The presence of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible is one of the most popular points of argument for the inspiration of Scripture used within the church. It is an appealing argument because of its accessibility, but it is also subject to intellectual hazards that, if fallen into, can render it counterproductive in an apologetics context.
The argument for the divine inspiration of the Bible from scientific foreknowledge can be summarized as follows:
The Scriptures set forth certain laws, regulations, and fact claims that would be inexplicable at the time of writing but that were justified by scientific discoveries centuries later.
Such laws, regulations, and fact claims would not have come from a human source because there was no basis for them in contemporary human knowledge.
Therefore, divine knowledge was involved in the writing of the Scriptures.
While this line of argument seems simple and convincing, it is fraught with two significant hazards. The first hazard is that it is too often claimed to “prove” the divine inspiration of the Bible. While the form of the argument certainly looks like that of a logical proof, we must not call it a proof because it depends entirely on producing an example of scientific foreknowledge in the Scriptures and defending the assertion that said example could not be explained by human knowledge. Even the most compelling examples of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible are not completely watertight in this regard. The way to avoid this hazard is simply to realize that scientific foreknowledge provides evidence rather than proof of divine inspiration and to moderate our claims accordingly.
The second hazard to be aware of is that the Christian community has circulated a confusing mixture of both sound, naive, and outright false examples of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible. The really good examples of scientific foreknowledge provide strong and helpful evidence for the inspiration of Scripture, but they lose their force and their credibility when we pair them with other examples that appear ignorant or dishonest.
Perhaps the most common example of this is the claim that the Bible was ahead of its time in declaring the earth to be round. Those who use this argument like to quote Isaiah 40:22 and Proverbs 8:27 which refer to the earth as a “circle.” The problem with this argument is that the idea that the ancient world thought the earth was flat is a myth (for more on this, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth). Furthermore, the claim that the use of the word circle in these verses is equivalent to calling the earth a sphere is groundless. We should therefore be careful what we are claiming as scientific foreknowledge and evaluate what we hear before repeating it.
That being said, we can still provide great evidence for the inspiration of Scripture through genuine examples of scientific foreknowledge. In my opinion, the most compelling examples of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible are medical. The Old Testament law laid out a variety of food safety and hygiene laws that were perfectly designed to mitigate the spread of disease. Many of these laws certainly had significance beyond public health and safety, but their practical dietary and medical advantages, discovered long after they were written, reflect an understanding of microbiology that would be startlingly anachronistic at the hands of a human author. Apologetics Press has written on several specific examples of this kind of medical foreknowledge in the Old Testament. Here are a few of what I think are the best:
Sewage and Waste Management https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=845&topic=102
Safe Handling of Dead Bodies https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=836&topic=102
They have also written a much more in-depth article that covers the subject more comprehensively. This article can be found here: https://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=2024
The presence of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible presents us with valuable evidence for divine inspiration. However, when presenting these arguments to those who disagree with us, we must be careful to choose examples where the Bible genuinely does reflect an understanding of science that was ahead of its time. We must also be careful to present our case humbly and not make claims beyond what is justified. If we can adhere to these cautions, then an understanding of scientific foreknowledge in the Bible can be an excellent source of both personal encouragement and apologetic force.
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