The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-01-27
Continued from Page one.o

in the three-celied ovary and explains
how the pollen grains falling from the
anthers Oh to the stigma ripens the
ovules into seeds that will grow into
new plants. All this is nothing but
1.-THE wisdom of this world''-no reve-
lation here. Add ten years more and
your boy, now man. will trace yonderI
lily back in the evolution story on the
one hand TO the first life germ and on
the other through this planet back to-
its parent the sun and still farther TO-
nebula and star dust. Still 1.-The wis
dom of this world" not trace of rev.
elation. God has gifted man with fac
ulties for ferreting out all these facts.
So far as we can read His mind, TIE
Almighty does not propose to tell His
human child what he can find out for
himself Put down then fundamen-
tai proposition-sA scientific truth is not
the. subject Of revelation and. so far as
we know, never was. When you meet
an opinion or a statement in the Bible
that has TO do with the realm of nat
uraI. science, remember that it belongs
to what Paul called "the wisdom of
this world" 1t is subject to all the
limitations of that wisdom. The writer
who made it thought he was stating
exact fact, but his scientific knowledge
was. like yours and mine, imperfect.
He believed that the sun started in
the east, rushed across the sky to the
west, dropped into the sea and in some
way got back to the east again. He
was mistaken just as Newton was
when he believed that light was due
to the sending forth by every luminous
body of innumerable tiny particles.
/ '.corpuscles," which striking the eye
produced the sensation of light. Do
not, then, be troubled at scientific err
rors in the Bible. The book never
claims to be free from them. Whoever
makes such a claim, on it's behalf, is
no true friend of the Scriptures.
Luke in the first four verses of his
Gospel did theology a service by stat
ing that he did not get his facts by
revelation, but that, like any other
| historian. he was compelled to search
out records and interview witnesses in
order to write his account of Jesus.
| Recorded history is a product of obser-
| walton and wisdom. It is a part of
| the wisdom of this world. Whether
| YOU find it in the Bible or out of the
Bible, it has it's mistakes. For in
stance, . Kings 1880 states that Ho-
shea began to reign in the goth year
of Jotnam, while the 93rd verse affirms
| that lothian reigned only sixteen years
and the first verse of chapter IL says
| that Hoshea began to reign in the
! twelfth year of Jotham's son Ahaz
Taking the statements in Kings
1871 and 2. III and 1871 and 2, we
find that Hezekiah the son Of Ahaz
was born when his father was only
ten years of age. All ancient histo-
l
| the science of exact chronology was
vet unborn Bible records We're com
| piled like other such narratives. The
writer's were dependent upon the same
erring human faculties as men are to-
day. and they were incomparably less
trained for their task. History belong:
to the category of the wisdom of this
world and not to revelation. b
careful not to pin your faith in Bible
revelation upon 1.-The wisdom of thi:
vorld''-i. e., the science and history
within it,. To hold that if there is {
mistake in it the whole book is dis
credited is to treat it with less con
sideration than is shown to any othe
ancient human document. The ides
that the absolute accuracy of Bibl
science is necessary to the reliability
of Bible revelation is neither fair e
the book nor in accord with common
sense. It makes no such claim for 1t
self and therefore M honest friend ha
| any fl21L 10 HE sum a 'AA~A 80
some theologians have done this, bu
in doing 50 they have unwittingl,
dishonored the very cause they though
to advance.
, So far as we know, God never re
vealed to man a single scientific trut
or historic fact. Give to your Bibles
then. precisely the same treatmen
that you would accord to any othe
human document when You deal wit
| the wisdom of this world which it con
tains. 1t asks of you this and moth
0 ing more. When you do this. You vi
: be surprised to find how valuable it
e as history and how interesting it
y naive views of nature are.
i We might go on to speak in tn
y same strain of Old Testament psycho1
ogv if time permitted. But there
: something else in this collection
{ ancient writings beside human histor