uity that seems at all satisfactory is the ancient Hindu legend, which stated that the earth is balanced on the back of a gigantic elephant. This elephant, in turn, is standing on an immense turtle. The turtle is swim ming in a cosmic sea. That is the most satisfactory theory of all! It gives something for everything else to rest upon! But in that day when men were dreaming their weird explanations of how the earth was held in place, the prophet Job picked up his pen to write about the greatness and the wonder of God. In the course of his description of the might of the heav enly Father, he wrote, “ He stretcheth out the horizon over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing” The word that Job here used is belimah, and it is not a Hebrew word. Lexicographers are not in full agree ment as to its origin, but it is pre sumed to have been from the vocabu lary of ancient Sumeria. The mean ing is nebulous, and nothing is as close to its meaning as we can arrive at this late date. Some time ago we were attending a convention of the American Associa tion for the Advancement of Science. At one of the banquets, we found ourselves seated next to a fellow mem ber of a certain section of the asso ciation, who had a nation-wide repu tation as a physicist and geographer. In the course of the conversation we said to this distinguished savant, Doctor, what is it that holds the earth in place? This noted educator replied, It is gravity that holds the earth in place. We said, Thank you, doctor, and what is gravity? With a twinkle in his eye, this kindly gentleman said, Gravity, my boy, is what holds the earth in place! Now isn’t that clear? That’s lovely; that’s scientific and conclusive. What holds the earth in place? Gravity. What is gravity? That which holds the earth in place! This great and learned scholar gave the same answer that Job did, on nothing. The scientist, however, used a handful of words where Job used only one. Now put the modern nebulous term gravity in the place of belimah, and hear this man saying some four thousand years ago, God stretcheth out the horizon over an empty place, and He hangeth the earth upon gravity. How did Job know this? He didn’t. But he wrote it! (Continued Next Month) T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
and according to the well-remembered dissertation of Dean Alford, anionas includes the world itself and all things therein. The expression, hoi aiones includes in it all that exists under the conditions of time and space. To gether with those conditions of time and space themselves, things which have actual being do not exist inde pendently of God, but are themselves the work of His Word. The more re cent work of the eminent James Hope Moulton bears out this conclusion and statement of the eminent Dean Al ford, so that the translation of the English is as accurate in sense as it is possible for a translation to be. To put this famed statement of Paul into a paraphrase of English, we would adjust the idiom of our vocabulary in this fashion, “ By faith we understand that the worlds were builded by the Word of God, so that things which are visible are made of entities that are invisible.” This is as clear a statement of the atomic theory as it is possible for the human pen to write. Dr. Millikan received the Nobel prize of almost two score thousand dollars for proving this theory. Paul the Apostle did not re ceive so much as a dime for antici pating the discoveries of Millikan by eighteen centuries! The point that we now raise is, How did Paul the Apostle know of the atom those hundreds of years before men discovered it? Again the casual reader would say, This is a coincidence. And once more we smile and pass on to another demonstration. In the day when the prophet Job walked the face of the earth, all men believed that the earth had some kind of solid foundations. Many, i varied, and ingenious are the tales that have come down to us from the ancients, accounting for the suspension of the earth in space. We are told that the Egyptians believed, for instance, that the earth was supported by five great pillars, one under each corner and one in the middle. In our youthful days when we studied mythology, this theory left us strangely cold. We could understand that, had the earth been flat and square, someone might have peered over the edge to view the corner pillars, but that one in the middle was pure postulation! We have all heard the Greek legend of Atlas, who stood with his head bowed, bearing the earth on his neck and shoulders. Again, we remember our childish wonder as to what sup ported Atlas. Indeed, the only myth from antiq
ANCIENT WISDOM (Continued from Page 22)
by Paul the Apostle! The best state ment of the atomic theory that lit erature contains is found in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, in the third verse. In this magnificent record of the heroes of faith and the tri umphs they wrought by its Virtues, we find these words, “ Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” This translation into the English is, of course, from the original Greek of the New Testament. The partic ular word in the Greek is anionas,
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