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The field of meteorology offers many examples of science in the Bible. This lesson examines the history of and development of Meteorology as a science and evidence of the hydrologic cycle in Scripture. This is the fourth video in our 11 part series titled “Science & the Bible!” This series examines the relationship between different disciplines of Science and the Bible and the arguments surrounding this topic.
In this lesson:
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Bible and Science have been at odds with each other in many people’s minds, but eventually, science discovers that the Bible was correct all along.
This lesson deals with the science of Meteorology. What does the Bible have to say about this science that affects our daily lives? Is there any conflict with science and the Bible here?
Examples of Science in the Bible #1: Air Currents
Scientists could not predict or even describe how air currents move until after the 1600’s? Most scientists thought that the air just moved around randomly.
- Galileo | 1600’s A.D.| Galileo had above average knowledge of the Bible. His work on physics and falling bodies shows some understanding on air currents. It is obvious from his writings that he did not think of air currents as being random and just moving on their own. He knew that there had to be a force causing them.
- Matthew Fontaine Maury | mid 1800’s A.D.| Christian U.S.N. who would compile the information and map world air currents. Maury gained some of his knowledge about air currents from his frequent Bible studies.
- King Solomon | 950 B.C. | Wrote that the air moves on courses over the earth.
Ecclesiastes 1:6 (ESV)
The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
This verse contains the knowledge of the wind being on a set course or a circuit. The Word of God reveals that that wind does not blow at random but is driven in a specific order.
Examples of Science in the Bible #2: Air has Weight
Today, people know that air has weight. This was discovered by a number of people.
Issac Beeckman, a Dutch theologian and Bible expert who lived in the early 1600’s and was a contemporary of Galileo.
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Evangelista Torricelli a student of Galileo also published that air is a real substance and has weight.
Robert Boyle, a well-known Christian who was an apologist of the Bible, besides being a famous scientist, invented the barometer – a device for measuring the weight of air.
What most people today do not realize is that the Bible actually states that air has weight!
Job 28:25 (ESV)
When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure.
This verse states that wind or air actually has weight. The ancient Hebrew for the word weight used here is לָקְׁשִמ mishqal which means to weigh something as on a balance. The Bible is correct!
Examples of Science in the Bible #3: The Hydrologic Cycle
Arguably, the most discussed scientific concept found in the Bible deals with the water cycle or what is often called the hydrologic cycle.
This important cycle shows that water evaporates from the lakes, river, seas and oceans to form clouds which condense the liquid and return it back to the earth in rain or snow. How was this discovered?
Until the 19th Century, the idea of where water came from and where it went when it seemed to disappear confounded mankind. Scientists just could not seem to figure out where rain came from and where it went after. Many believed that the earth itself had a huge inexhaustible subterranean reservoir that stored all the water. After all, people dug wells into the earth to obtain drinking water. But where did the rain in the puddles go after time?
Though the ancient Israelites and later the Greeks pretty much knew how it worked, it would be about 2,000 years before science formulated it and proved it.
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Scientists who formulated the idea of the water cycle:
- Bernard Palissy | 1500 | a Bible believing Protestant who lived in the 16th Century and was slowly tortured and then killed for his biblical beliefs. He theorized the idea of the hydrologic cycle, but never proved it.
- Leonardo Da Vinci | 1500 | a contemporary of Palissy and a Bible believer himself, also put forth ideas concerning the hydrologic cycle.
- Pierre Perreault | mid 1600’s | 100 years after Da Vinci, a lawyer who later became an amateur scientist lived in Paris. He observed that the water flow in the Seine River was easily supported by the quantity of rain or snow falling around the surrounding area that fed that river. He wrote his conclusions in a book called On the Origin of Springs.
- William Prout | later 1700’s to mid-1800’s| This natural theologian and scientist wrote about the water cycle in his treatise called Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, Considered with References to Natural Theology. Much of his conclusions were supported by the Bible.
- Isaiah | 700 B.C. | amazingly wrote this under the inspiration of the God:
Isaiah 55:10 (NASV)
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth, making it bring forth and sprout…
This verse states that the water goes through a cycle.
- King Solomon | 950 B.C. |
Ecclesiastes 1:7 (ESV)
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full…
This verse states that the earth continually uses the same water supply that has been here since the dawn of creation. It also indicates that the earth’s water moves in a cycle.
- Job | Approx. 2200 B.C. |
Job 36:27-28 (ESV)
For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain, which the skies pour down and drop on mankind abundantly. (my emphasis)
Here God explains evaporation and precipitation. God even describes how water changes to water vapor and evaporates to form clouds. “Draws up” and “distills.” Distill is an actual modern scientific term used to describe this! But there is still more from this ancient book.
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Job 26:8 (ESV)
He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them.
Again, the Bible informs us that water rises to form clouds. This informs us that clouds are actually masses of water vapor. Later, they might go through a process called condensation: when water vapor changes into a liquid.
- King David | 1,000 B.C. |
Psalm 135:7 (ESV)
He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
“Clouds rise” sure sounds like water vapor rising to form the clouds in the air.
Psalm 33:7 (ESV)
He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses.
In both of these Psalms we read of the sea being the storehouse of water for this cycle, which is exactly what modern science tells us today.
- Amos | 750 B.C. |
Amos 5:8 (ESV)
…who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth…
Here again we read that the oceans are the storehouses of our water.
The science of meteorology is definitely covered accurately in the Bible. There is no conflict here. True, there is more to meteorology than is covered in this lesson, but as I stated, the Bible is not a science textbook, but what science is contained in it is accurate. It sometimes takes science centuries to agree with the Bible, but eventually it comes to the truth. The truth is that the Bible is scientifically accurate.
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