Scientists agree with the facts in the Book of Books
In modern atheistic society, it is customary to oppose religion and science. And, for example, the opening of the theology department at the National Research Nuclear University (MEPhI) in 2013 is perceived as an oxymoron, an absurdity.
Nevertheless, there is ample evidence of how the Bible, or rather the information contained in it, formed the basis of scientific discoveries. Or the new data made it possible to take a fresh look at those biblical facts that scientists previously believed were simply fiction. So how can you trust the Holy Scriptures?
Not obvious but probable
In modern theological science, apologetics (from the Greek "protect") is an independent section. She is engaged in the rationalization of the Christian doctrine. The discipline, based on accumulated scientific knowledge and practical experience, is at the intersection of history, archeology, psychology and more, and it allows doubters to find evidence and answers.
The classical apologists were Blessed Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, or, for example, Clive Lewis, who is better known for his "Chronicles of Narnia". Modern Christians are well familiar with the works of the Protestant publicist Josh McDowell from Michigan or the "Sacred Biblical History" of Metropolitan Benjamin (Pushkar) of Vladivostok and Primorsky, with a detailed description of the events set forth in the Old and New Testaments, confirmed by archaeological finds.
World creation. Gustave Dore
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In search of the Hittites
The mysterious Hittites are mentioned in many pages of the Old Testament. The Bible describes how Abraham settled in southern Palestine and met and befriended the Hittites. The Jews, who left Egypt under the leadership of the Prophet Moses, again met the Hittites in the Promised Land. A Hittite was also the warrior Uriah, from whom King David ugly took away his wife, the beautiful Bathsheba.
For many centuries, scientists have not been able to find alternative references to this people. Herodotus did not write anything about the Hittites, they were not mentioned in Egyptian papyri, in Roman and Greek manuscripts. At the same time, the Fourth Book of Kings contains a mention of the fact that the Hittite kingdom was equal in military power to Egypt.
The opinion that the Hittites were a mythical people, which took root by the end of the 19th century, was refuted by the British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie. He was able to read the hieroglyphs on clay tablets found in the Amarna settlement, a couple of hundred kilometers from Cairo.
The scientist bought the clay tablets found on the eastern bank of the Nile, in the Cairo "black market". As it turned out, the peasants discovered the archive of Pharaoh Akhenaten, which includes correspondence with the rulers of the largest rulers of that time, including the king of the Hittites named Suppilulima I. A colleague congratulated Akhenaten on his accession to the throne and called him brother in a familiar way. Other kings complained to Pharaoh about the Hittites who invaded Syria and Lebanon.
A few years later, archaeological research in Turkey revealed to the world the ruins of Khatussa, the capital of the Hittite empire. And ten years ago, a Hittite settlement was discovered during excavations in the European part of Istanbul.
"Lot's wife" on Mount Sodom, Israel. Photo: ru.wikipedia.org
The punishment of the naughty wife
Tourists who come to rest by the Dead Sea in the Israeli town of Ein Bokek are invariably offered to go on an excursion to see what remains of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed, as the Bible says, for the wickedness of their inhabitants. Not far from these places is a rock that resembles a woman wrapped in a veil. She is called Lot's Wife.
Genesis describes how Abraham's nephew was led out of the city of Sodom by angels with his wife and daughters. The angels told them to run up the mountain without stopping anywhere. But Lot's wife turned around and became a pillar of salt.
The rock bearing the name of Lot's Wife cannot be the same, if only because its height is more than ten meters. At the same time, there are many other salt formations in the vicinity. American chemist Klotz from Northwestern University of Illinois published data in 1988 that suggests that Lot's wife was killed by the greenhouse effect caused by the fire that burned Sodom.
Most likely, says Dr. Klotz, the woman was covered with a powerful stream of hot air, almost entirely consisting of carbon dioxide. This caused deadly reactions in the body, calcium began to combine with carbon dioxide and instant crystallization of calcites occurred. The body literally turned to stone.
For the first time, scientists began to think that the described history of turning into a stone pillar was real when excavations of the city of Pompeii began in the nineteenth century. In the first century after the birth of Christ, the ashes of Vesuvius instantly covered the city and preserved the outlines of the bodies of its inhabitants. The voids discovered in the solidified ash allow us to see that people are forever frozen in those positions in which they were caught by the eruption. The corpses decayed, but their hardened shells remained.
It remains to add that scientists from the United Kingdom and the United States independently came to the opinion that Sodom and Gomorrah died in an earthquake that caused the ignition of oil and sulfur. Sulfur balls from this monstrous fireworks are still found on the coast. There is nothing like this anywhere in the world. The physical characteristics of the balls, meanwhile, correspond to the catastrophe described in the Bible.
Gray crane in flight. Photo: ru.wikipedia.org
The crane is watching time
“And the stork under the sky knows its certain times, and the turtledove, and the swallow, and the crane watch the time when they arrive; but my people do not know the definition of the Lord,”writes the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah about the Jews who forgot their God and fell into idolatry.
There is nothing surprising in these lines for the modern reader. However, the righteous man, who lived six centuries before Christ, simply had nowhere to get information about the seasonal migration of birds.
At that time, people, of course, noticed that different types of birds appear and disappear at certain times of the year, but there was no intelligible explanation for this phenomenon. For example, Aristotle, who is two centuries closer to us than Jeremiah, believed that birds simply transform from representatives of one species to another.
The Swede Karl Linnaeus began to study the movements of the bird in the 18th century. He combined and analyzed the information collected by the observers in different places. The imperfection of the method led to the fact that a natural scientist, for example, could not imagine the flight of small birds across the ocean.
It wasn't until 1890 that Danish school teacher Christian Mortenson invented ringing. Scientists on all continents joined his initiative, and in the end, detailed maps of bird migration were compiled.
But to explain what makes the birds get under way and find the right path, modern science fails. Scientists talk about instinct. Christians tend to understand instinct as the original will of the Creator.
TIKHONOVA VERA