The Science in the Bible

The Bible is not a science book but where it speaks to science it is accurate.

Today there is a popular conception being promoted by secularists that the Bible is anti-scientific and Christians are uneducated. Is that a fair statement? Are Christians unenlightened? Often cited are the actions of the medieval Roman Church with it's geocentric beliefs. This prime example that is most often presented by skeptics will point out that the Roman Catholic Church officials held to Aristotle’s geocentric philosophy (that the planets and sun itself revolved around a stationary earth). Included in this argument is how the Roman Catholic Church persecuted the astronomer's Galileo (who was imprisoned) and Bruno (who was burned at the stake). One of the fallacies of this argument is that it has nothing to do with the Bible, or Christians at all since Bruno was said to have been executed for other heresy. Galileo himself was a devout Christian. Galileo in his letter to Castelli on Dec. 13, 1613, observed that "scripture deals with natural matters in such a cursory and allusive way that it looks as though it wanted to remind us that its business . . . is about the soul and that, as concerns Nature, it is willing to adjust its language to the simple minds of the people." ** The Roman Catholic Church later apologized for the atrocities but it's detractors gladly confuse the superstitions of the medieval church with the Bible, which in my opinion, is intellectual hypocrisy on their part.

Galileo 1564 - 1642

When Galileo observed the Milky Way with his primitive telescope, he realized that it was a mass of stars “so numerous as to be almost beyond belief.” Astrologers at the time believed there were between 3000-5000 stars. Going back three thousand years before Galileo the Bible says in the book of Genesis that the stars are as numerous as the sand of the sea shore. (Genesis 22:17). And with regard to the earth? Let's look at one of the oldest books of the Bible, Job. Job was written over a thousand years before Aristotle. Consider Job's astounding observation:
“He...(God)...hangeth the earth upon nothing.” – Job 26:7

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** Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1955), p. 39.


photo "Super Bubble" courtesy of NASA