SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE.

Evening Star, Issue 19663, 16 September 1927, Page 2

SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE.

to TH7 EDITOR Sir, —I notice in to-night’s" ‘ Star * a letter signed “E.W.F.” If it is not I deliberate misrepresentation it shows i“ E.W.F.” is not capable of understanding what any schoolboy would have no difficulty with. He says: Dr Pettit must have been in a pugnacious ; mood when he delivered his lecture on the above. After taking the Creation 1 story of Genesis from the cast-iron 1 mould which it has until late occupied he throws over it a halo of eloquence, and regards the result as poetry. 1 have hoard of many different interpre- ! tations of Scripture, but to regard any part of it as poetry is indeed new to : me and astounding in its audacity.” Now, I quote what Dr Pettit did say; “ A recent lecturer had declared it to bo foolish to try to make tho book of Genesis fit in with scientific doctrine. Genesis, be claimed, was early poetry, and was not a serious attempt to write pre-history, its main purpose not being to toll the people the method of creation, bbt the fact that it all came from God.” Dr Pettit_ explained that the fault of such a position was that it was really seeking to examine tho account of Genesis in the light of evolution, which was purely theoretical. Your readers will see that Dr Pettit was quoting from some rationalistic lecturer, and that all “ E.W.F.’s arguments. deductions, and denunciations are not against Dr Pettit, but the rationalistic lecturer. In your report of Dr Pettit’s third lecture he says: “The Lord Jesus Christ bore unmistakable witness to the plenary inspiration of the Old Testament when He said: ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, etc Some years ago I pointed out in a letter that appeared in the Star that the Lord Jesus did not endorse every passage of the Old Testament as being inspired of God. In support of that statement I quoted Christ’s reply to tho Pharisees when they asked Him ir it was lawful for a man to put away his wife, and pointed out that the Sermon on the Mount is full of progressive principles superseding the teachings of Moses.—-I am, etc., Jamels Braid. September 16.