Wood S Bible Animals

Excerpt from Wood's Bible Animals: A Description of the Habits, Structure, and Uses of Every Living Creature Mentioned in the Scriptures, From the Ape to the Coral The author of "Bible Animals" has long been known in England and America as a learned and accurate as well as popular writer in various departments of natural history. He has the happy faculty of making the results of dry scientific study and painstaking observation interesting and instructive to all classes of readers. He throws himself into his work with that quiet and genial enthusiasm which awakens sympathy and inspires confidence. He does not mingle so much of romance with sober reality as to leave little distinction between the facts of science and the pleasantries of fiction; nor is he so tied to detail and definition that the reader gets nothing but the bare skeleton when he would see the grace and action of the living body. Mr. Wood writes about birds and beasts as if he knew them and liked them, and so he makes his readers like them too. He speaks so truly and kindly of his dumb friends and companions of the fields and woods that they would certainly vote him many thanks if they had learned our habit of meeting in public assembly and repaying our benefactors with resolutions. In the present work - a new and enlarged edition of which is now offered to the American public - the author has brought out all the resources of his mature and cultivated powers. It has been the more congenial to him, and he has made it the more interesting to others, because the subject touches more closely upon the line of his sacred convictions and his professional studies. In his vivid representations he makes ministers and missionaries of the birds of the air, the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea. He shows how closely the Bible is in harmony with the great work of creation which in the beginning was pronounced very good. He gives the habits and the history of every living creature named in the sacred Scriptures, and he makes the whole world of animated nature stand forth to interpret and to adorn the divine word. In this work the Bible is made to appear not as a dry treatise or a dull compound of theories and propositions, but as a living book, thoroughly in sympathy with all the interests and occupations of the living world. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Reproduction of the original: Story of the Bible Animals by J.G. Wood

Owing to the different conditions of time, language, country, and race under which the various books of the Holy Scriptures were written, it is impossible that they should be rightly understood at the present day without some study of the customs and manners of Eastern peoples, as well as of the countries in which they lived. The Oriental character of the scriptural writings causes them to abound with metaphors and symbols taken from the common life of the time. They contain allusions to the trees, flowers, and herbage, the creeping things of the earth, the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, and the beasts which abode with man or dwelt in the deserts and forests. Unless, therefore, we understand these writings as those understood them for whom they were written, it is evident that we shall misinterpret instead of rightly comprehending them. The field which is laid open to us is so large that only one department of Natural History—namely, Zoology—can be treated in this work, although it is illustrated by many references to other branches of Natural History, to the physical geography of Palestine, Egypt, and Syria, the race-character of the inhabitants, and historical parallels. The importance of understanding the nature, habits, and uses of the animals which are constantly mentioned in the Bible, cannot be overrated as a means of elucidating the Scriptures, and without this knowledge we shall not only miss the point of innumerable passages of the Old and New Testaments, but the words of our Lord Himself will often be totally misinterpreted, or at least lose part of their significance. The object of the present work is therefore, to take in its proper succession, every creature whose name is given in the Scriptures, and to supply so much of its history as will enable the reader to understand all the passages in which it is mentioned.