Abstract
IN the brief account in NATURE1 (Dec. 25, 1937) of a lecture by Sir Frederick Keeble on “Foundations of Terrestrial Life: The Soil and the Green Plant”, the conclusion to which he had come is stated thus: “This hypothesis is that the health and strength of people and their evolution, and the permanence of human societies depend on the soil and the greeery ancin plant.” This recognition of the fundamental importance of the green plant suggests a reference to another but vent résumé of science contained in the much-discussed first chapter of Genesis (verse 30). “And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the heavens and to every creeping-one upon the earth in which is the soul of life, I have given every greenness of herb for food.” (President Harper's translation.) The customary translation is "every green herb" ; but the Hebrew words are far more emphatic than the English translation ; they read: “every greenness of green herb”. The Hebrew word for “green herb” is one of the widest significance, and seems, according to Gesenius, to include every herb that has food value both for man and beast.
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NATURE, 140, 1107 (1937).
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ALLEN, F. “Foundations of Terrestrial Life”. Nature 141, 610 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141610a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141610a0
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