Is the Bible Irrelevant?
MANY answer yes and say: “It is unscientific. It is myth and legend. It is outdated. It is impractical. Believers are living in a dream world.”
However, What Are the Facts?
• The Bible says that life was created by God. Science says that life originated through a chance combination of chemicals and energy. The World Book Encyclopedia says: “Pasteur showed that life cannot arise spontaneously.” Biologist Michael Denton’s book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis says: “Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, . . . there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive.” No evolutionist can suggest any scientifically sound way that life could arise spontaneously.
• Evolution says that this original cell evolved into all the living creatures on earth. The fossil record shows absolutely no such gradation in which one family kind becomes another. Scientist Francis Hitching in his book The Neck of the Giraffe writes: “When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren’t there.” This matches what the Bible says—that a family reproduces “according to its kind.”—Genesis 1:12, 25.
• In many instances archaeology verifies that the Bible’s historical accounts are true.
• The ancients thought that the earth was supported in space by all sorts of fantastic means. It was Isaac Newton who scientifically showed that by laws of motion and gravitation, the earth floated free in space. The Bible indicated that nearly 3,200 years earlier, recording at Job 26:7 that God was “hanging the earth upon nothing.”
• The Encyclopedia Americana says: “The concept of a spherical earth was not widely accepted until the Renaissance,” but in the eighth century B.C.E., the Bible said of God: “He sits over the round earth.”—Isaiah 40:22, Moffatt.
• The Mosaic Law (16th century B.C.E.) reflected awareness of infectious disease germs thousands of years before Pasteur linked germs and disease.—Leviticus, chapters 13, 14.
• A thousand years before Christ, Solomon wrote in figurative language about the circulation of the blood, but medical science had to wait until William Harvey explained it in the 17th century C.E.—Ecclesiastes 12:6.
• Solomon wrote of ants that had underground granaries where they stored seeds to last through winter. (Proverbs 6:6-8) Bible critics said no such ants existed. In 1871, however, a British naturalist discovered the ants and their granaries.
• Psalm 139:16 reflected knowledge of the genetic code: “Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.”
• In the seventh century B.C.E., before scientists recognized bird migration, the Bible at Jeremiah 8:7 revealed: “The stork in the sky knows the time to migrate, the dove and the swift and the wryneck know the season of return.”—The New English Bible.
• In the first century C.E., the Bible foretold that in “the last days,” men would be destroying the earth’s environment, and because of this, God would “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”—2 Timothy 3:1; Revelation 11:18.
• The Bible impractical? It has the most practical wisdom of all for these perilous times, but people have to use their free will to follow it if they would benefit. ‘Beat your swords into ploughshares and your spears into pruning hooks.’ ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.’ Love your neighbor as you do yourself. Those who follow these precepts begin no wars, commit no crimes. When people on earth are obedient to the rule of God’s Kingdom in the hands of Christ Jesus, then the Bible believer’s hope will prove to be, not an impossible dream, but a practical reality.—Micah 4:2-4; Matthew 7:12; Revelation 21:3-5.
[Picture Credit Line on page 21]
Courtesy of the Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, Jerusalem