LIGHT, LUMINARIES AND LIFE. 205 
have come into existence within only a few hours of man himself. 
If on the other hand we take this story as a veritable story of the 
creation of our world from the time when it was “without form 
and void ”—its nebulous condition—it is one of the most extra- 
ordinary proofs of supernatural knowledge communicated to man 
which the whole Bible contains. It deals with events which 
transpired ages before man existed, and there is not the slightest 
evidence among all the Egyptian records or the myrisds of 
Babylonian tablets that any of the most learned nations of 
antiquity possessed knowledge enough to account for it. 
With regard to Dr. Irving’s remarks concerning raqia’ and 
firmamentum, he missed a point which should be noticed. The 
expanse which divides the waters below from the waters above, 2.¢., 
the clouds, is called simply “the expanse,” but the expanse in which 
the celestial luminaries are placed is called ‘‘the expanse of the 
heaven,” and the form of the Hebrew word for heaven—shamayim— 
suggests the idea of more than one heaven. 
If I may venture a word of criticism, | think the writer of the 
paper has fallen into a little confusion of thou,ht concerning the 
presence of steam during the formation of the mineral deposits of 
the surface of our globe. 
Then with regard to the human race, I know no reason why we 
should not suppose that other intelligent beings have existed upon 
our globe as well as ourselves. In Gen. vi, we have the Nephalim 
or “giants,” spoken of, the Hlohim and the Adham; these may 
perhaps be regarded as three species of the genus Homo. The 
Nephilim are only once mentioned after the Flood, and that is in the 
lying report of the land of Canaan brought back by the spies. It is 
very remarkable that in the Babylonian account of the deluge, the 
gods are said to have taken refuge in the heaven of Anu. As to 
the Elohim, we do not know who they were, but our Lord refers to 
the word when, in vindicating Himself from the charge of blasphemy, 
He says, “If He called them Elohim, unto whom the word of 
Elohim came, etc.”—in post-diluvian times, therefore by our Lord’s 
definition the word was applied to persons “unto whom the word 
of Elohim came,” and that may have been one of the functions of 
Elohim in antediluvian times. With regard to the expression, 
“‘sons of God” (Elohim), the general idea, so far as I have been able 
to make out, is that of beings deriving their existence immediately 
