62 The Fundamentals dimensions of knowledge. If the Bible may, from imperfect human language, select terms which may hold hidden truths till ages to come shall disclose the inner meaning, that would seem to be the best solution of this difficult problem. And now, when we come to compare the language of the Bible with modern science, we find just this to be the fact. For example, we are told that the Bible term “firmament” is but an ancient blunder crystallized. Modern science says, “Ye have heard it hath been said by them of old time, there is a solid sphere above us which revolves with its starry lamps; but this is an old notion of ignorance, for there is nothing but vast space filled with ether above us, and stars have an apparent motion because the earth turns on its axis.” But this word “firmament,” which has been declared “irreconcilable wit*’ modern astronomy,” we find, on consult- ing our Hebrew lexicon, means simply an “expanse.” If Moses had been Mitchell, he could not have chosen a better word to express the appearance, and yet accommodate the reality. He actually anticipated science. This is one of the “mistakes of Moses” to which the modern blasphemer does not refer! The general correspondence between the Mosaic account of creation and the most advanced discoveries of science, proves that only He who built the world, built the Book. -As to the order of creation, Moses and geology agree. Both teach that at first there was an abyss, or watery waste, whose dense vapors shut out light. Both make life to precede light; and the life to develop beneath the abyss. Both make the atmosphere to form an expanse by lifting watery vapors into cloud, and so separating the fountains of waters above from the fountains below. Both tell us that continents next lifted themselves from beneath the great deep, and brought forth grass, herb, and tree. Both teach that the heavens be- came cleared of cloud, and the sun and moon and stars, which then appeared, began to serve to divide day from night, and
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker