This article is about scientific statements contained in the Bible. I hope you will look at it with a good deal of skepticism. So you should. The world is filled with simple folk who will make a shrine to a knot in a tree because it supposedly has the features of a dead “saint.” You are wise to consider the evidence before deciding whether something is true. Do you believe that the following biblical accounts actually happened?
Adam and Eve
Noah’s ark
Jonah and the whale
Joshua and the walls of Jericho
Samson and his long hair
Daniel and the lion’s den
Moses parting the Red Sea
If you’re an atheist, of course you don’t. To say that you believed such fantastic stories would require that you surrender your intellectual dignity. Who in their right mind would ever do that?
But imagine that you are viewing a luxury liner moving through calm waters. To your amazement about a dozen people jump off the ship and cling to a lifeboat. You watch as the rest of the passengers stand on the ship and laugh at them. You can understand their reaction. What those few people did was foolish. It made no sense. Suddenly, the ship hits an unseen iceberg and sinks, taking with it all who stayed on board. Now you see that those who seemed like fools were wise, but those who stayed on the ship and seemed to be wise were fools.
We have in the Bible a command to jump off the luxury liner of this world. Before you laugh at stupid Christians, ask yourself if there is any proof that its claims are true. Following is some compelling evidence that the Bible is no ordinary book.
The Bible informed us 2800 years ago that the earth is round. Isaiah 40:22: “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.” Though it once was commonly believed the earth was flat, it was the Scriptures that inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the world. He wrote: “It was the Lord who put it into my mind…There is no question the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit because He comforted me with rays of marvelous illumination from the Holy Scriptures…” (from his diary, in reference to his discovery of “the New World”).
Thousands of years ago the Bible stated the first law of thermodynamics. Genesis 2:1 (after creation): “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.” The Hebrew word used here is the past definite tense for the verb “finished,” indicating an action completed in the past, never again to occur. The creation was “finished”—once and for all. That is exactly what the First Law of Thermodynamics says. This law states that neither matter nor energy can be either created or destroyed. There is no “creation” ongoing today. It is “finished” exactly as the Bible states.
The Bible declared the science of oceanography 2,800 years ago. Psalm 8:8: “…and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.” The sea is just a huge mass of water; how could it have “paths”? Man discovered the existence of ocean currents in the 1850s. Matthew Maury (1806–1873), considered the father of oceanography, noticed the expression “paths of the sea” in Psalm 8. Maury took God at His word and went looking for these paths, and his vital book on oceanography is still in print today.
The Scriptures declare that blood is the source of life 3500 years ago. Leviticus 17:11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Up until two hundred years ago, sick people were “bled,” and many died because of the practice. We now know that blood is the source of life. It carries water and nourishment to every cell, removes the waste material from cells, and maintains the body’s temperature. This vital element also carries oxygen from the lungs throughout the body. If you lose your blood, you will lose your life.
The Bible revealed the secrets of blood clotting thousands of years ago. Genesis 17:12: “He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations…” Why was circumcision to be carried out on the eighth day? Medical science has only recently discovered that blood clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on that day. That’s when the coagulating factors in the blood are at optimal levels: vitamin K doesn’t reach sufficient quantity until after day seven, and day eight is when prothrombin is the highest, reaching 110 percent of the normal level.
The scriptures explained the Laws of hygiene over 3500 years ago. Leviticus 15:13: “And when he who has a discharge is cleansed of his discharge, then he shall count for himself seven days for his cleansing, wash his clothes, and bathe his body in running water; then he shall be clean.” The Bible states that when dealing with disease, hands should be washed under running water. Until the 1800s doctors washed their hands in a basin of still water, leaving invisible germs and resulting in countless deaths. We now know to wash hands under running water. The Encyclopedia Britannica documents that in 1845, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis in Vienna was horrified at the terrible death rate of women who gave birth in hospitals. As many as 30 percent died after giving birth. Semmelweis noted that doctors would examine patients who died, then go straight to the next ward and examine expectant mothers. This was their normal practice, because the presence of microscopic diseases was unknown. Semmelweis insisted that doctors wash their hands before examinations, and the death rate immediately dropped to 2 percent.
The Bible gave us the Laws of Quarantine over 3500 years ago. Leviticus 13:46: “All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is un clean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” Long before medical science discovered the importance of quarantining persons with infectious diseases, the Bible instructed it. In 1490 BC the Scriptures tell what to do if someone has a skin condition like leprosy. Laws of quarantine were not instigated by modern man until the seventeenth century.
These are just a few of the revelations that were written in the Bible thousands of years before science discovered them. After reading this article, even a skeptic should reconsider labeling the Bible as just an old book of fairy tales. And if these things are true could other things in the Bible also be true? If you need more proof, be sure and read, “The Bible’s 100 Percent Accurate Prophecies” in the March issue of the Good News Journal.