Can a Science Master Believe the Bible? Is the Bible True?

My eye falls upon this sentence as I read a well-known book. “As a handbook of Science the venerable book is not entirely reliable.” What about science? Is it so completely reliable? Let us see.

Had you gone to school in Egypt, about 3,000 years before the birth of our Lord, your teacher would have told you that the universe was like a big rectangular box with Egypt at the middle of its base. You would have learnt that the sky was supported by four mountain peaks and the stars, well, they were lamps hanging from the sky by long cables. All round the land ran a river, on which travelled a boat carrying the sun. Stupid I you say: yes, of course it was, but had you said that to your teacher you would either have been caned or kept in after school!

THAT was the science of the day.

In the year about 500 B.C. the great statesman, engineer, mathematician and astronomer, Thales of Miletus, is delivering a lecture to his students. Listen to what he says : “The earth is a flat disc, floating on water, not resting on a limitless solid bottom, as our predecessors thought.”

A stage further, but was he right? It was not until the year 530 B.C. that the great Pythagoras, (of Theorem fame), recognised that the earth was a sphere and was revolving on its axis.

Turn now to the book of Job, Chapter 38, verse 14, – “the earth is turned as clay to the seal.” Imagine a cotton reel, with a stick passed right through its length. This was the form of an ancient seal and it was passed over the clay or other substance to be impressed. A solid, rotating about its axis – how did Job know so much about our earth; when scientists knew so little? The simplest answer is that God told him.

“A venerable book” it certainly is, and worthy of all our trust. God always tells the truth, for His word is truth, and although the old order changeth, yielding place to new, the Word of the Lord endureth for ever.