Secularly Verifiable Evidence for Biblical Inerrancy

I was wondering what everyone thought about portions in the Bible which can be used as objective evidence for its inerrancy. There are many instances in the Bible where scientific fact is spoken before science discovered them to be fact.......for instance, the first thing God created was light. The Bible makes it clear that when God said "Let there be light", he was not speaking of the sun or moon or any luminous body. It's now known to be scientific fact that light is what governs the flow of spacetime and that the first thing that existed after the Big Bang, from an anthropological point of view, was light. On that note, the Bible is also the first source in history (to my knowledge) to present time as a subjective experience, I.E. "a day to God is like a thousand years, and a thousand years a day". The Bible also records that God "hanged the world on nothing" at a time when the thought of something be hung on nothing was absurd. The Bible also suggests that the world is round when it states that "God sits on the circumference of the Earth", though this may have already been guessed by ancient cultures. The Bible also agrees with the majority of scientists who now believe that man first arose in Africa. Finally, at no point in time does the Bible make a blatantly scientifically inaccurate statement or assertion, as many other sources of mythology do.This message has been edited by SirPimpsalot, 10-22-2004 10:29 AM

Sorry Sir, that I haven't welcomed you to EvC yet. If you haven't already I'd suggest you spend some time just reading over existing threads. In addition, please review the forum guidelines.There is a lot to learn here and some fun to be had if you enjoy a good give and take.You're opening post (OP) needs a bit of work. There are, effectively two topics there. Though you may not realize that.One of them is on prophecy. Please review these two thread on the topic.(You may use the "search" funtion to find existing material -- see the upper right corner of the screen) Bible prophecy - Nothing compares
FASCINATING CORROBORATION OF ALL BIBLE PROPHECYIf you wish one of these could be moved out of the FFA so it can be treated as a regular thread. Or if you wish edit this one's OP and ask to have it reviewed again.If you want both topics covered then you should propose a separate one for the non-prophecy part of your post.I suggest you don't start on too much all at once. The "regulars" here have the advantage of having already discussed almost anything you are likely to bring up. They will inundate you with replies.(sorry about the delay, my first post was wiped by a server error)

Thanks for the welcome. Thing is, this isn't a topic just about prophecy fulfillment. It's about SECULARLY VERIFIABLE prophecy fulfillment, I.E., prophecys that are historically verified to have been written before the events that they prophecy.......which most prophecies aren't.I'm guessing you guys don't already have a topic about secularly verifiable prophecy specifically, so I'd appreciate it if you could go ahead and post the topic as is.

There are still two topics here.Scientific facts in the bible AND verifiable prophecy. Pick one, edit the other out.You may not think of them as separate but experience says that it is very hard to keep threads on topic and these are separable issues either one of which will be hard to contain.

Yeah, yeah, check it out now........will you post it now?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Well some eaily answered points there1) From a closer reading of Genesis it is apparent that the light concerned is daylight - the relevant verses describe the creation of the day-night cycle.2) Concerning relativity of time, I very much doubt that even modern readers think of God zooming around the cosmos at near-c speeds. A more likely interpetation is that it prefers to the varying perceptions of time passing which we have all experienced (e.g. "time flies when you're having fun").3) Hanging on nothing still makes little sense.4) A flat circular world may be an advance on a rectangular flat world, but not a great one. And the Hebrew word does indeed refer to a circle, not a sphere.5)Since I have never heard of the idea that the Bible says that humans began in Africa - and since the rivers supposedly flowing out of Eden include the Tigris and Euphrates (Genesis 2:14) I have to doubt this claim6) I suspect that other sources of mythology are read more critically.
Certainly many interpretations of the Bible are blatantly unscientific (YEC, or Noah's Flood as a global event).

But the SUN isn't created until the third day......so, clearly, this is not sunlight we're speaking of. This is clearly not what the Bible meant..........and what about "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Begining and the End"? God makes the statement that he is presently the begining and the end of time. And what about "In the begining was the Word", in which Jesus, who is defined as the Incarnation of God, is stated to have been with God before his own Incarnation?Clearly, the Bible suggests in many places, and straight out states in the "a day to God is a thousand years, and a thousand years a day" passage that God is outside of time. But that's exactly what the Earth is doing, from an anthropological point of view. Spheres are circles....... Every time I've heard the location of Eden referenced based on the Biblical location of it, it's been in north Africa........I've heard this claim from many varying sources, none of whom were using it as anything more as an FYI point (so they had no reason to distort facts). The Bible never makes the claim that the Earth is young.........in fact, considering that the SUN isn't created until the third day, you could say it even outright suggests that the seven days of creation shouldn't be taken literally........as far as Noah's flood, see the glacial meltings........

Also, though the admin made me edit it from the first post, there are certain instances in which Biblical propechy is fulfilled which can be secularly verified........such as with the crucifixtion and the "70 Days" prophecies in Jeremiah and Daniel.

let's stick to the topic at hand, eh? plenty to be going on with there.

But that's not your claim, now is it? You're not claiming that the Bible says things that are true if you look at them a certain way - you're claiming the Bible contains scientific facts.Well, this isn't one of them. The Earth does not hang, in any scientific sense. No, spheres are spheres. Circles are circles. To get pedantic about it, a sphere is a surface such that all points on the surface are equidistant from a center; a circle is the set of all points that are equidistant from a center and coplanar with that center.If spheres were circles, the what would a cylinder be? And yes, ancient Hebrew has both a word for "circle" and a word for "sphere." Try reading your Bible:

quote:

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10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

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The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are not in Africa; they're in the Middle East. I don't know what your FYI guys are basing their view on, but it's not the Bible. Which didn't flood the Earth. Nor was an Ark constructed. I don't see how glacial meltwater proves your point, except in the loosest sense of "flood". You did, after all, make the claim that statements in the Bible were literal scientific facts.Yeah, if you wanted, you can interpret the Bible so that it says whatever you want. Unsurprisingly, you can do this with any collection of statements in any language.

Welcome, Sir! To your statement that I quote above, I must say, "Say WHAT??!!"
Let's start with talking snakes and asses, houses and garments that catch leprosy and get "greenish or reddish strakes" as a result, speckled poles by the water trough causing goats to have speckled kids......
Let's leave the very plain descriptions of the Earth as immovable and the Flood story for another time. The whole book is rife with examples of a "blatantly scientifically inaccurate statement or assertion." Not just poetic hyperbole, but plain untruths. Are you sure you're reading the same Bible we are?This message has been edited by Coragyps, 10-22-2004 04:57 PM

1) I didn't say SUNlight, I said DAYlight. And that's what I meant. Clearly the author of Genesis didn't realise that the Sun was the source of daylight - and moonlight2) Your answer is nonsensical. Either the answer that I suggested or the simple idea that temporal duration is of no great concern to an eternal being make more sense. It certainly does not imply that God could be considered "outside of time" (and just as well !). Stil, even your answer concedes that it is not a reference to anything scientific.3) No the Earth isn't "hanging" on anything4) I didn't realise that I was talking to a Flatlander. In the three dimensional world I exist in spheres are not circles.5) Well without knowing more it is impossible to evaluate the claim. The only clear evidence of location I can see is the reference to the Tigris and Euphrates.IF you read Genesis 1 literally it does say that nothing much greatly preceded the creation of man. Which certainly makes the Earth very much younger than science has determined. The Glacial meltings certianly didn't flood the entire planet nor did they kill all air-breathing life except for the occupants of one large boat. If the Noah story has anything to do with the Glacial floodings the story has been exaggerated considerably.This message has been edited by PaulK, 10-22-2004 05:55 PM

The pot calling the kettle black:Somehow a fish came ashore and evolved into a land animal and somehow a land animal grew wings and evolved into a bird.As to how any of this came to be/biogenesis - evos run and hide.The context of the Bible is: "In the beginning God...."IOW, the context is miracle which explains the origin of talking asses and cattle breeding via an unorthodox method. The point is God blessed Jacob's cattle. Genesis 48:15 (Jacob speaking)

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And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day

I thought the topic of this thread was Secularly Verifiable Evidence for Biblical Inerrancy. There's scientific evidence for evolution. Where's your scientific evidence for your scriptural position?--Percy