Irrefutable science in the Bible.Do you know the Bible describes this concept centuries before science does?

Question

Here are three scriptures which describe the HYDROLOGIC CYCLE. Science did not know of the hydrologic cycle in biblical times.


Psalm 135:7 He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

Isaiah 55:10 For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down And do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, Giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats

Answer 1

Most of these concepts are merely observations of the real world. How difficult is to to determine that rain and snow come from the sky and that they water the land?

Answer 2

Psa. 135:7 describes the Earth having "ends." Does a sphere have ends? This is likely just a simple observation of clouds appearing to rise up over the horizon, and anyone can see that lightning is often associated with rain.

Eccl. 1:7 Again, a simple observation: rivers DO run to the sea, yet the sea never overflows or gets full, and the rivers never stop flowing.

Isa. 55:10 comes closer to describing evaporation than the others. It is unlikely, however, that ancient man understood the hydrologic cycle as we do today. They had no science at all, only superstition to fill in what observation could not explain. It probably made sense to them that, if water came down from heaven, it would also return there somehow, but evaporation is an invisible process--you can't see water molecules breaking free--so they wouldn't have known what it was. Remember, they thought the Earth was a disk and the sky was a solid dome. Do you really trust THEM more than you do modern science, to tell you how nature works?

Answer 3

Do you know for fact that no such observations of the weather and the waters had ever been made by others at the time? Do you believe that these words here actually prove divine revelation from God regarding science? I think that that's a bit of a stretch of credibility. Quoting what the Bible says about such obvious things does not imply that the writer had any knowledge not already commonly known to all civilizations.

Answer 4

Good ones! Here's one more:

At Job 26:7 it says that God is “hanging the earth upon nothing.” This was not at all how most people understood things at the time. One ancient view was that the earth was supported by elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle.

Considering it was written before man had a vew of the earth from above, it's not likely to be one explained away as a matter of astute observation.

Answer 5

Actually, I think your original assertion is disputable. The 'Hydrologic Cycle' may not have been codified in the scientific terms we are familiar with in biblical times, or known by that name.

However, people who were gatherer/hunters, nomads and farmers, dependant on the weather and seasons for their survival and with the time and need to be excellent and continual observers would have a very good knowledge of how the world works, simply from observation.

Let's not forget that 'spatial engineering' was not a codified science in the time of the pyramids, or of the building of Europe's great cathedrals, yet those folks managed to build some mighty big structures.

Just so, ancient peoples may not have had our language to describe natural phenomena, but they certainly knew how to live in and survive in the natural world of which they were a part.

And for those who assert that these people believed the earth was flat, etc, that is not true. That was a belief of the middle (dark) ages, not of earlier times. Note that Arabian scientists had discussed the nature of the solar system before the rise of ancient Greece.

A lot of this knowledge was obscured in and lost to the west during the middle ages, because of warfare and the predominance of church educated scholars who didn't know about the ancient texts..

Our knowledge is not all knowledge.

Cheers :-)

Answer 6

First, these are out of context. Second, treating these like an early understanding of the water cycles is bollocks. It's simple observation and logic. For the rivers one: they didn't know how the water got back to the rivers. But the rivers kept flowing, so its obvious that it got back somehow.

and the one from Isaiah: wonderful. they've determined that it rains and that when it rains, the ground gets wet and things grow, if there are seeds. and then the ground dries up again.

SIMPLE OBSERVATION. not revelation.

Answer 7

That's cool. Thanks. The Bible also says something about the circle of the earth (Isaiah 40:22). Have to wonder why so many people thought the earth was flat up through the 15th century. Then again, many people were illiterate and were at the mercy of religious leaders to tell them what was in the Bible.

Answer 8

I see that bible writers knew that lighting and rain often coincide, that rivers run to larger bodies of water, and that precipitation fertilizes crops. These are the basic observations of farmers and other regular folk. But how do these verses describe the hydrological cycle? I don't see the connection.

Answer 9

I think Ecclesiastes 1, is the closest to stating this physical geoegraphical idea. It is a pity that to prefix this possibly outstanding discovery Ecclesistases 1:2 goes on to state:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

Hardly something to inspire confidence in the prospective science student,

Answer 10

I don't know why some people seem to think that ancient people were complete morons. They seem to think: "Ancient people couldn't possibly have known how to build pyramids" or in your case "Ancient people couldn't possibly have understood the hydrologic cycle". They think that aliens or some divine being must have revealed these things to the ancients. Ancient people weren't idiots. They were just as smart and innovative as people in this time period.