Foreknowledge, the biblical trademark, is not only manifested in history but science as well.  The Bible writers recorded many scientific principles that only future generations would have the technology to confirm.  Historical prophecy is the truly wondrous phenomena which the prophets proclaim as the true stamp of the creator, but the scientific foreknowledge exhibited in scripture is remarkable as well.  We will look at it first.

CHAPTER 12

SCIENTIFIC FOREKNOWLEDGE

 The scriptures were written to offer spiritual rather than scientific enlightenment.  However, as with history, when the subject of the natural order was touched upon, it was done so in truth and never has this become more apparent than right now.  Numerous scientific discoveries made in the 20th century have confirmed what was written in the Bible thousands of years ago although the Bible’s description of our physical realm has always been challenged as inaccurate by the scientific establishment. So it is somewhat ironic that in the last 10 years that same scientific establishment has been forced to concede that the biblical prophets were, in fact, very accurate.

But of course committed naturalists will always deny the truth of the Bible, no matter how much confirmation it receives. They prefer to blindly accept what they see or hear in a media that is as overwhelmingly naturalistic in its philosophy as the scientific establishment that feeds it.  Skeptics would sooner believe what they see on “Nova” rather than consider a rational harmony of scripture and science. 

Of the entire Bible, the writings of Moses in Chapter 1 of Genesis, penned 3500 years ago, have been the most severely attacked.  But the first chapter of Genesis actually contains the most astounding words of antiquity ever examined when viewed from a modern scientific perspective, as we will see.  Even so, Moses’ epic has been lumped with other ancient creation myths as quaint and interesting but scientifically absurd.  Upon reading those other creation narratives, however, it becomes obvious that they are rooted in superstition and paganism and bear no resemblance at all to Genesis. (For comparison, at the end of this chapter are summaries of creation myths from around the world and the first 31 verses of Genesis, Chapter 1.)

Genesis is pulled down to the level of these pagan myths primarily because it says the universe was created in just 6 days, a transparent erroneous tradition among certain Christian & Jewish sects.  After all, as most high school students know, the big bang took place between about 15 billion years ago, according to various sophisticated methods of calculating the age of the universe, so a six-day creation scenario is nonsense.  As we have seen, however, that critique is a straw man and a properly translated Bible does not say that everything was created in six 24 hour days but rather in a series of “ages” of indeterminate length.

One of the biggest differences between Genesis and “the myths” regards time.  The myths, and the belief systems behind them, have all made the assumption that time stretches infinitely into the past, an erroneous belief in light of current big bang cosmology. Genesis, on the other hand, agrees with current scientific knowledge regarding a beginning for time and the universe.  In fact, the theory of relativity highlights the scientific accuracy of Genesis, not only in reference to the birth of the universe but in other areas as well. It is so extraordinary it is worth looking at a little closer.

We are going to consider Einstein’s idea that the passage of time is relative to the location of the observer within our universe and see if it has any bearing on Genesis being scientifically sound, although no attempt will be made to convey in these brief paragraphs a comprehensive analysis of the natural forces affecting the dimension of time. For that, a book such as Steven Hawking’s best seller, “A Brief History of Time”, would serve quite well.  Suffice it to say that many such explanations exist and mankind has indeed confirmed through experiments that time will pass slower for one observer compared to another observer if the first is either moving at a greater velocity, is positioned within a greater gravitational field or is existing during a different expansion stage of the universe.  As either observer approaches the speed of light, time for him will pass slower and slower. Light itself, that strange energy quirk that behaves as both a wave and a particle, is timeless, a very difficult concept for human beings to fathom, even though we can demonstrate that concept through observations and calculations. 

Those observations and calculations also indicate that time had a beginning. At the moment of the big bang, a moment predicted by Einstein’s theory, a white hot, infinitely dense dot of energy expanded into new space, cooling as it did so until it was cool enough for matter to form, and from that instant the dimension of time came into being.  That single discovery sets the Bible apart as supremely veracious when compared to all other religious literature, ancient or otherwise, and even when compared to some recent scientific literature, because only the Bible agrees with modern science that the dimension of time began with the creation of the universe.

The concept of a beginning for time is, like “timelessness”, hard to grasp. During the attempt, we catch ourselves using expressions like “before time began”, an oxymoron.  The word “before” is meaningless in the absence of time.  Because of the incongruity of such a thought process, we have historically attributed an infinite nature to our universe, especially regarding the nature of time. We have always thought of the universe as having no beginning or end. The scientific discoveries indicating that time had a beginning were not made until the 20th century, so until then scientists & philosophers could only conceive of anything, even “the gods”, as existing in “duration”, a time dependent concept. We all have trouble thinking otherwise and that is certainly not a reflection on our intelligence, as we simply do not have the ability to comprehend or visualize something beyond the boundaries of our own reality. We must simply accept that out universe had a beginning and is a “time”/space continuum, one dimension not possible without the other, and then stand astonished that a reality scientists are patting themselves on the back for discovering was first presented in the Bible as a theological and philosophical abstraction over three millennia ago. Is this just a rather remarkable coincidence?

The observations confirming relativity also expose various properties of light and how it relates to time. One property is that it can be measured in wave frequencies, frequency being the number of peaks observed in the wave per second. We observe varying light frequencies as a shift in the visible color band from red to blue but the variation in frequency of all light energy, such as electromagnetic radiation, gamma rays, x–rays, and so forth, encompasses a very wide range and the greater part of that range cannot be seen with the naked eye. Light varies in frequency partly because space is expanding, that is, the universe is expanding in size and light waves are stretched, meaning the distance between peaks in light waves becomes greater as the universe expands. 

Within a split second of the beginning of time, light energy was being emitted at a frequency level astronomically greater than the frequency level of the universal Cosmic Background Radiation currently being measured by astronomers. The ratio of one to the other has an interesting parallel with the age of universe as understood by modern man and the Bible, as we will see shortly.  CBR is now presented by scientists as another of the evidences for the big bang, its frequency being precisely what their predictions indicated it would be if the big bang theory is correct.

Because of the laws of relativity, time would pass for the emitter of that original light energy, relative to time for those receiving the same light energy as CBR 15 billion years later, at a ratio equal to the difference in the frequency of the light emitted and the light received.  Such is the nature of time and light.  Following is a selected portion of text from “The Science of God”, a book written by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a physicist with a PHD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Jewish Torah scholar, in which he discusses the concept of CBR as the basis for a “cosmic clock”, a gauge against which time can be measured from different perspectives.

“Light has the mysterious property of being both a particle and a wave.  It is the wave aspect that allows us to measure time over cosmic distances.  What we refer to as visible light is only one particular band of wavelengths in a nearly infinite range of electromagnetic radiations all of which travel at the same speed: the speed of light (c = 300 million meters per second in a vacuum)…. The shorter the wavelength, the higher the wave frequency and the higher the wave energy.  The velocity remains constant.

Our application (provided earlier in Schroeder’s text) of light in calculating the passage of time on the Sun relative to the Earth demonstrated the usefulness of light frequency as a cosmic clock.  It related time at one location in the universe (the Sun) to time at another location (the Earth).

A common error in exploring the brief biblical age of the universe relative to the discoveries of cosmology is to view the universe from a specific location rather than choosing a reference frame that embraces the entire universe and retains that universal perspective for the entire six days…

Just after the big bang, the universe was concentrated hot plasma with nearly identical energies throughout.  The relative passage of time varied only slightly, if at all, among its components but as the universe expanded and cooled, vastly different local gravities and velocities evolved, having vastly different rates at which local proper times flowed.  For our understanding of Genesis time, we must maintain the undifferentiated frame of reference that pervaded the universe at its beginning.

The lights we see in the heavens originate with energy released in stellar and galactic nuclear reactions.  But there is another source of cosmic radiation, one that has been present since the creation of the universe.  That is the radiation remnant, the echo as it were, of the big bang.  This cosmic background radiation (CBR) fills the entire universe, unrelated to any particular source.  Discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965, it is the only source of radiation that has been present and ubiquitous since the creation.  CBR frequency forms the basis of cosmic proper time, the biblical clock of Genesis. 

Concepts of cosmic proper time relative to the expansion of the universe and its perceived age have been presented in such prestigious peer-reviewed journals as Nature and the American Journal of Physics... 

Three aspects of the universe produce identical effects on radiation frequency.  Positive differences in velocity, gravity, and the stretching of space as the universe expands all increase (stretch) the wavelength of radiation.  Since the frequency of radiation (and hence the beat of the cosmic clock) is lowered in direct proportion to the increase in wavelength, this increase in wavelength slows the perceived passage of time.  The first two of these three phenomena relate to differences in the flow of conventional time--biological time--between specific locations.  The third, the universal stretching of space, equally alters the perception of time’s flow as reckoned by the universal cosmic clock.”

The use of an analogy here may be helpful in understanding how an expanding universe affects the perception of time.  If a conductor on a train moving away at 200 miles per day sends a postcard to his wife after one full day and the return mail train is traveling at the same speed, his wife will receive the postcard within 1 day of the conductor having sent it.  In it he tells her he will send a postcard every day while he is gone and that his time away is expected to last a couple more days.  He tells her he will be staying in a hotel.  But then he is informed by his supervisor that he must accompany the train as it moves further from his home at the same rate of speed, 200 miles per day. He is faithful and sends one postcard every day on the return mail train as it passes.  But the further away he travels, the longer it takes for the cards to reach his wife.  If he has been traveling for 1 additional day and sends his second card on the 2nd of the month, she will receive it on the 4th. If he sends another card on the 3rd, she will receive it on the 6th, 3 days later, and so on as he travels further down the track. 

His perception of time tells him he is sending one card per day and her perception of time tells her he is sending one card every 2 days. Their universe is expanding and so time is perceived by the sender of the cards as passing faster relative to time as perceived by the receiver of the cards.  The history of their universe is represented by card sending and receiving as historical events and is perceived as spanning less time by the sender than the receiver.  And that is exactly how we measure the passing of time. We quantitatively measure events of known duration taking place within a specific time interval, or “day”.  In other words, if history recorded that 100 generations of men lived in day one and only 10 generations of men lived in day 2, we would know that day one spanned more time than day 2.

For the wife of the conductor looking into the past, if she were told the time interval between the sending of cards had been universally standardized as a “card-day”, according to her 24 hour clock it would have taken two 24 hour days for a card-day to transpire. For the conductor it would have only taken one 24 hour day.  For the wife, her day would be shorter, from the universal perspective, because only ½ of a card-day would have been spanned in 24 hours.

If an expanding universe affects the perception of time, can the relative flow rate of time, at various stages in that expansion, be measured in some way?  The answer is yes, via the frequency of light.  And because light is energy and light energy frequency and light energy temperature are directly related, light frequency can also be measured in temperature.

The current Cosmic Background Radiation, expanded light energy waves left over from the initial instant that matter and time first appeared, is measured at 2.74 degrees Kelvin. We also know the universe is approximately 15 billion years old, a time period approximately 910 billion times greater than six 24 hour days.  So, from the standpoint of the “cosmic clock”, we would expect the perception of time at the writing of Genesis to differ with the perception of time during the first second of the universe by a factor of approximately 910 billion. If we multiply the current CBR temperature of 2.74 degrees Kelvin by this factor, we get a temperature of 2.5 trillion degrees Kelvin and this corresponds precisely with the temperature range believed to be present during the very first second of the existence of the universe.

  It would appear that the universe is six 24 hour days old if the frame of reference is the first second of the big bang and 15 billion years old if the frame of reference is the planet earth in Moses’ time.  It seems that the days of Moses represent the ages of God from the standpoint of the “cosmic clock” and are mathematically correct from the perspective of the laws of the relativity of time. Is this another coincidence?

From the opening verse of the Bible, history is recorded with the specific intent of tracing the entire creation of the universe from its inception at the big bang to the appearance of one man within that universe, Jesus Christ.  This purpose can be seen primarily in the recurring phrase, “These are the Generations of …”, an idiom first appearing in Genesis, Chapter 2, in reference to the history of the universe from the beginning to the arrival of man.  The next time the expression appears is in Chapter 5 of Genesis as it records history from Adam until the arrival of Noah.  From there the generations are traced through Noah’s’ son Seth until Abraham, then through Jacob’s son Judah (Abraham’s great grandson) and ultimately to Jesus of Nazareth through Mary. Throughout the Bible, from Genesis until the New Testament, the entire history of the universe and of mankind is traced in increments of time that span successively less years but with increasing attention to detail. 

We have all experienced the technology of a zoom lens.  The Bible utilizes the same technique as the history documented within its pages is examined.  Each twist of the lens brings the details of history into sharper focus but those details span less and less time.  This scheme was also applied by Moses as he recorded the 6 days of Genesis, from our perspective a period spanning approximately 15 billion years.

So not only do those six days represent literal eons, each succeeding day describes in greater and greater detail events which actually took less and less time. Our perception of the amount of time that transpired in each of those “days” would be different because in each the universe was larger exponentially compared to its size the “day” before. If the universe expanded at the speed of light for six successive equal time periods, from the perspective of someone measuring time at the end of each “day”, time would seem to be passing slower as the universe expanded because the frequency of light would be greater.  Because a larger universe stretches waves of light energy, decreasing the frequency and bringing it closer to the frequency of CBR as measured today, time would be perceived in each successive day as passing at a rate closer to our time scale now.  In other words, less years would pass during the last day than in preceding days because time would be passing much slower. The first day would encompass a great deal more time than the last day.  Each successive day from 1 through 6 would be shorter in years by a ratio inversely proportional to the size of the universe when the flow of time was measured. If our three dimensional universe expanded at the speed of light until it reached its current estimated breadth of 15 billion light years, and that expansion was divided into 6 equal light year segments, the total volume of space encompassed by the universe at the end of each of those six expansion epochs, relative to its size today, would be as follows:

At the end of day 1 it would be .0046% of the total. At the end of day 2, .037% of the total, .125% at the end of day 3, .29% at the close of day 4, .57% ending day 5 and of course 100% at the end of day 6.  Knowing this, we can figure the length of each of Moses’ six days from our perspective, a perspective telling us the universe is a total of 15 billion years old. When those percentages are converted to years using 15 billion as the total age of the universe, the perception of time spanned for the entire history of the universe at the end of each of those expansion stages is 69 million years for the first, 555 million for the second, 1.875 billion for the third, 4.44 billion for the fourth and 8.68 billion for the fifth.  The amount of time perceived as having passed at the end of the sixth would appear to be 15 billion years. In order to see how we arrive at the length of time for each of the six days, we will look at a simpler model. 

Assume Moses said the universe was created in two days.  If the universe expanded at the speed of light, after the second day the breadth of the universe would be twice what it was at the end of the first day. But the volume of space is the factor affecting the stretching and measurement of light frequency through CBR temperature and therefore the gauge by which we assess the relative perception of time according to the cosmic clock in an expanding universe.  If, from our perspective, the history of the universe encompassed 1000 years but from Moses cosmic perspective it encompassed two days, they were not necessarily 500 years each. That is because the volume of space after the second day, even though the breadth of the universe had doubled, would be approximately 8 times what it was at the end of the first day.   Volume is figured as V = 4 pi R cubed / 3.  This means the volume of space encompassed by the universe at the end of the first day would be .125% relative to its size at the end of the second day.  Time passed slower in the second day by a ratio correlating directly with the volume of space at the end of the second day so the second day encompassed 125 years and the first 875.

When we use the same principle to calculate the length of time spanned in each day for a six day time period, that is, inverting the percentages cited above, .046% for the first day and so on, the expansion epoch representing the least amount of time is day six, meaning it began 69 million years in the past.  As we look further back, day 5 began about 555 million years ago, day 4 about 1.875 billion years ago, day 3 about 4.44 billion years ago, day 2 about 8.68 billion years ago and day one began in a flash 15 billion years back.  We can now figure the length of each of the days. (We subtract the starting date for day 1, 15 billion years ago, from the starting date of day 2, 8.68 billion years ago…and so on.) The first lasted 6.32 billion years, the second 4.24 billion, the third 2.565 billion, the fourth 1.32 billion, the fifth 486 million and the last 69 million. These add to 15 billion.

Now how does the history of the universe and planet Earth as reconstructed by cosmologists, biologists, geologists and anthropologists compare with Moses’ description of that history as he segmented it into six specific epochs, with each succession spanning less and less time?  These are rough estimates, of course, as an assumption of a 15 billion year old universe had to be made because the age of the universe has not been precisely determined by scientists but the times and dates listed above harmonize beautifully, not only with current scientific belief regarding the timing of various cosmological and environmental events preceding our present day, but with Moses’ description of creation in six varying stages.

In Genesis 1:1-8, two days are recorded and billions of years are spanned. The universe was brought into existence and the primordial earth began to take shape as a “formless void”, was then stabilized as a planet with water, a source of light and an atmosphere that was ultimately converted from opaque to translucent. The “surface of the waters” is established as a frame of reference for the remainder of earth’s history about to be recorded. From that vantage point the “Spirit of God” describes the major environmental events affecting our planet in greater and greater detail as each day passes. His descriptions are from the perspective of how those phenomena would appear to the naked eye, as are all subsequent descriptions of “natural” phenomena in the Bible, a technique common even in this day of scientific enlightenment.  (We say the sun rises because that is what it appears to do even though we know this apparition is caused by the rotation of the earth.) The entire two-day process described in verses 1-8 spanned about 10.56 billion years, according to our calculations.  Day three then, described in verses 9-13 of Genesis, would have begun about 4.44 billion years ago and this is exactly when scientists say the earth was finally becoming ready to sustain life.  The Bible says that during the third day dry land first appeared, when the crust became solid, and life made its initial appearance in the form of plants, precisely agreeing with scientists who theorize that the first life was blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and that it began about 3.5 billion years ago. In typical biblical fashion, the entire history of a “generation” having immediate but not continuing interest is documented all at once. In this case the complete developmental history of plant life is documented in the day it is noted as having first appeared.

Moses continues describing several more successive major creation events occurring ever closer in time to each other and culminating with the creation of man.  In day four, verses 14-19, beginning about 1.875 billion years ago, the atmosphere was finally converted to one in which the sun, moon and stars could actually be seen.  The entire “day” was devoted to this process.  And then at the beginning of day 5, verses 20-23, about 555 million years ago, another astonishing agreement between science and the Bible occurs as the “Cambrian Explosion” is obviously documented by Moses.  The future development of almost every life form to ultimately emerge is mentioned, including birds. The dates are in exact agreement with geologists and biologists regarding what they refer to as the “biological big bang”.

From the beginning of the first day through the beginning of the fifth day the total time spanned is about 14.37 billion years and the days became progressively shorter. Day 5 lasts about 486 million years and then day 6 begins, described in verses 24-31, and it covers the appearance of land creatures of all types, including animals capable of eventually becoming domesticated, bringing us very close to the present as it begins about 69 million years ago.

Here another amazing correlation between Genesis and science occurs as the Bible says that the beginning of Day 6 featured the rapid appearance of land mammals. Dinosaurs finally went extinct 65 million years ago and after that mammals became dominant. The Bible’s primary focus in Day 6, however, is the creation of man as a creature in Gods image through whom would appear a messiah, and so day 6 ends with the appearance of a morally aware, creative, artistic and religious species of hominid that wore clothes, domesticated animals, raised crops and built cities.  Anthropologists version of Adam is Cro-Magnon man, the only hominid fitting the Bible’s description of “man” and they say he appeared very recently in earth’s history, as does the Bible. The guesses range from 100,000 years to 25,000 years. The Bible, anthropologists and archaeologists also agree that this species ushered in the first great civilizations in Mesopotamia around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. 

The scientific community is in perfect accord with the events recorded in the Bible, from the big bang to the appearance of modern man, when they are properly interpreted as illustrative highlights of the major environmental changes and life developmental episodes taking place on earth as it became ultimately suited for and inhabited by men. Regarding the beginnings and endings appointed by Moses to the six days of creation, scientists also concur with the dates that we can now assign to those beginnings and endings through calculations made with superior knowledge of our space/time continuum as it relates to the velocity of light.

It is inconceivable that an ancient nomad educated in an Egyptian culture that worshipped a host of pagan gods, without the aid of the fossil record or modern scientific equipment, could not only document those events correctly and place them in the proper order but separate them according to epochs that would ultimately match precisely with time measurements only made possible through the technological expertise of a culture not appearing for another 3500 years. It would be extremely difficult to postulate, with a straight face, that Moses could perform this feat without supernatural assistance.

But let's assume he got lucky and gained knowledge of the eleven major environmental stages he described without divine revelation and that 6 days and 15 billion years, as a correct relative time ratio linked to the frequency of light, is a quirk of fate.  The odds of him getting even luckier and placing them in correct sequence is easy to figure though, and would be 1 in 11x10x9...and so on.  That is approximately 1 in 40 million without factoring in the unlikely odds of him first picking the correct environmental events, and then placing them in a correct relative time frame, correctness being gauged by modern scientific knowledge. So as we open the Bible and read the first chapter of Genesis, we are confronted with the statistical probability that, because of its uncanny accuracy, it is the Word of God.  All other ancient creation accounts are ridiculously naive and primitive when viewed scientifically. (Several examples are summarized at the end of this chapter)

Throughout the Bible, valid scientific principals are recorded in language which not only pierces the shroud of ignorance worn unwillingly by the uneducated but which also speaks clearly to the modern scientific mind.  It displays foreknowledge in the area of science by consistently displaying truths thousands of years before man would come to know these truths on his own.

Moses was not the only biblical prophet who was ahead of his time. All the Jewish prophets recorded scientific facts centuries before man acquired the technology to confirm them.  Consider the following passages.

  "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, measured heaven (atmosphere) with a span  And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?  Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?"  Isaiah 40:12.

We saw in Chapter 6 that scientists have just recently gained understanding regarding the delicately balanced parameters necessary for a habitable earth.  In a passage extolling the omnipotence of God, Isaiah offhandedly refers to measurements of land mass, water, the atmosphere and dust. These must all be within extremely limited tolerances, relative to one another, in order for Earth to benefit from stable weather patterns and seasonal cycles.  Deviations from the ratios now existing between these fundamental constituents of our environment would cause extremes of temperature and/or a barren dry earth.  Isaiah apparently knew that God, in creating a habitat for man, used precise measurements.

"It is He who sits above the circle of the earth." Isaiah 40:22

"He stretches out the North over empty space. He hangs the earth on nothing." Job 26:7

Of all the ancient manuscripts, only the Bible clearly describes the position and shape of the earth.  The book of Job may be the oldest book in the Bible.  It was written more than 3500 years ago at a time when other cultures believed the earth was flat and some believed that it rode on the back of a giant turtle.  None of them postulated the earth to be hanging in empty space or to be circular in shape.

This passage also highlights the irrational destructive critical techniques employed by those who would discredit the Bible.  They say the earth does not actually hang and that it is not really a circle, but rather a globe. 

First, the Bible writers are consistent from beginning to end when speaking about the natural world.  They describe things as they would appear to a human observer without scientific measuring devices of any sort.  They used the jargon and idioms of the day, in the same way we would describe a major precipitation event as a “cloudburst”, a term technically and scientifically imprecise.  But do we discard information provided by meteorologists who use this expression?  We should not reject the truth of the Bible for the same tainted line of reasoning. 

Second, most translations of the Bible use the word circle in this passage but the Hebrew word translated circle can also mean circuit.  When this is pointed out a critic will say we are re-translating the Bible to conform with new information.  However, the idea of the earth traveling on a circuit around the sun is relatively new historically and the word circle is the word chosen in the 16th century by the King James translators when the earth was believed to be the center of the universe. The original Hebrew text, the one purportedly inspired by God, could very well have meant circuit.  To discount the Bible as errant and deny its overall message because of scriptures like this is prejudicial, but such is the nature of biblical criticism.  Critics should be marveling at how accurately the writers described the earth's shape/motion, and position, at a time in history when other cultures were aboriginal in their “scientific” descriptions of nature.

"For He draws up drops of water, Which distill as rain from the mist, Which the clouds drop down And pour abundantly on man.  Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of clouds, The thunder from His canopy?" Job 36:27-29 

  "He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightning  for the rain; He brings the wind out of His treasures." Psalm 135:7

 "The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit.  All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again." Ecclesiastes 1:6-7

These verses are truly remarkable as to the accuracy and understanding displayed in their description of the earth's weather patterns and hydrologic cycle.  For us these patterns and cycles do not seem very difficult to comprehend but would that be the case if our culture did not have the advantage of modern weather monitoring equipment?  Probably not.  But for ancient writers to casually connect the cause and effect relationship of lightning and precipitation and to correctly note the vast circular atmospheric currents as well as the cycle of precipitation, erosion, evaporation and condensation is fairly remarkable.  We needed satellites.

 As we observe areas in which the Bible describes our environment, we must remember this.  The writers were not attempting to demonstrate their knowledge of the laws of nature.  They used these passages as tools to teach basic truths about God and our relationship to Him.  The confidence and elegance displayed in their writings on the natural order becomes even more impressive as we realize it was incidental to the main message.  They noted how the universe began and how it works.  Their descriptions can not be refuted.  Reflect on these ancient scriptures regarding blood.

  "For the life of the flesh is in the blood ... for it is the life of all flesh.  Its blood sustains its life..."  Leviticus 17:11-14

 "All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another of birds." 1 Corinthians 15:39

"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation." Acts 17:26 

These passages describe the primary life sustaining role of blood and then describe some of its characteristics.  We have not been able to confirm these scriptures until the present age.  We have been butchering animals and each other for centuries.  Because the blood & flesh of various life forms appeared similar in composition, mankind drew some erroneous conclusions, thinking blood was blood, whether from man or beast.  Prior to the scientific age, only those who believed the Bible thought otherwise.  Now, of course, we know that the blood of varying species is different but that the blood of men is the same, regardless of ethnic background, just as the Bible says. But we needed DNA technology to confirm this biological fact.

Following are more passages of scripture displaying insight into our physical universe.

"Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.  They will perish, but You will endure; yes, all of them will grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed..  But You are the same, and Your years will have no end." Psalm 102:25-27 

This is a clear statement of the second law of thermodynamics as it applies to the universe, a very modern concept.  Until recently scientists believed the universe to be infinitely old and potentially limitless as a source of energy.  We now know the universe is winding down, just as the Bible says.

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Hebrews 11:3 

This reference to the microscopically small structure of matter is way ahead of its time.

"When He assigned to the sea its limit, So that the waters would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth." Proverbs 8:29 

Again, the Bible spontaneously refers to parameters for our life support system that reflect limits.

"And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage."  Deuteronomy 4:19  

The Bible warns us to avoid the spiritual trap of worshipping the creation rather than the Creator.  In the above passage that warning is the primary message.  But the verse also declares that the entire "host of heaven" was furnished with us in mind. As we have already seen, the odds are that we are alone in the universe and that only our solar system, out of trillions of star systems, is capable of sustaining life.  That concept, called the strong anthropic principle, only appeared recently in the scientific community.  It appeared because of the explosion in knowledge regarding the design principles apparent for our planet.  But the Bible has been saying it for 3500 years, another example in which it forecasts a scientific concept well before its time. 

Naturalist theory, on the other hand, mandates that we eventually discover life elsewhere.  But the search has been absolutely fruitless, including the searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI projects) dramatized by Hollywood and the expensive searches initiated by NASA on Mars. It seems odd that the people supporting these SETI projects operate on the premise that non random signals are evidence of intelligence but reject the non-random sequences of amino acids in DNA as evidence of that sequence having originated from an intelligent source.  

In any case, we have seen that the Bible unquestionably exhibits scientific foreknowledge and of course the single most astounding scientific revelation found in the Bible regards the nature of time.  The Bible announces that the universe does not recede into the infinite past and that time itself had a beginning.  In a book written thousands of years ago we can read what scientists have been reluctant to accept until very recently, as recently as the 1990s.  That fact, in and of itself, lends astonishing credence to the Bible.

As various truths are unfolded by scientists, they invariably fall in line with the Word of God. The laws regarding diet and cleanliness found in the Book of Leviticus have been repeatedly examined by modern medical practitioners and they consistently come away amazed that a book written so long ago described disease prevention techniques we use today but were still failing to utilize in our hospitals as late as the 1800’s.   We could pursue the phenomena of scientific foreknowledge displayed in the Bible until a separate book became necessary.  Many have done so and the conclusions are always the same.  If the scientific community had consulted the Holy Scriptures first, many dead end lines of research could have been avoided.

FOOTNOTE:

The primary intent of this chapter has been to mitigate any conflict between Genesis and science. So we considered the 6 days of creation from a unique perspective.  There are other ways to view Genesis as well.  For example there is the “prophetic  interpretation”.  Those holding to this view-point out that Genesis 1 is not written in the first person, rather it is as if someone is seeing and hearing what is happening, say Moses, in a vision or direct revelation from God, and is recording what he sees and hears. Suppose that God reveals Genesis 1 to the prophet for a week. Each day of that week God reveals a new portion of His creative work. In any case, read Genesis 1 and compare it to the creation myths summarized below.  They are obviously in a different league altogether.

GENESIS VERSION OF CREATION

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.

Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.

Gen 1:10 And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.

Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.

Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.

Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Gen 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

VARIOUS CREATION MYTHS

Norse Creation Myth:

At first there was only a great void, Ginnungagap. Eventually a region of mist and ice, Niflheim, was formed in the North and a region of fire, Muspellsheim, was formed in the South. The great world-tree, Yggdrasil, reached through all time and space, but was perpetually under attack from Nidhogg, the evil serpent. The fountain of Mimir, source of hidden wisdom, lay under a root of the tree. Niflheim came into contact with Muspellsheim, and the fires melted the ice, which yielded Ymir, the Frost-Giant with a human form. From Ymir's sweat came a race of Giants, so that a huge cow (Audhumla) was created to feed them. One day the cow licked the ice and hair emerged, on the next day a head, and on the third day Buri emerged, fully formed. Buri begot a son, Bur, who in turn had three sons: Odin, Vili, and Ve. These three were a new race, not Giants but gods. They banded together and murdered Ymir. Most of the other Giants drowned in Ymir's blood, which created a great sea. From Ymir's body the three gods made solid land, the earth, and from his skull they made the heavens. They then created a race of dwarves from the maggots that fed upon Ymir's body. This was followed by the creation of the first man and the first woman. They shaped the man from an ash tree and the woman from a vine.

Babylonian Creation Myths

From the mixing of Apsu (sweet water) and Tiamat (salt water) there arose the gods, Mummu (the waves), and Lakhmu and Lakhamu (gigantic twin serpents). The serpents produced Anshar (heaven) and Kishar (earth). From these two came Anu, Enlil, and Ea, as well as all the other gods of the sky, earth, and underworld. Apsu and Tiamat became angered because of the noise made by such a large group of gods, and began talking about killing off their progeny so they could get some rest. When Ea, the all-knowing, learned of this he used his magic to capture Apsu and Mummu. Tiamat was furious and raised a large army of gods and freaks to battle Ea and his cohorts. Anu and Ea became frightened and Ea created Marduk to battle Tiamat. Marduk promised to do so if he were granted supremacy over all the other gods. All the gods agreed and Marduk, armed with bow and arrows, lightning, the winds, a hurricane, and a special net sallied forth to battle Tiamat. When they clashed, Marduk caught Tiamat in his special net, and as she opened her mouth to swallow him, loosed the hurricane into her mouth. As she swelled from the hurricane within her, Marduk slew her with an arrow into her belly. Then he cast the net again capturing her army within it. These he chained and cast into the underworld. From her corpse the world is created. He was then proclaimed God of the Gods.

Another Babylonia Creation Myth

In the beginning there was only darkness and water. Out of this Chaos there came many odd creatures: men with wings, two faces, or both; creatures that were male and female combined; humans with goat feet; others who were part horse and part man. These creatures were ruled over by Omorka, the (female) moon. Marduk cut Omorka in two, and separated the the halves into sky and earth, and destroyed all of the odd beings that existed. Then Marduk commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, and from the blood and clay of the earth, he created humans, animals, stars, sun, moon, and everything that is.

Egyptian Creation Myth

Only the ocean existed at first. Then Ra (the sun) came out of an egg that appeared on the surface of the water. Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood on Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky. Ra ruled over all. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped by Isis, his sister-wife. Set, however, hated his brother and killed him. Isis then embalmed her husband's body with the help of the god Anubis, who thus became the god of embalming. The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king of the netherworld, the land of the dead. Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the earth.

Another Egyptian Creation Myth:

At first there was only Nun, the primal ocean of chaos that contained the beginnings of everything to come. From these waters came Ra who, by himself, gave birth to Shu and Tefnut. Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture gave birth to Geb and Nut, the earth god and the sky goddess. And so the physical universe was created. Men were created from Ra's tears. They proved to be ungrateful so Ra, and a council of gods, decided they should be destroyed. Hathor was dispatched to do the job. She was very efficient and slaughtered all but a remnant, when Ra relented and called her off. Thus was the present world created. Against Ra's orders, Geb and Nut married. Ra was incensed and ordered Shu to separate them, which he did. But Nut was already pregnant, although unable to give birth as Ra had decreed she could not give birth in any month of any year. Thoth, the god of learning, decided to help her and gambling with the moon for extra light, was able to add five extra days to the 360-day calendar. On those five days Nut gave birth to Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys successively. Osiris became the symbol of good, while Set became the symbol of evil. And thus the two poles of morality were fixed once and for all.

Celtic Creation Myth

The giants are the gods of old. In the first winter, a mighty giant was created from hoarfrost. And when fire came, he melted. From the enormous bulk of his body came the world. From his blood flowed the sea, from his bones the mountains, from his hair the forests, from his skull the sky. In the centre of the Earth, on hills rising high as mountains, live the gods, and below seethes the Underworld, land of the dead and all their secrets.

Yoruba Creation/Flood Myth

In the beginning was only the sky above, water and marshland below. The chief god Olorun ruled the sky, and the goddess Olokun ruled what was below. Obatala, another god, reflected upon this situation, then went to Olorun for permission to create dry land for all kinds of living creatures to inhabit. He was given permission, so he sought advice from Orunmila, oldest son of Olorun and the god of prophecy. He was told he would need a gold chain long enough to reach below, a snail's shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut, all of which he was to carry in a bag. All the gods contributed what gold they had, and Orunmila supplied the articles for the bag. When all was ready, Obatala hung the chain from a corner of the sky, placed the bag over his shoulder, and started the downward climb. When he reached the end of the chain he saw he still had some distance to go. From above he heard Orunmila instruct him to pour the sand from the snail's shell, and to immediately release the white hen. He did as he was told, whereupon the hen landing on the sand began scratching and scattering it about. Wherever the sand landed it formed dry land, the bigger piles becoming hills and the smaller piles valleys. Obatala jumped to a hill and named the place Ife. The dry land now extended as far as he could see. He dug a hole, planted the palm nut, and saw it grow to maturity in a flash. The mature palm tree dropped more palm nuts on the ground, each of which grew immediately to maturity and repeated the process. Obatala settled down with the cat for company. Many months passed, and he grew bored with his routine. He decided to create beings like himself to keep him company. He dug into the sand and soon found clay with which to mold figures like himself and started on his task, but he soon grew tired and decided to take a break. He made wine from a nearby palm tree, and drank bowl after bowl. Not realizing he was drunk, Obatala returned to his task of fashioning the new beings; because of his condition he fashioned many imperfect figures. Without realizing this, he called out to Olorun to breathe life into his creatures. The next day he realized what he had done and swore never to drink again, and to take care of those who were deformed, thus becoming Protector of the Deformed. The new people built huts as Obatala had done and soon Ife prospered and became a city. All the other gods were happy with what Obatala had done, and visited the land often, except for Olokun, the ruler of all below the sky. She had not been consulted by Obatala and grew angry that he had usurped so much of her kingdom. When Obatala returned to his home in the sky for a visit, Olokun summoned the great waves of her vast oceans and sent them surging across the land. Wave after wave she unleashed, until much of the land was underwater and many of the people were drowned. Those that had fled to the highest land beseeched the god Eshu who had been visiting, to return to the sky and report what was happening to them. Eshu demanded sacrifice be made to Obatala and himself before he would deliver the message. The people sacrificed some goats, and Eshu returned to the sky. When Orunmila heard the news he climbed down the golden chain to the earth, and cast many spells which caused the flood waters to retreat and the dry land reappear. So ended the great flood.

Vodun (Haitian evolution of Yoruba mythology) Creation Myth

Damballah (Sky-serpent loa; wise and loving father) created all the waters of the earth. The movement of his 7,000 coils, when in his serpent guise, formed hills and valleys on earth and brought forth stars and planets in the heavens. He shed his skin in the sunlight, releasing all the waters over the land. The sun shone in the water and created the rainbow. Damballah loved the rainbow's beauty and made her his wife, Aida-Wedo; she shares his function as cosmic protector and giver of blessings.

Navajo:

The people traveled through four worlds before climbing a reed growing from the bottom of the Lake of Changing Waters to this present world. First Man and First Woman with their two first children, Changing Twins, were in the forefront. First Man and First Woman produced a mountain. They populated it with plants and animals. On the peak they placed a black bowl with two blackbird eggs in it. They fastened down the peak with a rainbow. One twin took some clay from riverbed and it fashioned itself into a bowl. The other twin found reeds growing and shaped them into a water basket. They picked up stones from the ground which became axes, knives, spear points and hammers in their hands.

Aztec