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"Our next step must be, in case someone should enquire, `Is the word kosmos never
used of an orb, a starry world, a planet?' to find out just how the term is used in the New
Testament. Kosmos occurs in the N.T. nearly 190 times. There is thus very ample scope
to fix its true meaning and characteristics. In the LXX it is found about two dozen
times."
In this last sentence "X" makes it clear that he knew what the LXX teaches as to the
meaning of kosmos, but here he practices what he has elsewhere called "elliptic
reasoning", which quietly ignores evidence that is awkward or antagonistic to his views.
He occupies another eight pages of print in which he can find space to quote from six
Pagan Greek writers, but if he had quoted ONE reference, namely, the first occurrence of
kosmos in the LXX his attack would have been exposed for the worthless thing it is.
Before quoting the LXX, let us examine the Dictionary, for we suppose "X" is not so
great an authority that he can set aside the accepted usage of the word cosmos in English
speech. The following is taken from "Lloyd's Encyclopędic Dictionary":
"COSMOS. Greek--(1) order, (2) ornament, (3) ruler, (4) the world or
universe from its perfect order and arrangement as opposed to chaos."
It will be seen that the Editors of this Dictionary would have had no hesitation in using
cosmos of Gen. 1: 2, in fact their reference to "chaos" almost supposes that it had been in
mind. To proceed with the quotation:
"Ancient Philosophy. The Term kosmos in the fourth sense appears first in the
philosophy of Pythagoras. His followers Philolaos, Callicratides, and others adopted the
word, as did the philosophic poets Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles. From
them it passed to the natural philosophers, with whom it became a current word. The
stoics used it for the anima mundi or the soul of the world. With regard to extent it had
several senses: (1) the earth, (2) the firmament, (3) the region in which the stars are
fixed or apparently move; in the Alexandrian Greek, the known world."
As Pythagoras was born about B.C.580, it is evident that the word kosmos had an
established meaning before the LXX incorporated it into that version. If the word thus
established by usage is given a new meaning, evidence will be necessary and
forthcoming.
Let us repeat "X" question after the reading the history and usage of the word kosmos.
"Is the word kosmos never used of an orb, a starry world, a planet?" asks the imaginary
"ignorant soul" that "X" envisages, and the remainder of his article is intended to prove
that the answer is "NO". He attempts to cover himself by limiting his enquiry to the
usage of kosmos in the New Testament. But that will not do--unless Eph. 1: 4 and other
references to "the foundation of the world" are to be considered as outside the New
Testament. We are not concerned with the limited fallen disrupted "world" that lies
about us, and of which we form part, we are concerned with the meaning of that "world"
so intimately associated with the period of our election to glory, and "X" is out to show
that kosmos can have no reference to "an orb, a starry world, or a planet".