Science within the Bible

Did you know the Bible makes several scientific claims which went against the grain of contemporary understanding? Even more impressive is the fact that, over the years, the scientific community has validated that those claims were accurate. How could this be? The Bible was written by some 40 different authors over a span of around 1,600 years (for more on why we can trust the accuracy of the Biblical accounts, see our post on Why only 66 books?). It seems clear that there must have been some sort of divine revelation given to the authors. To make it even more obvious, there are no scientific claims made in the Bible which have proven to be false. Even under the heavy scrutiny of scoffers over the centuries, the text of the canonical books of the Bible continues to show evidence that God not only exists, but has given us a peek into His omniscient realities.

Let’s first look at just 10 examples of science in the Bible that would have been impossible for the authors to have correctly understood during their lives. Then we will look at how God’s creation perfectly coincides with certain laws of science.

1)      Job 26:7 describes Earth as free floating. How could this have been known without revelation? The majority of those concerned with this issue during “Biblical” times believed Earth was carried on the back of an animal of some sort.

2)      Isaiah 40:22 and Proverbs 8:27 describe the Earth as round. The accepted thought during the time these were written was that the earth was flat. It was these verses that convinced Christopher Columbus that he could sail around the world.

3)      Job 38:16 and Jonah 2:6 explain that the oceans have mountains and valleys as well as springs. These facts were not discovered until the 20^th century. Psalm 8:8 also explains that there are paths in the ocean. This convinced Matthew Maury, an officer in the Navy, to study if there were paths in the ocean. He discovered many of them and wrote the first book on oceanography which is still referenced today.

4)      In Genesis 17:12 God commands Abraham to circumcise male babies on the 8^th day. In Genesis 21:4 we see that Abraham circumcised Isaac on the 8^th day and that God commanded him to do so there as well. Why? The Bible does not give reason and no one knew until recently. Vitamin K, when in the liver produces an element called prothrombin.  Prothrombin and vitamin K, are the 2 most needed elements for blood to properly coagulate. On the 8^th day they are at their highest levels. In fact day 8 is the only day that prothrombin reaches over 100% the normal level under normal conditions.

5)      Job 40:15-24 perfectly describes a sauropod dinosaur. God called it “Behemoth” and said it was the largest of all creatures (which referred to land animals) He made. He said it ate plants, had strength in its hips, had a tail like a cedar tree, strong bones, and explained that even when a river gushes into its mouth it is not bothered. The “fossil record” has shown sauropods as being the largest land animal that has ever lived.

6)      Hebrews 11:3 explains that the things we can see are made out of things not visible. We now know that everything is made from cells, molecules, and or atoms. Also, Genesis 2:7 and 3:19 state that we are made from the ground or “dust of the earth.” Scientist have discovered that our body is comprised of some 28 base and trace elements, all of which are found in the earth.

7)      Until the 1600s there was no understanding of the hydrologic cycle of the Earth, however, the Bible spells it out with these verses; Vapors rising in Psalm 135:7 and Job 36:27, water in the clouds in Job 26:8 and Job 37:11, falling rain in Job 36:28, Isaiah 55:10, and Ecclesiastes 1:7 even speaks of how the water returns to the seas thus completing the cycle.

8)      Leviticus 17:11; 14 explains that the source of health and life in our body is blood. Up until 150 years ago medical protocol was to bleed someone out when they were sick in order to try and rid the body of their illness. This lead to premature deaths in countless incidents, including George Washington. We now know to save the blood, even to the point of giving donated blood to keep one alive.

9)      Isaac Newton discovered that light is made of seven colors, which can be “parted” and then recombined. We know this as a rainbow (ROYGBIV). Job 38:24 claims that light can be divided. Newton’s discovery was obviously made centuries after the Bible was written.

10)   The Bible explains that all humans are descendants of one woman, Eve, who lived somewhere in or near the Middle East. In 1987 a team at the University of California at Berkeley published a study comparing mitochondrial DNA of 147 people from 5 different world locations. They concluded that all 147 had the same female ancestor. Further studies have shown that everyone apparently has the same female ancestor and that she probably originated in the area of where Europe, Asia, and Africa meet. The name given to this one woman is “Mitochondrial Eve.”

Let's take a deeper look into how the account of God’s creation coincides with key “Laws of Science.” Here, we will give a very brief explanation of these “laws” and how they support the accounts found in the Bible. It is important to understand these laws are widely affirmed throughout the scientific community:

The Law of Biogenesis says that life can only come from life and cannot come from non-life through spontaneous generation. It is interesting to note that most evolutionist will not claim to know how the first living organism came to be. Their theories mostly begin with life in existence. The Law of Biogenesis creates a huge problem for them but coincides with life being created from God, who has always been alive. While on the topic of life it should also be recognized that the Bible explains each kind of animal can only bring forth the same kind. Even though there are multiple theories concerning macro-evolution the only observable conclusion science can give matches this claim. The Bible also claims that humans were made to be different from other animals, which of course, can be observed as we live with conscience and a higher level of intelligence.

The Laws of Thermodynamics, or life of heat energy and how said energy operates. The 1^st Law of Thermodynamics explains that the total amount of energy and matter is constant, always has been constant, and always will be constant. In laymen’s terms, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but has always and will always only transfer from one kind to the other. In the creation account we read that after God created humans His creation was complete and finished. (Genesis 2:2) All space, time, and matter were made and would only be used and transferred from that point on. 

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics explains that in a closed system (which the Universe is) once useful energy is used it transfers to a non-usable form, and thus leads from order to disorder, or organization to disorganization. This is known as entropy. The universe, and the earth, are both captive to the laws of entropy. Nothing will get better on its own but will instead, break down to less complexity. This law is understood so universally that the scientific community has concluded the universe will experience “heat death” once all usable energy has been used. The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics creates another, entirely different challenge for evolutionist as their theory claims that things have gone from disorder to order and from simple to complex. On the other hand, it coincides with the Bible which claims that the heavens and the earth are withering away and decaying. (Hebrews 1:10-11, Isaiah 51:6, and Psalm 102:25-26.)

While science outside of the Bible supports design, and thus supports the conclusion that the world was created by God, it is also clear that science inside the Bible shows divinity and evidence for our Creator.

What is your response to these realities?

“I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, 
written by those who were inspired. 
I study the Bible daily.”  ~Sir Isaac Newton 

Why there are only 66 books in the Bible...

So how can we know there are only 66 books that belong in the Bible? Aren't there other books that weren't included? How can we be sure our modern day version of the Bible is reliable and accurate?  These questions have been the topic of many debates and popularized by modern conspiracy theories portrayed by unscholarly and even intentionally disingenuous authors regarding how the scripture was canonized and other foundational truths of the Christian faith. 

Logically, only God is the qualified author of true scripture. Men were inspired by God and recorded His revelation. The doctrine of inspiration has several variant views, which we will address in another post in order to expose the fallacies of those views, but the one most Evangelical Christians ascribe to is defined as the supernatural guidance or influence of the Holy Spirit on human writers so that the writings were without error and became the divine Word of God. According to this view, inspiration involves:

1) Inspired guidance by the Holy Spirit

2) Inspired personality of the authors

3) Inspired words

4) Resulting in an inspired text

As Matthew 4:4 and 2 Timothy testify, all biblical scripture is God inspired and comes from Him.  Man merely discovered which books those were throughout history. This was done by compiling only those works that had the "fingerprints" of God upon them as they were written. Contrary to the view popularised by Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, there is no evidence to suggest that the Biblical canon (the list of books accepted as authoritative inspired scripture) was even discussed at the Council of Nicaea, let alone established or edited there. So what are the legitimate fingerprints you wonder?

The basic "fingerprint" litmus test for orthodox scripture were:

1. It must be prophetic (written by a prophet)

2. It must be authoritative (it claims to be God's message...ie "thus saith the LORD")

3. It must be authentic (written by the person who claimed to be the author)

4. It has life-transforming power

5. It was widely recognized as the Word of God

6. It was reliable (the contents were consistent with the rest of the Scripture, the data is accurate, and there are no inconsistencies in the book itself)

It is important to understand that the cannon was formed over time, as scripture was recorded. Moses recorded the first five books (known as the Pentateuch) and they were taken immediately and put in the holiest of places. The book of Joshua was then added upon his death. Likewise the books of Samuel and the prophets of God were added after they wrote them. The so called "missing" books of the OT, known as the Apocrypha (meaning hidden or doubtful) are not missing and do not belong for many reasons. 

Let's look at a few of the reasons why these books are rejected:

First, unlike the canonical books, the apocryphal books were not compiled over time by the Jews or by the Early Church but by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in A.D. 1546.  This late date raises question about the validity of the apocrypha.  Also the apocrypha do not make either explicit or implicit claims to be inspired of God - some even specifically disclaim this (see 1 Macabees 9:27; 14:41). They were also written sometime between 250 B.C. and the first century A.D. but, according to Judaism, the Spirit of prophesy had departed from Israel by ~400 B.C. Also the apocryphal books are weak in style with so many of organizational and stylistic flaws it is obvious these were human writings unaided by the Holy Spirit.  The apocrypha are also mostly written in Greek instead of Hebrew -- the language of the OT. Next the Jewish historian Josephus gave the names of the authentic Jewish OT which correspond exactly to the modern day 39 books of the OT. Judaism, which produced these apocryphal books, have never accepted them as part of their scripture. Neither Jesus or the disciples ever cited the books of the Apocrypha in the NT as inspired. Jerome, the great scholar who translated the Latin Vulgate Bible, emphatically rejected the apocryphal books. Another key point is the Apocryphal books do not contain any Messianic prophesies. We could list more reasons but the ones mentioned here are sufficiently compelling.

As for the NT, these books were also recorded by apostles and prophets of God who were confirmed by acts of God. Their books were also immediately accepted into the growing cannon of Scripture. The church circulated these works recorded by the apostles. In addition, the early Christian church collected every one of the 27 books of the modern day NT and cited almost every part of these books in over 36,000 historical quotations! By the second century, there were collections of these specific 27 books circulated and translated into other languages including the Syriac and Old Latin. All of official groups of Christendom accept all (and only) the 27 books of the canonized NT as the inspired word of God, right along side the 39 books of the OT.

The apocryphal and gnostic books of the second and third centuries and later books, in contrast, are universally rejected by the true Christian church. There are many good reasons for this. (1) They were not written by the apostles whose names they bear, since those apostles died in the first century. (2) They contain many doctrinal errors and outright heresies. (3) They claim to contain childhood miracles of Jesus, but John specifically said Jesus did not perform any miracles until adulthood - John 2:11. (4) They contain highly embellished accounts of known gospel stories, indicating they were later fabrications.

An incredible amount of historical and scholarly research has been conducted affirming these truths. In fact, thanks to modern scientific research and the continued discovery of ancient documents through archaeological exploration (like the Dead Sea Scrolls) we now have what is arguably the best understanding of biblical culture and the most accurate and reliable translation of the scripture in history. There are more evidences and archaeological evidences confirming the books of the Bible than any other work of antiquity by an amazing margin. The chart below lists some of the most well known documents of antiquity, how many known original manuscripts have been found, and the time span from the first known manuscript and the time the document was authored.

Author - No. of Copies - Time Span

Caesar - 10 - 1,000 years
Plato (Tetralogies) - 7 - 1,200 years
Tacitus (Annals) - 20 - 1,000 years
Pliny the Younger (History) - 7 - 750 years
Suetonius (De Vita Caesarum) - 8 - 800 years
Homer (Iliad) - 643 - 500 years
New Testament - 24,000+ - 25 years

But as my ol' buddy LeVar Burton used to say, "You don't have to take my word for it." Do your homework and you'll find that the evidence for the reliability of the Bible is unparalleled in history. This is a miracle in and of itself.  God has preserved His word throughout the history of man so that we may know Him and know His will for our lives.

Chances are good that the Bible is one of the most unread books in your home, yet it is easily the most astonishing, profound, powerful, and influential book in history because it is the word of God. We encourage you to give it a good dusting off and begin reading.  Not sure where to start?  Begin with the Book of John.  Read and ask God to reveal himself to you through his word.

*** Citation for works by Norman Geisler and Elmer Towns