Let there be light
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." --Genesis 1: 3-5 |
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"Let there be light" is an English translation of the Hebrew יְהִי אוֹר (yehiy 'or). Other translations of the same phrase include the Latin phrase fiat lux, and the Greek phrase γενηθήτω φώς (or genēthētō phōs). The phrase is often used for its metaphorical meaning of dispelling ignorance.
The phrase comes from the third verse of the Book of Genesis. In the King James Bible it reads:
- 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
- 1:2 - And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
- 1:3 - And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
- 1:4 - And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
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In literature
- For works which use the phrase as their title, see Let there be light (disambiguation)#In literature and Fiat lux (disambiguation)
- "Fiat Lux" is also a term that is used in the novel Die Insel des Zweiten Gesichts (1982) by German writer Albert Vigoleis Thelen.
- The English phrase concludes Isaac Asimov's science fiction short story "The Last Question", symbolizing the godlike growth in power of an extremely advanced computer as it creates a new universe from the ashes of a dead one, drawing comparisons and suggesting an explanation for the biblical Book of Genesis.
- Alexander Pope's couplet "Nature and nature's laws lay hid in Night./God said, 'Let Newton be!' and all was light" is a reference to "Let There Be Light".
- In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo speaks about the importance of daring and writes "That cry, 'Audace,' is a Fiat Lux!"
- One of the three main divisions of the Walter M. Miller, Jr. book A Canticle for Leibowitz is titled "Fiat Lux".
- "Fiat Lux!" is the activating phrase in the setting of a Ward Major in the 'Chronicles of the Deryni' by Katherine Kurtz.
- The Fiat Lux Agency is the name of Nestor Burma's private detective agency, in the novels written by Léo Malet.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Let there be light" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
