The Bible; A Message from beyond Time and Space

by Armin A. Wolff

A previous study presented the evidences from science for the design of our universe and how it displays the handiwork of a great designer. This time I would like to present to you evidence that this designer left us a manufacturers instruction book for life, and that this book is the holy Bible.

Ä A communicating God

Any creator able to design and sustain the astounding universe we are able to observe in ever increasing detail certainly has the means by which to communicate the purposes and reasons for having created everything in the first place and His aim and goal of it all. He could have chosen many ways of getting His message to us. He could split the sky once in every generation and announce himself: "Hi I'm God, I made you and you'd better do what I tell you or else!" I'm sure each of us could think of ways He could communicate. He could speak to each of us audibly each morning, download the days instructions, telling us what to do in detail and warning us to stay in line. He could pierce the space-time dimension and become as we are and demonstrate His deity by controlling the forces of nature and conquering our worst enemy -- death. He could have the chronicle of His visit written down for all generations. This essentially is the message of the Bible, both Testaments: The Creator of the universe became like one of us in order to demonstrate His love.

Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Philippians 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

Philippians 2:7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Philippians 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!

Ä The Skeptics common objections

Over much of the last 1500 years or more, most people in the western world believed that the Bible was indeed the Word of God. However, in about the last 150 years liberal theologians, secularists, and the media have convinced many that the Bible is unreliable.

This unbelief can be categorized into four areas.

1) Many believe that the evidences of design are no more than a carefully designed hoax or simply the result of chance.

2) The Bible is a scientifically inaccurate book filled with erroneous concepts such as a flat earth and geocentric universe.

3) Many believe that Bible prophecy is no more than history; i.e., they believe that the Bible's prophecies were written after the fact.

4) The Bible's text has been severely corrupted over time by copying errors and deliberate changes.

Ä Evidence for designed universe

The first of these areas of unbelief was the topic of my earlier teaching and the notes for that are available. The last two objections are another subject to be dealt with another time. The second of these areas is what I will address here.

Ä Astonishing evidence

Contrary to the skeptics unbelief, astonishing evidence has gradually accumulated in the fields of archaeology, astronomy, physics, earth science, and biology which confirm the scientific and historical accuracy of the Bible, attesting to the supernatural origin of its text.

Ä Discovery of a finite universe

One of the most remarkable discoveries made in the 20th century is the insight that the universe is finite in time and dimension. It did not always exist. Prior to this discovery, atheistic scientists and philosophers rested comfortably on the notion that the universe was eternal. Consequently, a universe without a beginning needed no cause, no beginner. It was just thought to always having been there.

Ä A beginning requires a beginner

However, a universe that has a beginning either created itself, which is a logical and scientific absurdity, or it was caused to exist by a Being who preceded it. By definition, that means a transcendent Creator. This One must exist outside time and space.

Ä Einstein shakes up physics

Beginning with Albert Einstein in 1903, twentieth-century physicists have demonstrated that space-time and matter-energy had a finite, simultaneous beginning, commonly called ≥The Big Bang≤. In his theory of relativity he showed that time, matter-energy and space are interrelated and vary according to precise, experimentally verifiable mathematics. He and other physicists showed that we exist in more than a three dimensional universe, and that time itself is a physical property. Time varies with mass, acceleration and gravity.

Ä A trip to the nearest star

Suppose that you were an astronaut slated to take a trip in a technologically advanced space ship to the nearest star outside of the solar system. Astronomers have named it Alpha Centauri. Because your space vehicle is the first of its kind it can only achieve a maximum speed of about half the speed of light, 335 million miles / hour. At this speed it would take 9 years to get there and another 9 to come home again. After carefully keeping track of your clock and calendar you would expect to be back home in 18 years. However, to your surprise, when you landed you would learn that on earth meanwhile 20 years and 9 months had gone by. Your son who was a toddler when you left decided to follow in your footsteps and also become an astronaut. Not long after your return he entered a much more advanced spaceship which could achieve 663 million miles / hour (99.99% of the speed of light) According to his clock and calendar he makes the round trip in about 9 years. However, when he came back home earthlings had long forgotten him because 318 years had passed on Earth. If another 9 is added to the end (99.999) of the percentage, then over 4000 years will have elapsed on earth.

Ä Time is relative

This example shows what God told the writers of the Bible. Time had a beginning and is not absolute.

1 Corinthians 2:7 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

and God measures time quite differently than we:

Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

2 Peter 3:8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Ä God in eternity

The Bible declares that God lives outside of time.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Ä God sees all at once

God, being outside of the time and space dimension is able to see everything that is going on, much as we might observe the goings on in a fish bowl. He sees all time and space as a unified whole. The Bible is the only holy book that places God outside the universe, able to look in and act to affect events therein. All other religions place (whatever else their particular view of God might be) God inside or make him part of the universe.

Job 28:24 For he looketh to the ends of the earth, [and] seeth under the whole heaven;

Ä God works into time with a timeless supernatural message

Because of this, the Creator presents some interesting possibilities. He possesses sufficient means to act in our space-time domain, therefore He also has the capability to get a message to us. The Bible claims to be that message.

Ä Authenticated supernatural origin

The Bible authenticates that its text is an extraterrestrial, supernatural message system from a transcendent Creator in several ways.

Ä Scientifically accurate

Because the Bible declares that God is omniscient (all-knowing), He possesses a perfect understanding of the physical universe. Consequently, we would expect any book claiming to be the word of God to be 100% accurate when speaking on scientific issues. Indeed, the Bible is without error or contradiction when it speaks on scientific facts.

Ä Predicts scientific discoveries

The main message and purpose of the Bible is not a textbook on science, but a manual on who man is and how he is to relate to God. However, throughout the Bible there are highly specific and accurate statements regarding the laws of physics, the nature of our solar system, our planet and its life forms. These were written centuries before this knowledge was discovered by modern science. This phenomenon, called scientific foreknowledge, is present throughout the text of the Bible and is a powerful proof of supernatural authorship.

Ä Overall textual design

Throughout the Bible we find the hallmarks of a supernatural message system. Numerous design features in the Biblical text defy coincidence and demonstrate that the Bible is an integrated message. It consists of sixty-six books penned by forty authors over thousands of years. I mention this here as part of the overview, but this will be the subject of a later detailed study.

Ä History before it happens

Because the Creator revealed in the Bible exists outside of time, He is able to "see," in effect, the beginning and the end of all time simultaneously. The Bible demonstrates that its message is of extra-dimensional origin through predictive prophecy; i.e., by writing history in advance! No other "holy book" authenticates its message in these four ways. The subject of prophecy as a powerful means of authenticating the Bible, will be given closer attention in a subsequent teaching. God looks in from the outside of our whole time-space universe. He sees everything going on at once. He sees time as one who sees a parade from the air -- the first float, the last one and the ones in between all at once. We, standing at the street corner see each only as it comes before us and after it has passed, we have but a memory of it.

Astronomy

Ä Seeing red

As astronomers developed better and more powerful telescopes it soon became clear that the universe is much bigger than previously thought. When the light from stars is passed through a prism or a fine grating, the white light is split into its constituent colors. The appearance of a rainbow after a storm is a natural process where the raindrops break up the light. When atoms are excited to give off light, each element gives off a distinct pattern of colors. Thus the element helium (from the Greek word helios for sun) was discovered on the sun before its discovery on earth. Thus it is possible to identify what a star is made of by the distinctive color print each element present in the light that star gives off. When astronomers first subjected the light from some stars to this spectral analysis, it was noticed that the patterns for the elements were the same as on earth and on the sun, but the whole pattern was shifted to the red (lower frequency) end of the spectrum. That is still the only actual fact we know. Almost all starlight is shifted towards red to some degree. Astronomers tried to think of an explanation of this shift. In the late 1920s an astronomer named Edwin Hubble came up with an explanation that seemed to fit most of the data available at that time.

Ä Expanding Universe

As anyone who has ever stood beside a railroad track when a train thunders by, blowing its whistle, has observed, the sound is higher pitched as the train approaches, and then lowers as the train recedes. Hubble gave a similar explanation for the red shifting of the light from stars. Thus he theorized, the distant stars must be traveling away from us and from each other. From the amount of shift it is possible to calculate how fast the star is moving relative to the observer. Since the more the shift, Hubble thought, the faster the stars are moving and the farther they are from earth. This is where the idea of the expanding universe and the "big bang" originated. It appears that all the material in the universe is moving away from some central point.

Ä Stretched out Heavens

Since God authored the Bible, He tells mankind about this feature of His great design millennia before Hubble.

Psalms 104:1 Praise the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

Psalms 104:2 He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent

Isaiah 40:22 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 42:5 This is what God the LORD says-- he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:

Isaiah 45:12 It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.

God makes it abundantly clear to us that He knows how the universe is constructed.

Ä Spherical Earth

God tells us in Isaiah 40:22 (above) that the earth is not flat like the scientists of Isaiah's day thought, but is circular. Indeed the Hebrew word chwug (pronounced --> khoog) literally means spherical, like an orange or apple. It was 1700 years later that a Greek mathematician named Erathenes proved that the earth must be spherical.

Ä Earth divided into quadrants

Revelation 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.

Some skeptics point to this verse saying the earth has corners and assume thereby that the Bible is in error by stating the earth is flat. A study of the Greek word [gonia {go-nee'-ah}] translated corner shows that it is a navigational term that also means angle or quadrant. The word is derived from the Greek word [gonu {gon-oo'}] which means knee. Navigators know the earth is indeed divided into four quadrants and use angles and spherical geometry to guide travel on the earth.

Ä Light and darkness divided

Only after the invention of high altitude rockets and subsequent journeys into space did any man ever see the line called the terminator, where the earth's division between night and day is. On a flat earth there could be no such thing, but God reveals the truth in:

Job 26:10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.

Job 26:10 He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness.

The word translated compassed means encircle or draw a circle. Only on a spherical object is it possible to have the terminator boundary be a circle.

Ä Earth's resting place

None the myths about what supports the Earth that abounded in the ancient world are found in the Word of God. Man has always had very imaginative ideas about the foundation of the Earth. Some believed that it rested on elephants or on the backs of turtles. The Greeks believed that Atlas was the one who carried the Earth on his shoulders. In the book of Job, the oldest book of the Bible we are told:

Job 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.

Earth from Space

Anyone who has ever seen a photograph of the earth from space, such as the one above, can see this is true, but how did Job know this almost 4000 years ago? He claims to have the information from the creator directly.

Ä Stars cannot be numbered

Before the invention of the telescope and its use by Galileo in 1610 to study the stars, astronomers counted the stars they could see with the unaided eye and made star charts with about 6000 stars. These charts existed in Jeremiah's day already. Yet Jeremiah, speaking truth from God contradicts all scientists of his time in:

Jeremiah 33:22 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 As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.

Today's modern telescopes reveal hundreds of billions of galaxies each one of which has hundreds of billions of stars. Even with modern technology it is a fact that the stars cannot be numbered.

Ä The Sun's circuit

Psalms 19:6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.

Some critics have said that the Bible contradicts science because it speaks of the sunrise and the sun's movement. This however is a common figure of speech which astronomers and astronauts still use. There is in this verse however an important clue to a discovery not made until the time of modern science. The sun, says God, follows a circuit. The sun is a star in the milky way, our galaxy, and as such together with its planets, it orbits the center of the milky way. This circuit or orbit as we call it takes about 70,000 years. How did David know the sun makes a circuit?

Physics

Ä Atomic Structure

People throughout the ages have wondered how small anything can be divided and if there might be a point after which matter becomes indivisible. The Greeks pondered this and named the smallest thing that can exist atom, which means indivisible. Since about 1900 physicists have gained much insight into the universe of the exceedingly small. By means of giant atom-smashers and other technology it is has become evident that atoms can be further divided. Since matter and energy are equivalent, everything which we deem solid and real is actually a fleeting form of energy that can only exist by itself for a finite period of time. Neither atoms, nor their particle constituents can be seen or examined individually. We can perceive what we call real and solid only statistically by the behavior of enormous numbers of particles. Thus the world is made of things which are by themselves individually unseen and unknowable. God tells us this in His word long ago.

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Ä Nuclear physics

As a part time nuclear physicist, the Apostle Peter gives us insight into the fact that splitting atoms release tremendous heat and sound.

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

In a nuclear blast, the sudden conversion of a small amount of matter into pure energy will indeed melt and or vaporize all elements. Albert Einstein's most well known equation E=mc2 states the relationship between matter and energy. A dime sized piece of matter suddenly releasing all of its energy would wipe out a city such as the size of Los Angeles. Did God fast-forward Peter to our time and let him witness the devastation a nuclear bomb leaves behind?

Ä Dynamic nature of light

In choosing his words, God is very careful. How did Job know that light is a dynamic rapidly moving form of energy when he speaks of the "way" when he refers to light and contrasts that to the static "place" of darkness?

Job 38:19 Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,

Ä Components of light

For millennia people have pondered how a rainbow is made and about the nature of light. As mentioned earlier, scientists learned that white light can be divided or parted into its color components by a refracting medium, such as a prism, or in the case of the rainbow, drops of water. Job knew about this long before science of modern times.

Job 38:24 By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth?

Hebrew word translated "parted" is chalaq {khaw-lak'} occurs 65 times and 40 times it is rendered as "divided". The word "separate" is also used in some places.

Ä First law of thermodynamics

This is one of the conservation laws that states: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. When anything gets what we might call destroyed, for example by burning, it doesn't go out of existence. Nothing in our universe goes out of existence, it only changes form. The wood or other fuel burned seems to disappear, but if you were to gather up the gases and ashes and weigh them, they'd weigh the same as the original. Neither is there any evidence of any matter coming into existence in our universe.

Genesis 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Genesis 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Hebrews 4:3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.

Nehmiah 9: 6 Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

Long before scientists discovered this very fundamental principle of our physical world God tells us that He finished the job and there is no more creating going on. When astronomers speak of new stars being born, they are really only talking about the light from them reaching us now after leaving a far away part of the universe long ago. No new matter coming into being anywhere has ever been observed.

Ä Second law of thermodynamics

This law is called the law of entropy and states that everything in the universe, left to itself, tends to disorder and decay as time moves forward. This is why everything, including our bodies, wears out as time goes on. Modern scientists have mathematically defined this process, though it has long been part of the physical world. Long ago God tells us this is true and is inevitable and extends to the entire physical creation. Before modern science, it was thought the stars were eternal, but now we know that they too are subject to this law. Eventually our sun will run out of fuel and die, and earth will be a lifeless, frozen ice ball.

Isaiah 51:6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail.

Psalms 102:25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

Psalms 102:26 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded.

Psalms 103:14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

Psalms 103:15 As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;

Psalms 103:16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

This law of decay was imposed on creation when sin entered and was not always there. It will be done away with. The Apostle Paul tells us this will happen for us when our bodies are redeemed also.

Romans 8:19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.

Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope

Romans 8:21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Romans 8:22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Romans 8:23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Earth Science

Ä Ocean currents

Until the 1840's the fact that there are currents in the oceans was unknown to science. A man named Matthew Fontaine Maury joined the US Navy in 1825 and circumnavigated the globe from 1826 to 1830. In 1848 he published maps of the main wind streams of Earth and was provided information about oceanic currents by sea captains from all over the globe. This data enabled him to produce charts showing that the Atlantic and Pacific have predictable, specific currents. There are currents that flow clockwise in some places and counterclockwise in others. This discovery was important since it allowed shipping captains the world over save time and energy by taking advantage of favorable currents and avoiding contrary ones. He published his works in a book called "The Physical Geography of the Seas" and was dubbed the pathfinder of the sea. Again the word of God tells us of this over 3000 years before Maury came along.

Psalms 8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Isaiah 43:16 This is what the LORD says-- he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,

It is interesting to note that the writers of the Bible lived around the Mediterranean sea which does not have significant currents, as compared to the great open oceans of our planet.

Ä Mountains in the ocean

Modern oceanography using sonar and other technology has mapped most of the world's seas. These maps show great mountain ranges rising up from the floor of the oceans. Jonah, fleeing God's commission to preach in Nineveh learned about these mountains in the sea in a very dramatic manner.

Jonah 2:5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

Jonah 2:6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God.

Ä The Water cycle

About 300 years ago two French scientists named Pierre Perrault and Edme Marriotte demonstrated that oceanic evaporation was the source of rain clouds and river waters. We all are taught this early in life, but this discovery again is given by the scriptures long before science discovered this. God details evaporation:

Job 26:8 He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.

Amos 9:6 he who builds his lofty palace in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land-- the LORD is his name.

He tells us the streams come from the sea and return there again in an endless cycle

Ecclesiastes 1:7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

Ä Cyclones & Jet Stream

Until the advent of modern meteorological measurements, the source and nature of the winds on earth were mysterious. Now we know that the winds are circulatory in nature. High altitude measurements have shown that the Jet Stream circumnavigates our planet and influences other cyclonic wind patterns and storms. Solomon got this information from the one who makes the forces of nature do His will.

Ecclesiastes 1:6 The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.

ÄSprings of the sea

Modern Oceanographers such as Jaques Cousteau and the Scripps Howard Institute of La Jolla CA among others have discovered that on the ocean bottom, thousands of feet below the surface there are hot and cold springs that provide unique environments for strange species of creatures found nowhere else. Some of these are in deep trenches, as much as 30,000 feet deep. Job writes about this millennia before. Did the designer of the oceans take Job on virtual tour of all His wonders? Did Job and the other writers of scriptures have access to the One with the blueprints?

Job 38:16 "Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Ä Air has weight

The ancients believed that the wind is weightless, but we now know that this is not so. Every time you suck on a straw, you depend on some of the weight of the air above you to push whatever you are drinking up the straw. In fact, the air pushes down with a force over 14 lbs on every square inch at sea level. God told Job that air is heavy.

Job 28:25 To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.

Ä Dinosaurs

In modern times, dinosaurs were discovered by an English physician named Gideon Mantell in 1820. However, 4,000 years ago Job describes anatomic features of ancient creatures which do not fit any contemporary animals. However, they do seem to fit what we know about some species of dinosaurs!

Job 40:15 "Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.

Job 40:16 What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly!

Job 40:17 His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit.

Job 40:18 His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron.

Job 40:19 He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword.

Dinosaurs were huge, some over 200ft from snout to tail weighing many tons. Contrary to evolutionary theory, humans and these monsters lived together on earth in the time before the flood and for a short time thereafter. Job describes a creature translators have given the name "Leviathan".

Job 41:25 When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing.

Job 41:26 The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.

Job 41:27 Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood.

Job 41:28 Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him.

Job 41:29 A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance.

Job 41:30 His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

Job 41:31 He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.

Job 41:32 Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair.

Job 41:33 Nothing on earth is his equal-- a creature without fear.

Scientists today call this a plesiosaur. They say it lived in the sea. Above is an illustration of what the creature might have looked like, based on the fossil remains. According to the evolution theory, this creature became extinct 60 million years ago. That was the belief of anti-christian scientists until Japanese fisherman caught a dead one in 1977 in the Pacific. This creature was over 40 feet long, weighing many tons, but was already partially decayed. It must have given off quite a stench! That year, the Japanese government brought out a commemorative stamp of this discovery

There are stories and descriptions that fit certain dinosaurs. Numerous reports such as of the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland, the Ogopogo of Lake Okonogan, British Columbia Canada and many others are quite consistent.

Above is an illustration of a Stegosaurus as some paleontologists have imagined it may have looked like, based on the fossil remains found in many places. Now compare this with Job's description written about 4000 years ago!

Job 41:15 His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together;

Job 41:16 each is so close to the next that no air can pass between.

Job 41:17 They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.

Biology

Ä Circumcision

Leviticus 12:1 The LORD said to Moses,

Leviticus 12:2 "Say to the Israelites: 'A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period.

Leviticus 12:3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised.

Why did God instruct Moses to choose the eighth day? There are of course spiritual reasons, such as the fact that eight is the number that symbolizes new beginnings. But there are medical reasons also. A protein called prothrombin is at its peak on the eighth day after birth. Prothrombin is one of the main components of the blood clotting system. It seems that Moses had inside information from the biochemist that designed the blood clotting system.

Summary

From the material presented it is clear that the Bible anticipates many important discoveries made since the dawn of the modern scientific age. Not a single one of the erroneous ideas about the physical world that was "politically correct" in the cultures and times of the writers of these 66 books was incorporated in the scriptures.

For over 20 years, research has been going on to try to find out whether we are alone in the Universe. Movies such as ET have popularized this question. The question and its possible answer "Is there anybody out there" is featured in books and magazines. Millions of our tax dollars are being spent on sophisticated research to find signs of intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos. Large arrays of radio telescopes in the USA and in other places around the world are sifting through the galactic noise in hopes of finding a coherent message.

If you have a Bible, you are in possession of such a message. It comes from beyond earth, beyond the edges of intergalactic space, beyond time. You are in possession of a message from the loving creator God who inhabits eternity. In this message He tells you of His love for you, why you are here and how He wants you to live.

1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

If you have repented of your sin and accepted the blood sacrifice Jesus became for you, then the transcendent God of creation will be close and personal because He becomes your father. He gives you a basic rule for your journey through time and beyond:

Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.