From the Desk of Paul Chapman

"Is God the Author of the Bible? -- Part 2"

Though the Bible makes the claim of being inspired of God ( 2 Tim. 3:16; I Thess. 2:13), we must put it to the test in order to help prove that its claim is genuine ( I Thess. 5:21). We began looking at the evidences in part one of this study last week. This week, we continue by examining SOME of the scientific evidences that reveal that the Bible is indeed inspired of God.

Scientific truth was written in the Bible long before man ever discovered them on his own. Not only that, but the Bible doesn't contain the errors of science that were common to the age of its production.

Approximately 1,000 B.C., the wise king Solomon wrote, speaking of God, "...when He drew a circle on the face of the deep" (Prov. 8:27). And then about 722 BC, the prophet Isaiah wrote, "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth" (Isa. 40:22). The word "circle" in the original Hebrew means "ball, sphere, or round." Throughout time man has believed that the earth was flat. It wasn't until 322 BC when Aristotle, after watching a ship disappear over the horizon, considered that the earth may be round.

However, by 200 BC, the Romans claimed that the earth was flat, only it was disc shaped. The controversy continued until 1520, when the explorer Magellan settled the question by sailing around the world. How could the writers of the Bible make such a factual statement if their writing was not directed by God?

In the book of Job, written approximately 2,000 BC, it is said, "He hangs the earth on nothing" (Job 26:7). For many years the Hindu's taught that the earth sat on the back of four elephants, which were on a giant turtle, which swam in a sea of milk. The Greeks believed that the earth rested on the back, or shoulders, of Atlas. The Egyptians taught that the earth was either supported or suspended by solid crystalline spheres. It wasn't until Newton developed his theory of gravity in 1687, that man knew the truth concerning how the earth is suspended in space. It hangs on nothing. Job may not have comprehended what he was directed to write, but the fact remains that while the rest of the world concocted outlandish tales in an effort to explain what they didn't understand, the Bible writer was correct.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote in approximately 600 BC, "As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the descendants of David my servant..." (Jer. 33:22). Hundreds of years later, in 150 BC, the astronomer Hipparchus claimed there were only 1,026 stars in the sky.

Ptolemy, in 150 A.D., added a few more claiming there were only 1,056. It wasn't until the invention of the telescope in 1608 AD, that science discovered the stars were, in fact, innumerable. The late Carl Sagan, a renowned astronomer of our time, suggested that 25 sextillion (25 with 21 zero's) stars have been documented, yet we will never get them all counted. Once again we ask the question, how did the Bible writer know the stars of heaven were innumerable.

The final scientific evidence we will discuss is medical in nature. Part of God's law to the Jews was that every newborn male had to be circumcised on the 8th day of life (Gen. 17:12; Lev. 12:3). This was documented by Moses in approximately 1400 BC It wasn't discovered, however, until the 20th century that the blood clotting element "prothrombin" is not produced by the body until between the 5th to 7th day. It is only on the 8th day that such an operation would be medically safe.

How did the Bible writers, who had written in an age of ignorance and superstition, consistently and accurately record information not proven true for hundreds or thousands of years? Next time we will bring even more evidence that God is the author of the Bible.

~ PJ Chapman