Biblijske cinjenice cak i skeptici priznaju(bilo je cak i u izdanju magazina sceptic)

The Universe

Time and Space: Most people read the very first verse in the Bible, without giving it another though. However a closer examination of this verse reveals that the author of Genesis verbalized exactly the same sophisticated principle that scientists would use thousands of years later. Science expresses the universe in five terms: time, space, matter, power and motion. So does Genesis 1.

"In the beginning (time) God created (power) the Heaven (space) and the Earth (matter)... And the Spirit of God moved (motion) upon the face of the waters." [Genesis 1:1,3 … written some 3450 years ago].


The Beginning: The word "beginning" refers specifically to the beginning of time. However for many years scientists were convinced that the universe was infinite (without end), and that time had always existed. The COsmic Background Explorer (COBE), also referred to as Explorer 66, was a NASA space mission designed to test the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe and apparently provided evidence that supported the idea that the universe had a beginning..

Note: The Big Bang theory, initially proposed in 1946 by George Gamow, a Russian-born scientist who believed that a primeval fireball, or an intense concentration of pure energy at some finite time in the past was the source of all the matter that now exists in the universe.

I wonder how many billions of dollars Explorer 66 cost. Yet someone only had to open the first page of a $10.00 Bible to know the universe had a beginning, before which there was …


An Initial Void:
A Time Magazine article dated Dec. 1976 said

“Most cosmologists… scientists who study the structure and evolution of the universe, agree that the biblical account of creation, in imagining an initial void, may be uncannily close to the truth.” [Emphasis Added]

Adding

“… in 1929, when Astronomer Edwin Hubble used shifts in the spectral lines of light emanating from distant galaxies to calculate that the islands of stars are moving at tremendous speeds away from the earth−and from each other−like dots painted on the surface of an expanding balloon. To some scientists, this outward rush of the galaxies suggested an original cosmic explosion”. [2]

Edwin Hubble showed that distant galaxies were, receding from the earth, and the further away they were, the faster they were moving, which leads to an interesting conclusion.. the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. Surprise! Surprise! However not only are the galaxies rushing outward, but


An Expanding Universe:

The prophet Isaiah who lived almost 3,000 years ago stated

"It is He that . . . stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in." [40:22]

Scientists are beginning to understand that the universe is expanding, or stretching out. Scripture clearly tells us At least seven times that God stretches out the heavens like a curtain.


Space is Empty:
In ancient times it was variously believed that the earth sat on a large animal or a giant or even that a mythical Atlas supported the pillars that held heaven and earth apart, and/or carried the earth around on his shoulders (Where he stood while doing so presents an interesting conundrum). However in what is probably the oldest book of the Bible, Job, living in an ancient culture that knew nothing about space or planets, asserted that God hung the earth on nothing (1500 B.C.) or, in other words, the earth free floats in space.

"He stretches out the north over empty space; he hangs the earth on nothing [Job 26:7]

A fascinating tidbit from scientific history makes the first part of this verse even more telling. Until very recently scientists believed space consisted of a hypothetical substance called Ether. Note the following from Eric Weisstein's World of Science [All Emphasis Added]

Ether, or luminiferous Ether, was the hypothetical substance through which electromagnetic waves travel. It was proposed by the greek philosopher Aristotle and used by several optical theories as a way to allow propagation of light, which was believed to be impossible in "empty" space.

It was supposed that the ether filled the whole universe and was a stationary frame of reference, which was rigid to electromagnetic waves but completely permeable to matter. Hooke endorsed the idea of the existence of the ether in his work Micrographia (1665), and other several philosophers of the 17th century, including Huygens, did the same. At the time of Maxwell's mathematical studies of electromagnetism (in the 1860’s), ether was still assumed to be the propagation medium and was imbued with physics properties such as permeability and permittivity.

In 1887, a crucial experiment was performed by Michelson and Edward Morley in an attempt to detect the existence of the ether. The experiment, named the Michelson-Morley experiment in honor of its authors, shocked the scientific community by yielding results which implied the non-existence of ether. This result was later on used by Einstein to refute the existence of the ether and allowed him to develop special relativity without this artificial (and non-existent) constraint. [3]

Which bring us to the second half of Job 26:7…


That Hole In The North

Another interesting tidbit that illuminates the divine origin of Scripture is the recent discovery of a huge hole in space… in the direction of the northern hemisphere

The universe has a huge hole in it that dwarfs anything else of its kind. The discovery caught astronomers by surprise. The hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it's also strangely empty of the mysterious "dark matter" that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale. [4]

This "gap" is in the Northern Hemisphere, lying in the general direction of the constellation Bootes. This "hole in space" is a 300 million light year gap in the distribution of galaxies, has taken cosmologists by surprise, not because it exists, but because it is so big.

Indeed, He stretches out the north over the empty place.


Air Has Weight:

The fact that air has weight was proven scientifically only about 300 years ago. The relative weights of air and water are needed for the efficient functioning of the world’s hydrologic cycle, which in turn sustains life on the earth.

When He imparted weight to the wind and meted out the waters by measure [Job 28:25] [Emphasis Added]


Those Singing Stars:

Science has discovered that stars emit radio waves, which are received on earth as a high pitch. God mentioned this in Job 38:7: "When the morning stars sang together..." In fact…

The galaxy is full of objects that emit radio waves, including black holes and stars of various kinds [5]


And There are Quite a Few of Them:

The first star catalogue was compiled by the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century ad. Called the Almagest, it listed the names and locations of 1,028 stars. However, because of telescopes such as the Hubble, we now know that...

Stars are not spread uniformly across the universe, but are normally grouped into galaxies along with interstellar gas and dust. A typical galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, and there are more than 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe. While it is often believed that stars only exist within galaxies, intergalactic stars have been discovered. Astronomers estimate that there are at least 70 sextillion (7×1022) stars in the observable universe. [Wikipedia].

But didn’t God already say that?? [All Emphasis Added]

God said to Abraham 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'(Genesis 15:5)".

'As the host of heaven (stars) cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the descendants of David My servant (Jeremiah 33:22).

"Therefore from one man, ...were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude-- innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. (Hebrews 11:12)"

“The Bible asserts that the stars are innumerable (Genesis 15:5, Genesis 17:7, Hebrews 11:12). This does not necessarily mean that we are incapable of mathematically expressing their number. It means that no human has the ability to count them individually so as to achieve their sum. It is claimed that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone. If stars were counted around the clock at one star per second, then it would take over 3000 years just to count these. Add to this the fact that there are as many as 100 billion galaxies. However, there were many scholars prior to Galileo who believed that the stars could be counted, and several attempts were made to do so. Many of these counts arrived at around 1000 stars.” [1]

Which brings Psalm 8: 3-4 to mind

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?


The Earth

Atoms: All matter is composed of atoms. Only in recent years has science discovered that everything we see is composed of things that we cannot see- tiny invisible particles called atoms, made up of electrons and protons, which are really not solids, but positive and negative charges of electricity. The author of the books of Hebrews wrote about atomic structure, whether he specifically understood it or not, nearly 2000 years before it was discovered by scientists.

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. [Hebrews 11:3] [Emphasis Added]

Interestingly the atom has a dense center called the nucleus, inside which are neutrons, which have no electrical charge and are therefore neutral and protons, which have positive charges. One law of electricity is that like charges repel one another. Therefore, since the protons inside the nucleus are all positive charges, they should repel one another and scatter, but for some reason they do not. There is a binding force, not yet understood, holding them together. Hmmm!

"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:16-17).


The Earth is a Sphere:

The following statement was made some 2800 years ago (some 750 years before Christ) by a divinely inspired Isaiah.

"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 40:22)

Although Aristotle provided observational evidence for the spherical Earth around 330 BC, most pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus (c. 440 BC) and Democritus (c. 460-370 BC) believed in a flat earth. However, by the time of Christopher Columbus he and most other educated person of their time) knew that the earth was round. In fact, the Greek mathematician Eratostenes had accurately calculated the earth's circumference in the third century before Christ.

“Other statements in the Bible also indicate that God revealed this truth long ago. For example, David said that God has removed our transgression from us as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103:12). On a spherical surface, east and west are infinitely separated in the sense that one can travel indefinitely in either direction without ever attaining the other. However, Solomon described the wind as blowing in circuits, first towards the south and then turning toward the north. North and south are not infinitely separated as east and west, because a southward traveler on a spherical surface will be heading north after crossing the south pole”. [1]

Also take a moment to really consider the next verse.. [Emphasis Added]

"He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness." (Job 26:10)

Job 26:10 clearly refers to the line of demarcation between day and night. No other interpretation is possible. Such a view of the curved horizon at sunrise or sunset can only be seen from extremely high altitudes reached only by military jets and spacecraft. These writers were given a view of the Earth as a sphere long before Eratosthenes--by measuring shadows in Egyptian wells--determined that the earth was round in 240BC. Although there is a specific Hebrew word for "sphere," the word used in these passages ("khug") can mean both circle or sphere. It refers to the shape of an orange as it might be represented in a two-dimensional picture. [6]

Please note that verses like Isaiah 11:12 that refer to "the four corners of the earth", are a colloquialism that is still used today to portray the four compass extremities of the earth. In fact the Strongs Greek/Hebrew dictionary defines the word "corner" (gonia) as angle, or quadrant.


The Rotation Of The Earth:
was likely revealed in Job 38:12, where God asks of Job:

Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.

“God asks Job if he has ever dictated the time of the morning or the location of the sunrise (dayspring). As soon as the sun is risen, its light will take hold of the ends of the earth in the sense that it touches all of the landscape, and the wicked are shaken out of it (the earth) in the sense that thieves, drunkards, adulterers, and others who practice their sins in darkness are forced to desist from these activities as they retreat from the light. Also, the beauties of the earth are revealed by the light, and its coloration is made to appear as that of a beautiful garment. Finally, the text asserts that God's command of the morning derives from His control of the earth, which is turned as clay to the seal. Hence, the suggestion is that God regulates the morning by rotating the earth as a potter rotates the clay. Yet ancient wisdom would have asserted that God regulated the morning by control of the Sun, and indeed, this is the perception of any uninformed mind”. [1]


The Orbit of The Sun:
Scientists have long believed that the earth revolved around the sun, which was stationary. This caused them to scoff at the following verses which, they said, taught the opposite…

"In them has He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. His [the sun's] going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." [Psalm 19:4-6]

However it was later discovered that the sun is in fact moving through space at approximately 600,000 miles per hour. It is traveling through the heavens and has a "circuit" just as the Bible says. It is estimated that its circuit is so large, it would take 200 million years to complete one orbit.


Gravitational Properties of Constellations:

God asked Job

“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the belt of Orion?” (Job 38:31).

“In the last century astrophysicists have discovered that the stars of Pleiades move in unison with each other, and are thus gravitationally bound. They have also discovered that the stars of Orion are free agents that are not gravitationally bound! Interestingly, the three stars that comprise Orion's belt appear to be closer together than the outer stars in the constellation, but are actually farther apart! (they appear closer together because of the 2-D plane we see them in)”. [7a] All Emphasis Added


Pangaea and Peleg:
The Pangaea theory is the hypothesis that the continents once formed a single landmass (called Pangaea which means 'all lands' in Greek) before breaking apart and drifting to their present locations. Although the idea caused sharp disagreement among geologists, evidence in favour of continental drift is now extensive. Geological similarities on matching continental edges suggest that they were once joined. Also, the continents resemble pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle that fit together perfectly. For example the coastline of the West Coast of Africa fits perfectly with the coastline of East Coast of South America

And what does the Bible say..

Genesis 10:25 speaks of a man, whose name Peleg means division. The text then explains that he was so named because in his days the earth was divided.

However in the interest of fairness, it has to be mentioned that there are those that believe that a far more likely explanation for Genesis 10:25 is that it refers to the division of humans into many diverse communities which started with the linguistic division at Babel. However, this is hard to believe since only eight verses later the Bible states, 'Now the whole earth had one language and one speech' (Genesis 11:1), and as a result of their disobedience, 'the LORD confused the language of all the earth' (Genesis 11:9). .


First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics:
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, and that the amount of matter in the universe remains constant. If the First Law is correct, which every scientific measurement ever made has confirmed, then the universe could not have created itself, it must have been created in the past, no further creating must be going on, and no loss of creation is occurring. The Bible is the only religious book that correctly portrays the First Law by 1) its description in Genesis of a Creator who is no longer creating, and 2) a Creator who is "upholding all things by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3)" .

Genesis 2:1 says (after creation):

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."

The Hebrew word used here is the past definite tense for the verb "finished," indicating an action completed in the past, never again to occur. The creation was "finished" -- once and for all. That is what the First Law of Thermodynamics says. It states that neither matter nor energy can be either created or destroyed. There is no "creation" ongoing today. It is "finished" exactly as the Bible states.

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which states that all systems degenerate from order to disorder, was regarded by Albert Einstein to be the premier Law in science. Again the Bible is the only religious book to accurately describe this Law:

"For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment... (Isaiah 51:6)",

and also a New Testament rendering:

"You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment; (Hebrews 1:10-11)" [7a]

Also See The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics... A Law Against Evolution


Talking Lightning?:
When God said in Job 38:35 (written 3,500 years ago)…

"Can you send lightnings, that they may go and say unto you, Here we are?"

It certainly seemed to be a scientifically ludicrous statement -- that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that radio waves move at the speed of light? This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth. Science didn't discover this until 1864 when "the British scientist James Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing". [8]

Similarly, Job 38:19 asks, "Where is the way where light dwells?" Modern man has only recently discovered that light (electromagnetic radiation) has a "way," traveling at 186,000 miles per second.


The Treasures of The Snow:
In the book of Job (written some 3,500 years ago), God asks Job if he had entered into

“the treasures of the snow” [38:22].

I can just hear the critics of yesteryear … Huh! Did He mean that blanket of white stuff that covers everything? What treasures could there possibly be in that? However with the advent of the microscope man discovered that each and every single snowflake is uniquely a symmetrical "treasure."


The Hydrologic Cycle:
The Mississippi River, which is just one of thousands of rivers all over this planet, dumps over six million gallons of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico. The answer to where all that water goes lies in the hydrologic cycle, or circulation of the earth's water… something that was not fully accepted until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although the earliest literature indicating an understanding of this cycle was apparently around the third or fourth century BC.. Aristotle demonstrated only a vague understanding of this process… though he recognized that rain came from clouds, he incorrectly postulated that air turned into water and vice versa.

Either way the Bible accurately portrays of this cycle 2500 years before it was widely accepted. Note the following passages:

For He draws up the drops of water, they distill rain from the mist, which the clouds pour down, they drip upon man abundantly. [Job 36:27,28]

The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens And has founded His vaulted dome over the earth, He who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth, The LORD is His name. [Amos 9:6]

It has only recently been learned that most clouds are formed by ocean evaporation, but again the Bible had it right centuries ago:

"All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place from which the rivers come, there they return again [Ecclesiastes 1:7]".

The complex nature of how water is supported in clouds despite being heavier than air is clearly implied when God declared to Job [Emphasis Added]

"Do you know how the clouds are balanced, those wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge (Job 37:16). [7a]

Furthermore...


Measuring The Waters:

Modern science has proved that the quantity of water on Earth is just enough for our needs. If the sea became three meters deeper, the water would absorb all the carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and no creature could live any longer.

Isaiah 40:12 (written 2800 years ago) "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand..."

We are told that God has measured the waters and set a proper amount of water on the Earth.


Air Currents: The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit. [Ecclesiastes 1:6]

The Bible describes the circulation of the atmosphere.

The Bible includes some principles of fluid dynamics.


The Oceans

The Paths Of The Seas:

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him but little lower than God, And crownest him with glory and honor. Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, Yea, and the beasts of the field, The birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, Whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. [Psalms 8:4-8] [Emphasis Added]

When the Bible speaks of “the paths of the seas” it is more than likely that it is referring to ocean currents, which was discovered by man only in the 1850’s. The following history of the discovery of these “paths” has been excerpted from Answers in Genesis…

American naval officer and oceanographer Matthew Maury (1806-1873) who wrote the first textbook on modern oceanography called The Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology, was a Christian who had no doubts about the accuracy of the Bible. After an accident partially disabled him ending his active duty with the Navy, he was appointed superintendent of the US Naval Observatory in Washington. “In his Bible studies, the words of Psalm 8 stuck in his mind: ‘ ... whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas’. Maury determined that if God’s Word said there were ‘paths’ in the seas, then there must be paths. So he set out to find them.

He studied old ships’ logs. From these he compiled charts of ocean-wind and sea currents. To study the speed and direction of the ocean currents Maury set adrift weighted bottles known as ‘drift bottles’. These floated slightly below the surface of the water, and thus were not affected by wind. Instructions were sealed in each bottle directing anyone who found one washed ashore to return it. From the location and date on which the bottles were found, Maury was able to develop his charts of the ocean currents—the ‘paths’ of the seas—which greatly aided the science of marine navigation”. [9]


Mountains Under The Seas:
When Jonah, who lived some 2,800 years ago, was in the depths of the ocean, he spoke of going down to the "bottoms of the mountains”. [Emphasis Added]

"I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet have you brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God." [Jonah 2:6]

Only in recent years has man discovered that there are mountains on the ocean floor. The greatest ocean depth has been sounded in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana's Trench, a distance of 35,798 feet below sea level. Mount Everest is 29,035 feet high.


Springs Under The Seas:
Hydrothermal vents are found in areas of the ocean floor that are spreading, such as at mid-ocean ridges, where tectonic plates are being pulled apart. Molten magma then rises from deep inside the Earth, superheating the cold ocean water around it. The average temperature of deep-ocean water is only 2°C (36°F). The water coming directly from a hydrothermal vent can reach up to 350°C (662°F) and is rich in dissolved chemicals. The hot spring water forms a plume above the vent, somewhat like smoke rising from a chimney into the air.

The first underwater hot spring to be discovered was probably in 1977, when scientists discovered hot springs at a depth of 2.5 km, on the Galapagos Rift (spreading ridge) off the coast of Ecuador. Since then other hot springs have been found at a number of sites along the mid-oceanic ridges, many on the East Pacific Rise. Giant tube worms, huge clams, and mussels all thrive around the hot springs. [10]

Yet once again the Bible was slightly ahead of man’s discovery..

Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep? [Job 38:16] [Emphasis Added]


Misc

The Dinosaur:
There is reasonable evidence that the scriptures speak of dinosaurs. As should be expected, this evidence comes from Genesis, the book of origins, and from the book of Job, generally believed to be the oldest book in the Bible.

First, Genesis 1:21 speaks of God creating whales on the fifth day of creation. The Hebrew word translated here as whales is generally translated dragons. It is translated as monsters once, whale(s) twice, serpent(s) thrice, and dragon(s) 21 times.

Second, Job's statements concerning the behemoth (Job 40:15-24) might be referring to dinosaurs. Its tail is compared to a cedar tree. Its strength, and apparently its bulk, is in its loins. It is said to be the chief of the ways of God, and is described as having the ability to drink up a river. No modern animal meets this description in all points. Some commentators think this was a hippopotamus. However, the hippo’s tail isn’t like a large tree, but a small twig. This creature also appears impervious to attack because his nose could pierce through snares

"Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eats grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. He lies under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinks up a river, and hastens not: he trusts that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He takes it with his eyes: his nose pierces through snares. (Job 40:15-24).

Third, Job's description of the leviathin (Job 41) very much resembles a dinosaur. Some would dismiss this description as fictitious because the leviathin is described as breathing fire; however, some creation scientists believe this could have happened. The creature would merely need glands to produce a chemical which would combust when exposed to air. The bombardier beetle does in fact have this ability. The fact that nearly every major culture of the world has traditions about such dragons lends yet further credibility to the possibility of their existence in the past. [1]

Apparently many scholars feel these descriptions refer to mythical or metaphorical animals, or the accounts could have been based on fossil skeletons. Why? Because the simultaneous existence of men and dinosaurs would turn their theories on their collective heads? Fossil Skeletons? Uh Huh! Somebody is going to have to explain to me how (and why) a man living some 3500 years ago would be engaged in an archaeological excavation… leave alone having the wherewithal to carry one out.

Why did the dinosaur disappear? This is something that has modern science mystified, but then Scripture says,

. . . He that made him can make his sword approach to him. [Job 40:19]

In other words, God caused this, the largest of all the creatures He had made, to become extinct.


Most of humankind has been brainwashed (courtesy of National Geographic, Time magazine, CNN and the Discovery channel) into believing that dinosaurs had walked this Earth millions of years ago. While evolutionists continue to maintain that ‘no man ever existed in the age of the reptiles’, the evidence documents exactly the opposite. See Section Dragons and Dinosaurs on THIS Page


Precise dimensions of Noah's Ark

The dimensions of Noah's Ark as described in the Bible are ideal for stability. In fact, South Korean architects who examined the dimensions found that the boat was virtually impossible to capsize! Their modeling and analysis found that the ark could survive waves higher than 30 meters! (note that a typical tsunami is only 10 meters high) [11]. Many other cultures have flood legends similar to the account in the Bible, but their ark descriptions were never palatable. For example, the Babylonian Gilgamesh Flood legend described an ark that was shaped like a cube, which would be horrible for stability.

Mathematics
The Value of Pi

In the verse of the Bible that contains a circumference and diameter (1 Kings 7:23), the Hebrew word for circumference contains an extra character at the end that can only add value to the word by applying Gematria (each Hebrew letter also represents a number). When taking the ratio of the added character to the value of the original word, the value of Pi is achieved to within 4 decimal places! [A more in-depth article by Chuck Missler can be found at http://ldolphin.org/pi/]. [7a]


Man

Man from Dust

Researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center confirmed that every element in man can be found in the soil, prompting one of the scientists to say "...the biblical scenario for the creation of life turns out to be not far off the mark". [7a]


Adam And Eve:
The Genesis account of creation asserts that all humans descended from the same parents, Adam and Eve. There is now considerable debate in the scientific community over recent genetic studies which indicate that all men have a common father and all women have a common mother. In fact, the latter claim is sometimes called the Eve hypothesis. Some scientists are skeptical about these studies, and even those who are supportive would not generally accept the Genesis account; however, Bible believers should expect further research to add yet more evidence supporting these hypotheses. [12]


The Seed of Life.

Genesis 3:15 says "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." [Emphasis Added]

This verse reveals that the female possesses the "seed of life." This was not the common knowledge until a few centuries ago. It was widely believed that the male only possessed the "seed of life" and that the woman was nothing more than a glorified incubator

One Blood:
Until recent times, it was believed there was significant differences in the blood of various human races. However statistical divisions of humanity based on different kinds of genetic data do not group people consistently into races

“…most human variation falls within, not between populations. About 85% of all genetic variation can, on average, be found within any local population, be they Swedes, Kikuyu, or Hmong. About 94% can be found within any continental population… In fact, there are no characteristics, no traits, not even one gene that turns up in all members of one so-called race yet is absent from others.

In fact, even disputing the belief that diseases like sickle cell anemia are race specific diseases, it goes on to say

Doctors were long taught that sickle cell anemia was a genetic disease of Negroes, a marker of their race. Yet sickle cell is found among peoples from central and western Africa, but not southern Africa. It is also carried by Turks, Yemenis, Indians, Greeks, and Sicilians. That's because sickle cell arose several thousand years ago as a mutation in one of the genes that codes for hemoglobin. The mutation soon spread to successive populations along the trade routes where malaria was common. It turns out that inheriting one sickle cell allele confers resistance to malaria and thus provides a selective advantage in malarial regions (inheriting sickle cell alleles from both parents causes sickle-cell disease). In other words, sickle cell … is a marker not of skin color or race but ancestry, or more precisely, having ancestors from where malaria was common. [13]


Life is in the Blood: Today it is well established that If you lose your blood, you lose your life, however bloodletting or the withdrawal of often considerable quantities of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and almost every disease was a most common medical practice performed by doctors from antiquity up to the late 19th century. Today we know that not only is bloodletting ineffective for most diseases, in the overwhelming majority of cases it was extremely harmful to patients.

Leviticus 17:11, written 3,000 years ago, declared that blood is the source of life:

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood."


Blood Clotting in Infants:
Why does the Bible consistently says that a baby must be circumcised on the eighth day? For example In Genesis 17:12, God specifically directed Abraham to circumcise newborn males on the eighth day.

Prothrombin a protein present in blood plasma plays a significant role in the clotting of blood, its quantity in the body being directly affected by vitamin K, which is responsible for the production (by the liver) of the element known as prothrombin. If vitamin K is deficient, there will be a prothrombin deficiency and hemorrhaging may occur. A full-term child is born with a relatively high level of prothrombin, however … [All Emphasis Added]

“During the last few years, numerous studies have been made of the prothrombin level in the blood of the newborn infant. The results of six of these have been critically reviewed by Smith and Warner. They consider the investigations fall into two groups. Most studies report that in “normal” infants the level of prothrombin on the first day after birth is high, with a rapid fall on the second, to a lower level on the third and fourth, followed by a recovery by the sixth day. Smith and Warner accept the fact that the method of analysis may be a factor in the production of these two types of curves, but are satisfied that the class of patient and season of the year are also important items. These latter affect the diet of the mother and, hence, the vitamin K intake”. [14]

Note: In most countries infants are given vitamin K shortly after birth to prevent a rare but potentially fatal condition called vitamin K deficiency bleeding in infancy.


Medical Knowledge in Ancient Times..

The Egyptians

The most complete information about the medicine and pharmacy of ancient Egypt is contained in the famous Papyrus Ebers, a disorganized collection of more than 800 concoctions and magical spells to alleviate suffering. The papyrus dates back to about 1552 B. C. and was discovered by Georg Ebers in 1872-3. Some of the ‘cures’ are…

To prevent the immoderate crying of children a mixture of the seeds of the plant Sheben with some fly-dirt is recommended. (It is supposed that Sheben may have been the poppy). …

.. To prevent the hair turning grey anoint it with the blood of a black calf which has been boiled in oil; or with the fat of a rattlesnake. When it falls out one remedy is to apply a mixture of six fats, namely those of the horse, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the cat, the snake, and the ibex. To strengthen it anoint with the tooth of a donkey crushed in honey. …

The animal drugs included lizards' blood, swine's teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pigs' ears, milk, goose grease, asses' hoofs, animal fats from various sources, excreta of various animals, including human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats, and even flies.
[15]

And, apart from the papyrus..

“The grave of several small children revealed that they had eaten skinned mice just prior to their deaths. The Egyptians believed that the life-giving Nile created mice because these animals emerged from cracks in the mud after the Nile receded each year.” [16]

Moses
Acts 7:22 tells us that …“Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians…” Yet scientific ignorance is conspicuous by its absence in the first five books of the Bible, written by Moses approximately 1491-1451 B.C. In fact the Torah (or law of Moses) not only reveals advanced principles and knowledge about hygiene, quarantine and sanitation far superior to that possessed by the Egyptians and other ancient societies of that day, but far exceeded medical standards practiced as recently as 100 years ago. Where did Moses get this advanced information?


Sanitary Practices in The 19th Century

Our medical knowledge was abysmal right up to the beginning of the twentieth century. It was not until this century that medical science had a full understanding of the fact that most diseases are caused by infection of microscopic organisms. Accordingly, the medical value of sterilization, sanitation, and quarantines were virtually unappreciated. Please note that the following took place in the 19th century.

In the 1840s, puerperal or childbirth fever, a bacterial infection of the female genital tract after childbirth, was taking the lives of up to 30% of women who gave birth in hospitals. Women who gave birth at home remained relatively unaffected.

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-65), a Hungarian obstetrician educated at the universities of Pest and Vienna was an assistant professor on the maternity ward of the Vienna General Hospital. He observed that women examined by student doctors who had not washed their hands after leaving the autopsy room had very high death rates. When a colleague who had received a scalpel cut died of infection, Semmelweis concluded that puerperal fever was septic and contagious and that he and the medical students carried "cadaverous particles" on their hands.

He ordered students to wash their hands with chlorinated lime before examining patients; as a result, the maternal death rate was reduced from 12% to 1% in 2 years. Nevertheless, Semmelweis encountered strong opposition from hospital officials as some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands; they felt that their social status as gentlemen was inconsistent with the idea that their hands could be unclean.

The existence of germs was unknown until around A.D. 1890 when Louis Pasteur demonstrated in his Germ Theory of Disease that most infectious diseases were caused by microorganisms originating from outside the body. While Pasteur was not the first to propose germ theory he developed it and conducted experiments that clearly indicated its correctness and managed to convince most of Europe it was true. This new understanding of germs and their means of transmission led to improved sanitary standards that resulted in an enormous drop in the mortality rate.

Yet these core principles of sanitation were being practiced by the Israelites thousands of years earlier.


Sanitary Practices in Moses’ Time

“The Israelites were instructed to wash themselves and their clothes in running water if they had a bodily discharge, if they came in contact with another person's discharge, or if they had touched a dead human or animal carcass. They were also instructed to wash any uncovered vessels that were in the vicinity of a dead body, and if a dead carcass touched a vessel it was to be destroyed. Items recovered during war were also to be purified through either fire or running water. In addition, the Israelites were instructed to bury their human waste outside of camp, and to burn the waste of their animals. (See Numbers 19, Leviticus 11 and 15, Deuteronomy 23:12). [7b]

This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days. And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean. And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. [Numbers 19:14-16]

"You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement. [Deuteronomy 23:10,11]

Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy: and when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place. But the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken: and if it be sodden in a brasen pot, it shall be both scoured, and rinsed in water. [Leviticus 6:27,28].

The last is a clear commandment to discard used pottery that may be contaminated with bacteria while metal pots should be disinfected by scouring and rinsing in water.

Until recent years, doctors washed their hands in a bowl of water, leaving invisible germs on their hands. However, the Bible says specifically to wash hands under "running water."

"And when he that has an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself even days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean" (Leviticus 15:13).

The Romans and The Minoans:
I have read the arguments that even in ancient times people knew about and often implemented good sanitation practices. The civilizations most often referenced being the Minoans and the Romans.. with particular emphasis on the ancient city of Pompeii. [See Footnote For Details]


Leprosy and Plague:
is characterized by disfiguring skin sores, nerve damage, and progressive debilitation. Throughout history, few diseases have provoked more stigma than leprosy, unique in its ability to generate fear.

However it is well to note that when the Bible speaks of “leprosy”, it is unknown whether it is referring to what we understand as leprosy (Hansen’s disease) which, left untreated, has debilitating and well known symptoms usually characterized by disfigured limbs, of which Scripture says nothing. However it is quite possible that Biblical leprosy may have included Hansen’s disease.

Whereas leprosy in Scripture seemed to cover a wider range of infectious diseases (also called plague), and could get quite complicated [See Leviticus 13 and 14]. The general rule however being quarantine, sometimes for just seven days. Careful observation was then made to see if the plague was healed and if it was, the person was declared clean after a ceremony involving two birds and a further seven days of living outside the camp. Infected garments were to be burned if the disease had spread after seven days, otherwise they could be washed twice.

However true leprosy was incurable before the advent of modern drugs and is not all that infectious although according to the Diseases Health Channel by eMedTV, leprosy research scientists still do not completely understand how leprosy spreads, although people who live within the same household as a person with untreated leprosy have an eight-fold increased risk of developing leprosy. [17] Emphasis Added]

Leviticus 13 and 14 mention the ‘marks’ of leprosy on walls and on garments and the priests were instructed to burn the garments of leprosy victims! (Leviticus 13:52), which many thought was quite silly, however M. leprae is a hardy organism and can survive outside the body for up to 45 days. However remember that we do not know if whether Scripture is referring to leprosy as we know it or some other infectious disease. On the other hand a paper published in the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene says the following [Emphasis Added]

Both nasal secretions and skin from untreated MB cases of leprosy are capable of shedding M. leprae to the environment, which may be deposited on either or both the nasal and skin epithelia of contacts with the potential for initiating infection. [18]

Which is why there are very strict commands in the Bible about how to deal with leprosy and other infectious diseases. During the devastating Black Death of the fourteenth century, patients who were sick or dead were kept in the same rooms as the rest of the family. People often wondered why the disease was affecting so many people at one time. They attributed these epidemics to ‘bad air’ or ‘evil spirits.’ However, careful attention (and earlier) to the medical commands of God as revealed in Leviticus would have saved untold millions of lives.

In fact, the laws against leprosy in Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of sanitary legislation and quarantine

And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be. [Leviticus 13:45,46].


Dietary Guidelines

“By the 1980s, all the health organizations of the United States had adopted low-fat, high fiber dietary guidelines. This was the culmination of numerous scientific studies that had demonstrated that diets high in vegetables, fruits, and grains reduced the risk of heart disease, cancer, and many other diseases. Secular physicians generally agree that these dietary guidelines that were producing longer life spans were first developed by religious movements founded in the 1800s, particularly by the Seventh-day Adventists. Where did the Seventh-day Adventists get their guidelines? From a meticulous and careful study of the Bible. It appears man has finally caught up to the dietary recommendations given by God to the Israelites some 3500 years ago!” [7b]

Additionally Leviticus 11:9-12 says

These you may eat, whatever is in the water: all that have fins and scales, those in the water, in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat. But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you, and they shall be abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest. 'Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you.

Scripture states that we should avoid those sea creatures which do not have fins or scales. We now know that bottom-feeders tend to consume waste and are likely to carry disease.


The End Times

Since Ernest Rutherford, who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1908, is credited with splitting the atom only in 1917, it is quite impossible for people in the first century, to have known anything about the Atom Bomb. However they certainly described it well, speaking about the sky burning up and the earth itself melting. Peter certainly believed this to be true, warning people about this phenomena in a verse quite startling in its clarity.

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat." (2 Peter 3:10-12)

The prophet Zechariah also gave us a chilling message…

"Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth." [Zechariah 14:12]

While the Apostle John described the sun becoming black as sack cloth and the moon becoming like blood

And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood; [Revelation 6:12]…

which describes the phenomena that would result from massive amounts of dust and debris blown into the sky by multiple nuclear bursts. He went on to say…

"And the atmosphere was pushed apart like a scroll when it is rolled together" (Revelation 6:14).

In a nuclear explosion the atmosphere rolls back on itself It's this tremendous rush of air back into the vacuum that causes much of the destruction of a nuclear explosion. John's words in this verse are a perfect picture of an all out nuclear exchange... The whole world will be literally shaken apart!

While John did not use terms like "nuclear weapons, ICBM's, or fractional orbital bombs." But "hail and fire," "a great mountain burning with fire," and "a great star... burning like a torch." Exactly what we would expect of a First Century man, describing things he had no knowledge of in the only terms he knew to use. Could it be that what John was really witnessing in the Spirit, was an end of the age nuclear holocaust? The effects he describes certainly seem to bear this out.

The poisoning of the waters (Revelation 8:11), the severe reduction in visibility (Revelation 8:12), the death of much of the earth's vegetation (Revelation 8:7), malignant sores (Revelation 16:2), the end of ocean life (Revelation 16:3), and the inability of the atmosphere to block out harmful ultraviolet rays, resulting in severe burns (Revelation 16:8) are all expected results of nuclear war.

However, please note that we are not saying that the world will end in a nuclear holocaust. In fact there are three possible sources of the kind of devastation portrayed above. [19]

[See The End of The Age.. The Seven Bowls]

Also See The Effects Of Nuclear Weapons By Russell "Ace" Hoffman.
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm


The Second Coming Takes Place in The Day AND Night:

In Luke 17:34–3 Jesus, speaking of His return to earth, makes the following statement.

I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left."

Which is a clear indication of knowledge of a revolving earth, on which it is day on one side, while it is yet night on the other.