Taking every thought captive for obedience to Christ (2 Corinthians 10.5)

The Question
Hasn’t science disproved the Bible? (2)
As a discipline, science deals with material facts. Its portfolio is to observe facts and, to the extent those facts seem relevant to our lives in the world, to analyze, explain, and apply those facts in a responsible manner.

A person who might ask, “Hasn’t science disproved the Bible?” rightly acknowledges that accounting for the fact of the Bible, and assessing its importance, falls within the domain of scientific inquiry. At the same time, to ask the question is both to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the Bible as a fact of human experience, and to raise a question about the reliability, not of Scripture, but of the scientific community itself.

As we have seen, the Bible is one of the most widespread, continuously recurring, ubiquitously referenced, and easily observable facts of the past two millennia of human history. To some it might be a cause of puzzlement concerning why the scientific community as a whole finds it so easy to dismiss the fact of the Bible as irrelevant to its concerns. Especially the soft or human sciences – psychology, sociology, politics, economics, and so forth – should more actively consider the role of the Bible in human behavior, society, and culture.

To dismiss the Bible as irrelevant to scientific investigation, and even worse, to bar use of the Bible in scientific study seems contrary to the very mission of science, which is to make sense of the facts of the cosmos.

Science has not disproved the fact of the Bible, and the community of sciences might be seen as acting irresponsibly by concluding that the Bible has no relevance to their endeavor.

When we consider the historical and textual evidence for the importance of the Bible, this makes it even more important that the scientific community should renew interest in this widespread and persistent fact of human experience.

No document in the entirety of human history is supported by better textual evidence than the Bible. The textual evidence for the Bible goes back before the time of Christ. More complete manuscripts of the Bible, fragments of Biblical manuscripts, and citations of the Bible in ancient literature exist today than for any other document of ancient history – some 13,000 such documents for the New Testament alone.

Moreover, while this textual evidence is spread out over a period of nearly 1,000 years, the agreement between texts, in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, and Latin, is remarkable, in spite of variant readings at certain points. And even these variant readings, since they can be accounted for scientifically, do not represent “contradictions.”

As an historical document the Bible records places, incidents, people, and important historical developments which are supported by extra-Biblical sources, including archaeology, historical and biographical texts, and scientific research (concerning which I will have more to say later in this series).

With so much evidence – textual and historical – supporting the importance of the Bible, that is, indicating the importance, accuracy, reliability, and relevance of the Bible over so many years, it seems curious that the contemporary scientific community should be so dismissive of its potential contribution to their labors.

The Bible does not exist in such large numbers and in so many languages and cultures today simply because it is the enlightened brainchild of some highly imaginative mind, able express its myths and relate its stories in a manner convincing to people of many places, cultures, and walks of life. The Bible is a remarkable fact of human experience today, and the documentary and historical evidence indicates that it has been so for more than 2,000 years.

The Bible was important, reliable, and in widespread use before Christ was born. Since the birth of Christ, the distribution, citation, copy and publication, and use of the Bible has increased precisely because of the importance people of all ages, cultures, and walks of life have assigned to it.

A community that constructs whole histories of species from one or two fossil facts, but which refuses to give credence to such widespread and persistent fact, with such solid historical and textual foundations as the Bible, is a community not acting consistent with its own mission.

For reflection
1.      How much do you know about how the Bible came to be the Bible? About the textual evidence for the Scriptures? Ask your pastor for a short explanation that you could use to share with others.

2.      Let’s suppose that scientists began to discover, in every culture and civilization for the past 2,000 years, an artifact, shared by each – say, an item of clothing, or a tool, cultic symbol, or weapon – that increased in use as the course of history has progressed. What should be the scientific response to this discovery?

3.      Why do you think contemporary science has such little regard for the Bible?

Next steps: Suppose an unbeliever asked you to explain why, when science has “disproved” the Bible, you continue to think it’s an important book. What would you say?

T. M. Moore

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