The Genesis Flood in PreDarwinian American Geology: The Case of Edward Hitchcock

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The Genesis Flood in Pre-Darwinian American
GeologyThe Case of Edward Hitchcock
Rodney L. Stiling Department of History Seattle
Pacific University rstiling_at_spu.edu 206/281-2680
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19C American Geology

• Qualitative Quantitative
• Proto-mathematical Mathematical
• Pre-petroleum Petroleum
• Pre-Darwinian Darwinian

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Edward Hitchcock1793-1864

• Pastor
• Teacher
• Professor of Geology Chemistry
• College President
• Author
• Professional Geologist
• State Surveys
• AGS / AAGN / AAAS

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Hitchcock and Geology

• Student of Benjamin Silliman at Yale
• Professor of Geology and Chemistry at Amherst
  College from 1825
• Head of Massachusetts State Geological Survey
  (1831 1841)
• First President of Association of American
  Geologists and Naturalists (1841)
• Founding Member of AAAS

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The Flood Four Interpretations

• Revolution Model (Cuvier)
• Diluvial Model (Buckland)
• Transient / Blended Model (Buckland)
• Local / Regional Model (Smith)

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Four Floods Overview
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Thomas Cole (1801-1848) The Subsiding Waters of
the Deluge (1829)
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Continental-Seabed Revolution Model (1820)

• Drawn from Georges Cuvier (1812)
• the catastrophes . . . caused the different
  parts of our continents to rise by degrees from
  the basin of the sea, but it has also frequently
  happened, that lands which had been laid dry have
  been again covered by the water
• . . . .
• if there is any circumstance thoroughly
  established in geology, it is, that the crust of
  our globe has been subjected to a great and
  sudden revolution, the epoch of which cannot be
  dated much farther back than five or six thousand
  years ago."

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Revolution Model
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Revolution Model (1820)continued

• Hitchcock
• the crust of our globe has undergone several
  revolutions by the overflowing of water and
  secondly that the last revolution of this kind
  was not very remote
• Our present continents were in the bottom of the
  ocean in the antediluvian day and the continents
  that then existed are now in the same situation
  that is when the first were submerged the last
  emerged

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Diluvial Model (1823)William Buckland
(1784-1856) Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823). .
.undeniable evidence of a recent transient
inundation . . . . justified in applying the
epithet diluvial to the results of this great
convulsion. . .Hitchcock Diluvium Flood
evidenceGeology is found more and more to speak
the language of Revelation
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Diluvial Model
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Blended / Transient Model (1838)

• Hitchcock deluge and powerful rush of water
  have indeed swept North America, but, is it, or
  is it not identical with that described by
  Moses?
• Problem Human remains never found in diluvial
  formations (Buckland, 1836)
• Therefore diluvium anterior to humankind
• Deluges frequent but brief Noahs Flood
  evidence either blended or overgrown no traces
  be now remaining on the earths surface of that
  event.

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Local/Regional/Partial Model (1841)

• Influence of John Pye Smith (1774-1851)
• On the Relation Between the Holy Scriptures and
  Some Parts of Geological Science (1839)
• Hitchcock Flood universal terms with limited
  meaning and not universal over the globe, but
  only over the region inhabited by man.
• Central Asia no geological traces

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Local/Regional/Partial Flood
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Local/Regional/Partial Flood
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Hitchcocks Summary

• on no subject has there been a greater change
  of opinion. From a belief in the complete
  destruction and dissolution of the globe by that
  event, those best qualified to judge now doubt
  whether it be possible to identify one mark of
  that event in nature.
• The Religion of Geology (1851)

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Relations of Geosciences with Religion Hitchcock

• Remained fully committed to Christian faith
• Found lifelong joy and fulfillment in the pursuit
  of the geological sciences
• Committed to scientific rigor and excellence
• Never backed away from belief that the Genesis
  Flood constituted an actual historical event
• Thus Commitment to reconciliation of science
  and scripture. Christian Geologist and
  Reconciler
• Result adjusted both scriptural interpretation
  models and geological models to maintain
  reconciliation