Science, Religion and the Bible

Science - Progress

• Remarkable advances in our own lifetime

• Explosion of previous well held myths

- Space Travel is a pipe dream

- There is no cure for cancer

- Travelling at faster than light speed is impossible

Science explodes previous myths

Science and The Bible

• King David was a legend only

• The Assyrian Empire did not exist

• The fall of Jericho did not occur

• The Exodus did not occur

King David

• A legend only ? No evidence outside the bible for his existence

• 1993 – Archaeologists digging in Northern Galilee (City of Dan) found an inscription dating to the 9th century B.C.

• “House of David” and “David, King of Israel”

• NYT front page – scholars admit David’s existence

Assyrian Empire

• 40 years after Solomon’s reign, Israel split into 2 kingdoms, Israel and Judah

• Assyria began to conquer their neighbours and by the 8th century BC had crushed Israel, invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem

• Isaiah 36:1-2

“1In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 2Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem”

Assyrian Empire

• Nineveh was capital of the Assyrian Empire

• 19th century scholars disputed the existence of Assyria and Nineveh as no evidence that they ever existed

• Matthew 12:41 “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”

Assyrian Empire

• Austen Layard and Paul Botta discovered in Northern Iraq the ancient remains of 3 Assyrian cities, including Nineveh

• Evidence of Assyria’s furious assault on the Jewish stronghold of Lachish

• Confirmed the scriptures of 2 Kings

Jericho

Jericho

• Kathleen Kenyon excavated Jericho 1952-58

• Found collapsed walls, burned stores of grain and an ash layer

• She dated the city’s destruction to 1550 BC, some 150 years before the Israelites were supposed to have encircled it and destroyed it

• Therefore there was no city for the Israelites to capture

Jericho

• Scholars concluded that the Bible was historically unreliable. Jericho was fabricated “Jewish myth” and this belief became entrenched in academic circles.

• Kenyon died in 1978 but her papers weren’t published until 1981-83

• Bryant Wood (Professor Archaeology University of Toronto) examined her findings

Jericho

• Her conclusion/dating was based on the lack of a particular type of imported pottery found at other sites around 1400 BC which was when the bible dated the city’s destruction

• But she excavated in a poor section of Jericho where the inhabitants didn’t use imported pottery

• Subsequently found elsewhere in the excavation site

Joshua 6:20,21,24• When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at

the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. 21They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

• 22Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her…. 24Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD’S house.

Exodus

• Did it really happen ?

• No physical evidence

• No Egyptian records – was it erased ?

• No archaeological evidence of the trek to the promised land. No evidence that the Israelites wandered in the Sinai desert for 40 years.

Exodus

• Rabbi David Wolpe – LA times 13/4/2001

• “Virtually every modern archaeologist who has investigated the story of Exodus agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all”.

NASA Photo© EBibleTeacher.com

Sinai/Egypt Blank Map

EgyptEgypt

NileNile DeltaDelta

Great SeaGreat Sea(Mediterranean)(Mediterranean)

Red SeaRed Sea

CanaanCanaan

Mt. SinaiMt. Sinai

TraditionalTraditionalRoute of Route of

the Exodusthe ExodusNASA Photo

SinaiSinaiPeninsulaPeninsula

Route of the Exodus

Nuwieba

Wadi Passage

Current Scientific Thinking

• Life - Evolution from single cell to complex organisms

• Ultimate evolutionary product – The Human Being

Current Scientific Thinking

• One cannot travel faster than the speed of light

• Closest Star apart from the Sun is 4.2 light years away (Alpha Centauri)

• Closest Galaxy, Andromeda – over 1 million light years away (Edward Hubble)

What the Bible Says

• 1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

• 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;male and female he created them.

What the Bible Says Job 9

He shakes the earth from its place and makes its

pillars tremble. 7He speaks to the sun and it does

not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. 8 He

alone stretches out over the heavens and treads on

the waves of the sea. 9He is the Maker of the Bear

and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of

the south. 10 He performs wonders that cannot be

fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.

Human Genome Project

• Decoding the entire human genome

• NIH and Celera Genomics

• Over 2000 scientists, biologists in 5 countries have spent every day of the last 13 years on the project

• Decoding 12000 letters of the genetic code every minute. Over 3 billion letters in the code eventually

Human Genome Project

• The blue print for life

• Start life as single cell, 46 chromosomes

• 23 from each parent

• Contains your entire genetic code

Human Genome Project

That cell contains all the information for future growth and life

Eventually 100 x 1012 cells Differentiated into liver, kidney, heart,

muscle, lung etc. cells 40% genome dedicated to brain development Amazing complexity Genes drive development of the body’s cell at

a molecular level

Human Genome Project

How did the billions of atoms from each DNA molecule arrange themselves perfectly for self perpetuation ?

It can only happen with a Divine Creator A genome creating a living self perpetuating

organism cannot occur over time. It has to be right the FIRST TIME

If all the billions of atoms are not in perfect place, the cell does not exist.

A dead cell does not evolve !

The Theory of Relativity states that the ultimate speed for everything from radio signals to spacecraft to subatomic particles is the speed of light = 300,000 km/sec

This paper suggests light can be accelerated to 300 times its usual speed

Superluminal light propagation

Light

Air

Primary Wave

Refracted Waves

• Refracted waves (ripples) slow the group velocity

• Individual waves can travel faster than Group Velocity (Phase Velocity)

Superluminal light propagation

The authors did an experiment in which they reversed the effect – secondary ripples of light actually travelled faster and increased group velocity

Excited a gas of cold cesium atoms with a laser. These energised atoms accelerated the secondary ripples of light and amplified light

Group wave velocity 300 times the speed of light in a vacuum

Can you believe the Bible ?

Over time, the Bible has been proven again and again

As science has evolved and our knowledge increased, many biblical truths have been explained and confirmed

However, where current scientific thinking and the Bible contradicts, our faith is tested

Science is evolving, the Bible is a constant

Can you believe the Bible ?

Ultimately, we must trust in the Bible and have faith in its divine influence

Science and human knowledge may or may not support biblical truths at any given time

Luke 11:28 “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”