But the question is not one of internal evidence only, but of the positive fact that, even if these chapters of Genesis were written by Moses, or about 1350 B.C., and even accepting the Septuagint addition of 700 years to the already mythical duration of the lives of the patriarchs, the date of the Biblical Deluge cannot be carried back beyond 3100 or 3200 B.C., while a practically identical account of the same event is given, as a legendary episode of fabulous antiquity, in an epic poem, based on a solar myth, which was certainly reduced to writing many centuries before the earliest possible date of the Scriptural Deluge. It is absolutely certain also that the Egyptian records and traditions, which extend in an uninterrupted succession of dynasties and kings for at least 2000 years before this alleged universal Deluge, know nothing whatever of such an event; and, on the contrary, assume an unvarying continuance of the ordinary laws of Nature. I have dwelt at such length on the Deluge because it affords a crucial test of the dogma of Divine inspiration for the whole of the Bible. The account of the Creation may be obscured by forced interpretations and misty eloquence; but there can be no mistake as to the specific and precise statements respecting the second creation of man and of animal life. Either they are true or untrue; and the issue is one upon which any unprejudiced mind of ordinary intelligence and information can arrive at a conclusive verdict. If there never was an universal Deluge within historical times; if the highest mountains were never covered; if all life was never destroyed, except the contents of the Ark; if the whole animal creation, including beasts, birds, and creeping things, never lived together for twelve months cooped up in it; and if the earth was not repeopled with all the varieties of the human race, and all the orders, genera, and species of animal life, from a single centre at Ararat, then the Bible is not inspired as regards its scientific and historical statements. This, however, in no way affects the question of the inspiration of the religious and moral portions of the Bible.