Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
If these races (the Chinese, Australians, Americans, etc.) are not
descended from Noah they could not have been included in the Deluge. If
neither China, Japan, America, Northern Europe, nor Australia were
depopulated by the Deluge, the Deluge could not have been universal. But
as it is alleged that it did destroy a country, and drowned all the
people thereof except Noah and his family, the country so destroyed
could not have been Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or Australia, for
there has been no universal destruction of the people of those regions;
or, if there had been, how can we account for the existence to-day of
people on all of those continents whose descent Genesis does not trace
back to Noah, and, in fact, about whom the writer of Genesis seems to
have known nothing?
We are thus driven to one of two alternative conclusions: either the
Deluge record of the Bible is altogether fabulous, or it relates to some
land other than Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia, some land that was
destroyed by water. It is not fabulous; and the land it refers to is not
Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia--but Atlantis. No other land is known
to history or tradition that was overthrown in a great catastrophe by
the agency of water; that was civilized, populous, powerful, and given
over to wickedness.
That high and orthodox authority, François Lenormant, says ("Ancient
Hist. of the East," vol. i., p. 64), "The descendants of Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, so admirably catalogued by Moses, include one only of the races
of humanity, the white race, whose three chief divisions he gives us as
now recognized by anthropologists. The other three races--yellow, black,
and red--have no place in the Bible list of nations sprung from Noah."
As, therefore, the Deluge of the Bible destroyed only the land and
people of Noah, it could not have been universal. The religious world
does not pretend to fix the location of the Garden of Eden. The Rev.
George Leo Haydock says, "The precise situation cannot be ascertained;
how great might be its extent we do not know;" and we will see hereafter
that the unwritten traditions of the Church pointed to a region in the
west, beyond the ocean which bounds Europe in that direction, as the
locality in which "mankind dwelt before the Deluge."
It will be more and more evident, as we proceed in the consideration of
the Flood legends of other nations, that the Antediluvian World was none
other than Atlantis.
CHAPTER III.
THE DELUGE OF THE CHALDEANS.
We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed, indeed,
but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most anciently known, and
also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of
Babylon, and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of
the Greeks. After speaking of the last nine antediluvian kings, the
Chaldean priest continues thus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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