1. We would expect to observe a uniform, worldwide blanket of randomly sorted boulders, cobbles, sand, and silt overlain by a layer of clay. This blanket would overlie any pre-existing geologic record. Since the Flood allegedly took place a mere 5000 years ago, this evidence should still remain with very little erosion. But this worldwide blanket does not exist.
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There are many big ammonite fossils in the Muktinath area of the Kali Gandaki valley, Nepal at around the elevation of 12,000 ft above sea level. This is one of the proofs that the Himalayas were indeed once under water. For many people who have faith in the Hindu religion, ammonite is one of the many forms of their Lord Vishnu. They keep the fossil in their worship room and worship it.
I think the argument on a lot of these issues has to do with time... i.e. those who believe in a Guiding Hand can understand rapid chaotic influences whereas those who believe in "naturalism" see a vast amount of time needed for things to have resulted in that which we see today. The evolutionist's Miracle Worker is Time.
When I was a teenager, I was confronted by a skeptic (a Unitarian, actually) concerning an apparent discrepancy in 1 Kings 7:23. This passage deals with Solomon's Temple and the products of Hiram the Bronzeworker:
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. (1 Kings 7:23)
The huge cast bronze basin in 1 Kings 7:23 was 10 cubits (note 1) in diameter and its circumference was 30 cubits, which is mathematically inaccurate. Almost any schoolboy knows that the circumference of a circle is not the diameter times 3, but rather, the diameter times a well-known constant called
("Pi").
The real value of 7r is 3.14159265358979, but is commonly approximated by 22/7.
This is assumed, by many, to be an "error" in the Old Testament record, and is often presented as a skeptical rebuttal to the "inerrancy" of the Scripture. How can we say that the Bible is inerrant when it contains such an obvious geometrically incorrect statement? How do we deal with this?
24-Hour Hot Line
It is interesting that whenever we find such a thing, we should simply take it to the Throne and claim the commitment Jesus made His disciples:
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (John 14:26)
Is this really true? Then why don't we resort to it more often?
In this case, the Lord ultimately brought to our attention some subtleties usually overlooked in the Hebrew text (2). In Hebrew, it reads:
A Spelling Lesson
The common word for circumference is
Here, however, the spelling of the word for circumference,
(In the text above, each word also has a leading
as a conjunction for the masculine singular noun.)
In the Hebrew Bible, the scribes did not alter any text which they felt had been copied incorrectly. Rather, they noted in the margin what they thought the written text should be. The written variation is called a kethiv,
and the marginal annotation is called the qere
To the ancient scribes, this was also regarded as a remez, a hint of something deeper. This appears to be the clue to treat the word as a mathematical formula.
Numerical Values
The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number.
The
has a value of 100; the
has a value of 6; thus, the normal spelling would yield a numerical value of 106. The addition of the
This Hebrew "code" results in 47.12264150943 feet, or an error of less than 15 thousandths of an inch! (This error is 15 times better than the 22/7 estimate that we were accustomed to using in school!) How did they accomplish this? This accuracy would seem to vastly exceed the precision of their instrumentation. How would they know this? How was it encoded into the text?
Implications
Beyond simply these engineering insights of Solomon's day, there are more far-reaching implications of this passage.
1) The Bible is reliable. The "errors" pointed out by skeptics usually derive from misunderstandings or trivial quibbles.
2) The numerical values of the letters are legitimate and apparently can carry significance.
The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number. This, in itself, is a major controversy among some. There are some who maintain that the numerical assignments in the Hebrew alphabet were borrowed from the Greek alphabet in a later period, and the influence of Pythagoras, et al. (580-500 B.C.) However, the Babylonians also employed "gematria" (the numerical values of letters and words) during the time of Sargon II. The wall at Khorsabad was supposed to have been built according to the numerical value of Sargon's name. (4) The Hebrew use of an alphanumeric alphabet also predates these assumptions.
...the earth not being flat...
Did Bible writers believe the earth was flat? No, this false idea is not taught in Scripture!Some Bible critics have claimed that Revelation 7:1 assumes a flat earth since the verse refers to angels standing at the "four corners" of the earth. Actually, the reference is to the cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. Similar terminology is often used today when we speak of the sun's rising and setting, even though the earth, not the sun, is doing the moving. Bible writers used the "language of appearance," just as people always have. Without it, the intended message would be awkward at best and probably not understood clearly. [DD]
In the Old Testament, Job 26:7 explains that the earth is suspended in space, the obvious comparison being with the spherical sun and moon. [DD]
A literal translation of Job 26:10 is "He described a circle upon the face of the waters, until the day and night come to an end." A spherical earth is also described in Isaiah 40:21-22 - "the circle of the earth."
Proverbs 8:27 also suggests a round earth by use of the word circle (e.g., New King James Bible and New American Standard Bible). If you are overlooking the ocean, the horizon appears as a circle. This circle on the horizon is described in Job 26:10. The circle on the face of the waters is one of the proofs that the Greeks used for a spherical earth. Yet here it is recorded in Job, ages before the Greeks discovered it. Job 26:10 indicates that where light terminates, darkness begins. This suggests day and night on a spherical globe. [JSM]
The Hebrew record is the oldest, because Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible. Historians generally [wrongly] credit the Greeks with being the first to suggest a spherical earth. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras suggested a spherical earth. [JSM]
Eratosthenes of Alexandria (circa 276 to 194 or 192 B.C.) calcuated the circumference of the earth "within 50 miles of the present estimate." [Encyclopedia Brittanica]
The Greeks also drew meridians and parallels. They identified such areas as the poles, equator, and tropics. This spherical earth concept did not prevail; the Romans drew the earth as a flat disk with oceans around it. [JSM]
The round shape of our planet was a conclusion easily drawn by watching ships disappear over the horizon and also by observing eclipse shadows, and we can assume that such information was well known to New Testament writers. Earth's spherical shape was, of course, also understood by Christopher Columbus. [DD]
The implication of a round earth is seen in the book of Luke, where Jesus described his return, Luke 17:31. Jesus said, "In that day," then in verse 34, "In that night." This is an allusion to light on one side of the globe and darkness on the other simultaneously. [JSM]
"When the Bible touches on scientific subjects, it is entirely accurate." [DD]
Read more...
But, doesn't the Bible refer to "the four corners of the earth." How can a spherical earth have corners? Answer... Who invented the concept of a flat Earth? Answer...