DR. WILLIAM WOODS SMYTH, ON THE BIBLE, ETC. 



213 



whose numbers the after-time brought forth. The Hebrew 

 word Bar a, to create, is nowhere used outside this chapter 

 for a " special creation." Once it is used for a special act 

 (Numbers xvi, 30), but this is signalized by using it twice in a 

 verbal and in a nominal form. The word " day " in Genesis 

 is used in three senses — as having limits in evening and 

 morning ; as without limits as the Sabbath of God's rest ; as 

 for all six days together. St. Augustine says it is impossible 

 to understand what sort of days they were. The writer of the 

 Hebrews calls them '• ages " twice, and that settles the question. 



We cotne now to the great stellar universe, which is a great 

 circle, and we are situated, according to Sir N"orman Lockyer 

 and other astronomers, in the solar cluster in the centre. The 

 geo-centeric position which the Bible suggests for the earth i.«, 

 therefore, correct. The nebular origin and course of events in 

 the creation of the solar system, according to the Meteorolitic 

 theory, is well established by the researches of Sir J^orman 

 Lockyer. Planet after planet of our system became forme(\ 

 and were for a time rotating round the uncondensed nebula 

 which at a much later date became our sun. 



The Bible is well supported in its record of the creation in 

 placing the sun in the fourth day period. It does not say the 

 sun was created then, but only made or formed. The writer 

 was enabled to anticipate the present views of modern science 

 as to the age of the earth by a calculation based on the first 

 chapter of Genesis, as to the relative ages of the earth and sun. 



The late I'rofessor Huxley has given us an ideal vision of the 

 whole course of Evolntion, which is almost identical to the 

 vision of Ezekiel, and to the strange guards placed at Paradise 

 after the Fall. He says: "Just as the cloud of our breath 

 condenses on a pane of glass on a frosty morning and forms 

 itself into beautiful fern-like leaves, so the flora and fauna of 

 the earth have come forth out of the great nebular cloud." (See 

 Ezekiel's vision, chapter i). The additional points bv the 

 Prophet are accurate and interesting. His representation of 

 the revolving nebula is perfect ; that it came from the north, 

 there is no doubt — the realm of spiral nebuhe, and the colour 

 (amber, golden, viz., yellow) mentioned is accurate as a prevailing 

 colour of nebular stars. 



Coming to our own world, the record in Genesis is faultless. 

 The darkness with which that record begins at tJie foaiidatici 

 of the world (see Job xxxviii, 9) is admitted by leading geologists. 

 The infusing of life in the primeval seas ; the flora of the land 

 and the fern forests in the dim nebular light, increasin<>- to 



