lew@ihlpa.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (03/26/85)
From a relatively recent net.origins exchange: >> [Cameron C. Carson] >> In the play _Inherit_the_Wind_, a "docu-drama" based on the >> Scopes trial, when the Clarence-Darrow character asks when the >> creation took place, the William-Jennings-Bryan character gives >> the above information and further pins it down as having >> begun precisely at 9:00 am. >[Paul DuBois] >Perhaps he said it in the play. The more relevant question is >(perhaps) whether he said it in the *trial*. ITW is not, I >believe, the exemplar of documentary accuracy. The book, EVOLUTION AND RELIGION, subtitled The Conflict between Science and Theology in Modern America, contains an excerpt from LET FREEDOM RING by Arthur Garfield Hays, who was an attorney for the defense at the Scopes trial. Quoting: Bryan thought the world was created in 4004 B.C., the date appearing in the King James' version of the Bible. The calculation was made by Bishop Ussher who figured it out from the ages of the prophets. Ussher fixed the time more definitely. According to the Bishop, the year was not only 4004 B.C. but the date was the 23rd day of October and at nine o'clock in the morning, to which some infidel voice in the audience added, "Eastern Standard Time." The voice calling out "Eastern Standard Time" was in the movie of INHERIT THE WIND, so it would seem that this bit of testimony was accurately portrayed. EVOLUTION AND RELIGION has an essay by Bryan himself and a reply to it by Harry Emerson Fosdick, along with essays by Walter Lippmann, Richard Hofstadter, John dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr and others totalling twelve in all. But it was published way back in 1957 so it's not very relevant now :-) Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihlpa!lew