What are we to make of the cosmology of the Bible? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
It’s an odd world I live in where I actually find reading Edward Babinski more refreshing than I do the other writers I have read so far. Not that I’m a big fan of Babinski, but at least he had an approach that was simply just the facts. So what were the facts in this case? This time, it was all about Biblical cosmology.
So in preparing to see what I would write about in this chapter that I thought was worthwhile, I decided to go back through and see what all on my Kindle I had highlighted. I started at the beginning of the chapter and went straight through. What did I find?
Nothing.
You see, Babinski’s work might be troublesome to someone who thinks the Bible has to speak in precise scientific language but to the rest of us, it really isn’t a problem. I don’t have a problem with the language being used any more than I have a problem when I hear the weather forecast and hear when sunrise and sunset will be.
Consider when we are told to seek the Lord with all of our heart. Most of us realize that the organ that handles the blood flow in our bodies does not lead the way in our love. Still, we have this kind of mindset today. We just had Valentine’s Day and you can find boxes of candy shaped like hearts at the store on discount that weren’t bought.
It’s my contention that God was not interested in teaching the ancients the proper science. That material would not be useful to them. It would also distract from the message that was wanting to be given at the time. We might consider that the most important information ever, but that’s our own prejudice kicking in and telling us how the work should be read.
This is a mistake I think both atheists and Christians often make with the Bible. Many people who go to Genesis 1 make the exact same mistake. They read it as a scientific account and think it has to be that way. It makes sense because when we think about an origins story of the universe, we think of how it came to be. The Bible is not interested in how it came to be or when it came to be, but it is more interested in who brought it to be the way that it is and why did He do it that way?
I do think at times Babinski is too quick to quote things in a literalistic way still, such as when the Bible speaks about the ends of the Earth. We can still use that saying today. There is also the fact that the Bible speaks about the circles of the Earth and the four corners of the Earth and John was certainly not ignorant of what Isaiah said. When a figure of speech is used and when it is not is up to hermeneutics. I also think Matthew would know very well that there was no mountain in Israel from which you could see all the world. I’m inclined to think that Jesus was given a vision.
So those who are greatly troubled by this chapter, you might want to check your hermeneutic. The rest of us could find things about ancient cosmology from surrounding cultures that was interesting, but nothing that troubled us. We don’t approach the Bible as concordists.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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