Posted on 12/11/2009 4:56:40 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Even though the Bible was completed 2,000 years ago, long before the invention of the microscope, the telescope, satellites, etc. it does not contain any scientific errors. This might be considered a miracle in itself. Without exception, every ancient religious writing has certain unscientific views of astronomy, medicine, hygiene, etc. The Qur’an says in Surah 18:86 that the sun sets in a muddy spring. Qur’an 18:86 “…when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring” The only exception to these kinds of errors, among ancient religious writings, is the Bible.
Not only is the Bible free from scientific errors, it miraculously makes known numerous, accurate scientific facts about the universe thousands of years before modern scientists caught up. There are lots of them. For time’s sake I will give you a few quick examples.
A. The Sun
In contrast to the Qur’an, the Bible teaches that the sun is actually on a circuit through space. Writing of the sun in Psalm 19:6, David said, “Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end.” For many years critics scoffed at this verse, claiming that it taught that the sun revolves around the earth. Scientists at that time thought the sun was stationary. However, it has been discovered in recent years that the sun is in fact on a circuit through space, just like the Bible says.
B. The Shape of the Earth
When the rest of the world believed the earth was flat, Isaiah declared that the world was round… Isaiah 40:22 “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth." The Hebrew word there for circle [“chuwg”] literally means “sphere.” When did Isaiah write these words? Between 740 and 680 B.C. That was at least 300 years before Aristotle suggested, in his book On the Heavens, that the earth might be a sphere. Other verses are Proverbs 8:27 and Job 26:10. More than 2,000 years later some people still believed that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was going to sail off the edge of a flat planet in 1492!
C. The Suspension of the Earth
Before Isaac Newton discovered gravity Hindus believed that the earth rested on the back of an elephant who stood on the back of a turtle that was swimming in a great endless sea. The Greeks believed that the mythical god Atlas carried the earth on his shoulders. What did the Bible say? In one of the oldest books in the Bible, Job said in Job 26:7, “He [God] hangs the earth on nothing.” Scientists did not discover that the earth hangs on nothing until 1650. ... (EXCERPT for more click the link!)
That one about the sun's "circuit" is really embarrassing. I don't think I've ever seen a more laughably and ludicrously forced example in one of these lists.
Just look at the entire Psalm. In verse 2 it refers to day and night.
So, the psalmist proceeds to give a specific example of how the heavens daily ("day by day" and "night by night") speak and show the glory of God, and his choice is to (cryptically) cite the Sun's 226 million year orbit around the Milky Way?!
Really?! That's supposed to be a phenomena which is readily apparent and visibly proclaimed by the heavens "day by day"?! Even though a given day only represents 1/8,249,000,000th of the "circuit," which movement is visibly undetectable (but rather only inferred from theory) even today?!?!
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
What kind of desperation would drive someone to even cite such a facially stupid example?
Exactly, and keep in mind that what is crude is OUR knowledge of exactly how long a "cubit" and a "hand" are. We approximate a cubit at 18 inches, but it is highly unlikely that 1 cubit = 18.0000 inches.
I'm sure that if you were one of those ignorant types who was too lazy or too stupid to bother investing any time into actually studying the subject he was speaking about, you'd come to that conclusion. But donmeaker's not that type of guy, right? Surely donmeaker had enough foresight to read up a little on the archaeology, etc. of the subject to know that a "hand" was actually a standard unit of measurement, as was the cubit, which was not actually dependent on the width of each and every different individual's hand, rather like we use "feet" without it being dependent on any single person's foot length.
You did bother to know what you were talking about before you spoke, right?
Oh, you didn't? Oh my.
With that said, skeptics commonly use this passage to try to disprove the bible. An important thing to keep in mind that this passage was in no way trying to 'prove' the value of pi to begin with. It is a general description of an object, not intended to be a treatise on the estimation of pi.
I have no doubt that you can find a Muslim scholar who’ll explain to you how the verse “…when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring” can be interpreted as scientifically accurate...
I agree the word 'curve' has implied into it two levels of meaning. First would be the human genome, as its structure is a curve, and then of course by the 'curves' that typically distinguish male from female.
It is very interesting to me that in the initial created state the Adam contained the 'fullness' of human genome. And not the physical appearance but of what his mind would have contained. To me it is like a glimpse into the fullness and perfection of the Heavenly Father as in knowing both the mind of male and female. For lack of a better work the 'emotion' of both.
Sure the hand was a standard unit of measurement. What that value was is open to debate, and has some degree of ambiguity, as accuracy was limited by the level of technology.
Twit.
No it doesn't. The author just made that up out of whole cloth.
I can't find a single instance in the Bible where "chuwg" is translated as "sphere" or "ball" or anything of the like.
Neither do any of the Hebrew lexicons give the sense of "sphere" to this word. For instance, Strongs says:
Definition
- circle, circuit, compass
- (BDB) vault (of the heavens)
Translated Words KJV (3) - circle, 1; circuit, 1; compass, 1; NAS (3) - circle, 2; vault, 1;
Furthermore, when I looked at the issue before (sorry, don't remember the verses) I never found sphericity implied by context. Instead the earth, as to its creation or formation, is described in ways that imply flatness. For instance God draws it with a compass on the surface of the waters. He stamps, or pounds, or spreads it out. Etc.
The Bible certainly might have conveyed sphericity in any number of ways. For instance, instead of saying that God spread out or pounded out the earth, it could have said that He gathered it together, or that He formed it in His hands, or that He sculpted it. It might have compared the earth to a fruit, or it's surface to the rind of a fruit. But it never does. None of the analogies or language convey sphericity.
Stultis, you should read the verse in context...and you’ll see after it says
“God sits above the circle of the earth” Isaiah then went on to say “And spreads the heavens out like a TENT to dwell in.” I’d say that does far more to confirm the spherical nature of the earth than the hebrew word.
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.
~ Isaiah, Chapter 40
umm...well the Islamists will have to explain THAT and many other scientific inconsistencies as well. (not to mention historical. for example, they say that Jesus was never actually crucified...but dozens of respected *secular* historians, outside the Bible all record it.)
Take, for example, the Quran’s highly controversial statement that human beings are formed from a clot of blood. “Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then We made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh” (23:14).
This is hardly a scientific description of embryonic development. It ignores to mention the female egg (the second and equally important half) and the process of fertilization when egg and sperm unite to form one new cell.
* The Qur’an teaches that there are seven heavens one above the other [67:3, 71:15], and that the stars are in the lower heaven [67:5, 37:6, 41:12], but the moon is depicted as being in/inside the seven heavens [71:16], even though in reality the stars are much further away from the earth than the moon.
* In Sura 27:18-19 Solomon overhears a “conversation of ants”.
Is this possible based on our knowledge about the mode and complexity of ant communication?
** Found the following information from alwaysbready.com, if you want to read more about the Qu’ran’s scientific and historical inconsistencies please go to:
http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/index.html
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.
~ Isaiah, Chapter 40
In addition to spreading the skies as a TENT, it says “stretches out the heavens like a CANOPY”
That sounds pretty *SPHERICAL!* That verse seriously gives me chills. That entire passage does, along with Job 26:7
“He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
he suspends the earth over nothing.”
Pretty awesome if you ask me considering how other cultures and religious texts said our planet sits atop elephants and turtles—or on Atlas’ shoulders.
That's what I did.
“God sits above the circle of the earth” Isaiah then went on to say “And spreads the heavens out like a TENT to dwell in.”
Exactly as I said. The analogy conveys flatness, to the extent it conveys anything at all about the earth's shape. A tent covers a level surface. Anyone who's ever used a tent knows that you look for a particularly flat area to pitch a tent.
I’d say that does far more to confirm the spherical nature of the earth than the hebrew word.
Really?! Seriously, how do you get any hint of sphericity from a circle covered by a tent?
As I said before, the Bible might have said instead that the heavens cover the earth like the rind of a fruit. Or it might have said the heavens surround the earth like the darkness surrounds a firefly. There are any number of ways the the sphericity of the earth might have been conveyed in Biblical language, but it never is.
And remember. Your author is not merely claiming that the Biblical language can be harmonized with a spherical earth after the fact. He's arguing instead that the Bible positively affirmed that the earth was spherical prior to this fact being known by scientific observation or inference. Thus you need far more than hints of sphericity, yet even the hints are absent.
Again, the author is just making this one up. Maybe you can harmonize the sphericity of the earth with the Bible ex post facto, but there is simply nothing whatsoever in the Bible that suggests the earth is a sphere, absent already knowing this to be the case by other means.
Stultis,
He’s referring to the heavens(meaning the skies...which are PART of the EARTH of the earth) as the tent/canopy. He’s not referring to something outside the earth, he’s referring to the earth’s skies themselves.
and I know of Hebrew scholars who disagree with you on that word.
oops typo.
I accidentally said “of the earth” twice. sorry about that.
Um, yeah, of course. Why would you think I'm confused about that?
But you're drawing from the fact that the analogy conveys a three-dimensional aspect to the heavens -- they are like a tent -- that three-dimensionality is thereby conveyed to what the tent covers. This is a complete non-sequitor. In every normal case a tent covers a flat and level surface. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in this passage to suggest that this analogy should be interpreted in any but the normal way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.