DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6359#0157
ABRAHAM.
141
support of the fact we are considering. Herodotus informs us
that in the days of Menes, (the first of Egypt's line of human
monarchs,) the Delta of the Nile was already a reclaimable
marsh. Now let us inquire if there he any data on which to
form an opinion as to the time it would require so to elevate
the land, by means of art aiding the deposits of the river, as to
render this reclaimable marsh fit for occupancy. Juvenal in-
forms us that about 1600 years ago, the Nile emptied itself by
many mouths; we now know that the deposits of the river
have filled up all its mouths but two. If then 1600 years
Were sufficient to produce the effect of stopping all the mouths
hut two; and if, in Menes's day, (who was confessedly, ac-
cording to the anti-Bible school of "Egyptologists/' many
hundreds of years before Abraham,) the Delta was then re-
claimable ; is it unreasonable to conclude that Lower Egypt
Was a dry country, and thickly inhabited when Abraham first
saw it ?—We are unwilling to leave this subject without advert-
ing to the testimony it incidentally affords to the point in proof
°f which Osborn originally adduced it: viz., that Menes (who
^c readily admit lived in a very distant period from the
present) did not live, as some have informed us, about 6000
I/Gars before Christ; for had this been the case, if Herodotus
aud Juvenal may be credited in their statements, the Delta,
mstead of being in his day, a reclaimable marsh, would have
°een an expanse of deep sea.
But there is still another, and to our minds most conclusive
Proof on this subject, which shows " that the Egypt of the
Bible is Egypt indeed, not a fiction, nor an imposture, nor a
blunder—as writers of the Voltaire school would persuade the
World—but a reality, so far as it goes, a picture copied from
actual life."
141
support of the fact we are considering. Herodotus informs us
that in the days of Menes, (the first of Egypt's line of human
monarchs,) the Delta of the Nile was already a reclaimable
marsh. Now let us inquire if there he any data on which to
form an opinion as to the time it would require so to elevate
the land, by means of art aiding the deposits of the river, as to
render this reclaimable marsh fit for occupancy. Juvenal in-
forms us that about 1600 years ago, the Nile emptied itself by
many mouths; we now know that the deposits of the river
have filled up all its mouths but two. If then 1600 years
Were sufficient to produce the effect of stopping all the mouths
hut two; and if, in Menes's day, (who was confessedly, ac-
cording to the anti-Bible school of "Egyptologists/' many
hundreds of years before Abraham,) the Delta was then re-
claimable ; is it unreasonable to conclude that Lower Egypt
Was a dry country, and thickly inhabited when Abraham first
saw it ?—We are unwilling to leave this subject without advert-
ing to the testimony it incidentally affords to the point in proof
°f which Osborn originally adduced it: viz., that Menes (who
^c readily admit lived in a very distant period from the
present) did not live, as some have informed us, about 6000
I/Gars before Christ; for had this been the case, if Herodotus
aud Juvenal may be credited in their statements, the Delta,
mstead of being in his day, a reclaimable marsh, would have
°een an expanse of deep sea.
But there is still another, and to our minds most conclusive
Proof on this subject, which shows " that the Egypt of the
Bible is Egypt indeed, not a fiction, nor an imposture, nor a
blunder—as writers of the Voltaire school would persuade the
World—but a reality, so far as it goes, a picture copied from
actual life."