by Guy SInes

Created on: January 24, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

While The Bible does contain some obscure references to natural events, it is not, nor has it ever been, a book of science. That was never the intention of the many authors who wrote the books in question over an approximately 1,500 year period, nor of the church fathers who voted on which books were legitimate (the ones that backed their political agendas mainly), and then cobbled them together into what is now known as The Bible.

The origins of Genesis for instance, were oral and passed down for an indeterminable length of time before they were set to writing. Prior to this period, peoples' idea of history was cyclical, highly inaccurate, and prone to great exaggeration, hyperbole and metaphor. The "historical" aspects of The Bible have been debated since before it was even canonized. Few have been objectively established as fact, and many have been dismissed as fabrication or mistranslation.

Add to this the problem of language. We are five linguistic removes from The Bible as it was originally established in the fourth century. The Sinai Bible, which is the oldest known version of The Bible and is housed in The British Museum, contains some 14,800 discrepancies from The Bible of today. This literary fact alone should render it unconscionable to even be considered for use as scientific literature.

In short, The Bible is literature, and religious literature at that. The unfortunate nature of religion is that it renders a practitioner unable to view the world except through the filter of their chosen religion. This is directly oppositional to science, which is objective, subject to empirical evidence, and obligated to change its view in the face of new evidence and theories. Religions by contrast are extremely slow and reluctant to change, even in the light of hard scientific evidence. The nature of The Bible is such that one can assign almost any meaning to a given passage, and for better or for worse, scientists who happen to be religious often do just that and then use their findings to "prove" the passage "correct".

Literature and religion of all types can be used to enhance or inspire the work of a scientist, as they are both artistic expressions of life. But that is exactly how it should be viewed, not as the science itself.

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