The Bible is not a science textbook, here’s why that is ok


                  I wanted to do a short little essay on why I think the Bible is not a science textbook, and why I think that is ok. We have plenty of sciences being studied that do not stir up much controversy among the religious communities, but we do have this supposed showdown over scripture vs evolution. The Bible was written not to communicate the mechanisms behind the operation of life and the universe, but to talk about the divine inspiration of humanity, the nature of our fallen state as humans separated by God, the wonderful love and mercy that God has on us by sacrificing his only son to restore the God-human relationship, and the ultimate destiny of mankind should they choose the gift of salvation offered by Jesus or reject it.
              Now, I do hold my doctorate in Chemistry, and I teach university courses in Chemistry and I advocate that science and faith are not mutually exclusive. Just because I think that the Bible is not the place to learn science does not mean that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. Granted, there are multiple interpretations of Genesis 1 and 2 that lead to schools of thought like Intelligent Design and Theistic Evolution, but the point of this post is not to defend of critique any of these sets of ideas. Rather, let us look at the Bible as a whole, and pick out some examples of scripture and science agreeing.
              First off, the beginning of the universe. In the ancient world, and even up until recently, the universe was thought to be “past eternal”, with the idea of a universe beginning being chalked up to religious fanaticism. Georges Lemaître (a Belgian Priest I might add) proposed the Big Bang theory in the 1920s, and the name “Big Bang” was given as a joke because people scoffed at the idea, and the name stuck. Then the experimental evidence from Hubble came in, showing a “red shift” of background radiation from the universe, indicating universal expansion, which extrapolates back to a time finite beginning for the universe, showing that the Bible is scientifically accurate in that sense.
              As I said before, I will not go into Genesis 1 and 2 rigorously here, because I think that deserves it’s own series of posts, but I will venture in and look at one detail of the origin of man, that we are made from the dust of the earth. We can see that man is physically made up of the same elements that we find on earth around us, which shows at minimum an anecdotal connection of scripture and science. We see many, many more of these relationships that build a very interesting case for the scientific accuracy of scripture. The ceremonial cleanliness laws for Israel shown in Deuteronomy and elsewhere in the Old Testament, actually did help to prevent bacterial and viral diseases from spreading (such as burying excrement outside of the camp and not touching blood or dead carcasses). We can go back to universal expansion and look at verses that talk about God “stretching out the heavens” (though I think that one may be reaching a bit by using a literalistic English interpretation, but I just want to get people thinking). We see the idea of seasons and cyclical patterns in Daniel, Ecclesiastes, and elsewhere in scripture. I could go on, but I think I will stop with one last one. With regards to the flood of Noah, many people argue about whether it was a global or local flood, or if it happened at all. I personally follow the idea of a global flood, because we have plenty of anecdotal evidence from ancient cultures around the world about a disastrous flood. I know the sea and water have a primal effect on human imagination, but I do find it interesting that almost every ancient culture that I have studied has some form of flood mythology, and I think that stems from the repopulation of the Earth through Noah’s bloodline as described in scripture.
              Have you thought about the relation of scripture and science? What are you thoughts on the subject? Let’s have a conversation and see if we can find a deeper understanding of God’s creation and his Word to us humans. God bless and have a good rest of your day.
References:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/personal_hygiene
https://www.openbible.info/topics/science

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