The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-11-14
BIBLE AND SCIENCE
job Was Right Before the College
Professors Of Europe and
America.
Scientific Facts In the Book Accord
With the Authorities of
To-Day.
Nothing Hut Inspiration Could lave
saved tine Writer'S From Numerous
Errors.

While 1t is safe to say there ia not an i'm
portant book, religious. poetical. historical
or philosophical. published during the 1,50O
years in which the many books of the Bible
were written, that does not contain some of
the grave scientific errors prevalent at the
time II was written, IL ID claimed there Is
nit a single definite statement of any scien-
tifo fact in all the sixty-six books of the
Bible. which is not in accord with the best
scientific authorities of the present day.
Ny first article showed that the account of
the creation of animals and plants and the
earth in Genesis, is in perfect accord with
the present teachings of natural science.
My second article showed that the errors of
astrology which controlled the actions of
the peoples round the Israelites for many
ages, and was taught in the highest schools
Of Europe, found no place in the
books or policy of the Jewish nation; that
the astronomy Of the Bible is in
accord with the present teachings of that
science. While ancient astronomers taught
that the earth was supported by ''pillara of
adamant," by an elephant" by ser
pent' and by Atlas, Job declared that God
uAkOb SAo APoA
While the astronomers of the world and
the professors in the colleges of Europe
and America taught the system of Ptolemy.
that the sun and stars revolved around the
earth, a physical impossibility. Job had
solved this problem of celestial mechanics
precisely as Copernicus did 5000 years
later. Instead of making the sun and the
celestial universe perform the impossible
Journey around the earth every twenty-four
hours, this old Chaldean pastoral prince,
poet and astronomer, declared the earth
turned upon it's axis. For the question to
which the Lord demands an nswer, If he
could give it. /,
"Whereupon are the sockets thereof fast
tenedY" Dob 3s, 6.) implies an axis and
revolution there so plainly that no one
would doubt it. if the line appeared in Mill
toms great poem instead of in Jobs. How
happened it that this Chaldean poet solved
this great problem OF astronomlcal me,
chanics SO long before any of the learned
astronomers of the world found the way
out of their difficulties and mechanical i'm
possibilities?
Hesoid, one Of the most enlightened of
the ancient poets, gives the following state
mont of celestial distances:
From the high heaven a braz n anvil cast.
Nine days and nights in rapid whirls would last,
And reach the earth the tenth: whence strongly
whirled,
The same the passage to tn Internal world"
Our Greek poet gives the anvil nine days
to fall from heaven. whereas to fall from
the fixed stars would require more than
$1,000 600 days.
There are many passages in the bible
which imply accurate knowledge of astron-
omy on subjects upon which the philoso-
pliers of contemporary nations held most
absurd opinions.
LAS the host of heaven cannot be num-
---l ----.l A. ~~aI 80 I.
vid. 1922. "
Ancient astronomers thought there were
out one or two Thousand stars, which could
be easily numbered. But the telescope, aa
its powers have been increased from time.
has revealed million after million of worlds
some of them 80 far away that their light
coming at the rate of 200. 900 miles a second.
would be 60, 600, 600 of years in reaching the
earth. And the limits have not yet been
reached. There are depths beyond which
no telescopic powers yet made can penetrate,
and nebulons spaces which higher powers
of vision would doubtless dissolve into
shining suns. For the best telescopes now
in use, have shown what appeared as nebu-
lous matter through inferior instruments,
to be made up of innumerable suns.
Astronomers have estimated the number OF
stars in the milky way alone at 100. GOO, 600.
How we'll. therefore, has astronomy proved
Jeremiah correct and contemporary astron-
oLuoI iRhOldLb Va WIG q vi
which cannot be numbered"
During the 1900 years in which the books
of the Bible were wtitten the philosophers
and wise men of the world held numerous
md absurd views of astronomy. Anaxi-
menes believed the earth had a fat surface
like a table; Seucippus declared it a short
cylinder, while Plato thought it a living
creature; pharmacies supposed the moon
composed of air and fire; the Stoics de-
ella, ed it larger than the earth, and the
Hindoo shaster that it is higher than the
sun. Anaxagoras said the sun was a mass
of iron about as large as the P~eloponesus,
and Parmenides thought it about az large
as the earth, while it is more than a million
times larger.
l might quote hundreds of opinions.
believed by the wisest Of the nations living
around the Jews, while they we're writing
the books of the Bible. While such views
pei vaded the most enlightened nations,
corrupted their science and disiRured their
books, how was it that nom of them found
a place in any of the sixty-six books of the
Bible? In these books there are no errors
as to the form. size. composition and dis.
tances of the sun. moon and stars. Fol-
this absence, from SO many books written
by 80 many authors and in SO many ages
of these all-preyaillng erIors, there must be
some potent cause outside OF taste and
chance; for the chances are as a million &c
one against such freedom from the prevail
ing errors of their time.
But it is said the Jews were not devoted
to astronomical and other scientific pur-
suits. Though this declaration may te
true in part; still we have the best ossible
evidence that several of the most volumin-
GUS writer's of the Bible, did have the mos
favorable opportunities to become ac-
quainted with the learning of their times,
Moses WAS reared and educated at Pharao'f
court with all the advantages of rova
favors, which accounts for the fact that
Moses WAS learned i'll all the wisdom oil
the Egyptians.' In those days Egypt was
the seat of human learning, and astrolog,
whsitaught and practiced as the leading and
ruling science. Aud besides, the five books
of Moses contain moro science than all the
other books, which have come down to III
from his times: and vet there is not an
error of the astroloGy in which he was edu-
GATED. And job. the grand old ChaldeaI
poet and philosopher, put more science in
his poem than Homer in his Had or Virgil.
scientific errors and all the astrological
so much of the Celestial worlds.
David, the shepherd king of Israel, 40.
CURED no little knowledge of the celestial
worlds while tending his fathers hocks in
the mountains of Judea. His seventy five
songs in the Book of Psalms contain nu
meroug astronomical illusions and facts
but in none do we find him tipping. Pau.
was no mean scholar. Educated at the
feet of Gamaliel, he travelled and lived 70
many years in the most enlightened cities
Of Asia Minor, q eece, Italy, Spain and
Britain. The gleat Apostles to the gen
tiles certainly knew all the sciences, al