Bible and Science - The Cosmos in the Bible

In Ancient times people believed that there were 1,100 stars. Why 1,000? That is the amount of stars that can be seen by the naked eye. Yes, somebody actually counted them! However, 585 years before Jesus was born, God inspired Jeremiah to write: “I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore.” (Jeremiah 33:22) God calls the stars “countless” and equates them with the sand on the seashore. This flew in the face of contemporary science.

Then, one day in 1608, a Dutch man named Hans Lippershay invented what we now know as the telescope. From that day forward we have been discovering more and more stars. Today we believe that there are billions of stars - up to 200 billion in our galaxy alone! Many of these stars we can only “see” through radio telescopes. The stars simply cannot be numbered. We don’t even know how many galaxies are out there. It took science two thousand years to figure out that the Bible was right!

Let’s take a step back and consider that the Bible is not a science book. However, if you do believe that God created the universe, it only makes sense that He would let a few scientific facts slip in here and there. God inspired scientific ideas that the authors of His Word probably didn't understand. The people who first read the scriptures wouldn't have understood them either. These truths were put there for us, who live in the age of science, so that we could see that the Bible is alive and relevant today!

But sometimes scientists make discoveries that seem to discredit the Bible. For example, when it was discovered (about 400 years ago) that the earth orbits the sun, it brought into question Psalm 19:4-6, where we read: “In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.” People began to laugh at the Bible saying that science had “proven” the Bible wrong. It is the earth that revolves around the sun and not the other way around! The sun is stationary, it just seems that it moves and so the Bible is confused…

But wait! Science finally caught up with the Bible. It was more recently discovered (about 150 years ago) that the sun is actually 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. Truly a championship race! The Bible was right again.

Some of the most interesting myths in cultures around the world relate to how the earth is suspended in space. Some cultures taught that the earth rested on the back of a large animal, like a turtle. The ancient Greek philosophers thought that the earth floated on water – how else could everything grow? The ancient Babylonians said that the earth was resting on the body of a fallen hero named Tiamat.

But into this confusion of philosophy, science and religion, comes the clear voice of God. Almost 3,500 years ago, in Job 26:7 we read: “He suspends the earth over nothing”. Now that we can fly around the world and even look at the earth from space we know that the Bible was correct. The earth floats freely in space!

Guess what? The Bible has always been proven right. When we finally realize that and take a look at God’s creation all around us, we have to say with David:

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge."
- Psalm 19:1-2

If we can trust the Bible to be right about something as vast and complex as the cosmos, then we can surely trust the Author of the Bible to know everything there is to know about us!