Scientific Facts Stated in The Bible
In relating the history of the Israelites, the Bible also becomes a book about scientific reality. Here are some science-related passages from scripture now proven to be truth. Other Bible passages contain many more such proofs.
The Earth’s Free Float in Space and the Expanding Universe (Job 26:7; and 9:8)
At one time it was believed by some that the earth rested on a large animal or was held up by a giant man. However, at this same time (fifteen hundred years before Christ) the Bible spoke of the earth’s free float in space. “He hangs the earth on nothing” – Job 26:7. Science didn’t discover that the earth hangs on nothing until 1650, three thousand years later.
Early in the 20th century Edwin Hubble discovered the “Red Shift”. This proved that the universe is expanding. Every star is moving away from every other star, otherwise, light would be infinite, and we couldn’t exist. Job 26:7 relates “He stretcheth out the north over the empty space” and Job 9:8 states “Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea”.
Hubble could have had a head start in his research by just reading these passages which testify to an expanding universe.
Wash Under Running Water (Leviticus 15:13)
Encyclopedia Britannica documents that, in 1845, a young doctor in Vienna named Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, was horrified at the death rate of women who gave birth in hospitals. As many as thirty percent died after childbirth. Semmelweis noted that doctors would examine the bodies of patients who had died, then, without washing their hands, they would 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 each examination. When they did that the death rate immediately dropped down to two percent.
Now take note of the specific instructions the Bible gives to the Israelites over three thousand years ago to deal with disease in Lev. 15:13. “And when he who has a discharge is cleansed of his discharge, then he shall count himself for seven days for his cleansing, wash his clothes, and bathe his body in running water; then he shall be clean”.
Nowadays, doctors wash their hands in running water but it wasn’t too long ago that they washed only in a bowl of still water, thus, leaving invisible germs on their hands.
Information in the Blood (Leviticus 17:11)
This Bible passage says “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”
Today, a doctor can determine the health of our flesh by taking a sample of our blood and the test includes evaluation of the health of our kidneys, our liver, thyroid and heart. The blood can reveal diseases and conditions such as cancer, AIDS, diabetes, anemia and coronary heart disease. However, the great biological truth about blood revealing the health of our flesh wasn’t fully comprehended until comparatively recent years. As recently as 120 years ago people were bled and many died because of the practice. For example, George Washington was bled when he had become deathly sick, with the hope that it would help him but it didn’t. All told, doctors took about 80 ounces of his blood over 12 hours.
Nowadays we know that the sick need blood so they are given blood transfusions. Rather than removing blood, we replace it or replenish it because blood gives life to the flesh. More than a thousand years before Christ the Bible stated this recently discovered biological truth. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
The Bible and Oceanography (Psalm 8:8)
Matthew Maury is considered the father of oceanography. He noticed the expression “the paths of the sea” in Psalm 8:8, written two thousand eight hundred years ago and he decided, “If God said there are paths in the sea, I’m going to find them.”
Maury then took God at his word and went looking for these paths and we are indebted to his discovery of the warm and cold continental currents. His book on oceanography remains a basic text on the subject and is still used in universities. A statue of Matthew Maury in Richmond Virginia displays him seated in a chair with the Bible at his side. (Note that the statue was recently removed on the basis that it was associated with Confederate history which many people now wish to discredit).
The Circle of the Earth (Isaiah 40:22 and Spherical Earth: Psalm 103:12)
The scriptures tell us that the earth is round. Isaiah 40:22 says, “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth”. The word translated “circle” is the Hebrew word “khoog” which is also translated “compass” (depending on context) indicating something spherical or rounded – not something flat. The Book of Isaiah was written sometime between 740 and 680 B.C. Much later, it was Aristotle who theorized that the earth was spherical by observing ships’ masts disappearing on the horizon and by observing the curvature of the earth’s shadow on the moon.
Also, in terms of the earth being spherical, it is very interesting to examine Psalm 103. It refers to the endless mercy toward them that fear Him. Regarding this endless mercy, verse 12 states “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us”. The theme here is endless mercy for which He makes the analogy to continually travelling west on the globe since one would never arrive at the east ie., it’s infinite – you would always be going east. The only way this is possible is if the earth is a sphere. (Note that God did not say “as far as north is from south since, if you were travelling north for example, you would eventually come to the north pole and every direction would then be south. Thus, this direction would be finite and would not fit the theme of the chapter). So much for Flat Earthers!
Light Waves and Radio Waves (Job 38:35)
In the book of Job, chapter 38 verse 35, God asks Job a very strange question. He asks, “Can you send out lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, ‘Here we are!’” This says that light can be sent and then manifest itself in speech. Here I believe that God is referring to us today talking on the radio, telephone or smart phones even.
All electromagnetic radiation (from radio waves and light waves to x-rays) travels at the speed of light. This is why we can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other the side of the earth. The fact that light could be sent and manifest itself as speech wasn’t discovered by science until 1864 which was 3,300 years after the Bible said it when British scientist James Clark Maxwell found that electricity and light waves are two forms of the same thing, thus, they are lightnings!
The First Law of Thermodynamics: Genesis 2:1
Genesis chapter 2 verse 1 says “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them were finished.”
The first law of thermodynamics is one of the fundamental principles of our universe. Similar to the Bible passage, it states that, in a closed system, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transferred or converted from one form to another.
God says everything is finished. Nature is complete. The brilliance of the light-giving sun is finished, the blue skies are finished. The clouds drop rain cleansing the air and giving life to the earth. The tall trees are finished giving us oxygen to breathe and the rivers are finished teeming with fish and filling our oceans with water. The land is finished yielding plants that give us food – nothing has a half-evolved eye, ear or leg or brain. It’s all finished including animals, winged birds and the beauty and fragrance of a rose with blossoms. Nothing is evolving. The heavens and the earth are finished. In other words, they’re symbiotic, relying on each other (a closed system) just like science has found.
The Evapotranspiration Cycle (Eccl: 1:7 and Isaiah: 55:10)
In school we learned the earth’s evapotranspiration cycle where the sun evaporates water in all waterbodies into the sky where it moves and condenses to form nimbus clouds which drop the water again in the form of rain. Some of this is absorbed by the soil giving life to plants and animals and some evaporates again to the sky, completing a continuous cycle. Many years before this process was fully understood, the Bible makes detailed references to it. Look at the following passages: Eccl: 1:7 “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” Or Isaiah: 55:10, “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.”
Written By Lindsay Mills
