Sylvester Joseph Hunter on Genesis, Henry Morris on 15 Cubits

I am happy to agree with people, when possible.

Item one, Sylvester Joseph Hunter on Genesis (or how Moses knew about it).

Cases where a Book was written in the light of the information which the writer already possesses from natural sources, without special research, are found in the Epistles, and also apparently in the instance of Genesis. Moses would seem to have put into writing the traditions that had been preserved, perhaps in writing or perhaps in the memory of the people, and it is probable that the young children were taught the story by their parents, in the way in which it was ordered that the remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt should be kept alive. (Exodus xii. 26, 27.) The history of the Creation cannot have been known except by revelation; but there is no reason to suppose that this revelation was made to Moses. More probably it was made to Adam, and became known to Moses through human sources. When we speak thus of history having come down to Moses by tradition, we do not mean to imply that there was any special guarantee that the whole of this traditional history should be preserved free from corruption; the case is not like that of the Tradition by which the knowledge of the Christian Revelation is preserved, free from admixture of error, in the Church ; it is enough that God's providence preserved Moses from being misled by any errors that may have crept into the current account.

pp 192,193, Outlines of dogmatic theology,
Sylvester Joseph Hunter 1895, New York : Benziger Brothers
https://archive.org/details/outlinesofdogmat01hunt/page/192/mode/2up

I totally agree that Moses had the Genesis 3 account from Adam and the Genesis 50 account from some son of Joseph, or other survivor, perhaps Levi or his son Caath. Via appropriate numbers of intermediates.

But I am nonplussed by this phrase:

we do not mean to imply that there was any special guarantee that the whole of this traditional history should be preserved free from corruption

So, was there infallibility in the Patriarchal Church?

The Catholic Church can infallibly claim that St. George was a martyr. But prior to Moses, Abraham could not infallibly claim Shem, Ham and Japheth as the sole male Flood survivors of their generation?

I think infallibility was a prerogative of all successive churches, Angelic, Edenic, Patriarcal, Jewish and finally Catholic. Anything that Moses could find in all his sources, not just some, would have been perfectly preserved, and therefore true, no need to cull it.

Some terms may have meant different things from what the Hebrew people in Moses' time imagined them to be, but not from what the terms strictly imply. Nor were any of them abused, negated when they should have been affirmed or affirmed when they should have been negated.

I have often cited Father George Leo Haydock's last comment on Genesis 3, which does not make this blunder, and I only disagree on the exact number of minimal overlaps of generations. On the other hand I think, Abraham received chapters 1 to 11 or 2 to 11 (if contrary to Hunter's view the creation days were revealed to Moses rather than Adam, or re-revealed to Moses after the tradition had lost them) and no more than that orally, but from chapter 12 on his scribes could write things that were preserved in the Beduin tribe from his day to the settling in Egypt, with appropriate copies whenever the tribe divided. And even with LXX chronology, Abraham is the sixth, which is even better than Moses being the eighth, in minimal overlaps.* Alternatively, Serug could have had access to, and his son and grandson Nahor and Terah have deprived him of, books, he could have resumed them from memory, so that his transmission to Abraham was the only one that happened orally. Either way, the first chapters are made so that they are well suited for oral transmission. Hence, no real reason why the tradition would have been corrupted.

Item two, Henry Morris on 15 Cubits

The phrase “fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail” does not mean that the Flood was only fifteen cubits (22 feet) deep, for the phrase is qualified by the one which immediately follows: “and the mountains were covered.” Nor does it necessarily mean that the mountains were covered to a depth of only fifteen cubits, for this would require that all antediluvian mountains be exactly the same altitude. 3 The true meaning of the phrase is to be found in comparing it with Genesis 6:15, where we are told that the height of the Ark was thirty cubits. Nearly all commentators agree that the phrase “fifteen cubits” in 7:20 must therefore refer to the draught of the Ark. In other words, the Ark sank into the water to a depth of fifteen cubits (just one-half of its total height) when fully-laden.

THE GENESIS FLOOD
The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications
by JOHN C. WHITCOMB, JR., Th.D.** and HENRY M. MORRIS, Ph. D. ***
https://www.truth-defined.com/PDFs/THE%20GENESIS%20FLOOD.pdf

In fact, I'd go one further, and say, the Ark was built on the highest one of the mountains, and after 40 days, Noah knew that the water was that high, because that's when the Ark started floating instead of sitting on a mountain top.

I am somewhat taken aback by how much Whitcomb and Morris was a short essay and a pioneering text. Many of the technical solutions Young Earth Creationists take for granted by now or even consider as already refuted, are totally lacking. It is a very tightly knitted argument on height of water, dimensions of the Ark, pre-Flood human population AND reasons against a limited Flood. Here is a gem in this venue, first he cites Arthur C. Custance:

It would require real energy and faith to follow Noah’s example and build other Arks, but it would have required neither of these to pack up a few things. and migrate. There is nothing that Noah could have done to stop them except by disappearing very secretly. Such a departure could hardly act as the kind of warning that the deliberate 10 construction of the Ark could have done. And the inspiration for this undertaking was given to Noah by leaving him in ignorance of the exact limits of the Flood. He was assured that all mankind would be destroyed, and probably supposed that the Flood would therefore be universal. This supposition may have been quite essential for him.

[Arthur C. Custance, The Extent of the Flood: Doorway Papers #41 (Ottawa: Published by the author, 1958),] p. 18. Custance feels that the Ark was not overly large (see above, p. 10) and that it did not take over a century to build. The 120 years of Gen. 6:3, in his opinion, refers to man’s future life-span. But where is the evidence that man’s life span after the Flood was to be 120 years? Many men lived much longer than this (11:11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25; 25:7; 35:28; 47:9). See [Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (2nd Ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949),] p. 230, and [H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 1942),] pp. 256-257.

Then he answers (still page 10), here:

But how can one read the Flood account of Genesis 6-9 with close attention and then arrive at the conclusion that the Ark was built merely to warn the ungodly, and not mainly to save the occupants of the Ark from death by drowning? And how can we exonerate God Himself from the charge of deception, if we say that He led Noah to believe that the Flood would be universal, in order to encourage him to work on the Ark, when He knew all the time that it would not be universal?

Meanwhile, when I look at Henry Morris, I see a reference to San Diego. When Karl Keating one day started to make replies, first on the Eucharist, then on other topics, it was in San Diego, so presumably the very same Congregation of Henry Morris. This could partly explain, though not fully excuse, his view in which Fundamentalist exegesis of for instance Genesis is linked to Anti-Catholicism.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
V LD after Easter
5.V.2024

* Minimal overlaps on my view:

1. Adam — Mahalaleel
2. Mahalaleel — Noah
3. Noah — Shem
4. Shem — Eber
5. Eber — Serug
6. Serug — Abraham

Abraham to Moses : writing.

Creation vs. Evolution : LXX without II Cainan
Published by Hans Georg Lundahl 04:36 Mon 16 Dec 2019
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2019/12/lxx-without-ii-cainan.html

** JOHN C. WHITCOMB, JR., Th.D.
Professor of Old Testament, Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana

*** HENRY M. MORRIS, Ph. D.
Director of the Institute of Creation Research Vice-President of Christian Heritage College, San Diego, California