Where Science And The Bible Meet

AA, a lot of the posts following your original post are sort of "nit picky" about specific words, or over all conclusions. While those posts may be correct, I think everyone here is missing the bigger point.You've struck upon something important here. The people 2000 years ago had ideas about the world that we not necessarily correct. Obviously, the Sun is not 1 meter in diameter.Does this make the philosophy of these people any less valuable? Does this make their veiws on man's purposes on Earth less valuable? No.It does, however, make us have to consider some parts of the Bible as things written by people before the discovery of X, Y or Z.In the (not too distant) past, Doctors didn't know about germs and viruses. They didn't have any devices which could see them. So they thought that illnesses were caused by "bad humors" and frequently bleed patients nearly to death.You would not go to a doctor today who believes such things.Similiarly, you should not rely on a 2000 year old book to provide you with detailed descriptions of scientific evidence. The people then simply did not have the vocabulary to describe the science. You can't explain "germs" if you don't know what a "germ" is.

That sounds more like simultaneous solar and lunar eclipses to me. That's really miraculous stuff, but just a bit improbable from a scientific view.

First, let me say that I agree that there is no conflict between Science and the Bible, but not because there is any good science in the Bible, but because the purpose of the Bible is not to teach us science but to teach us about relationships; God's relationship with Man, Man's relationship with God, Man's relationship with his fellow Man and Man's relationship with the world we live in.There are parts of the Bible that like Just So Stories try to explain some of the reality of the world we live in, but unfortunately their explanations are almost uniformly wrong. That does not mean they are not plausible, often they are plausible, they are just wrong.One example I often quote here is the "Water Above, the Waters Below, and the Dome of the Sky that separates them."If you look at it from the perspective of someone living 4000 or 5000 years ago, their solution was plausible. It rained, so there must be a body of water in the sky. To keep the water up there, some barrier was needed, some solid lid that kept the water in place. So the sky must be some solid dome that holds back the water.But it didn't rain all the time or even in all areas at once, so there had to be some means of opening doors or windows in that dome to let some water fall through, then closing them to stop the water flow.The same can be said of the Water Below. They knew that if you dug a hole, sometimes it would fill with water. There had to be some body of water below the ground too, and like the Waters Above, only when you opened a hole (dug a well) would the water escape.The description you quote is not accurate scientifically. It may record an observation, just as the Waters Above, Dome of the Sky and Waters Below recorded an observation, it might even have been plausible, but the explanation is wrong.The people, like way to many Christian Pastors, that try to peddle the Bible as Scientifically accurate do a disservice to Science, to Theology and particularly to Christianity. By making unfounded claims, ones that if their student actually does any studying will be shown to be patently false, they set up a situation that often leads to the individual losing their faith.You also need to get a few things straight. The assertion that 2000 years ago people thought the sun was 1 meter in diameter is simply a lie. There is no other way to describe it.By 2000 years ago people had a pretty good idea of many things, that the earth was a sphere, what its diameter was, and from that, they could even get pretty good ideas of the relative diameters of both the Moon and Sun. Almost two hundred and fifty years before Jesus was born, the diameter of the Earth had not only been measured but several additional experiments had been carried out to refine those measurements.Once the diameter of the Earth was known, it was pretty obvious that both the sun and the moon were considerably larger than 1 meter (or any small object. It was clear that the Earth was slightly larger than the Moon and that the sun was bigger than the Moon and so must be further away).I will leave it to you to figure out how those two things must be true.But Science and the Bible are not at odds. They serve two different purposes. Science is, for the theist, the study of "How GOD did it." Every day we learn more and more about How this Universe works. We can learn none of that from the Bible.The Bible though is still a great resource to teach us about those relationships.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

(nit)Solar. You could not see simultaneous solar and lunar eclipses, and during a solar eclipse the moon's (reflected) light is not visible. {/nit}

I must wonder why some people have such a need to show that stories and details of the bible are not contrary to present scientific understanding. The bible was never intended as a scientific treatment of creation, life, the universe or anything.Except for the most diehard YEC, who ignore science altogether, it appears most creationists have a deep-seated need to twist, fold and mutilate all logic, reason and fact to shoehorn the efficacy of the bible into science. It’s as if they can legitimate their faith only by showing the bible to be true to scientific knowledge and strengthen their view that the bible is the inerrant word of their deity.God forbid that science should show the bible be in error in some dark technical way the bible’s authors could never have known. This might mean the authors were inspired by their idea of a deity, contemporary to their knowledge 2000+- years ago, instead of being inspired by the direction of a deity who is proposed to be omniscient and would thus know the true scientific facts.This appears to me to be a tacit admission that science is the stronger philosophy, the truth against which the bible must be compared and cannot be allowed to fall short.Well . I guess I can stop wondering. I think I’ve answered my own question.As anyone who cares to look honestly already knows, the bible falls well short of scientific fact and neither contortions of scripture nor twisted invocations of legitimate scientific skepticism can change this.Accept the bible for what it is; a 2000+- year-old tome on a philosophy its authors ascribe to one specific tribal god; an inspiring read in some passages, a butt-numbing bore in others. Edited by AZPaul3, : Correction of the usual culprits.

RAZD - my point precisely.

ArchArchitectYou cannot pick and choose, and then even bend what you choose.As was pointed out the language was 'gave her light'. If God was overseeing the formation of this scripture, why not simply state the indirect nature of the Moon's light?You completely ignore, the very next clause "and the stars shall fall from heaven", which demonstrates complete ignorance of the reality of the nature of the universe. If I apply your method I can find similar amazing insights in many earlier scriptures of religions you probably disdain.As comparison go read the "scientific" insights that Muslim's claim the Koran contains. They do the same song and dance - quite convincingly, to those who want to be convinced.Consider this: Not one a single scientific revelation of the nature of reality has come about by the literal or inspired reading of the bible - not one. It is always in retrospect that one can find the amazing supposed insight.

Dunno about that, IA. F'r instance, did you know that the human demon-cache is two thousand times that of a porker`s DC?(Mark 5:2-13) So either unloading a demon cache is marked by expansion and you need a herd to accomodate. OR the pork-holders have teeny-weeny caches.
Tho` sometimes, you can squeeze the contents of two men`s demon load into the same number of piggies (Matt 8:28). Might be related to the heat of the meat (though not the angle of the dangle.) If that ain`t a scientific revelation, you sure are a hard man to please.

Don't forget that the lible also tells us that something larger than the diameter of the eye of a needle (such as a camel or rope) cannot actually pass through it.You can imagine the chaos surrounding such mistaken object/hole interfaces before the bible brought this to the sphere of human wisdom.

Anaxagoras knew that the moon shone by reflected light in the 5th century BC. He also described the sun as being "larger than the Peloponnese".No-one ever claimed that the sun was one meter across, you made that up. Nor does the Bible give an accurate figure for the size of the sun, so I don't really see why you raise the issue.The statement in the Bible about the sun and moon dimming is consistent with the authors knowing what had been discovered several centuries previously, but hardly proves it. You write: But the words "as a result" are your gloss on the text; they do not appear in the Bible.As has been pointed out, the next bit of Matthew 24:29 proves that the author didn't know what a star is or how gravity works. Hence, the passage cannot be divinely inspired, because God would know these things.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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There are many places in the Bible which have been scientifically been proven to be accurate. For example, read Matthew 24:29. That scene can also be found in Mark and Luke. If you know anything about science, then you'd know why it is scientifical. Look at how once the Sun gets darkened, the moon also loses brightness as a result.

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What in Matthew 24:29 was proven by science to be accurate?That the sun can be darkened?
That the moon can be darkened?
That stars can fall from the sky?
That heavenly bodies can be shaken?The accuracy value of Matthew 24:29 is not whether each separate action can be associated with a recognized natural action, but whether all these natrual events have or can happen together as described.

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My point? Keep in mind that 2,000 years ago, people thought that the Sun was 1 meter in diameter. How can the people be able to tell such scientific facts and have them be proven right later after much debate?

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What evidence do you have that shows what first century people knew about the size of the sun?There is a difference between creative writing and scientific writing.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

That can't happen. All solar eclipses occur during the new moon, while all lunar ecliples occur during the full moon.

Yup. That's my point. I should have used a smiley.

Anyone who has actually seen a total eclipse of the sun also knows that there is a curious phenomena that occurs just before the sun disappears: the arc of light is broken into a number of segments (called Bailey's Beads) -- it is the last arc of sun being eclipsed by the mountains on the moon. THEN the corona appears.Page Not Found | ExploratoriumEnjoy.

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Yeah, maybe because that's not what I am talking about. I am showing that the Bible does have some points that can be scientifically backed up. Of course there are things in there that are supernatural, like stars falling from the sky. So what? They are supernatural. God is not bound by science, therefore, you cannot prove the existence of God through science - let alone anything. For people like you, that is very bad news because you wont accept that He does exist without proof. For me, I have 100% faith that God does exist. I do not need proof of His existence. He has worked so many miracles in my life that to say that He does not exist, is idiocy. I can list some of them for you if you want, however it would be off topic. I'll go to the chat room or something, I don't care.So I have done my job and told you that He does exist. You are not my responsibility. Your blood is on your own hands now. I have done what I needed to do - that is it.Edited by AdminPD, : Warning