Introduction
We hear and read repeatedly, that there is a conflict between science and faith. And by “faith” the writer means the Christian faith and by science he means evolution. The message proclaimed is clear, you have faith which cannot be proven, or you can believe science which is rock solid.
First, evolution is not science, it is an idea of what happened in the past and cannot be confirmed by experimentation. Many people confuse evolution with natural selection which is happening now and is bring about changes within species due to environmental pressure on the species coupled with the vast genetic diversity within each species. This brings about the change. Darwin’s finches and the peppered moth. are well-known examples of natural selection.
Faith is completely dependent on the object of that faith. In the case of Christianity, the object of faith is the Bible, then let’s put it to the test to see what the Bible says and what science says.
1 Jerimiah (33:22) states that the stars are too numerous to be counted.
People have been trying to count the stars since Jeremiah’s time and have concluded there are a bit over 1,000. But God’s word said that they could not be counted. Best estimates now put the number at 10,000 billion, but this number is increasing all the time. They are too numerous to be counted.
2 Psalm 19:1 states the that the heavens declare God’s glory.
How marvellous the night sky must have looked to the ancients who did not have the dimming effect of the bright lights of modern cities. It is easy to understand why the Psalmist states that it is the heavens that declare God’s glory. Such beauty and symmetry on an incomprehensible scale so appropriately points to the Creator. But for us, we have the Hubble telescope which enables us to see unimaginable celestial beauty. One image is shown.
3 God stretches out the heavens
Isaiah wrote in about 700 BC at a time when people thought that the stars were stuck on a canopy that covered the sky and the concept of the depth of the cosmos was inconceivable. Yet the Bible states that the heavens are being stretched. There is a consensus among contemporary cosmologists that the galaxies are not only moving apart but that their movement is accelerating.
There are eleven references in the scriptures to the fact that God stretched or stretches (makes ongoing or makes continuous) the heavens: Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 48:13, 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12, 51:15 and Zechariah 12:1.
4 The world is round.
The ancients thought the world was flat, to the extent that seamen would refuse to go on long sea voyages because of fear of sailing off the edge. In about 700 BC, however, the prophet Isaiah (40:22) recorded this revealing insight into God’s perspective of the Earth:
It is He who sits above the circle (חוּג, draw round, make circle) of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
As well, in about 1,000 BC David implies that the earth is round when he writes (Psalm 103:9):
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us?
A similar thought is conveyed in Proverbs (8:27):
When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he drew a compass upon the face of the deep.
5 The earth is suspended in space.
The ancient Greeks believed that the earth was held on the arms and shoulders of a giant named Atlas. A group of Hindus believed that it was supported on the backs of two huge elephants that stood on the shell of an enormous turtle that in turn was swimming in the cosmic sea. Other ancient peoples simply thought the earth was flat. But the Bible tells us that it is floating in space and nothing holds it up. Job wrote about 3,500 years or before:
He stretches out the north over empty space (תֹּהוּ, emptiness, vacuum); He hangs (תָּלָה, let down, dangle) the earth on nothing (בְּלִימָה, nothingness, not—aught).
6 The earth is rotating.
Luke 17:3 depicts Christ’s Second Coming as happening while some are asleep at night and others are working at daytime activities in the field—an indication of a rotating earth with day and night occurring in different places at the same time. A stationary earth is impossible because the side facing the sun would burn up while the back side would freeze.
7 Time had a beginning.
Both 2 Timothy 1:9 and Titus 1:2 tell us that Christ existed before time began. It is difficult for us to comprehend the absence of time. It was only Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity that showed time to be a physical quantity like speed and gravity, for example, and that it can vary with either speed or gravity.
Time dilation, which is time slowing, has been observed experimentally when an object is travelling very fast; in fact, time stops at the speed of light.
Time only came into being when the universe did. These verses tell us that Christ existed before the universe (creation) and consequently He existed before time.
8 Circulation of the atmosphere
Ecclesiastes 1:6 says:
The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
Here the Bible describes the circulation of the atmosphere, which was not contemplated at the time Solomon wrote these words, in approximately 1,000 BC.
This atmospheric circulation removes hot from the equator and distributes it to the southern part of the globe as shown in the diagram.
9 Air has weight
Job 28:25 states:
When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure,
People at the time would have been familiar with water having weight and volume, but not the wind or air. In fact, we live under a lot of air, about 80 kilometers of it pressing down on us. We measure it as barometric pressure. Without that weight we would not be able to breathe. We simply open our lungs, and they fill up with air.
10 Springs in the oceans
Job 38:16 states:
Have you entered the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
The idea of springs in the sea would have been quite foreign to Job and his friends the sea appears as one huge mass of water. But, as is shown in the image, the sea does indeed have springs. So, springs in the sea floor certainly do exist.
Image credit: https://streetwitnessing.org/geology-ocean-floor-springs.
11 Entropy (the degree of randomness or disorder in something)
Hebrews 1:10–11states:
He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
Who could have known 2,000 years ago that all of creation is wearing out? It is the case. The sun and other stars are burning away, the earth’s rotation is slowing and its magnetic field is decreasing in strength. The second law of thermodynamics, which in effect states that the entire universe is becoming less ordered and is being degraded, was not discovered until comparatively recently. Yet the One who inspired the writer of Hebrews knew.
12 Paths in the sea
Psalm 8:8 mentions the paths of the sea. The sea seems to be just a huge mass of churning water, so how could it have paths? Matthew Maury is the father of oceanography. Apparently, he was bedridden during a serious illness and asked one of his daughters to read a portion of the Bible. While listening, he noticed the expression ‘the paths of the sea.’ Upon his recovery, Maury took God at His word and went looking for and found many of these paths. His work on ocean currents, cut sailing times dramatically.
Maury Hall was named in his honour at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He also received honours from many parts of the world, including being knighted by several nations. Many monuments have been created to honour him, and he even has a crater on the Moon named after him. His important contributions to the fields of oceanography and ocean navigation have earned him many titles, including “Pathfinder of the Seas” and the “Father of Modern Oceanography” all because he believed that what the Bible says was true.
13 Each star is different
1 Corinthians 15:41 states:
The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
From earth the stars look the same; only recently, with the aid of powerful telescopes, has it been revealed that every star is different.
14 The hydrological cycle
The hydrologic cycle, which involves water evaporating from the sea, being transported over the land as clouds, and falling as rain, is mentioned in Amos 9:6, Isaiah 55:10, Psalm 135:7, as well as in Job 36:27-28 who wrote:
He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the stream, the clouds pour down their moisture, and abundant showers fall on mankind.
And again, in Ecclesiastes (1:7):
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; to the place from where the rivers come, there they return again.
The Bible could not make this amazing cycle any clearer. Yet it was not fully comprehended until many hundreds of years after these texts were written.
15 Clouds hold great amounts of water
Job 289:8 states:
He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
Here the emphasis is on how much water the clouds contain. The clouds hold millions of tons of water, and the consequences of this fact are seen in flooding rain that takes place from time to time. This point which the Bible makes, is not obvious because clouds appear to simply float across the sky.
16 Agricultural
In chapter 25 of the book of Leviticus, the Lord instructs Moses to tell the people to let the land rest every seven years. This seems to have two components to it—one agricultural and one spiritual. It is now well-established practice to allow land to rest periodically as continual planting and harvesting depletes the soil of its nutrients and allows for the build-up of viruses. Again, we see the wisdom of the scriptures. It is interesting that God did not instruct his people to let one seventh of their land rest every year on a rotational basis, but rather to let the whole land rest for one year. This is where the spiritual aspect comes in. The people had to trust God to provide for them during the year (sabbatical) the land was to rest.
17 Circumcision
Newborn babies have a heightened risk of continuous bleeding from a cut. The reason for this condition is that the infant’s intestinal tract has not had time to develop a healthy population of bacteria. There are approximately 500 different species of bacteria that colonise the human gut. They perform a variety of functions which facilitate living, one of which is the production of vitamin K which is involved in the biosynthesis of a group of coagulation factors, which cause the blood to clot. An important one, is factor 11, also called prothrombin. This condition is called hemorrhagic disease of the newborn, caused by vitamin K deficiency. The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, which is the world’s best-selling medical textbook, states that:
Vitamin K deficiency causes hemorrhagic disease of the newborn, which usually occurs 1 to 7 days postpartum.
Circumcision is a very bloody procedure. And the Bible states (Genesis 17:12; Luke 1:59) that it is to be carried out on the eighth day after birth. Again, the insight of the Bible is impeccable.
18 The chemical nature of flesh
It was not until the nineteenth century that chemists started to understand the molecular nature of all substances, including every part of us. But God said that He made Adam from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). And He told Adam that he is going to return there (Genesis 3:19). All the chemical elements necessary to make a person are present in the earth; it is just a matter of joining them in the right way: a simple task for the Lord.
The writer of Genesis would have had no understanding of biochemistry, the text demonstrates, once again, that God inspired the Bible.
19 Adam’s rib
It is interesting to notice, that to fashion Eve, God put Adam into a deep sleep and removed one of his rib bones. From this, He formed Eve. The rib bone is the only bone in the human body that will grow again if it is removed. Surgeons often, more so in the past, use a rib or part thereof, if bone is required in another part of a person’s body. Providing the periosteum (outer membrane or sheath) is left intact, the rib will regrow most of the time.[1] This fact of the regrowth of ribs would have been completely unknown to ancient people.
20 Life is in the blood
Scripture declares that the blood is the source of life. Leviticus 17:11 states:
For the life of the creature is in the blood.
Up until about the 1880s, sick people were often bled in an attempt to heal them, and many died from the practice. It is now known that the blood is the source of life. We are composed of cells; muscle, skin, brain, nerve etc, and it is our blood that delivers to them, their life-sustaining oxygen and removes their waste product of carbon dioxide. It carries all the body’s regulating hormones, as well as essential vitamins and minerals. So, if you lose your blood, you lose your life.
Quite possibly, George Washington lost his life this way as his surgeons bled him four time in a vain attempt to heal him from some disorder. He died after the fourth bloodletting.
21 Prohibition of marrying within the family
God forbad marrying within the family: Leviticus 18:6-18; 20:17; Deuteronomy, 27:22.
When a child is conceived, one strand of the mother’s DNA combines with one strand of the father’s DNA. Both strands contain mutations (errors in copying) and at conception, as the two strands line up with one another, the function of the part containing the mutation is taken over by the corresponding part of the other parent’s DNA and all is well. However, if the two strands contain similar mutations—as they would in the case where the parents were close relatives—when the two strands come together, the mutations line up and the mutation is expressed in the offspring.
As mutations accumulate, genetic disorders caused by intrafamily marrying are becoming common, not so much in western societies (presumably because our laws and practices were based on the Bible), but they can be in groups who have not had the benefit of scripture. Howard Schneider writes about Saudi Arabia’s alarming increase in genetic disorders such as thalassemia, sickle cell anaemia, hydrocephalus and diabetes due to intrafamily marriages:
Nevertheless, even in a country hesitant to discuss its most intimate problems with the outside, a public dialog is developing…. Religious sheiks counsel young men to “choose a wife carefully” and with an eye towards health.
A heading in the Digital Journal was quite explicit: ‘British Muslim Inbreeding Causing Genetic Disorders.’
Conclusion
Here, 21 biblical statements have shown to be scientifically sound which is powerful evidence for its Divine authorship.
[1] Munro IR, Guyuron B (November 1981). “Split-Rib Cranioplasty”. Annals of Plastic Surgery 7 (5): 341–346 (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7332200); C. Wieland, creation.com/regenerating-ribs-adam-and-that-missing-rib.
