Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Do Ants Really Do That?
Remember how Proverbs 6: 6-8 say: " Go to the the ant, you lazy one; see its ways and become wise. Although it has no commander, officer or ruler, it prepares its food even in the summer; it has gathered its food supplies even in the harvest." This, as we'll see was no myth or allegory.
According to experts some ants, including the harvester (Messor semirufus) found in Israel today do in fact gather and store food.
These ants leave their nests during warmer weather to harvest or collect such things as seeds they find either on the ground or growing on plants -- just as we today often search for and pick fruits from trees.
Not only that but this species of ant also constructs nests close to granaries or threshing floors and store their harvest in underground ganaries or chambers up to five inches in diameter and one-half inch high.
These are not isolated holes in ground forcing the ants to expose themselves to predators or cold weather to run from one to the other in search of more food. Each granary is a part of a network connected underground by galleries forming an underground city.
Such well-stocked colonies enable the ant to survive underground for up to four months without any outside source of food -- or water.
So Solomon's advice to copy the planning and activity of the ant was truly well founded.
According to experts some ants, including the harvester (Messor semirufus) found in Israel today do in fact gather and store food.
These ants leave their nests during warmer weather to harvest or collect such things as seeds they find either on the ground or growing on plants -- just as we today often search for and pick fruits from trees.
Not only that but this species of ant also constructs nests close to granaries or threshing floors and store their harvest in underground ganaries or chambers up to five inches in diameter and one-half inch high.
These are not isolated holes in ground forcing the ants to expose themselves to predators or cold weather to run from one to the other in search of more food. Each granary is a part of a network connected underground by galleries forming an underground city.
Such well-stocked colonies enable the ant to survive underground for up to four months without any outside source of food -- or water.
So Solomon's advice to copy the planning and activity of the ant was truly well founded.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
How Far Did Early Missionaries Travel?
Part 3 - Pytheas Sails North
In 320 B.C.E. the Greek mariner set out on a voyage to discover new lands north of the Mediterranean
By that year Massalia (now the modern French city of Marseilles) had become a prosperous commercial centre with traders sending Mediterranean wines, oils and bronzeware to countries to the north and importing amber and raw metals, such as tin from those lands.
According to scholars Massiliote traders commissioned Pytheas to find a quicker (and probably safer) sea route to those lands. From the careful account that Pytheas kept of seas, tides, geography as well as the different peoples he encountered and different readings he took of the sun's angle with a survey device known as gnomon which showed how far he had traveled, it appears that after sailing westward from Massalia he sailed north along the Iberian Peninsula ( Spain) to Brittany (France) and then northward still farther between Ireland and Britain and even farther north.
He wrote that he sailed some 6 days north of Britain to the land called Thule, a land where the sea was frozen and had a midnight sun.
There is some debate about exactly what land this was: Iceland, Norway, the Faroe or Orkney Islands, but Pytheas described it as a land of frozen seas and "the midnight sun" so he obviously had sailed pretty far north before returning home, sailing south through the North Sea back to Brittany and the Atlantic coast and home.
Other Phoenician, Greek, Roman, as well as sailors from other lands followed followed over the years. The world of Paul's day was one of expanding exploration, trade, and travel around the southern tip of Africa as well as far north as the Arctic.
But for most people these new territories were still unknown to most of the people Paul was writing to and it was not likely that he had these frontier territories in mind when he spoke about the good news being preached, "in all creation that is under heaven."
It was more likely that he was still referring to Mediterranean lands such as: Parthia, Elam, Media, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Asia Minor parts of Libya, and Rome. By Paul's day, long after Pentecost of 33C.E. when many Jewish persons as well as proselytes from these lands accepted Christianity the Christian message had indeed become well known in these areas of Mediterranean.
It's possible that individuals could have begun to carry the Christian message even farther afield into Africa and Europe by Paul's day -- but if so there is apparently no record of it.
In 320 B.C.E. the Greek mariner set out on a voyage to discover new lands north of the Mediterranean
By that year Massalia (now the modern French city of Marseilles) had become a prosperous commercial centre with traders sending Mediterranean wines, oils and bronzeware to countries to the north and importing amber and raw metals, such as tin from those lands.
According to scholars Massiliote traders commissioned Pytheas to find a quicker (and probably safer) sea route to those lands. From the careful account that Pytheas kept of seas, tides, geography as well as the different peoples he encountered and different readings he took of the sun's angle with a survey device known as gnomon which showed how far he had traveled, it appears that after sailing westward from Massalia he sailed north along the Iberian Peninsula ( Spain) to Brittany (France) and then northward still farther between Ireland and Britain and even farther north.
He wrote that he sailed some 6 days north of Britain to the land called Thule, a land where the sea was frozen and had a midnight sun.
There is some debate about exactly what land this was: Iceland, Norway, the Faroe or Orkney Islands, but Pytheas described it as a land of frozen seas and "the midnight sun" so he obviously had sailed pretty far north before returning home, sailing south through the North Sea back to Brittany and the Atlantic coast and home.
Other Phoenician, Greek, Roman, as well as sailors from other lands followed followed over the years. The world of Paul's day was one of expanding exploration, trade, and travel around the southern tip of Africa as well as far north as the Arctic.
But for most people these new territories were still unknown to most of the people Paul was writing to and it was not likely that he had these frontier territories in mind when he spoke about the good news being preached, "in all creation that is under heaven."
It was more likely that he was still referring to Mediterranean lands such as: Parthia, Elam, Media, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Asia Minor parts of Libya, and Rome. By Paul's day, long after Pentecost of 33C.E. when many Jewish persons as well as proselytes from these lands accepted Christianity the Christian message had indeed become well known in these areas of Mediterranean.
It's possible that individuals could have begun to carry the Christian message even farther afield into Africa and Europe by Paul's day -- but if so there is apparently no record of it.
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