The
Harmony of Science and the Bible
by Michael Hite
If God created the universe and everything in it, it would stand to
reason that His inspired word would be scientifically accurate. This
is not to say that the Bible attempts to be a science book…it
does not. It does however contain statements that are scientific in
nature and as such can be compared with known scientific facts to test
its accuracy. The key point here is not that the Bible should be compared
to any and all scientific theories of the day, but only those which
over time have proven themselves to be fact. Science marches on and
in its wake it leaves the ripples of theories long proven to be error.
In evidence of that fact, the library at the Louvre Museum in France
has one room containing over 70,000 books that cannot be checked out.
The reason is because they contain previous scientific theories and
statements that are now known to be false. Although there was a time
when it was believed that the earth was flat, we now know with 100%
certainty that it is round. Let’s examine a few of the scientific
statements contained in the Bible and check their accuracy with what
we know as definitive scientific fact.
The shape of the earth
“When He established the heavens,
I was there, When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,”
This verse, recorded in the book of Proverbs, was written around 1000
B.C., and states that when the earth was created, “He inscribed
a circle…”, a similar passage is found in Isaiah 40:22,
written in approximately 722 B.C.
“It is He who sits above the circle
of the earth…” Isaiah 40:22, NKJV.
In both cases, the Hebrew word for “circle” refers to a
sphere or ball, and yet the prevailing theory of the day was that the
earth was flat! It was not until the time of Columbus and Magellan in
the early 1500’s that the theory of a flat earth was finally abandoned.
And yet the Bible accurately recorded that the earth was round, some
2500 years earlier. Did both Solomon, the writer of Proverbs, and Isaiah
write from their own knowledge?
The earth sitting in space
“… He hangs the earth on nothing.”
Job 26:7, NKJV.
In approximately 2000 B.C., Job wrote that God “hangs the earth
on nothing.” The beliefs of the day certainly did not agree with
that statement. The Hindus believed that the earth was supported by
four elephants. The Greeks believed that the mighty god Atlas bore the
earth on his shoulders, and the Egyptians held that the earth sat on
solid crystalline spheres. As late as 1543 A.D., the belief was that
the earth was fixed in space and did not move. It wasn’t until
1687 A.D., when Sir Isaac Newton discovered the Law of Gravity that
it was understood that the earth was “hung on nothing” and
that gravity held it in place. (3) Yet over 3600 years earlier the Bible
recorded the facts correctly. Was Job just ahead of his time?
The heavens cannot be measured
“If those ordinances depart From
before Me, says the LORD, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease From
being a nation before Me forever.” Thus says the LORD: “If
heaven above can be measured, And the foundations of the earth searched
out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel For all that
they have done, says the LORD.” Jeremiah 31:36,37, NKJV.
Jeremiah, in 600 B.C. wrote that the heavens could not be measured.
Prior to 1800 A.D. it was believed that the universe was finite, fixed
and in very close proximity to us. In 1901, it was believed that the
most distant star from earth was calculated to be 3,260 light years
away. It wasn’t until 1928 that we discovered that galaxies actually
move. And it took until 1948 to discover that the entire universe contains
millions of galaxies and that they all appear to be moving away from
us. Today, with the power of the Hubble Space telescope, scientists
have discovered that the known universe is constantly expanding. Truly
the universe cannot be measured, just as Jeremiah recorded 2600 years
ago.
The stars cannot be counted
“‘As the host of heaven cannot
be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the
descendants of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.’””
Jeremiah 33:22, NKJV.
Jeremiah also recorded that the stars (host of heaven) could not be
counted. Yet in 150 B.C. the famous astronomer Hipparcus stated emphatically
that there were fewer than 3000 stars in the universe. Ptolemy, after
counting 1056 actual stars concluded there could be no more than 3000
stars maximum. It appeared at that time as if Jeremiah was wrong. Then
in 1608 A.D., with the invention of the telescope, the perception of
the heavens was dramatically changed. In 1924, it was estimated that
our galaxy alone may contain as many as 100 billion stars. Current estimates
state that there may be as many as 2.5 million galaxies in the universe,
each containing 100 billion stars. If you could count 200 stars each
minute, and you counted 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it would
take over 1000 years to count all the stars we now believe exist. And
we keep finding more, and more galaxies all the time. Again, the Bible
recorded the correct information some 2000 years before science finally
figured it out.
The waters of the world are connected
“Then God said, “Let the waters
under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry
land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth,
and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw
that it was good.” Genesis 1:9,10, NKJV.
In 1400 B.C., Moses recorded that the waters of the world were gathered
together in one place (bed), From his geographical location, he could
have no way of knowing that all the waters (seas) of the world were
connected. It wasn’t until Magellan circumnavigated the globe
in 1520 A.D. that it became know that all the oceans of the world were
one connected mass of water.
The paths of the sea
In 1855, Matthew Maury, a lifelong seafaring man, discovered “the
paths of the sea” we know today as the ocean currents. A statue
of Maury, referred to as the “pathfinder of the seas,” stands
outside the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The statue shows Maury
with a map of the currents he discovered in one hand and the Bible in
the other. You see, Maury got the idea to search for the “paths”
from Psalm 8:8;
“The birds of the air, And the fish
of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.” Psalms
8:8, NKJV.
The verse was recorded 2800 years earlier.
Conclusion
These are but a fraction of the scientific statements contained in the
Bible that have been proven to be true and factual. The question becomes,
how did these writers, who lived and wrote in an age of ignorance and
superstition, consistently and accurately record information that was
not proven to be true for hundreds and even thousands of years. Never
once recording the “scientific beliefs of the day.” How?
Is it more logical to believe that these men wrote information based
on their own knowledge, or that an all-knowing God imparted them with
this information as He wrote through them. Over and over again, the
Bible demonstrates its harmony with scientific fact…not the theories
of the time.
Michael
Hite is Communications Minister at the Bear Valley Church of Christ
in Denver, CO. and is also on staff at the Bear
Valley Bible Institute of Denver.
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