Humanity has learned so much and keeps learning. In December 1995 the Hubble space telescope did ten consecutive days of photography through a slice of the heavens no wider than 1/25 of one degree, equivalent to the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length. Through the telescope astronomers looked deeper into space and exposed greater detail than ever before attained by optical astronomy. Then in January 1996, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society the astronomers excitedly poured over a mosaic of pictures and counted 1,500 to 2,000 galaxies, some so far away that they are four billion times fainter than the dimmest object the naked eye can see from the ground. With that achievement the estimated galactic population of the universe has multiplied to 50 billion, five times as many as previously estimated.
Shouldn’t we echo the question that David wrote long ago. "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him. You made him a little lower than the Elohim[1] and crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas" (Psalm 8:4-8).
[1]The Hebrew Elohim denotes God, yet in Jewish tradition, in the Septuagint, the Syriac version and the Targum it is rendered angels. Hebrews 2:7 quotes Psalm 8:4-6 and refers this scripture to Jesus, the representative of all mankind. It appears that originally the psalmist spoke about the status of humanity and the Hebrews’ author applies it to Jesus in reference to his incarnation.
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