Category Archives: Bible and Science

Job 26:7 – ‘He suspends the earth over nothing’

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Does the Bible anticipate modern science?

One of the go-to verses for ultraconservative readers of the Bible is Job 26:7 –

‘He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.’

This, of course, is a clear and beautiful assertion of God’s sovereignty over his creation.

But does it anticipate modern science by picturing the Earth as a globe floating in space?

According to the Apologetics Study Bible,

‘Some scholars suggest that Job wrote better than he knew, for his observation approached the knowledge that the earth is suspended in space supported only by gravitational forces.’

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‘The Bible got it right: immutable physical laws’

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Hugh Ross, a Christian apologist trained in astrophysics, has long claimed that established scientific facts are supported by specific texts of the Bible.

In this post, he surveys various kinds of evidence that indicate that physical laws have reamined unchanging since the earliest moments of the universe.

Ross concludes his article by stating that:

‘Astronomers and physicists have affirmed the clear and repeated biblical claim that throughout the whole history of the universe and Earth, the laws of physics have remained fixed, that is, unchanged.

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“The Lost World of Genesis 1”

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Old Testament scholar John Walton has written extensively on the early chapters of Genesis.  These writings include a long article on ‘Creation’ in the IVP Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, a commentary on Genesis in the NIVAC series, a scholarly book entitled Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, and a more popular-level book carrying the title of this post.

In the last-mentioned work, Walton proposes a reading of Genesis 1 that takes account not only of the language it was written in, but also the culture. …

“The Genesis Flood”

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Pretty early on in my Christian life, I acquired two books about the relationship between science and the Bible.  One was Bernard Ramm’s A Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954) and the second was The Genesis Flood, by  John Whitcomb and Henry Morris (1961).  The latter was intended, in part at least, to be a response to the first.  Ramm had argued for an old earth creation and localised flood, whereas Whitcomb and Morris attempted to make a case for a young earth creation and a worldwide flood.…

Exodus 14 – The crossing of the Red Sea

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Exodus 14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the LORD drove the sea apart by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided. 14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left…14:26 The LORD said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward the sea, so that the waters may flow back on the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen!”…

The genealogical Adam and Eve

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Very often it’s put to us as a stark choice: either you accept the biblical account of human origins, or you accept the scientific account.  Either you believe that we are all direct descendants of Adam and Eve, or that we are all products of a long evolutionary process, stretching back a million years or more to a (non-human) common ancestor.

But can we have our cake and eat it?  Can we hold both to the essential factual historicity of the accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and to the validity of evolutionary science?…

Understanding the plagues – can science help?

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In his book The Miracles of Exodus (Continuum, 2003), physicist Sir Colin Humphreys argues that a plausible scientific basis can be found for the plagues of Egypt, as recorded in Exodus 7-11.

This is not to suggest that they can be ‘explained away’ as merely natural phenomena.  Rather, accordingly to Humphreys’, the miraculous element lies in their timing and intensity, along with the fact that they were predicted.

Instone-Brewer (Science and the Bible: Insights For An Ancient Text) takes a similar line:

‘These plagues are not portrayed in the language of miracles, except with regard to their timing and their ferocity.

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Adam: a historical figure?

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What options are available for relating the biblical account of Adam and Eve to the scientific account of the evolution of the human race?

Todd Beall lists some of the main alternatives.  Adam and Eve are variously considered to be:

(1) historical persons, though if there were many humans around at the same time, they would be chieftains of a tribe specially selected by God (Collins 2011, 121);

(2) archetypes but historical people, though not necessarily the first or only humans (Walton 2015, 96–103);

(3) literary figures who may or may not be historical (Longman 2013, 122); or

(4) not historical at all, though Paul thought that they were (Enns 2012, 120–122, 138).

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The Bible and science

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Attempts at harmonisation

The earth is a sphere, floating free in space.  Matter consists of microscopic particles.  There are mountains on the ocean floor.  Light can be divided into separate colours.  There are an incalculable number of stars.  The continents originated as one large land mass.  The universe contains black holes and dark matter.

These just some of the anticipations of the findings of modern science that are said to be found in the Bible.

Here’s a web site that lists 101 of them.…

How (not) to interpret the Book of Revelation

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I’ve suggested before that some of Hugh Ross’ attempts to harmonise science and Scripture are unconvincing.

In my view, he threatens to brings the Bible into disrepute by imposing interpretative schemes that are untenable.  He writes:

‘My interpretative approach is to identify a passage in Revelation…as symbolic only if its implied symbol is used and defined elsewhere in the Bible or if certain words within the context clearly indicate that the author intended something other than a literal meaning.’
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