ecie eternitatis. See MIRACLE (p. 383) for a falter discussion of this point.
2. ψυχικός is twice rendered by ‘natural’ in the RY, and twice by ‘sensual.’ The mind of man is frequently spoken of in the NT as twofold (see PsyCHOLOGY), embracing the πνεῦμα or νοῦς, the higher faculty which he enjoys as made in the image of God, and the ψυχή, the lower element which he shares with the beasts. The wisdom which is ‘earthly’ and ‘devilish’ is also ψυχική (Ja 3%), and the ψυχικοί are described by St. Jude (v.18) as πνεῦμα μὴ ἔχοντες. In like manner St. Paul says of the ψυχικός that ‘he receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God’ (1 Co 2"), and he contrasts the σῶμα ψυχικόν of this life with the σῶμα πνευ- ματικόν of the life to come (1 Co 15%). ‘The natural man’ and ‘the natural body’ are alike of the earth, earthy. It is questionable if the Revisers were well advised * in retaining the word ‘natural’ in these last passages as the rendering of ψυχικός ; ‘sensual’ gives the meaning better, and the old rendering suggests to the reader a quite unwarrant- able antithesis between the ‘natural body’ and that which is presumed to be ‘ eunemnataral
. H. BERNARD.
NATURAL HISTORY.—In entering on the study of the natural history of the Bible we have to con- sider—
1. That, with the exception of Solomon + (1 Καὶ 439), the authors of the several books were in no sense naturalists. The allusions by ‘Solomon’ to objects of nature are so few and general as to give us no idea how far he had reduced his knowledge to a scientific form. There is no evidence in the Scriptures written after his day that he formulated and gave to the world a scientific treatise on these subjects. The imperfect descriptions of natural objects given by the Gr. and Rom. and Arab. naturalists many centuries later, make it quite improbable that any treatises of Solomon on plants and animals were such as, had they been pre- served, would have enabled us to identify with accuracy the objects alluded to.
* They have also retained the rendering ‘his natural face’ bor τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς γενέσεως αὐτοῦ (Ja 123), although they render che Greek literally in their margin.
+ Supposing we have any productions of his pen in the OT, which is denied with practical unanimity by modern scholars.
2. Apart from the question of the degree of
knowledge of natural history y the writers of the Bible, their allusions to natural objects are, for the most part, incidental and general, not scientific. Even in the lists of clean and unclean animals in Lv and Dt a large propor- tion of the names refer to classes and genera, such as the ‘falcon, after its kind’; ‘the raven, after its kind’ ; ‘the hawk, after its kind’; ‘ the heron, after its kind,’ ete. ete. It is clear from this that the class or genus was in the mind of the writer, and not an individual species, except in those cases in which there was but one πολσξο species in Bible lands, as the camel, the coney, the swine, ete.
3. The Heb. literature is confined to the can- onical books. We have no sidelights from other books in that language to aid us in determining the objects referred to. In the case of objects men- tioned but once or a few times only, it is often difficult or impossible to be certain as to what was intended. The LXX gives the judgment of its translators as to the Gr. equivalents in their day. This opinion may not be always well founded. And it is still more probable that in many cases they used a text very different from the MT. The cognate Arab. often sheds light, but im the more ditlicult cases it is of the least value.
4. The books of the Bible were written by numerous authors, in various parts of the East, and through a period of at least 1000 years. Any one who has endeavoured to collect the common names of plants and animals in any country, but especially in Bible lands, has been struck with the fact that a given name refers to different objects in regions not farapart. For example, in Lebanon the word kaikob is used for several species of maple. In Gilead it is used for Arbutus And- ΞΣΣ ΣΝ L., a tree known in the rest of Pal. and Syria as kotlib. The word balliét is properly an acorn, but it is used also for the Portuguese Oak, Quercus Lusitanica, Lam., and another species of oak, Q. Cerris, L. Again, the same object has often different names in regions within Bible lands. The cedar of Lebanon has three names within the limits of N. Lebanon, 'arz, ’ibhul, and tntib. The term’arz is also used for the Aleppo Pine. Again, some generic names, as Oak, have no names in Arabic. Some of its species have names, as sindidm for Q. coccifera, L., mallil for Q. Lusi- tanica, Lam., look for Q. Look, Ky., ballit for Q. Cerris, L. It is by no means impossible that the names of plants changed, either by the intro- duction of foreign terms, or the adoption of local designations into general literature. It may thus happen that a certain name, as cedar (Ly 144), refers toa plant different from that to which it was applied in later times. There may be many such cases.