King's Business - 1946-12

I N the preceding article on Genesis and evolution, it was suggested that the Genesis account of man’s beginning gave no hint of any imma­ ture stage in man’s development, such as evolution requires when it seeks to bring us from animals to sub­ human, and then to human. On the contrary, we found that from the earliest times man was a cultured, artistic being, equipped almost imme­ diately with an intuitive knowledge of many things and a skill to pro­ duce that which we are accustomed to think belongs only to a modern civilization. If man began with this high state of development, evolution cannot pos­ sibly be true. This argument against the theory is so basically important that further discussion is warranted. Without exception, archaeologists have been greatly surprised by their discoveries. By their own admission, they confidently expected that ex­ cavation would support the widely- held view of the gradual develop­ ment of civilization. However, the ac­ cumulated evidence to the contrary— now of very substantial proportions —derived from those countries such as Iran (Persia) and Egypt, where we have come in contact with the most ancient civilizations, is so re­ markable that it is evident that very soon after the Flood of Noah, civiliza­

capacity must argue a long previous apprenticeship and period of develop­ ment; but in this case we do not have this long period. The Egyptians of the first dynasty, some three centuries be­ fore, apparently had no stone build­ ings, and the reign of Zoser in later legend was notable because he had built the first stone house.” Nevertheless, within a short period of one hundred and fifty years, the early accomplishments seen in this stone building were greatly out­ distanced by the mightiest building in stone which the world has ever known. This, of course, was the Great Pyramid, erected by Khufu, or as the Greeks called him, Cheops, and named by him "The Glorious.” Let evolution explain, if it can, the marvels of this structure erected in the early days of the human race and never since equaled. About four hundred and eighty feet high, covering twelve and one-half acres, even after the removal of vast numbers of stones, it contained 85,- 000,000 cu. ft. of masonry. Herodotus says that it took ten years to quarry the stone and another ten years to build it into the Pyramid. Diodorus states that more than 300,000 men were employed on the project, which has been called “the most magnificent TH E K I N G ’ S BUS I NE S S

tion had reached its highest pinnacle of accomplishment. Instead of the infinitely slow de­ velopment which we had been led to expect, it is now obvious that art and science burst suddenly upon the world. But even in the earliest Pyr­ amid, according to Sir Flinders Petrie: “The accuracy of construction is evidence of high purpose combined with great capability and training. In this earliest Pyramid, the precision of the whole mass is such that the error would be exceeded by that of a metal measure used on a mild or cold day: the error of leveling is less than can be seen by the naked eye . . . The conclusion seems inevitable that at 3000 B. C. was the heyday of Egyptian art.” As far as is known, the first stone building in the world was erected at Sakkara, and was the funeral temple of King Zoser. The fact of its great antiquity was even admitted by the late H. G. Wells. Not long ago, it was excavated for the Egyptian gov­ ernment, and Dr. Hall of the British Museum, wrote about it as follows: “This building is of extraordinary in­ terest, as the first fruits of the young Egyptian genius in the field of architecture. In it we see features such as the column and the decora­ tion; it is easy to say that this re­ markable outburst of architectural

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