Why should an astronomer write a commentary on the Bible?
Because commentators as a rule are not astronomers, and therefore either
pass over the astronomical allusions of Scripture in silence, or else
annotate them in a way which, from a scientific point of view, leaves
much to be desired.
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Excerpt:
Astronomical allusions in the Bible, direct and indirect, are not few in
number, and, in order to bring out their full significance, need to be
treated astronomically. Astronomy further gives us the power of placing
ourselves to some degree in the position of the patriarchs and prophets
of old. We know that the same sun and moon, stars and planets, shine
upon us as shone upon Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah. We can, if we
will, see the unchanging heavens with their eyes, and understand their
attitude towards them.
It is worth while for us so to do. For the immense advances in science,
made since the Canon of Holy Scripture was closed, and especially during
the last three hundred years, may enable us to realize the significance
of a most remarkable fact. Even in those early ages, when to all the
nations surrounding Israel the heavenly bodies were objects for
divination or idolatry, the attitude of the sacred writers toward them
was perfect in its sanity and truth.
Astronomy has a yet further part to play in Biblical study. The dating
of the several books of the Bible, and the relation of certain heathen
mythologies to the Scripture narratives of the world's earliest ages,
have received much attention of late years. Literary analysis has thrown
much light on these subjects, but hitherto any evidence that astronomy
could give has been almost wholly neglected; although, from the nature
of the case, such evidence, so far as it is available, must be most
decisive and exact.
I have endeavoured, in the present book, to make an astronomical
commentary on the Bible, in a manner that shall be both clear and
interesting to the general reader, dispensing as far as possible with
astronomical technicalities, since the principles concerned are, for the
most part, quite simple. I trust, also, that I have taken the first
step in a new inquiry which promises to give results of no small
importance.
Modern astronomy began a little more than three centuries ago with the
invention of the telescope and Galileo's application of it to the study
of the heavenly bodies. This new instrument at once revealed to him the
mountains on the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, and the spots on the
sun, and brought the celestial bodies under observation in a way that no
one had dreamed of before. In our view to-day, the planets of the solar
system are worlds; we can examine their surfaces and judge wherein they
resemble or differ from our earth. To the ancients they were but points
of light; to us they are vast bodies that we have been able to measure
and to weigh.
The telescope has enabled us also to penetrate
deep into outer space; we have learnt of other systems besides that of
our own sun and its dependents, many of them far more complex; clusters
and clouds of stars have been revealed to us, and mysterious nebulæ,
which suggest by their forms that they are systems of suns in the
making. More lately the invention of the spectroscope has informed us of
the very elements which go to the composition of these numberless
stars, and we can distinguish those which are in a similar condition to
our sun from those differing from him. And photography has recorded for
us objects too faint for mere sight to detect, even when aided by the
most powerful telescope; too detailed and intricate for the most skilful
hand to depict.
Galileo's friend and contemporary, Kepler, laid the foundations of
another department of modern astronomy at about the same time. He
studied the apparent movements of the planets until they yielded him
their secret so far that he was able to express them in three simple
laws, laws which, two generations later, Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated
to be the outcome of one grand and simple law of universal range, the
law of gravitation. Upon this law the marvellous mathematical conquests
of astronomy have been based.
All these wonderful results have been attained by the free exercise of
men's mental abilities, and it cannot be imagined that God would have
intervened to hamper their growth in intellectual power by revealing to
men facts and methods which it was within their own ability to discover
for themselves. Men's mental powers have developed by their exercise;
they would have been stunted had men been led to look to revelation
rather than to diligent effort for the satisfaction of their curiosity.
We therefore do not find any reference in the Bible to that which modern
astronomy has taught us. Yet it may be noted that some expressions,
appropriate at any time, have become much more appropriate, much more
forcible, in the light of our present-day knowledge.
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