The Bible of Bibles; Or, Twenty-Seven "Divine" Revelations. Kersey Graves

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      13. And otters, minks, gulls, kingfishers, spoonbills, storks, &c., would require fish for food, which must either be preserved in tanks for the purpose, or one hundred and fifty persons would have to be employed all the time in catching them; and there were only four men to do this and perform all the other labor,—sufficient for five thousand hands.

      14. There were nine hundred species of fly-catchers,—those that feed on flies, beetles, and other insects. We are not informed whether flies were included in the registered list or not; but they would, of course, be impudent enough to take up their quarters in the vessel without invitation.

      15. About two hundred and fifty birds known as bee-catch-ers would have to be supplied with this kind of insect: this would be, to say the least, rather stinging business.

      16. Many cans of cockroaches must have been saved to feed the birds-of-paradise.

      17. There are several kinds of ant-eaters also, which would have required much time to be spent in searching for ants in the cracks of the vessel, or in collecting then! off the water.

      18. The four hundred and forty-two monkeys would require fresh fruit; and it is not probable anybody had the forethought to can it for them.

      19. Sixty-five species of animal feed on insects; and it would have been necessary for several persons to spend most of their time in crawling after millipeds, fleas, wood-lice, &c.

      20. There would have been work for fifty boy's in providing leaves and flowers (if there were any possibility that they could be obtained while merged in twenty-seven feet of water) for the animals that feed on these things.

      21. Besides food, fresh water must have been stored up for most of these animals, as they could not have endured the salty water of the briny deep.

      22. Noah and his family must have studied ornithology and natural history many years to know what kind of food to save for the various kinds of birds and animals.

      23. Naturalists estimate that there are fourteen different climates, each with animals adapted only to the temperature and natural growth of that locality. How, then, could they all endure the change of being removed to the vicinity of Mount Ararat? Animals from the frigid zones must have felt like fish out of water in the warm climate of Armenia.

      24. And think of the immense labor required to obtain this innumerable collection of animals! In the first place, either Noah or his God must make a trip to the polar regions to obtain the white bear, the reindeer, the polar dog, &c.

      25. And then the Rocky Mountains must be scaled to find and catch the grizzly bear. Some time and labor must have been required to obtain the rattlesnakes, copperheads, vipers, cobras, snapping-turtles, &c., of the torrid zone.

      26. And a great deal of strategy must have been employed to catch the fox, the deer, the antelope, the gazelle, the chimpanzee, of the temperate zone; also the eagle, hawk, buzzard, &c.

      27. To do all this hunting and catching, and conveying to the ark, of the million and a half birds and animals, would have required a larger number of persons than Napoleon or Xerxes ever commanded; for, as the whole thing is related as a natural occurrence, we can not assume that they made the journey of their own accord.

      28. The Bible commentator Scott supposes that angels were employed to aid in this business of storing away the animals in the ark; but it is certainly derogatory to that elevated order of beings to suppose they would stoop to such groveling work as bug-hunting, skunk-catching, snake-snaring, &c.

      29. And how could this immense multitude of respiring and perspiring animals live and breathe in a vessel with but one little twenty-two-inch window, and that in the third story, and shut up most of the time to keep the rain out, especially if some giraffe had been disposed to monopolize it when it was open by thrusting his head out? How could they be kept thus for a whole year without breeding pestilence and death?

      30. All animals require light; and total darkness must have reigned in the two lower stories, and only a partial light supplied the third story,—just what could come through a twenty-two-inch window.

      31. The chorus of voices in the ark—consisting of bellowing, baying, howling, screaming, hissing, neighing, snorting, roaring, chattering, buzzing, &c.—suggests that deafness would have been a blessing to the human beings present.

      32. We are told that "fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail, and the mountains were covered." Fifteen cubits (twenty-seven feet) would not cover nine-tenths of the buildings now on the earth. Ararat is seventeen thousand feet, and Everest twenty-nine thousand feet high.

      33. Several scientists have shown by actual experiment that the atmosphere could not contain the fourteen-hundredth part of the water that is represented to have fallen in the time of the flood.

      34. Who or what conducted the ark to Ararat when the waters subsided? In the Brahminical flood story a fish is said to have performed this feat, and dragged it to Mt. Hinavat; but Noah and Moses are silent on this point.

      35. The peak of Ararat is perpetually covered with snow and ice; hence it must have been rather difficult and dangerous for the biped and quadruped cargo to descend from it.

      36. And what was there to prevent the nine hundred carnivorous animals from devouring the sheep, hogs, poultry, rabbits, minks, hedgehogs, &o., as they tumbled pell-mell down the mountain together.

      37. The same catastrophe must have ensued from the act of turning them loose upon the earth together, with nothing to subsist upon but the flesh and blood of each other.

      38. Many Oriental nations have traditions of a flood, and some of them of several floods. Xisuthrus of Chaldea built a ship, in which he saved himself and family during a mighty flood which overflowed the world; also Fohi of China, Menu of the Brahmins, Satravarata of India, and Deucalion of Greece. Hence it appears there were several families saved besides that of Noah's. Egypt and India have stories of two floods occurring. All these stories are evidently older than that recorded in the Christian Bible.

      39. Geologists and archaeologists have collected a whole volume of evidence, which shows that such a deluge could never have taken place as is embodied in the traditions of several nations. The fresh water of the lakes, and the salt water of the seas and oceans, would have been so mixed as never again to be separated as they are now. Egyptian monuments and sculpture can be traced to a much earlier period than that assigned for Noah's flood.

      40. Lepsius has traced the existence of several races or tribes of negroes up to a period within forty-eight years of Noah's flood; this would seem to indicate that some of Noah's family were negroes, and must have "multiplied and replenished" very rapidly to start several races in forty-eight years.

      41. The dynasties of Egyptian kings can be traced back several thousand years beyond Noah's time.

      42. It is true Jesus Christ and the apostles indorsed the truth of the flood story (Matt. xxiv. 37); but that is evidence against their intelligence, instead of being a proof of the truth of the story.

      43. And the assumed divine author of the flood admitted it was an utter failure,—that it entirely failed to accomplish the end intended; for it was declared but a few centuries after, that "the imagination of man's heart is evil, and only evil, continually," which is an evidence that the wicked folks were not all drowned by the world's inundation.

      44. With respect to the many difficulties СКАЧАТЬ