Three Science Findings that Comport with Scripture

Here are three quick news items that overlap with Bible statements. They do not prove the Bible statements, but reveal scientific accuracy long before modern science.

Springs of the Sea. An article on Phys.org marvels at an “extraordinary hydrothermal vent system” discovered in the mid-Atlantic ocean. Hydrothermal vents were only discovered by science in recent decades. According to Wikipedia, the first hints of them began in 1949, and the first confirmed discovery was in June 1976, less than 50 years ago. Some people living today remember being astonished at these sites in the deep ocean where hot water not only emerges from the sea floor, but creates whole ecosystems of exotic creatures the world had never imagined. Would ancients have even considered the existence of deep-sea springs without modern submarines with electric lights to illuminate them? Of course not; only God could know such things. Three or four thousand years ago, the book of Job records God asking Job, “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?” (Job 38:16).

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John the Baptist dinner. The Gospels record that John the Baptist ate “locusts and wild honey.” Honey, we know, is both edible and nutritious, but many westerners cringe at the thought of eating a grasshopper from the lawn. Lo and behold, Medical Xpress announced this week, “Eating crickets can be good for your gut, according to new clinical trial.” Science is confirming that John the Baptist was onto something. Crickets, grasshoppers and locusts are nutritious, loaded with protein, and they help good biota in the gut. Maybe people in the middle east should have looked at locusts plagues as a gift of God, food from heaven! After all, God had instructed Moses that locusts were among the clean animals that were permissible to eat (Leviticus 11:22).

Today, Stull, a recent doctoral graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, is the lead author of a new pilot clinical trial published in the journal Scientific Reports that looks at what eating crickets does to the human microbiome.

It shows that consuming crickets can help support the growth of beneficial gut bacteria and that eating crickets is not only safe at high doses but may also reduce inflammation in the body.

“There is a lot of interest right now in edible insects,” Stull says. “It’s gaining traction in Europe and in the U.S. as a sustainable, environmentally friendly protein source compared to traditional livestock” [i.e., red meat].

Incidentally, evolutionists changed their story about grasshopper evolution again. Science Daily informs us that the common ancestor for grasshoppers emerged in South America, not in Africa as previously thought, according to chief storyteller Hojun Song of Texas A&M. After they “originated” there, they had to hop across the Atlantic to get where John could eat them. Was this one giant leap for evolution?

At that point in history, the continents of South America and Africa were already separated but closer compared to their current positions, and northern Africa was covered in tropical rainforests, much like the Amazonian region in South America. Song and colleagues propose that Acrididae’s single ancestor first branched off from its relatives in South America and then traversed the Atlantic sometime around 57 million years ago. Those grasshopper “colonists” found suitable habitat in Africa and then rapidly radiated and diversified across Africa and into Europe and Asia. After that, the genetic analysis points to at least three subsequent recolonization events in which grasshoppers traversed back to North America, furthering their global spread and diversification.

The Elisha clean stew trick. The Bible says in II Kings 4:38-41 that a stew the sons of the prophets had prepared made the men sick because someone had thrown wild gourds into it. Elisha told them to throw flour into the stew, and there was no harm afterward. This could have been a sign miracle to authenticate Elisha’s authority from God, but it’s interesting that natural plants do have amazing powers to purify water and food that scientists are just beginning to learn about. Science Daily just reported, “Study expands what we know about natural, low-cost ways to remove pollutants from water.” It turns out that fruit and vegetable peels can remove toxins such as heavy metals and methylene blue.

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Samet followed Valiyaveettil’s protocol for cleaning the surface of the fruit by first boiling the peels/seeds to remove soluble surface impurities. The peels were then dried and crushed [like flour?] before being placed in a solution containing pollutants. Among the findings, lemon seeds removed 100 percent of lead ions, while the peels removed 96.4 percent. Okra peels also removed 100 percent of lead ions, while the seeds removed 50 percent.

“The results expand on what we know about fruit and vegetable peels as an organic, renewable, low-cost method of removing pollutants from water,” said Samet. “We replicated the results from Suresh’s lab with avocado and then studied never-before-tested fruits and vegetable peels and seeds. This is exciting because it is likely that this method of purification can make its way from lab to kitchen.”

It’s doubtful Elisha would have known how to remove whatever toxins were in the stew by himself, but the Creator knows all about the plants He made. God could have done this act of healing supernaturally, but sometimes his miracles are miracles of revelation: teaching men what works. If the latter, this one might be a testable experiment. If someone could determine what the wild gourds were, and what the flour was made of that Elisha used, perhaps it would yield reproducible results with practical applications for poor people today.

Some Bible apologists have compiled lists of scientific truths that were revealed in the Bible millennia before scientists discovered them (one example at AiG). Some truths could not have been known without divine revelation, such as the statement in Job that God inscribed a circle on the surface of the earth at the boundary between light and darkness (Job 26:10), or that it would be possible to send messages with lightning (e.g., electromagnetic radiation, Job 38:35). The “springs of the sea” appear to be another prime example.

The Bible also does not make foolish scientific mistakes, as some false prophets and holy books have done, who spoke of the sun being smaller than the moon, Adam being 90 feet tall, or people living on the sun. Proper interpretation is required; for instance, the apparent motion of the sun across the sky (Psalm 19:4-6) or statements like “the earth shall not be moved” speak in the language of appearance to the observer, which is still perfectly proper scientifically today when the frame of reference is chosen for convenience. The Bible is not a textbook of science, but the Creator of the heavens and the earth does not make mistakes. The scientific knowledge in the Bible is only one of many confirmations of its reliability.