Science vs the Bible

Science vs. the Bible

There are passages in the Bible that coincide with scientific principles that weren't widely accepted until hundreds of years after the Bible had been written. Below are some examples:

[1] The Bible said the earth is round and is suspended in space:

In various verses, the Bible says the earth is round and that it is suspended in space. The first mention in any ancient literature of a round Earth - a sphere or khoog in the original Hebrew - is contained in Isaiah 40:22. The heavens themselves, or the face of the deep, is also described in Proverbs 8:27 as having a circular character most like an orbit.

"He who sits above the circle of the earth..." (Isaiah 40:22, CJB). (By the way, the Hebrew language at that time did not have a word for "sphere," only for "circle.")

" He stretches the north over chaos and suspends the earth on nothing." (Job 26:7, CJB).

When he established the heavens, I was there. When he drew the horizon's circle on the deep, when he set the skies above in place, when the fountains of the deep poured forth, when he prescribed boundaries for the sea, so that its water would not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, I was with him as someone he could trust. For me, every day was pure delight, as I played in his presence all the time, playing everywhere on his earth, and delighting to be with humankind (Proverbs 8:27-32, CJB).

[2] The Bible described the Hydrologic Cycle:

In various passages, the Bible describes a hydrologic cycle, the process by which clouds are formed, rain is produced and ground water is replenished. Science made the same discovery in the 1600s, long after the Bible passages were written. Here are the related Bible verses:

"He binds up the water in his thick clouds, yet no cloud is torn apart by it." (Job 26:8, CJB).

"He makes the droplets of water, which condense into rain from his mist. The clouds pour it down upon humankind in abundance." (Job 36:27-28, CJB).

"The wind blows south, then it turns north; the wind blows all around and keeps returning to its rounds. All the rivers flow to the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers flow, there they keep on flowing. " (Ecclesiastes 1:6-7, CJB).

[3] The Bible stated that the stars cannot be counted:>

For centuries, scientists and astronomers thought they could count the precise number of stars in the universe. Brahe, for example, said there were 777. Kepler claimed the total was 1,005. Hipparchus said there were 1,022 stars. Ptolemy raised the number to 1,056. Eventually, scientists, including the great Galileo, concluded that the stars could not be numbered, just as the Bible had always claimed:

"To the degree that the armies of heaven are past counting and the sand by the sea past measuring, I will increase the descendants of my servant David and the L'vi'im ministering to me.'" (Jeremiah 33:22, CJB).

He took him outside and said, " Then he brought him outside and said, "Look up at the sky, and count the stars - if you can count them! Your descendants will be that many!"" (Genesis 15:5, CJB).

[4] The Bible stated the existence of valleys and springs in the seas:

Only until the past few hundred years did people have the technology to discover that there are deep valleys and fresh water springs in the oceans. But the Bible always knew:

"The channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were exposed at ADONAI's rebuke, at the blast of breath from his nostrils." (2 Samuel 22:16, CJB).

"On the seventeenth day of the second month of the 600th year of Noach's life all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of the sky were opened." (Genesis 7:11, CJB).

[5] The Bible stated that kind words and laughter are good for one's health:

In recent years, American newspapers have published various reports that laughter releases chemicals within a person's body that can contribute to one's health. And, that depression and stress can weaken the immune system and contribute to various health problems. But, the Bible knew of the health virtues of laughter roughly 3,000 years ago when the Bible's book of Proverbs was recorded:

"Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the taste and healing for the body." (Proverbs 16:24, CJB).

" A happy heart is good medicine, but low spirits sap one's strength." (Proverbs 17:22, CJB).

[6] The Bible stated that stars differ from one another centuries before scientists reached the same conclusion:

Today we know that the stars in the skies are very different from one another, that they are made up of differing concentrations of different elements, and that they vary in their sizes, their ages and in their proximity to the earth. But the ancient people had no way to prove this. Even so, Paul, who received many insights from Yeshua, wrote a passage about 2000 years ago in the Bible's book of 1 Corinthians that said that the stars in the heavens did indeed differ from one another:

"The sun has one kind of beauty, the moon another, the stars yet another; indeed, each star has its own individual kind of beauty." (1 Corinthians 15:41, CJB).