How is science related to the Bible?

Answer 1

It is believed that the Book of Job was actually written before the Torah (the first five books of The Bible accredited to Mosaic authorship), which would make it about 4,000 years old. Even though it is one of the earliest books of the Bible, the Book of Job, revealed some facts that couldn't possibly have been known by any person in that time period. This is indeed one of the rare qualities that the Bible alone seems to demonstrate among all other ancient texts of this genre. It assumes things from the perspective of a knowledgeable outside observer, that simply could not have been known by the writer at that time. For example, Genesis declares that space/time had a definite beginning, and that form, and motion, are part of that "beginning".

In Job Chapter 38:19, we read such a statement from God Himself, in the form of a rhetorical question that appears to be from the perspective of a knowledgeable outside observer (which obviously the Creator would be). The Lord speaks of the " way " that light has traveled, and then asks Job, who can trace this "way" back to it's source? The Hebrew word for "way", literally means a path or a road! What makes this so interesting is that for 1700 years after the death, burial, and resurrection, of Messiah Y'shua, the entire world believed light to be a static medium, not unlike "the ether". Sir Isaac newton, an avid Bible student and devout Christian, suggested "the Photon Theory" to explain this possibility that light travels. He reasoned that perhaps light 'traveled' through space in small packets, or particle like segments. Now we are finding that particles in many cases may merely be transversed waves.

Job 38:24 gave Newton yet another clue to the mystery of light! The Scripture asks, "By what way is light parted?" Again in Hebrew, the word for "parted" literally means that it can be divided or apportioned! In Job's time, who could possibly have imagined that light could have been split into portions, or divided? Well this one is at least a possibility. Some insightful individual may have noted this phenomena from playing with crystals, or observing rainbow like reflections. But still, these things we now assume to be common knowledge, and take for granted, could not have been simply guessed at by any of these ancients. However, Newton began to explore his work with Prisms, proving beyond doubt that the Scriptural statement was indeed scientifically accurate.

Later, another Bible student named Christian Huygens, hypothesized the wave theory of light, and finally, a man named Roemer was able to actually measure its velocity. Now, not only can we virtually measure the speed of light with a precise accuracy, but we use it to measure vast distances of space itself. Now even 7 year olds in classrooms around the world, split light into it's primary wavelengths, and view their subsequent colors, as a matter of course, and as a fundamental part of their elementary course in science.

How about when the Scriptures tell us that the two major purposes for the creation of the Sun and the Moon for man, is that they are for our benefit, and that they are to be for us a way by which we can discern the days, seasons, and times? Wow! So simple, yet so profound.

So the Scriptures have given us two lights to guide and regulate our lives, both a celestial light, and that of enlightenment! Or could it be that Job secretly understood that light moved, and actually measured it, and knew how to use prisms, even before the alleged Iron Age?

One of the more amazing insights, and seeming impossibility, is found in the statement in Job that God "suspends the Earth on nothing?" Yet there it is, stated plainly in this 4,000 year old book. God tells Job that He has suspended the Earth on nothing! The Scriptures contain so many such interesting truths hidden within the History of God's people, that it is phenomenal, and way beyond mere chance or coincidence.

For another example outside of Job, many years after Newton, the father of Modern Oceanography, Matthew Maury, being inspired by what he read in Psalm 8, actually searched out and found the "paths in the sea", this passage implies something hidden that must be searched out, and so Job 38:16 was brought to light, that the something hidden, are what the Scripture calls springs (sources of water from even greater underground depths), and deep recesses in the bottom of the oceans (which are trenches). How could Job or anyone at that time have intuited such things. Because of Matthew Maurey's inspired faith in the word, he not only founded a whole new area of science, but saved millions of dollars and time in sea travel, and sailors never again got hung up in the doldrums. These paths, later confirmed as visible ripples in the sand on the ocean floors, are not straight lines, yet a craft can travel from one coast to another saving a lot of time by sailing in cooperation with the currents and winds that conform to these paths. To believe God's word is true does not imply that it does not contain error. In fact, God's word does record many common human errors, such as the one in the idea of Hannah, who saw the world as supported by something. In the Scriptures, God Himself describes a round earth, that is suspended in space on nothing! The Bible alone has revealed all these truths and many more, which science eventually proved. The Bible may refer to the utmost corners of the Earth figuratively, in so far as describing every space on it's surface as far as one can go in any given direction, but when that old Bible believing Christian at odds with the Hierarchical Church, Christopher Columbus, read in Isaiah 40 about the alleged "Khug", or roundness of the Earth (the King James interprets this word incorrectly as "circle"), he never hesitated to venture off with the same fullness of faith, that later inspired Newton. The diaries or journals of Christopher Columbus, which we now have, actually testify that he personally never saw his journey as holding the danger of falling off the edge of flatworld! Try and understand that the Bible is not, nor never claims to be, a science book, but these statements relative to science are all true. The Hebrew scriptures are the only place we find such declarations regarding all five fundamentals of science, i.e., space, motion, time, force, and action!

Answer 2

Science did not exist when the bible was written. But the various authors of the bible recorded observations that are accurate, or reported things known through folklore, and made other comments that are consistent with what is now known scientifically.

A "fact of science" has to go some way beyond mere observation of the commonplace. Thus "the herb that yields seed according to its kind" is an observation. The science that explains that observation is not in the bible, and would have to wait until genetics was understood.

Asking for three facts of science found in the bible assumes that there are three such facts.

Another Answer:

There are many facts in the Bible that Science has only recently discovered. Consider the 'Big Bang Theory' that says the Universe has a beginning just like it does in Genesis 1.

Consider the length of a day as the Earth rotates a complete cycle on its axis or a month as the moon makes its complete voyage or the year as the Earth completes its rotation around the Sun - but not the week - why?

It took forever to realize the Earth was round like a circle, yet the Bible knew:

Isaiah 40:22New International Version (NIV)

22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,

and its people are like grasshoppers.

He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,

and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

Genesis says animals, birds, fish, people were made after their 'kind' and did not evolve from pond scum or some lesser/different source. Today this is scientific fact. It also says life comes form life - the Law of Biogenises.

The Scripture states 'life is in the blood' and it certainly is. There are many more examples perhaps not stated in scientific language but the main idea is all the same.