The earth is fixed in place?

Some quotations from the Bible:

1 Chronicles 16:30 Tremble before him, all the earth. The world also is established that it can’t be moved.

 

Psalm 93:1 Yahweh reigns! He is clothed with majesty! Yahweh is armed with strength. The world also is established. It can’t be moved.

 

Psalm 96:10a Say among the nations, “Yahweh reigns.” The world is also established. It can’t be moved.

Psalm 104:5 He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever. (World English Bible, public domain)

The Bible seems to say, in at least these four places, that the earth can’t be moved. But it does move! It goes around the sun, and the sun, itself, is in motion through space.  And it rotates. What’s going on? Is the Bible in error? No. The Bible was mostly written according to the culture and world view of the times. If the writers had said something like “The world is traveling in a stable elliptical orbit, and has done so for many years, and will continue to do so,” the readers or listeners, to say nothing of the human author(s), would not have understood what was said, and might well have thought that the speaker or writer was insane. Like most of the Bible, these passages used the worldview of the current speakers, writers, readers and hearers. 

None of these four scriptures were statements about the principles of astronomy. All of them were statements about God's glory and power.

Thanks for reading.

The moon can be an absentee ruler: Problems with reading Genesis 1 and 2 as history.

Some Christians believe that Genesis 1 was meant to be read as history, and sets forth events in sequence. (See my previous post for further discussion of interpreting Genesis 1.) 

There are some problems with reading Genesis 1 as history, setting forth events in sequence. Here are some of them:

1) Light appears on the first day, but the sun and moon (which are not named, probably as a warning against worshiping them) are not mentioned until the fourth day.

2) The sun is described as ruling the day, and the moon as ruling the night. Surely the ancient Hebrews (and God!) knew full well that the moon appears during the day on most days, for periods up to almost the entire length of that day, and is not always present during the night. How can the moon rule the night on nights when it doesn't appear?

The above photo, taken in daylight, shows that the moon was clearly visible, and the sun was clearly shining. That means that, on the other side of the earth, neither the moon nor the sun was visible in the sky, at that time. Photo from Laura Suarez (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu).

3) Genesis 1 describes a firmament (or expanse) as being created on the second day. The problem with that is that there is no firmament. Ancient peoples believed that there was one, and supposed that various celestial objects, and clouds, were held up by this structure. There is no firmament. The moon, the sun, the stars, galaxies, planets, comets and asteroids are not held up by any sort of glass sphere, or invisible framework (unless you count gravity as such). They are at distances that vary by orders of magnitude -- the moon is relatively close to us, the Magellanic Clouds much further away, so that there is no way that both of these could be held up by one structure surrounding the earth. The earth is not the center of the solar system.

How do I explain these problems? Is the Bible wrong?

I would argue that the Bible is not wrong. It was not meant to be a textbook of astronomy, or geology, or biology. It was meant to tell us about God, the single wonderful, wise creator, and His sovereignty over the creation. God used the language and ideas of the culture of the time. People of that day believed that there was a firmament, so God allowed the description of the creation to include this. Today, we say "sunset" and "sunrise," even though the sun doesn't really rise, or set -- the earth's rotation makes it seem that it rises and sets. If, for example, a news reporter or a novelist says that an event happened at sunrise, we don't accuse her of ignorance or deception.* These ideas are part of our culture, and communicate within that culture, whereas saying "the earth rotated so that the sun appeared on the horizon in Central Africa," is unnecessarily cumbersome and confusing. The idea of a firmament, in Bible times, communicated with others.

Added Dec 13, 2021: For more on the firmament and the Hebrews, see here.

Thank you for reading!

*There are other examples of this sort of thing, such as acting as if or communicating that gravity is an attractive force, because it's ingrained in our culture. If I understand Einstein, gravity is because of space being warped, so that two objects travel toward each other in space-time, and it isn't really an attractive force. The more up-to-date Einsteinian explanation of gravity was used frequently in Star Trek. ("warp speed") But we write and talk about falling downstairs, for example.

Another example of how culture makes communication unscientific is the use of heart for the seat of the emotions.

It is likely that some current ideas about how things work, from the submicroscopic to the galactic, will seem foolish to people in the future centuries. (If there are to be future centuries.)

We aren't capable of understanding how God created light - God spoke. In what language?

We aren't capable of understanding how God created, except very superficially. If, for example, we believe that light came about instantaneously because God spoke, what words and language did He use? Did He speak aloud? Was "God" God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, or all of them? Was anyone listening? Was light created from something else, or did it just appear? Did it appear throughout the entire universe at the same time? Why does Genesis 1 seem to indicate that light was created on the first day, but the sun and moon were created on the fourth? The moon is a reflecter, not an independent source of light -- did Genesis 1 take that into account? We don't know the answer to these questions, and many others, and aren't going to. If we understood these things fully, we would, in effect, be gods, and we aren't. 

This paragraph is modified excerpt from a longer post on this blog, published in 2013.

Is the sun important to us? Absolutely

Why is the sun important to us?
 
For starters, the gravitational attraction of the sun holds the earth in a stable orbit, which is necessary for our very existence as living beings on this planet.

The sun is a giant source of energy. Einstein pointed out the relationship between energy and mass, in his famous e = m c-squared equation. Every second, thousands of tons of mass are turned into energy, by the sun. The process involves four Hydrogen nuclei fusing into a Helium nucleus, which has a little less mass than the Hydrogen nuclei. This fusion wouldn’t be possible without the extreme temperature in the core of the sun – millions of degrees. Temperature is a measurement of the velocity of molecules. At absolute zero, all motion ceases. In the core of the sun, the velocity of particles is so high that they can overcome natural forces of mutual repulsion, hence slamming together and fusing nuclei.

In case you didn’t know, the c in Einstein’s equation is the velocity of light, a large number, and it’s squared. That means that a little bit of mass can be converted to a lot of energy.

What happens to the sun’s radiated energy? Most of it goes off into space, perhaps eventually hitting something. The sun is about 93,000,000 miles away from us. Think of a giant sphere, with a diameter that large. The sun’s radiated energy goes off evenly in all directions. The earth occupies only a very small fraction of the surface of that imaginary sphere. But that very small fraction gets hit by a tiny bit of the sun’s emitted energy, and that is very important to us.

Energy from the sun keeps the earth at a temperature compatible with human, and other, life. It is possible that there is life elsewhere in the solar system, but not likely. Either conditions would be too hot for life, or too cold, in most planets and planetary moons, such as the moons of Saturn.
 
Energy from the sun, in the form of light, makes it possible for us to perceive the world around us, using vision. Most insects, most vertebrates, and some other animals use vision, which would be impossible without light from the sun. (Some animals can see types of light that we can’t, but that statement still applies.) We can perceive the world around us in other ways, to be sure, but vision is arguably more important than the other senses we have.

Energy from the sun makes the seasons possible, and also makes various critically important earthly phenomena, such as the water cycle, possible. Energy from the sun makes erosion and weathering of rocks possible.

Energy from the sun, in the form of light, makes photosynthesis possible. Essentially all of the food energy we take in came directly or indirectly from photosynthesis. In photosynthesis, light is captured by green plants, who use it to produce sugars and various other organic substances, that we need to build ourselves, and to release energy to keep us going.

Is the sun important to us? Absolutely. Yes, that’s the right word – absolutely.

Perhaps St. Paul was speaking of the critical importance of light, when, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he wrote “1 Timothy 6:15b who is the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen. (World English Bible, public domain.)

Easter poster

 

He is risen! It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of the resurrection.

The photo was taken out of the window of an airplane, flying somewhere between Dulles International Airport, near Washington, DC, and Charlotte, North Carolina. The sun was visible, or nearly so, between two cloud layers.

Thanks for looking!

I'm thankful for nuclear fusion

I’m thankful for nuclear fusion, the process by which the sun, and other stars, transform mass into energy. In the sun’s case, this is through 4 Hydrogen nuclei (protons) fusing into a Helium nucleus. About 0.7% of the mass involved is turned into energy. The reaction is not going on very fast. Scientists estimate that, at present rates, it would take about 10 billion years to exhaust the sun’s supply of Hydrogen. To put it another way, a human body at rest gives off more energy than the same volume of the sun’s material does. But the sun is so large that it gives off enough energy to heat our planet, over 90 million miles from it, losing about 5 million tons of mass per second. (Most of the sun’s energy goes out into space without striking anything in the solar system.) Without nuclear fusion, we wouldn’t be here. Our planet would be frozen, and there would be no light for green plants to convert to food. Although I’m very thankful for nuclear fusion, I’m sorry that we have, sort of, harnessed nuclear fusion, and that Hydrogen bombs exist.

See here for my main reference. Thanks for reading!

Sunspots 446

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware tells us that there is a free Merriam-Webster Dictionary app. I tried it on my Android tablet, and it works. It can even look up spoken words, so you don't have to know how to spell it to find it.
Philosophy: The BioLogos Forum has a two-part post on "Questions on Time and Eternity." A subject with lasting interest. Here's Part 1, and Part 2.
Politics (and Sports): An article on Dean Smith, super-successful coach of the University of North Carolina men's basketball team for many years, who was also a pioneer in race relations, and against the death penalty. Unfortunately, Smith is a victim of dementia.
Science: The sun is losing about 5,000,000 tons of mass to Hydrogen every second. But fear not. At that rate, it won't stop emitting significant amounts of energy for about 5 billion years, and by that time, it will have lost only a tiny fraction of its mass.
From the Greenville (SC) News, an article on a dog which is said to have an amazing vocabulary, and can understand parts of speech.
Sports: (And Christianity!) An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, no less, about the evangelical Christianity that is part of the Clemson University football team.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 402

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:  Fox News reports that there may be devastating solar storms this year.

The Arts: (Actually, education) Seattle teachers have refused to administer a state-mandated test to their students, according to NPR.

Politics: (or Christianity) Wired reports on a student who was told she had to cease attending a public high school because she wouldn't wear an RFID chip in her school lanyard (on the grounds that that is related to the mark of the beast. It's a complex story.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware reports on nine free apps you should strongly consider installing on your Android device.

Freebook Sifter lists many free books available in Kindle format, complete with the number of reviews, and the average number of stars in the reviews for each book. It's not just a list. You can browse by topics and subtopics. Gizmo's Freeware, where I saw this listed, says that some of the books on the list are not free, presumably because Amazon or the publisher has changed the price.

Image source (public domain)

". . . until the moon is no more."

Psalm 72:1 God, give the king your justice;

your righteousness to the royal son.

2 He will judge your people with righteousness,

and your poor with justice.

3 The mountains shall bring prosperity to the people.

The hills bring the fruit of righteousness.

4 He will judge the poor of the people.

He will save the children of the needy,

and will break the oppressor in pieces.

5 They shall fear you while the sun endures;

and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.

6 He will come down like rain on the mown grass,

as showers that water the earth.

7 In his days, the righteous shall flourish,

and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more.

(World English Bible, public domain. This was apparently written by Solomon.)

I recently attended a worship service, where the above passage was part of the scripture reading for the day. I had never noticed the emphasized phrase, or verse 5, which is similar. These are striking phrases!

I can find no scientific predictions that the moon is going to disappear from the sky anytime soon, presumably because it will eventually fall into the earth.

This is poetry, not astronomy or geology, and Solomon may have just been using a figure of speech. I don't know. But my guess is that he was referring prophetically to Christ's reign, with will last forever. Amen.

Thanks for reading.

Light, God's Light

I was invited to write an article for something called "Navigating the Heavens," on some subject related to light.

I responded, and the article, entitled "Light, God's Light," was published, but is no longer available. Most of it is based on posts in this blog, and the blog is why I was invited to write it, but the article is more thorough than any of my blog posts on light.

Thanks for reading.

Why this title?

The source of the title of this blog is Psalm 84:11 (KJV):
For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

There are other versions of the Bible that communicate better with 21st century humans, but the KJV is public domain, so I am using it.

To see this, or other scripture, in several versions, go to the Blue Letter Bible or the Bible Gateway, or other such sites.

* * * * *

The text above the asterisks was orignally posted on December 17th, 2004, and has not been altered. On January 28th, I saw, for the first time, evidence that the Bloglines search utility was indexing my blog. I am, therefore, re-posting older posts, so that the material in them can also be found by those using Bloglines to search.

I am using the KJV for most or all scripture quotations in my postings, for reasons explained above in the first posting.