You cannot divide light from darkness any more than you can divide heat
from cold. Cold is an absence of heat, and darkness is an absence of
light. I suppose that we have no conception of absolute cold. We know
only degrees of heat. Twenty degrees below zero is just twenty degrees
warmer than forty degrees below zero. Neither cold nor darkness are
entities, and these words express simply either the absolute or partial
absence of heat or light. I cannot conceive how light can be divided
from darkness, but I can conceive how a barbarian several thousand years
ago, writing upon a subject about which he knew nothing, could make a
mistake. The creator of light could not have written in this way. If
such a being exists, he must have known the nature of that "mode of
motion" that paints the earth on every eye, and clothes in garments
seven-hued this universe of worlds.
VII. TUESDAY
We are next informed by Moses that "God said Let there be a firmament in
the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters;"
and that "God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament."
What did the writer mean by the word firmament? Theologians now tell
us that he meant an "expanse." This will not do. How could an expanse
divide the waters from the waters, so that the waters above the expanse
would not fall into and mingle with the waters below the expanse? The
truth is that Moses regarded the firmament as a solid affair. It was
where God lived, and where water was kept. It was for this reason that
they used to pray for rain. They supposed that some angel could with a
lever raise a gate and let out the quantity of moisture desired. It was
with the water from this firmament that the world was drowned when the
windows of heaven were opened. It was in this firmament that the sons
of God lived--the sons who "saw the daughters of men that they were
fair and took them wives of all which they chose." The issue of such
marriages were giants, and "the same became mighty men which were of
old, men of renown."
Nothing is clearer than that Moses regarded the firmament as a vast
material division that separated the waters of the world, and upon
whose floor God lived, surrounded by his sons. In no other way could he
account for rain. Where did the water come from? He knew nothing about
the laws of evaporation. He did not know that the sun wooed with amorous
kisses the waves of the sea, and that they, clad in glorified mist
rising to meet their lover, were, by disappointment, changed to tears
and fell as rain.
The idea that the firmament was the abode of the Deity must have been in
the mind of Moses when he related the dream of Jacob. "And he dreamed,
and behold, a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to
heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it; and
behold the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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