Is the science of the Bible always correct? Lamentations 2:11 on the liver

Image of the liver from Wikimedia Commons

Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city. (World English Bible, public domain)

Commentary by A. R. Fausset: "that is, as the liver was thought to be the seat of the passions, "all my feelings are poured out and prostrated for," &c. The "liver," is here put for the bile ("gall," Job 16:13; "bowels," Psa 22:14 ) in a bladder on the surface of the liver, copiously discharged when the passions are agitated." (source)

From Calvin's commentary: "But Jeremiah, in short, shews that all his faculties were so seized with grief, that no part was exempt. He then says that his liver was poured forth, but in the same sense in which he said that his bowels were disturbed. They are indeed hyperbolical expressions; but as to the meaning, Jeremiah simply expresses his feelings; for there is no doubt but that he was incredibly anxious and sorrowful on account of so great a calamity;" (source)

The author of Lamentations was not including the first verse quoted above as part of a discussion of liver anatomy and physiology. If he had been doing so, he would have been largely wrong, as can be seen by reading this solid source on how the liver was perceived in ancient times. The authors of that source, in fact, quote the verse at the beginning of this post, and say, commenting on it, that the liver "... was also the seat of all the emotions..." Or, as Fausset put it in his commentary, the passions.

Was Jeremiah (presumably the author of Lamentations) wrong about the liver? Well, yes, about its significance and function. Was the Bible wrong about the liver? Yes, in the same way. But Lamentations was not a physiology text. God knows the function of the liver, perhaps even knowing aspects of it that are yet to be discovered, here in 2023, and He knew them in Jeremiah's time. The Bible, nor God, is not in error worth mentioning, or defending, concerning this passage. Jeremiah spoke in accord with the beliefs of his day, and those beliefs were not such as to imperil anyone's salvation. These beliefs were incorporated into what he said about the liver. It would have been strange indeed for God to have tapped Jeremiah on the shoulder and said "excuse me, but the liver is not actually the seat of the emotions. Carry on with your prophecy," and, of course, He didn't do that. To expect every Biblical description of created things to match current scientific knowledge is unreasonable.

Thanks for reading. Take care of your liver. 

September 15, 2023:

I have discovered that, in chapter six of his book, (Mis)interpreting Genesis: How the Creation Museum Misunderstands the Ancient Middle Eastern Context of the Bible, Ben Stanhope discusses the brain and the kidneys, in a fashion similar to my treatment of the liver, in this post. God willing, I'll post on these further organs soon.

October 6, 2023: Here is a post on the kidneys, and here is one on the size of mustard seeds. Both posts argue that the Bible was produced according to the beliefs about nature and humans that were prevalent at that time.

Is the science of the Bible always correct? Jesus and mustard seeds

The Bible was written, and understood, in the culture of its times. That doesn't mean that the Bible contains errors. We say, now, that the sun rises and sets. It doesn't. The earth rotates so that different parts of it are facing the sun, as we go through a day. Does that make statements about sunsets erroneous? No. Nor are they misleading. Our culture thinks of the sun and moon as rising and setting. Such statements communicate effectively within our culture.

When Jesus said that a mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds, (Matthew 13:31-32) he wasn't wrong, nor was he lying. (We now know that there are smaller seeds. Apparently, the people of Jesus' time and place thought that mustard seeds were the smallest seeds.) Jesus was communicating within that culture. He could have said something like "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a tiny seed, smaller even than the mustard seeds you are familiar with." But He didn't. His purpose was not to teach plant reproductive anatomy, but to teach about the Kingdom, and His purpose was achieved in this illustration, using the idea of mustard seeds to communicate.

Answers in Genesis (AiG) has posted on this part of the Bible. They say, correctly, that Jesus wasn't teaching plant anatomy in this story. But the author uses some strange thinking in his discussion, suggesting that the seeds that we know now, and now realize are smaller than mustard seeds, may have descended from plants that grew in the time of Christ, but evolved (AIG doesn't use that word here, but the concept is strongly suggested!) from plants with larger seeds, to plants with tiny seeds now.

The Bible is not a science textbook. It was written, and understood, in the culture of the times. Writing within the culture didn't make it erroneous.