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

BY

J. B. TANNEHILL, A LAYMAN

Introduction

From my earliest recollection I was taught by Christian parents to believe the Bible, and it has ever been my desire to accept the Bible as God's revelation to man.

But I early came in contact with those who faulted the Bible. I heard men say that science and Genesis did not agree and that the entire history of the patriarchal times was not real facts — only myths; that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph were not real men — only fictitious characters. I saw in books that man had lived on this earth much longer than six thousand years, as Bible chronology seems to state, and therefore Genesis could not be true. I found historical works and many text books in schools and colleges on ancient history, geology, biology and evolution that were in conflict with Genesis. I also read the higher critical hypothesis that the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses but is a patchwork from several sources finally put together as late as 300 to 200 B. C. by Jewish priests, and that the canon of the Bible as we have it was selected by a council held long after the time of Christ.

How could I hold to my early faith in the Bible and at the same time accept these new doctrines many of which were contrary to the teachings of Genesis and other Bible books as well? If I dropped Genesis as unreasonable and unreliable, suspicion was cast upon the entire Bible. What was I to do? I felt the need of One wiser and mightier than myself to guide my faltering footsteps through life. If I discarded the Bible, or any part of it, I rejected all the God I ever knew or could know, for if the Bible was not God's rev-

INTRODUCTION IX

elation to man, we had none — we were left in total darkness. I repeat, what was I to do?

I believe my experience in this matter voices the experience of thousands who want to believe the Bible and accept its God but cannot do so conscientiously if the Bible is full of errors.

But is the Bible in; conflict with truth? What does Genesis teach? What do geology, anthropology, biology, evolution, archaeology and history tell us?

I have found that many of our historical and scientific works have been written by disbelievers who, in many cases, needlessly and purposely leave the impression that the Bible is not to be accredited. I know, too, that designing men have purposely made it appear that the Bible is not truthful as to science and history. I see that other men in order to appear "learned" have held forth theories ;of life and evolution in conflict with God's Word when these theories have no basis whatever in fact.

I have studied the Bible as thoroughly as most men or my time. I have looked into science and history until I am thoroughly convinced there is no conflict at all between science and the Bible nor between real history and Bible chronology. I have now reached that point where I have no fears at all as to the outcome of this conflict between Bible truth and its critics. Bible history, Bible science and Bible chronology have stood the fierce fire of criticism for the past hundreds of years, as no other book has ever had to undergo, and it stands as firm as ever. Were it not for the falsehoods that have been allowed to creep into our literature concerning the Bible, no one would think of questioning any historical or scientific statement in it.

I have taken up, one by one, in past years, every criticism of Genesis that I have heard and not one of them has proven

X INTRODUCTION

to be a valid objection. "The Mistakes of Moses" have long since proven to be the "mistakes of Ingersoll," and both before and since his day each and every objection raised against the truthfulness of the Bible has been successfully answered. In the proper place, in this book, all these criticisms, so far as I have ever heard of them, shall be taken up and a satisfying answer given. It is chiefly because of the fact, that no criticism of Genesis has ever been upheld by true history or by archaeology, that I have come to believe in the Bible more and more as the years go by, and this is why I challenge the world of critics to prove a single one of their "Errors of the Bible" to be a real error; one that can be shown to have existed in an original document.

J. B. T.

Granville, Ohio.

More than one thousand) five hundred years after Creation, when antediluvian men had penetrated into all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but probably had not yet crossed over into America, there lived in old Babylonia, then the land of Nod, (Nadu of the inscriptions) the family of Lamech, consisting of husband, two wives, Adah and Zillah, to whom there had been born three sons, Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain, and one sister, Naamah. This family represented the culture, the industry and the idolatry of the antediluvian world.

The people of Nod, of whom certain members of this family were a part, had a well developed language, volumes of literature, great irrigating systems, magnificent temples and a matured system of polytheistic religion, arrayed against Jehovah; for this family, except possibly Adah and her blood in her two sons, belonged to the people of Cain who had been driven out from the presence of Jehovah.

Zillah (dark) was likely of the Egyptian branch of Cain's race, but Adah (light featured), the other wife of this Lamech, was probably married to him on the plateau of Iran, where another great antediluvian race doubtless lived. This race was monotheistic in religion, and cattle raising was the great industry. To this land, I theorise, this wife of Lamech induced one or both of her sons to migrate and there, before the Deluge, they engaged in the pursuits of the people in the mountains and on) the table lands.

Far to the- south of Nod, possibly on a continent now covered by trie Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, there lived a third race. In spreading abroad, members of this race, prior to this time, had come in contact with the race of Cain (the proto-Sumerians). In fact, the head of the second family, I desire now to describe, lived on the border between Nod and Eden. He also bore the name Lamech. In this second family was only one) son who was the husband of one wife, who had borne three sons. This family, in many respects, was

the exact opposite of the former; less cultured, possibly; less given to the fine arts, architecture, agriculture and literature, but intensely religious, — especially was Lamech's son Noah, "a righteous man and perfect in his generations."

These two families, though so different in culture, and especially in religious belief, were yet on friendly terms, and had been exchanging family names for some generations. All the members of the family of the first named Lamech, except possibly two, perished in the Deluge, which was sent on the earth because of the wickedness of mankind, brought on by a commingling of all the races, and the consequent revolting religious practices growing out of it. Possibly the only one, entirely of Cain's race, who survived, was Naamah who, 1 am confident, had married) one of the sons of Noah, and consequently was one of the eight persona saved in the ark. She was the most brilliant representative of her race and was therefore able to carry over the religious system of Cain's people to the post-diluvian races. She spoke, and wrote in cuneiform, the language of the people of Nod, as well as the hieroglyphic, the writings of her Egyptian people. She knew where the archives of Cain's race were kept at Sappara (Pliney, page 6, 30), Erech, Shurippak and other cities built before the Deluge by her kindred.

The two wives of Lamech, of the tribe of Cain, Adah and Zillah, had in them, I believe, the potency of three great peoples which after the Flood, dominated many regions of the earth. The characteristics of the Japhetic people lead me to believe that a daughter of Jabal or Jubal was the wife of Japheth and the mother of the Aryan race, as was Naamah, daughter of Zillah, the mother of the children of Ham. The wife of Japheth likely knew and spoke the ante-Sanskrit language of Iran, and she led the children of Japheth thither after the Deluge. Adah may not have been either of the people of Seth or of Cain but a decendant of Abel or of one of the other sons of Adam (Gen. 5 :4).

It is not a stretch of the imagination, then, to assume that in the wives of Shem, Ham and Japheth was the diverse blood of three antediluvian peoples, and that from them sprang the three branches of mankind which so sooni after the Deluge spoke and 1 wrote the Semitic, the Sumerian and Egyptian, and the Sanskrit languages. All this was but a continuance of what had been growing for centuries.

The influence of Naamah likely had much to do in shaping events that followed the Flood, and accounts, in a great measure, for the quickly developed religious system, language and literature of ancient Shinar, or Babylonia, and in a similar way that of Egypt. Likewise the wife of Japheth was the dominating influence that moulded the great Aryan race.

Nimrod, (Gilgamesh of the inscriptions, Kent, page 69; Clay, page 77) the most noted hunter of wild beasts, warrior and leader of his time, or of all times, was a son of Cush who was Naamah's son, if she was Ham's wife. This man Nimrod, who inherited the brilliant intellect of his grandmother, was also her legatee religiously and it was this man who openly rebelled against Jehovah in Shinar. So great was his fame that for centuries after his people had scattered to the four quarters of the earth, soon after the Babel incident, their mythologies and that of other races pointed back to Nimrod as their Ninus, Minos, Menes, Menu and Mannus, their first great hero. Maspero says that Gilgamesh, king of Erech, was the Nimrod of the Bible, and that one translation of the Sumerian word for Gilgamesh is Namrudi. This author describes this Namrudi as a great hunter of wild beasts.

You may tell me that much of the above is hypothecated. I grant it, but the recorded events both in the Bible and the facts brought out by archaeology call for and demand just such prior facts — but more of this as I go on with my narrative combatting the vile brood of Bible critics, the modern Naamahs and Nimrods.

CHILDREN OF NAAMAH AND NIMROD

The Sunday School Times (Philadelphia), March 14, 1914, published the following, which shows the prevalence of harmful teaching along Bible lines:

"From one of America's homes in which Jesus Christ rules as Master, a bright young Christian went out to begin his college course in a large university. He was looking forward to the foreign mission field as a life-work. Upon entering college he plunged at once into religious activities. But a disturbing surprise awaited him when he made his first acquaintance with 'the modern view of the Bible,' and began to get inklings of the fact that many of the professors, to whom he looked up as learned men, regarded the beliefs of his parents as antiquated and not a part of the equipment of the modern educated man. In spite of Christian friends and Christian activities, his first year in college left this young student so unsettled in his religious faith that he began to ask what message he could give as a foreign missionary."

A Christian (?) professor in a denominational college, university or training school who destroys the influence of God's Word and undermines the faith of young men and women under him, by teaching the "modern view of the Bible," is ten fold more dangerous than the avowed skeptic or agnostic. The seminary teacher who says that there is no efficacy in prayer, that scriptural miracles were impossible or that Jesus was but a man, is to be avoided as you would shun a viper. A denominational school which has on its faculty those who deny the truthfulness of divine revelation or teach that the Bible and science are incompatible, is a thousand times more damaging to our young people than the same teaching coming from the godless non-sectarian school, for in attending the latter the youth leaves home with his parents' warning ringing in his ears to beware of false teaching, whereas neither the parent nor the pupil is on his guard when seeking instruction in the so-called Christian school. Satan gets in his most deadly work when dressed in the garb of a saint.

The denominational International or other lesson quarterlies, coming from the religious (?) publishing house, saturated with these higher critical thoughts, ought to be consigned to the flames before the youth ever see them. The minister of the gospel living among these evils, content to draw his salary, and never raising his voice against them, is certainly recreant to the vow he took before Almighty God when he entered the ministry.

The leniency and toleration shown those teachers in colleges, universities, training schools and Sunday Schools, that make a pretense of accepting the Bible as God's inspired word and yet actually believe but very little of it, is both startling and appalling. It seems perfectly proper these days for one to teach the Bible to our young people even if he rejects the facts, of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as all the Old Testament prophecies pointing to Christ, and it is resented severely if objection is made to such teachers or if the inconsistency and hypocrisy of their retention is pointed out. A good brother admonished the writer not to be disturbed over the introduction of these destructive, atheistic and demoralizing teachings, saying, "If these things be of men they will come to nought," forgetting that he was quoting these words from an enemy of Christianity and 1 that it is never true that we should fold our arms, shut our eyes and remain

CHILDREN OF NAAMAH AND NIMROD 7

silent when the inspired Word of God is assailed or is about to be engulfed in a flood of error. Neither is it at all true that these teachings which are of Satan "will come to nought" unless Christ's loyal followers speak out boldly and work openly against this error, and we sin woefully against our God and his inspired Word if we remain silent.

The State Journal, Columbus, Ohio, on April 14, 1916, had this editorial which reflects the sort of instruction ministerial students are receiving in very many so-called Christian institutions. Do you know what is being taught in your denominational school?

"Last Monday, the presbytery of New York agreed to license three graduates of an Eastern Seminary to preach the Gospel, notwithstanding they refused to affirm certain cardinal doctrines of the church, such as the virgin birth of Christ, the raising of Lazarus from the dead and the resurrection of the body of Christ. They also refused to credit the pillar of cloud and fire incident, the Jonah story, and the nlanna from heaven. And yet they were commissioned to preach the Gospel."

For such young men to enter the pulpit to preach the Gospel is mockery. It is a wonder that an angry God does not drop down a thunderbolt that would destroy not only such blasphemers but the churches that encourage them. If such young men cannot believe the Bible they should follow some other calling as did Bob Ingersoll who looked upon the Bible about as these young men do. They certainly have no business in the pulpit.

In an Eastern city, under one of our largest Protestant denominations, is a training school for the fitting of those young people who are to go out as missionaries and as Bible teachers.

This school was founded by godly men and women who yearned to give God's Word and carry salvation to those in our land and in heathen lands less fortunate than ours. This school has fallen into the hands of those who are determined to throw discredit upon inspired revelation. The young lives who go there expecting to be fed the Bread of Life, receive this sort of poison:

"The Bible is not a true record of God's dealings with his people."

"There was no Flood in the days of Noah." "There is no Devil, only an eviL influence." "Moses did not write the Pentateuch. It was written about the time of the Babylonian captivity."

"There was no fall of man. Man has evolved from the lower to the higher."

"There is no Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament."

"Christ was not divine. He was only a man." "Christ did not rise from the dead. His disciples only thought he did"

If these things are true, we might just as well close our churches. But these vile doctrines are false; how inconsistent, then, that minister must be who preaches about the reality of sin and Satan and yet endorses, excuses and condones the teaching of such a godless school !

If Satan himself were at the head of this training school and his imps were the instructors, much less harm would be done, for Christian fathers and mothers would not send their loved ones to such an institution to thus imperil their future Christian welfare.

But the most astounding thing of all is the fact that church-

CHILDREN OF NAAMAH AND NIMROD 9

es, pastors and Sunday School superintendents will permit the head of such a school to invade their midst, yes and aid him in enticing away the lives entrusted to their care and not one word of protest or warning! O, what a day of reckoning for those in these places of responsibility who thus betray the trust confided to them!

It is certainly time the real Christian, the man who believes in God and his sacred Word, and accepts Jesus Christ, the One prophesied by Moses and the other Old Testament inspired penmen, as his Savior, should wake up to the danger that surrounds his child today when leaving his hearth-stone to seek an education.

Pray that Almighty God may drive the Naamahs and Nimrods out of our colleges, universities, theological seminaries, training schools and denominational publishing houses, and may the Holy Spirit convict those who, in places of grave responsibility, profess to be true to God and His Word, of their awful sin in uttering no cry of warning!

The skeptic, the higher critic, the wild-eyed evolutionist and the exaggerator of history have attempted, from the days of Naamah and Nimrod until the days of Astruc, Wellhausen, Driver, Paine and Ingersoll, to undermine the faith of the youth as to God's revealed Word, but never more so than today.

The following pages are controversial, that is, the attempt is made in this book to overcome these attacks on God and God's Word by all these fault-finders, from the most ancient to the ordinary little college professor who assumes that it indicates scholarship to endorse these vagaries. My purpose is to save from skepticism just such young people as the one described in the above paragraph, taken from the Sunday School Times.

Chapter I. HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF GENESIS

Throughout this book I follow Ussher's chronology because I believe it is as nearly correct as any other and because it is the one with which all Bible readers are best acquainted. It was made more than 250 years ago before the notions of the critics had turned men's heads. Ussher's chronology doubtless contains a few small errors, but not enough to discredit it. Indeed, if one believes the Bible he must accept this chronology as almost exact, for Ussher allowed nothing to swerve him from counting dates as he understood the Bible to give them. His chronology is found in all the older Bibles for the past 200 years.

It was not a difficult matter for Ussher, or any other person, to add the ages of the antediluvian patriarchs, at the time of the birth of their sons next in line, and Noah's age when he entered the ark, to get the time from Adam to the Flood and in like manner to the call of Abraham and on down to a fixed and accepted historic date like that of the fall of Samaria, 721, the destruction of Jerusalem, 588 or Ptolemy's date, 747 B. C. This is what Ussher did and he thus calculates that the Christian era began 4,004 years after God ejected Adam from Eden, and thus it is 5,920 years from Adam until the year 1916 A. D. No one can take our English Bible, either the St. James or Revised translation, and mak^ a chronology that can possibly differ from Ussher more than a very few years, possibly less than ten.

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Other chronologists change Bible dates to suit the history »f ancient Egypt, Babylon or Assyria when they think there is a variation between the Bible and profane history, and such chronologies vary according to the fancy of the historian and are not to be accounted true Bible chronologies. Still other systems of chronology are made using the dates and ages given in the Septaugint or Samaritan version of the Bible, or they take the figures given in Josephus' history which differ from each of the others. Of the Septuagint, Samaritan and Josephus, I shall speak in another chapter.

The book of Genesis purports to give certain facts and data concerning a line of the human race from Adam to the death of Joseph. I have, in my tables, included with the fifty chapters of Genesis, the first fifteen chapters of Exodus, for that brings the chronology to the Exodus, the departure of Israel from Egypt at the crossing of the Red Sea in 1491 B. C.

If we understand the chronology >of Genesis; if the ten patriarchs named before the Flood are individuals and the word "year" means substantially as we understand that word, then the time from Adam to the Flood is easily found to be exactly 1656 years (see table No. 1). If, in like manner, we take the line of descent from the Flood to the Exodus, then we easily get 857 years, or a total of 2513 years from Adam to the time the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea at their Exodus from Egypt (see table No. 2).

The critics say we are mistaken in holding the ten patriarchs from Adam to Noah and the others following from Noah, especially to the call of Abraham, to be real men. They think these may be names of fictitious persons or of dynasties or heads of clans each covering hundreds, possibly thousands of years and that therefore we can know nothing of the real

TABLE No, 2.

FLOOD (2348 B.C)to crossing RED SEA049* BX)

FROM FLOOD TO CALL OF ABRAHAM 427 YEARS FROM CALL OF ABRAHAM TO CROSSING RED SEA 430

98 :

SHEM 502: total age 600 years

:2

Arpachshad 438

: 85 :

: • Shelah433 i

• Eber464 o

• Pelee239 (Earth divided)

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32*

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29'

1 Tefah 205 s

130 :

; Abraham (Called 1931 B. 0J17*

: ISAAC 180

60:-

•AMRAM187 i

: I

69? :

180 mioses and 40

B. C. 1491. Children of Israel Cross the Red'Sea

Table No, l shows how Shem learned the history of his forefathers. He may have related or handed down written accounts of all this, to which he could have added an account of the Flood and 500 years of post-diluvian history, to Isaac, he to Levi, the latter to Amiram and he to his son Moses who incorporated these accounts into the book of Genesis.

The age of Jacob and the others following, in the above table, at the birth of their sons, are only approximated. If Jacob was 77 when he arrived at Padan-arami, then the 73? should be 88? and the sum of the three birth ages following must be reduced fifteen years.

numbers of years from Adam to the call of Abraham, and these critics only stop thus considering ancient Bible characters at Abraham's call because profane history so comes to substantiate Bible history from Abraham down that they dare not discredit it. Formerly they claimed that Bible characters even down to Daniel's time were fictitipus, and they changed their attitude toward Bible characters subsequent to Abraham only because archaeology compelled them to do so.

No one who accepts the Bible as true can agree with these critics in this, because the whole tenor of the Bible is that these patriarchs were real men just as Caesar and Napoleon were men.

Why would the author of Genesis be so exact in giving the ages of these patriarchs and especially the age of each at the birth of the son next in line if he did not want us to understand he was giving us real genealogy? Then, too, the other Old Testament books everywhere speak of these Genesis characters as individuals.

Not only is this true but the New Testament speaks of Adam, Cain, Abel, Enoch, Moses, as real men who lived and did things. If these "men" in Genesis were not individuals then Paul was mistaken (Heb. Chap. 11), Peter likewise (2 Pet. 2:5-7) and John (I John 3:12) and even Jesus (Mark 7:10). The Fall of Man (I Cor. 15:22), Abel's murder by Cain (I John 3:12), the Flood and destruction of Sodom (Luke 17: 27, 28, 29) are all endorsed by Jesus or the apostles as facts. If Genesis does not tell us facts as to the patriarchs, the New Testament is equally at fault and the entire Scriptures are discredited.

But not only do those who want to discredit Genesis make the above claims, as to these Genesis characters, but some eminent Bible students, who hold Genesis as true, say that we

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF GENESIS 15

probably do not understand the chronology of Genesis; that the names of these ancient patriarchs may be the heads of so many dynasties like those of Egypt. These eminent Bible students evidently think they are driven to this view because of the claim made that the years figured up from Genesis do not allow time enough for man tio develop from savagery to the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Babylon, and that the time from the Flood to Abraham is too short for the nations existing at the latter time to have developed after the Flopd. The purpose of these Bible students (eminent authors whom I might name) is good in thus suggesting an escape from a feared conflict between Genesis and history or geology, but their judgment is poor. If the chronology of Genesis is not understandable or is erroneous why not say so rather than resort to such a ridiculous subterfuge as to claim that the patriarchs are so many dynasties or heads of clans? In so doing they make the entire Bible a mass of deception from Genesis to Revelation. Were Adam and Eve dynasties in Eden? Did one dynasty, Cain, murder another dynasty, Abel? Did God translate one entire dynasty, Enoch, to heaven? Did God save the dynasty of Noah and that of Shem in the ark? How ridiculous!

The author of Genesis is so painstaking in giving ages and descent, in the Seth-Noah- Abraham line, that it is evident that one of its author's purposes was to give us data whereby we might ascertain the length of time from Creation to Abraham. Why not have omitted this data as was done in the Cain line, if it means nothing?

It is equivalent to a declaration that we cannot accept Genesis at all and is a rejection of its inspiration and a repudiation of the Holy Spirit's oversight when we turn down this so plainly stated chronology. For a friend of the Bible to declare that this Bible chronology is so oriental (as some say) that we cannot get the clew to its significance, and then turn around and accept an equally oriental Egyptian or Assyrian chronology, which is interpreted so as to appear to contradict Genesis, is like spitting in the face of his best friend. If we are to cast aside Bible chronology because it is oriental, let us be consistent and quit talking about the age of Egypt or Babylon, for all we know of their antiquity is nothing more than speculation based on a much less reliable oriental chronology. The Bible teaches that Adam, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham and all the rest of the patriarchs were real men, and to try to explain them on any other basis is absurd. Then, too, there is no necessity for so doing, especially by students, friendly to the Bible, since the hypothesis of certain historians, anthropologists, geologists and evolutionists, that man's civilization has evolved from the savage state or that man has lived on the earth longer than the time indicated by the Bible, is entirely unsupported either by science or history. Likewise that other claim, that post-diluvian peoples are more ancient than the Mosaic date of the Deluge, is an exaggerated, unreasonable and unsupported hypothesis. These eminent Bible students would undoubtedly have saved their credit and done the cause of Christianity much mjore good if they had devoted their time and energy to showing how theoretic science, false historic hypotheses and unproven evolution have exaggerated the time that has passed since man appeared on the earth.