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Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Science, the Bible, affirmation, and accomodation to culture

Psalm 104:5 He laid the foundations of the earth,
    that it should not be moved forever.
13b The earth is filled with the fruit of your works.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons.
    The sun knows when to set.
24 Yahweh, how many are your works!
    In wisdom have you made them all.
    The earth is full of your riches. (World English Bible, public domain)

This is from probably the greatest nature poem ever written, Psalm 104. Poetry is often not meant to be taken literally. That doesn’t mean that it is in error. It can speak truth, often in ways that straightforward prose cannot.

The Old Testament accommodated the culture of the day. If David had said, in verse 5, “The earth is in a stable orbit around the sun,” instead of “it shall not be moved forever,” he, nor others of his day, would have understood that. But David accommodated the culture of his day*. The Bible even accommodates the culture of OUR day. The sun really doesn’t set (verse 19). The earth rotates so that the sun appears to set. God knows that, of course, but He didn’t make David write that, and doesn’t correct us if we talk about the sun setting or rising! 

This post owes a lot to one by John Walton,  “Does the Bible Contain Errors?” Walton doesn’t think so, because, to him, an error would be some wrong thing that the Bible affirms.The Bible doesn’t affirm that the earth has four corners. It's not trying to teach geology and astronomy. The Bible just makes poetic statements which had meaning to the culture and beliefs of the time.

Walton writes: “Throughout the Bible, we find constant accommodation to the way that people thought in the ancient world. In the realm of science, the Bible makes no claims that transcend what someone in the ancient world would have thought and believed. They believed in a geocentric universe with a flat earth at the center, and the Bible speaks in those terms; but the Bible does not affirm this particular cosmic geography.”


*Other examples: Isaiah 11:12 and Revelation 11:1 say that the earth has four corners.

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