In short, REVELATION tells us that God did all this "in
the beginning," how His form-designs were thought out and declared in
six days, and how He rested on the seventh day.
SCIENCE will tell us how, when, and where the Creative fiats and the
designs of heaven were realized and worked out on earth.
Here is the separate province of each, without fear of clashing, or room
for controversy.
CHAPTER XVI.
_THE DETAILS OF THE CREATION NARRATIVE._
Sec.1. _The Explanation of the Verses._
It remains only now to go over the narrative, the _general_ bearing of
which I have thus endeavoured to vindicate, so that minor matters of
detail, in which it is supposed (1) that some contradiction to known
physical fact may still lurk, and (2) something that negatives the
explanation suggested, may be cleared up.
Let us take it seriatim:--
"In the beginning God created the heaven (plural in the original) and
the earth."
As I have before remarked, we have no real need to discuss whether
"bara" means originated (created where nothing previously existed), or
whether we should render it "fashioned," i.e., moulded material (thus
assumed in terms to be) already in existence.
Either will yield perfectly good and consistent sense; but, as a matter
of fact, there is a virtual consensus of the best scholars that the
word is here used to denote original production of the material.
Pages:
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200