contention cannot, however, be maintained. The Bible
is not silent with respect to astronomy, geology, or biology. It makes
frequent and precise statements concerning them, and in nearly every
instance it contradicts scientific truth as we have amply proved in
previous numbers of this series.

The eleventh chapter of Genesis gives an explanation of the diversity
of languages on the earth. It does this in the truest spirit of romance.
Philologists like Max Mueller and Whitney must regard the story of the
Tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues, as a capital joke. A great
many parsons may still believe it, but they are not expected to know
much.

One fact alone is enough to put the philology of Genesis out of court.
The native languages of America are all closely related to each other,
but they have no affinity with any language of the Old World. It is
therefore clear that they could not have been imported into the New
World by emigrants from the plains of Central Asia. The Genesaic theory
is thus proved to be not of universal application, and consequently
invalid.

Let us come to the Bible story. Some time after the Flood, and before
the birth of Abraham, "the whole earth was of one language and one
speech;" or, as Colenso translates the original, "of one lip, and of one
language." This primitive tongue must have been Hebrew. God spoke it in
Eden when he conversed with our first parents, and probably it is spoken
in heaven to this day. For all we know it may be spoken in hell too. It
probably is, for the Devil and his angels lived in heaven before they
were turned into hell, and we may conclude that they took their native
language with them. It was spoken by Adam when he named his wife in
Paradise; by Eve, after the expulsion when she gave names to her sons,
Cain and Seth; by Lamech, shortly before the Flood, when he explained the
name of Noah; and indeed, as Colenso observes, "it is obvious that the
names of the whole series of Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, and from Noah
onwards, are in almost every instance pure Hebrew names." Delitzsch,
however, thinks it comparatively more probable that the Syriac or
Nabataan tongue, preserved after the dispersion at Babylon, was the one
originally spoken. Yet he dismisses the possibility of demonstrating it.
He supposes that the names of Adam and the other patriarchs have been
altered, but not so as to lose any of their original meaning; in other
words, that they have been,