SCIENTIFIC TRUTH
IN THE BIBLE
The Bible is
not primarily a book of science; but we can rest assured
that any reference to scientific facts in the Bible is
accurate because scientific fact and Bible truths always
agree. This must be so, if it were not, God would be
contradicting Himself.
As an example
of scientific truth in the Bible we cite Isaiah 40:21-,
where is said of God that, 'it is He that sitteth above
the circle of the earth. " Here by inspiration Isaiah
states that the earth is a globe, a fact universally
accepted by science today. Since God "sits above the
circle of the earth' And God is omnipresent, the earth
must present a circle from whatever position it may be
viewed. This could not be true if the earth were not round
like a ball.
Another
example is found in Job 26:7, where, Job says that God "hangeth
the earth Upon nothing. ' The earth is floating in
space just as the sun, moon, and various planets are. ' is
another fact universally accepted by science.
Some have
scoffed at the idea of 'the morning stars singing
together., " as stated in Job 38:7, but present day
inventions force us to admit that this statement is true.
As far as we can tell, the stars emit light only, but
todav we know there is some connection between light and
sound. Light travels in various wave lengths, while sound
waves travel through solids, liquids, or gases. Light
waves of different lengths produce different colors; and
different colors may be used to suggest different musical
tones. Also, by using the photo-electric cell and a beam
of light passing through a sound track, as on motion
picture film, all kinds of sound effects can be produced,
including talking, singing, and music from mechanical
instruments. So light can be used in producing audible
sounds.
In Job 22:12
we read that Eliphaz, the Temanite, exclaims: "Behold,
the height of the stars, how high they are!" Today in
considering the stars and scientific facts concerning
them, we can exclaim, "How high they are,!" The human mind
is unable to grasp all of the difficulty of the vastness
of such colossal distances.
Our nearest
neighbor in the sky is the moon, and it is 240,000 miles
from the earth. If there was a good highway between the
earth and moon, it would take a car traveling twelve
hundred miles per day, 700 days to reach the moon. This
give us some idea about "how high the moon is." Man could
not reach the sun in his life-time traveling at this slow
speed. It would take 35 years to reach the sun traveling
at three hundred miles per hour.
But the
distance to the moon and sun are insignificant compared to
the distance of the stars. The mile is too short a unit of
measurement to describe the distance to the stars,
therefore men describe them as "light years." Light
travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, and a
"light year" is the distance light will travel in one
year. Light from the nearest star takes about four and one
third years to reach the earth. Some of the brighter stars
are more than 100 light years from the earth. Our galaxy
of stars, known as the Milky Way, are tens of thousands of
light years away. The diameter of the Milky Way is thought
to be about 100,000 light years.
All of this is
beyond our comprehension. Such figures may mean little to
us; and perhaps we should be content to express as Eliphaz
did some three thousand years ago, 'Behold, the height of
the stars, how high are the,.,. ' These, and many other
scientific truths found in the Bible should cause us to
accept the truthfulness of the Scriptures as well as its
inspiration.
How were Job,
Isaiah, and others able to speak and write about these
things? How could they make any accurate reference to the
shape and support of the earth, the producing of sound
wave of light, the height of the stars, etc.? The only
explanation is God!
Up to 400-600
years ago, people believed the earth was flat. When
Columbus was planning his voyage in which he discovered
America, people tried to dissuade him because they thought
the earth was flat and that he would come to the edge and
fall off. Even if it should be round as he claimed, he
would have to sail uphill coming back; and that might be
impossible. Some people today still find it hard to
believe that the earth is round; but Isaiah twenty-five
hundred years ago pictured it as a globe. This fact
science has been able to prove only in comparatively
recent years. How could Isaiah have stated as clearly and
definitely that this was true, without divine guidance.?
People,
hundreds of years after Isaiah and Job, have imagined
different means of support of the earth. Some have thought
it was resting on the back of a giant. Others have thought
an enormous turtle swimming in a great ocean bearing the
earth on its back. However, they had no explanation of the
support of the giant or the ocean! Some just find it hard
to accept the, truth that God "hangeth the earth Upon
nothing;' but Job declared that fact more then three
thousand years ago.
Who in the
time of Job, could have imagined that some day sound could
be visually on a strip of film and that the sound could be
reproduced from this by means of light, thereby
demonstrating the physical possibility of the morning
stars singing together?
As to the
height of the stars we find that primitive peoples,
unaided by science, did not consider that the heavenly
bodies are very far away. In the minds of primitive
people, even today, the heavenly bodies are fairly local
in their nature. They are surprised when they are told
people in America and on the other side of the earth, can
see the same sun and moon that they see. When young
children are asked, "how far away the stars are?" they
usually say, "Just there." They do not understand just how
far they really are.
Again we ask,
how could these writers write, as they did? If they had
been depending on their own knowledge, they could not have
written the things they wrote. They could only have
written it, if they were guided by God's revelation.
Indeed the Bible is the only accurate revelation of God's
will to man.
