Early Old Testament Narratives; Thirty-Six Lessons for Intermediate Classes (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STORY OF THE CREATION. with what was generally known then, we shall find that it is remarkably accurate. It is more so, and is much nobler and more dignified, than the account given in other ancient religions. We ought to be proud that our religious ancestors were so wise and so high-minded. This second writer adds an account of how death, pain, labor, thorns and thistles, the hostility of man and beast, and other strange things came into this world which the good God had made. It is a very picturesque and interesting story. He does not pretend to speak with any authority, but simply gives what he thinks must have been the way that so much trouble came into human life. It was all caused, he says, by human sin. If man had obeyed what God told him, he would have been happy. Origin of Evil.? In casting about for the beginning of the trouble, he fixed upon an animal which everybody hates, the strange, slinking, knowing snake. He was once a beautiful animal, walking on legs. He persuaded the woman that there would be no harm in eating the forbidden fruit; in fact she would know a great deal more, which was what God was afraid of. She tasted the fruit, found it good, and persuaded her husband to try it, too. Then the two, who had been as innocent as children before, knew the great difference between right and wrong, and were ashamed of having disobeyed the good God. As a punishment, the serpent was degraded to crawl as he does now, Adam and Eve, instead of living happily in the beautiful garden, were sent out into the world to earn their living by hard work, and pain and sorrow came upon human life from that day till this. III. Topics And Questions. Ought we to expect ideas of the creation to be as correct 2,500 years ago as now? Is it not strange that this old account is...