Is the bible "scientifically" accurate?  Can you back it up with hard proof.

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 12 Apr 2004 08:13 PDT

What do you mean by "scientifically accurate"? Do you mean
scientifically plausible? Certainly there are dozens upon dozens of
events in the Bible which cannot be scientifcally explained (the
parting of the Red Sea, the Resurrection of Christ, Noah's flood, the
plagues and miracles arrtibuted to Moses, etc).

My answer is NO. This is precisely why the Bible is a foundation of
many faith based beliefs. If these things were easily explained by
wordly science then no faith would be required.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

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Clarification of Question by rgraham1-ga on 13 Apr 2004 03:54 PDT

As you say, there are many events for which it is commonly assumed
that it is some type of "miracle".

Is it possible to use the historical facts, scientific observations,
(or common knowledge/sense) that are in the bible to convince a
overwhelming majority of people that the bible must be wrong?

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Request for Question Clarification by poe-ga on 13 Apr 2004 05:09 PDT

As my colleague, tutuzdad-ga, points out, the answer is NO.

Christianity is based on faith, by definition. Faith can not be
proved, by definition, or it wouldn't be faith any more.

Thus, the Bible cannot be proved with hard facts, nor should it be.

That said, some of the events recounted in the Bible can be proved as
factual, beyond reasonable doubt. Others are being proved, disproved
or theorised about as more becomes known about the history of the
areas involved.

The whole cannot be described as 'scientifically accurate' just
because one part can be proved. Similarly, it cannot be described as
'scientifically inaccurate' just because another part can be
disproved.

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Clarification of Question by rgraham1-ga on 13 Apr 2004 07:35 PDT

Dear R. Graham, 

..."If one perceives the Bible as the "word of God", there is no point in
discussing the scientific accuracy of the facts presented, because for
this person, this is the word of God, the ultimate source"...

However there are many people in the world today that do not rely on
"blind" faith.  Rather they want some type of comfort in knowing that
what they believe is reasonable and logical.  For those people, a
large discrepancy in their faith (eg. The earth is only 10,000 years
old or the universe was created in 7 days) might cause them to doubt
their faith, or in this case doubt the bible.

I am asking: For those 'intelligent' people that have examined the
Bible more closely than I, whether that scrutiny will cause doubt in
their faith in the Bible or whether it will strengthen their faith?

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 13 Apr 2004 08:38 PDT

It is important to know that the Holy Bible contains history and
prophecy, poetry and wise sayings, parable and allegory. It is equally
important to know which is which. In other words, to be able to
discern factual events from colorful, but fictional examples of
incidents or potential incidents, as was the common way of conveying
information at the time. People commonly offered ?stories? about
issues and used relative subjects to which the people of the time
could easily relate in conveying their messages. Clearly, not all
Biblical stories were ever intended, even by the story teller, to be
taken as literal, factual occurrences but as accurate ?examples?. On
the other hand, some fairly wild stories by today?s standards are
indeed believed by the faithful to be real occurrences even though
they cannot be scientifically verified or reasonably explained.

To the faithful Christian, it is not necessary to explain, or to even
understand, HOW some things happened, but to BELIEVE in spite of the
overwhelming evidence to the contrary:

In Paul?s letter to the Church at Corinth he addresses this same kind
of doubt among the members there:

?We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not
the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to
nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been
hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of
the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not
have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: "No eye
has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has
prepared for those who love him.?
1 Corinthians 6-9
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=1COR%2B2&showfn=on&showxref=on&language=english&version=NIV&x=17&y=9


Even Jesus? own Disciples doubted, and most of them were actually
THERE and personally witnessed many of his miracles. In fact, they
were even there and actually saw Jesus ascend into heaven. Now that to
me would be unquestionably convincing proof ? but still they doubted
what they saw, trying desperately, one might imagine, to rationalize
what had just happened. Fortunately the Holy Spirit came upon them and
opened their minds to ?the secrets? Paul referred to in his letter.
But such is not the case with all people. Those who will believe will
believe in faith and those who will not, simply will not. No
miraculous scientific breakthrough will reveal the truth to
unbelievers. The Bible is clear that this is not God?s plan, so for a
Christian or Theologian to seek out a scientific means by which he can
convert unbelievers is as fruitless a pursuit as it is for the
unbeliever to seek out someone to do it for him. The laws of nature,
physics, and science were never intended to produce the answers:

?Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the
deeds of the law.?
Romans 3:28


Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

The Bible doesn't even get math right. The Old Testament implies that
the value of pi = 3 exactly (I Kings 7:23). You can't expect ancient
allegory to substitute for modern scholarship.

While it is commonly thought that the Bible that it is scientifically
inaccurate, it has been shown otherwise, and there are many books and
organizations who offer information about this. (I've always found it
interesting that when facts in the Bible are disputed by scientists,
at a later time, when more scientific knowledge is acquired, we learn
that the scientists were incorrect...not the Bible.) Here are some
good places to start:

Archaeology and the Bible: http://www.christiananswers.net/archaeology/home.html

Bible Science: http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev03.htm

Creation Science: http://www.drdino.com/

Creationism: http://www.creationism.org/mp3/index.htm

Terrestrial Soup: http://www.tsoup.org/index.php

Kriswrite

Simply put: The accuracy of supernatural events (real or imagined)
cannot be measured by scientific means. That's why they are considered
supernatural. Such is the case with the Bible, the Qu'ran, the Torah
and on and on...

tutuzdad-ga

Greetings Rgraham1:

The crossing of the Red Sea seems to have a couple of possible natural
explanations:

"Much ado has been made about the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures have
the Israelites crossing the Yam Suph (literally, "Sea of Reeds"). It
is argued that this must refer to one of the marshy lakes that lay
between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. This view is often made to
say that these lakes were very shallow and that the Israelites were
able to wade across while the heavy chariots of the Egyptians became
stuck in the soft much of the marsh."

"Another view identifies the Yam Suph as the Gulf of Elath, located to
the northeast of the Nile Delta. There is a narrow strip of land that
curves out into the Mediterranean. The problem with this view is that
the Bible expressly says that Israel did not take the route known as
"the way of the Philistines" (Exodus 13:17)."

From http://www.angelfire.com/nt/theology/07exodus.html


Also, there is the suggestion that the Behemoth mentioned in the
Christian bible (Job) is a passage that describes a dinosaur, not
"probably an elephant" as is noted in the footnotes of bibles:
http://www.creationists.org/dinosaurs.html


You may enjoy perusing the site of the Institute for Biblical and
Scientific Studies at http://www.bibleandscience.com/index.htm  Good
luck on your quest.  :)

Best regards,
journalist-ga

To Rapscallion-ga:

A surprisingly accurate approximation of PI is actually hinted to in
the verse to which you refer.  You may be aware that Hebrew letters
have numeric values, and the numbering system, called "gemmatria", is
widely used in Biblical exegesis.  In the verse in question, The word
"line" is (like many words in the Hebrew Bible) written slightly
differently from the way it is traditionally pronounced - it has an
extra letter at the end.  The numeric value of the written letters is
100+6+5=111, whereas the numeric value of the pronounced letters is
100+6=106.  Take 111, divide by 106, and multiply by thirty (the
following word in the verse), and you have 31.41509.  This is 99.997%
accurate.  Assuming a cubit is 48 cm, the error in measurement is less
than half a millimeter.

Dear R. Graham, 

You are asking if one could "prove", through its scientific
inconsistency, that "the Bible is wrong".

However, the Bible is neither a science book nor a history book. It is
a collection - perceived by some as "the word of God" and by others as
a collection of myths, historical telling (as they have been recited
over the years), and normative codes.

If one perceives the Bible as the "word of God", there is no point in
discussing the scientific accuracy of the facts presented, because for
this person, this is the word of God, the ultimate source. Stronger
than any science. This person might also argue that since science is
still limited in explaining everything (and especially the most
important questions - of life and death); it could not be set as an
alternative to any whole belief system like the Bible.

On the other hand, if one perceives the Bible as a compilation of
myths, historical tales and normative codes, as collected over the
years by the Hebrews and later also by the Christians, one accept, per
se, that the Bible is not an explanatory source for scientific
phenomena, and that there are cultural, historical, sociological and
linguistic explanations as to *why* people chose to include particular
stories in the Bible (and not others, as the Book of Enoch).

Science is the Bible and supernatural phenomenon in the Bible are two
separate things that shouldn't be confused.

Kriswrite

Religions are tools people made to rule the society.  It's like
spiritual marijuana.  It makes you feel good, but that's about it. 
Like the saying, I'm feeling high on G.O.D.

So, if you like it, keep on going.  As long as you don't go extreme, like C21H23NO5

not only is the bible not scientifically and math accurate it is also
not even English accurate, not as in that the English of the bible is
incorrect considering that the original bible was not written in
English it is not accurate in that fact that several disciples of
Jesus all write their encounters with Jesus in mainly the same
perspective. It would not be accurate of me to say that they were all
written in the same perspective. And also that flow of the bible is
not written in the same way that you would expect people encounters to
be written but more like a well flowing story witch is overlooked by
many readers of the bible considering that they are more astounded by
the stories writing.

Although I am more of a math and science student my self I could not
help noticing this.

Thank you.

This is the dumbest question I've read yet.  Haven't you heard of "The
Monkey Trial"?

The answer is no.

"The Bible" is actually two books, the Hebrew Bible (what Christians
call the Old Testament), and the New Testament (the Gospels). These
days, your local librarian will put the Bible on a bookshelf labeled
"Religion", "Mythology", or possibly "Literature", but definitely not
"History" or "Science".

You can talk to everyone from Priests and Rabbis to Archeologists and
Cosmologists about what parts of the Bible might be historically and
scientifically accurate. Books have been written about this subject.
But since your question implies that there is something special about
achieving "scientific accuracy" and "hard proof", I suspect that the
true origins of your question are grounded in a philosophical query
about what truth is, as opposed to a historical question.

Secular and non-secular Religious scholars debate Biblical meanings
just as strenuously as historical and scientific scholars debate
everything from the fall of Rome to the Kennedy Assasination.

There is some (not much) information in the Bible that is generally
accepted as historically accurate. The total historical accuracy of
the Bible will never be proven nor disproven.

science seeks to break down everything that happens in the universe
into math equationsall the time seperating us from God.  Every
question it answers produces 3 more questions.  Science is a worshiper
of itself.  If you believe in miricles than you are going to be
disapointed when trying to find proof.  In recent news there was a
story of a research group that is going to attempt to document a trip
to the Turkish mountians ranges where they believe there is a
partially reveled Noah's Ark there.  The story of Noah's Ark is one of
the hardest for me to believe in the bible, but if there is no doubt
that it is there, then my faith will reach a new level. It should
happen in the summer when the journey wont be so difficult.