We think about the Bible as a religious book, a history book, and sometimes as a fiction book, but we do not think about the Bible as a...
We think about the Bible as a religious book, a history book, and sometimes as a fiction book, but we do not think about the Bible as a scientific book. It is true, the Bible's goal is to talk about God, about God's personality, and to teach us how we should behave for our benefits and to be acceptable by God. Those who believe in God and accept the Bible accept that the Bible is God's words and accept that the Bible is true.
However, the Bible is not just about God's personality, about history and about moral lessons. It is also about the universe and our natural world. If the Bible is God's words, then it must be true. And this is the main argument for those who do not believe that the Bible is God's word. The parts of the Bible which describe the events of how our world is formed do not match how science knows about it today.
Our view of our world changed many times and is still changing continuously. This is how our science works. However, if the Bible is true and God created our world, and if it is written how he did it in the Bible, then the method of how he did it must be true, and cannot change with our changing knowledge about science. This is a significant conflict between the Bible, religion, and science. Today's science does not think about the Bible as a source of scientific knowledge and unquestionable truth. When it did earlier, it was the main obstacle in the development of science. Most famously how Galileo said: "and yet the Earth moves."
Most readers of the Bible think of it not as a science book because it was falsified in that field many times. Yes, the Bible is not a science book and is not written for that purpose. However, if God exists and the Bible is his words, at least the historical events must be true. And not just the events of human history but the events when no human existed. An example that we might put forth is the Genesis, how our world came into existence.
The Bible was written by humans, by different persons. When we read the Bible, we must keep this in mind. These people lived in their age and knew about the world only a much as was known at that time. When they wrote the text, they wrote it through their minds, we should not forget that. When we interpret knowledge, when we interpret something that we do not understand, we utilize our current knowledge, and we see the events through our current understanding. We interpret events through our current knowledge. This is how the Genesis, for example, was written, and maybe this is the only reason why we are arguing about its scientific truth.
Let us examine the Genesis and try to view it openly. Can we find scientific facts that we know today in this text? The Genesis is the description of the Bible about how the world was created. Let us try to match the description in Genesis with the description of the science, how the solar system, the Earth, the biosphere, and the human race did form. Can we do that? Can we find matching points?
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Bible - Genesis 1.1: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Science: The Solar System formed from gas and dust, formed the planet Earth by gravitational contraction, the planet and the outer space is separated.
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Bible - Genesis 1.2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Science: The Earth is a slowly cooling hot and liquid sea of melted rock, covered with a thick layer of gas.
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Bible - Genesis 1.3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Science: During the formation of the Solar System, the Sun is steadily increasing due to gravitational compression. Inside the Sun, when the mass reaches a critical level, the nuclear fusion process that lights up the star start.
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Bible - Genesis 1.4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.
Science: The light of the Sun illuminates the thick gas wrapped Earth. Through the thinning gas layer, the light of the Sun starts to reach the surface of the Earth. Because of Earth's rotation, day and night appear.
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Bible - Genesis 1.6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.
Science: Because of the continuous cooling, the water vapor in Earth's atmosphere begins to precipitate and fall to the surface as rain. In addition to water vapor, liquid water is formed. The two forms of water, vapor in the clouds and liquid water at the surface, separated.
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Bible - Genesis 1.9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
Science: Due to the continuous rains, water gathers in large areas to form oceans and continents.
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Bible - Genesis 1.11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning--the third day.
Science: The simple life forms that evolved in the seas begin to conquer the land. First, the plants establish themselves on the surface.
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Bible - Genesis 1.14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning--the fourth day.
Science: As the water vapor in the atmosphere grows thinner, it opens up the cloud cover, and the sunlight directly reaches the earth's surface. The Sun becomes visible in the daytime sky. The night sky's main glowing body is the moon, and the stars become visible.
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Bible - Genesis 1.20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning--the fifth day.
Science: More and more complex lifeforms evolve in the seas, the animal kingdom booming. From here, the Bible does not look accurate: In the Bible, it is flying creatures that first populate the drylands. Science knows that this was not so.
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Bible - Genesis 1.24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Science: The animal species conquer the land.
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Bible - Genesis 1.26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
Science: The development of flora and fauna continues with the human race. The human species begin to have special abilities, which make them suitable to be positioned at the top of the food chain.
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Bible - Genesis 1.27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Science: During the co-existence of humans, the moral and spiritual values, and social hierarchy formed, and the first male and female roles were distinguished.
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Bible - Genesis 1.28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Science: The human race, as the ruler of the wildlife, spreads all over the land using the Earth`s resources. The human race has the role to govern over all the other species.
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These descriptions look close to each other. Is this just a coincidence?
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