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been expected that their ideas of geography would have been enlarged ; but even yet we find the Jews of Palestine at least enveloped in the same ignorance upon all beyond the limits of their own country , which characterizes all Orientals , and in consequence of which the Samaritans of the present day conceive " the town of England' * to be much like their
own , and the native Indians consider the East-India Company as the mightiest potentate in the world . At least the expedition of Holofernes in the book of Judith , and the assertion in 1 Mace . xii . 21 , that the Spartans were related to the Jews , betray this low degree of geographical information . First about the time of the Romans , when the commerce of the Jews with the
West became continually more active , it seems to have been less a terra incognita with them . Among the Hebrews , as among all ancient nations , the representations of the earth and of the system of the universe were at first quite popular and derived from their sensible appearance , but at the same time mythical , and in such a way , that the mythico-geographical conceptions of the Hebrews were allied to those of other eastern nations , and especially of the Persians . *
The following may be regarded as the principal features of this poetical and mythical idea of the world , which the poets retained , even when more perfect and accurate conceptions had been introduced , and in which perfect consistency must not be expected . The whole inhabited earth ( bsn oiKtifAevri ) appeared to the Hebrews as a widely-extended plain , like a
building upon pillars and columns , ( Prov . viii . 29 ; Ps . civ . 5 , compared with Job xxxviii . 7 , ) and according to Ps . xxiv . 2 , exxxvi . 6 , upon the seas , so that the rivers and springs were considered as emanations from the sea , which was supposed to flow under the earth and to make it fruitful . ( Gen . xlix . 15 . ) Of its round , target-like form we find no distinct mention ; the early Hebrews appear , like Eratosthenes , to have conceived of it as an extended quadrangular mantle , on which account we read of four borders or corners of the earth , jnKn H 1 D 3 D JOHN , Isa . xi . 12 , compared with Job xxxvii . 3 , xxxviii . 13 ; Ezek . vii . 2 . Distant countries are called " the ends of the earth" ( Ps . lxxii . 8 ; Matt . xii . 42 ) , and its breadth is mentioned among the secrets of creation ( Job xxxviii . 18 ) . In the East of the
plain the Psalmist ( Ps . xix . 7 ) places the tent of the sun , from which he begins his course , f and in the West his light is lost in darkness ( Job xxvi . 10 ) . That the South and East have been regarded as light , the North and West as darker , is clear from the etymology of the words used to denote the quarters of the heavens , ( CDVn South , i . e . splendour , or the shining illuminated region , and pDiC North , i . e . the covered dark region , ) which are analogous with the Homeric expressions irpos yco rjeXiowe and itpoq fyepov , and also from the practice o ( other Eastern languages , in which the North is called the dark land , ( Ebn Batuta , ed . Kosegarten , p . 14 . ) The heaven appeared to them , agreeably to its sensible aspect , a 3 a solid vault ( tf'pi , crreptcvfAa , firmamentuni ) ; not made of brass and iron , according to the
opinion of the Greeks , ( II . v . 504 , Od . iii . 2 , ) but transparent like a blue sapphire ( Ezek . i . 22 ; Exod . xxiv . 10 ; Dan . * ii . 3 ); resting on pillars ( 2 Sam . xxii . 8 ; Job xxvi . 11 ) ; with a gate ( Gen . xxviii . 12 , 17 , compared with Herod , iv . 158 ) ; with an ocean over it ( Gen . i . 16 ) ; the source of rain which falls down through openings ( Luther , windows ) in the vault
? See my Comment , on Isajah , Pt . II . pp . 315 , &c . f- Compare Oasian , Pt . HI . p . 81 , in the translation of Ahhvardt , " The tout of thy repose is in the West . "
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436 Biblical Geography .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1830, page 436, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2586/page/4/
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