"The Bible is scientifically accurate"

The claim that the Bible is scientifically accurate—that it contains knowledge about the natural world that was far ahead of its time—is a common argument in Christian apologetics. Proponents argue that the Bible accurately describes the water cycle, the shape of the earth, the suspension of the earth in space, and principles of hygiene, long before modern science discovered these facts.^{1, 2} This argument, known as "scientific concordism," holds that when properly interpreted, Scripture aligns with the findings of modern science, serving as evidence for divine inspiration.³ However, mainstream biblical scholarship, including work by evangelical academics, has found that the Bible reflects the cosmological and scientific understanding of the ancient Near East rather than modern science. The passages cited as foreknowledge are typically poetic, ambiguous, or taken out of context, while numerous passages that contain clear scientific errors are quietly overlooked.^{4, 5, 6}

The claim and its context

The argument for biblical scientific accuracy takes several forms. In its strongest version, advocates claim that the Bible contains "scientific foreknowledge"—specific information about the natural world that was unknown to humans at the time of writing but has since been confirmed by modern science. Apologetics Press, one of the most prominent organizations promoting this argument, states that "the Bible is filled with scientific facts that evince its supernatural origin" and that its authors "recorded statements that were scientifically accurate thousands of years before scientists themselves came to the same conclusions."¹ Josh McDowell, in his widely read Evidence That Demands a Verdict, presents scientific accuracy as one of the key evidences for biblical inspiration.²

The underlying assumption is concordism: the idea that the Bible and modern science, when both are properly understood, will agree. Denis Lamoureux, a professor of science and religion at the University of Alberta who holds doctoral degrees in both theology and biology, has identified this as the dominant assumption within evangelical Christianity. He notes that "most evangelicals embrace concordism—the assumption that the Bible aligns with the facts of science."³ Lamoureux himself rejects this position, arguing instead that "the Word of God features an ancient science" and that recognizing this does not diminish its theological authority.³

Public opinion data reveals that only a minority of Americans hold a strictly literalist view of Scripture. A 2022 Gallup poll found that just 20% of Americans believe the Bible is "the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word"—a record low and half of the figure recorded in 1980 and 1984. The largest group, 49%, described the Bible as "inspired by God but not to be taken literally," while a record-high 29% called it "a collection of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man."⁷

American views on the Bible (Gallup, 2022)⁷

Biblical cosmology

The most significant challenge to the claim of biblical scientific accuracy is the Bible's own cosmological model. Rather than describing the cosmos as modern science understands it—a spherical earth orbiting the sun in a vast, expanding universe—the Bible presents a picture of the world that is consistent with the cosmology common throughout the ancient Near East: a flat earth covered by a solid dome, with waters above and below, and the whole structure resting on pillars or foundations.^{4, 5, 8}

The Hebrew word raqia, translated as "firmament" in older English Bibles and "expanse" in modern ones, is central to this cosmology. In Genesis 1:6–8, God creates the raqia to separate "the waters from the waters," dividing the primordial ocean into waters above and waters below. The word derives from the Hebrew root rq', meaning "to beat out" or "to spread out thinly," as one would hammer metal into a sheet.^{8, 9} The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, the standard reference work in the field, defines raqia as an "extended surface, (solid) expanse" and notes that it was "regarded by Hebrews as solid and supporting 'waters' above it."⁹

Paul Seely, writing in the Westminster Theological Journal, examined the historical and linguistic evidence in detail. He concluded that "the raqia was originally conceived of as being solid and not a merely atmospheric expanse" and that "all peoples in the ancient world thought of the sky as solid."¹⁰ This understanding is confirmed by other biblical passages: Job 37:18 asks whether Job can "spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror," and Genesis 7:11 describes the flood beginning when "the windows of heaven were opened"—implying a solid structure with openings through which the waters above could pour down.^{5, 10} The BioLogos Foundation, an organization founded by evangelical geneticist Francis Collins, published an article acknowledging that "the firmament of Genesis 1 is solid" and that this reflects the ancient cosmological context in which the text was written.¹¹

This biblical cosmology closely parallels other ancient Near Eastern creation texts. The Babylonian Enuma Elish, composed centuries before Genesis reached its final form, describes the god Marduk splitting the body of the goddess Tiamat in two and using one half to create the sky as a barrier holding back the celestial waters.¹² The Hebrew word tehom ("deep" or "abyss") in Genesis 1:2 is linguistically related to the name Tiamat, and both texts describe the creation of a solid barrier to separate upper and lower waters.^{12, 13} The shared cosmological framework extends to a flat earth, as evidenced by biblical references to the "ends of the earth" (Isaiah 11:12, Psalm 22:27), the "four corners of the earth" (Revelation 7:1, Isaiah 11:12), the earth set on "pillars" (1 Samuel 2:8, Job 9:6) or "foundations" (Job 38:4–6, Psalm 104:5), and the earth as a structure that "shall not be moved" (1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10).^{5, 8}

John H. Walton, an Old Testament scholar at Wheaton College (a leading evangelical institution), has argued extensively that Genesis 1 must be read within its ancient Near Eastern context. In The Lost World of Genesis One, Walton demonstrates that the creation account describes the assignment of functions within a cosmic temple, not the material origins of the universe as modern readers assume. He writes that "we have focused too much on the material ontology of creation and not its functional ontology," and that reading modern science into the ancient text is anachronistic.¹⁴

Passages cited as scientific foreknowledge

Despite the Bible's broadly ancient cosmological framework, apologists point to several specific passages as evidence of supernaturally revealed scientific knowledge. Each of these claims, however, falters under close examination.^{4, 6}

Perhaps the most frequently cited verse is Isaiah 40:22: "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth." Apologists claim this demonstrates knowledge of the earth's spherical shape, millennia before it was scientifically established.^{1, 2} However, the Hebrew word chug means "circle," not "sphere." Robert J. Schneider, in a detailed analysis published in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (the journal of the American Scientific Affiliation), examined the Hebrew text and its ancient translations and concluded that "there is no substantive evidence and thus no warrant" for the claim that the Bible teaches a spherical earth.¹⁵ He noted that the Hebrew language had a word for a three-dimensional ball or sphere—dur, used in Isaiah 22:18—but the author of Isaiah 40:22 chose chug instead, a word that in its other biblical occurrences (Job 22:14, Proverbs 8:27) refers to a flat circle inscribed on a surface, like a circle drawn with a compass.¹⁵ Schneider further observed that "Christian thinkers got their notion of a spherical earth from the Greeks, and not from the Bible."¹⁵

Job 26:7, "He hangs the earth on nothing," is another frequently cited verse. Apologists argue this anticipates the modern understanding that the earth floats freely in space.¹ But this verse stands in tension with numerous other passages describing the earth as resting on "pillars" (1 Samuel 2:8) or having a "foundation" with a "cornerstone" (Job 38:4–6). The IVP Bible Background Commentary notes that the concept of an earth suspended over nothing also appears in Babylonian literature, where "Shamash is praised as the one who suspends from the heavens the circle of the lands," indicating this was part of the common ancient perception of the cosmos rather than a uniquely biblical scientific insight.¹⁶

Apologists also cite passages such as Ecclesiastes 1:7 ("All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again") and Job 36:27–28 as evidence that the Bible describes the water cycle before modern science did.^{1, 2} However, basic observations about rain, rivers, and evaporation were hardly unique to the biblical authors. The Greek philosopher Anaximander (c. 610–547 BCE) understood that rainfall is generated from evaporation, and Xenophanes (c. 570–480 BCE) described the complete hydrological cycle, while Aristotle (384–322 BCE) provided a detailed account of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation in his Meteorologica.¹⁷ Ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations likewise understood the basic patterns of rainfall and river systems.¹⁷ Poetic observations about rain returning to rivers are simply reflections of what any attentive person in the ancient world could observe, not evidence of supernatural revelation.⁶

The Levitical hygiene laws (handwashing, quarantine, waste disposal) are perhaps the most persistent claim of scientific foreknowledge. Apologists argue these anticipate germ theory by thousands of years.¹ But scholars have noted that the purpose of these laws was ritual purity, not medical hygiene. The sources of ritual impurity in Leviticus are primarily connected to theological categories (contact with death, bodily emissions, skin conditions), not to pathogens.¹⁸ Furthermore, ancient Egyptians practiced regular bathing, handwashing before meals, and various medical treatments as documented in the Ebers Papyrus (c. 1500 BCE), predating or contemporaneous with the composition of Leviticus.¹⁹ Reading modern germ theory into ancient purity laws is anachronistic: it imposes a conceptual framework the authors did not possess.^{6, 18}

The claim that biblical references to God "stretching out the heavens" (Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12; Jeremiah 10:12; Zechariah 12:1) anticipate the discovery of the expanding universe is similarly problematic. The Hebrew imagery describes God spreading out the sky like a tent or curtain over the earth (Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22), which is fully consistent with the ancient conception of a solid dome or canopy erected over a flat surface.^{5, 14} Reading Hubble's 1929 discovery of cosmic expansion into ancient Near Eastern tent imagery requires importing a meaning the original authors could not have intended.⁶

Scientific errors in the Bible

While apologists focus on passages they consider scientifically prescient, the Bible also contains numerous statements that are straightforwardly incompatible with modern scientific knowledge. The selective emphasis on apparent foreknowledge while ignoring these errors constitutes a significant methodological problem with the concordist argument.^{4, 6}

In 1 Kings 7:23, the dimensions of a large bronze basin (the "molten sea") in Solomon's Temple are given as ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference. Dividing the circumference by the diameter yields a value of exactly 3 for the mathematical constant pi, which is actually approximately 3.14159. The Babylonians and Egyptians of the same era had already calculated pi to greater accuracy: Babylonian mathematicians used a value of 3.125, and the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus (c. 1650 BCE) implies a value of approximately 3.1605.^{20, 21} While apologists have proposed various explanations, including measuring the interior versus exterior diameter or accounting for the width of the rim, the text as written gives a value for pi that is less accurate than what neighboring civilizations had already achieved.²⁰

Leviticus 11:13–19 classifies the bat among the birds ('oph, "flying creatures"). While apologists correctly note that the Hebrew word 'oph means "winged creature" rather than "bird" in the strict modern taxonomic sense, this only underscores the point: the biblical classification system groups animals by mode of locomotion (land, sea, air) rather than by evolutionary lineage, anatomy, or physiology.¹⁸ This is precisely the kind of folk taxonomy one would expect from ancient authors working without the tools of modern biology, not from an omniscient deity.⁶

Leviticus 11:6 states that the hare "chews the cud," placing it in the same dietary category as ruminant animals like cattle and sheep. Hares and rabbits are not ruminants and do not possess the multi-chambered stomachs required for true rumination. They do engage in cecotrophy—re-ingesting specialized fecal pellets called cecotropes—which to a casual observer might resemble cud-chewing. But the biological process is entirely different from rumination, and the text categorizes the hare alongside actual ruminants as though the processes were the same.^{18, 22}

In Mark 4:31, Jesus describes the mustard seed as "the smallest of all seeds on earth." Mustard seeds, while small, are not the smallest seeds known; orchid seeds and various other plant species produce far smaller seeds.⁶ Apologists typically explain this as hyperbole or as referring only to seeds commonly planted by Palestinian farmers, which is plausible as a defense of Jesus's rhetorical intent but concedes that the statement is not scientifically accurate in a literal sense.²²

Selected scientific claims in the Bible compared with modern science^{5, 6, 8}

The existence of these errors does not, by itself, prove anything about the Bible's theological value. But it directly contradicts the specific claim that the Bible is scientifically accurate. A text cannot simultaneously be "filled with scientific facts" and contain a cosmological model fundamentally at odds with modern astronomy, geology, and biology.^{4, 5}

The age of the earth and the global flood

Two of the most consequential areas where biblical accounts conflict with scientific knowledge are the age of the earth and the Genesis flood narrative. Young earth creationists, deriving their chronology from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, calculate the earth to be approximately 6,000 to 10,000 years old.²³ By contrast, the scientific consensus, established through multiple independent methods including radiometric dating of meteorites and terrestrial rocks, places the age of the earth at 4.54 billion years, with an uncertainty of less than 1%.²⁴ This is not a marginal disagreement; the difference between 6,000 years and 4.54 billion years is a factor of approximately 750,000.^{23, 24}

Radiometric dating relies on the well-understood physics of radioactive decay. Multiple isotope systems—uranium-lead, potassium-argon, rubidium-strontium, samarium-neodymium, and others—have been independently cross-validated and consistently yield ages in the billions of years for the oldest rocks on Earth and for meteorites that formed alongside the solar system.²⁴ The United States Geological Survey states that "the best age for the Earth comes not from dating individual rocks but by considering the Earth and meteorites as part of the same evolving system" and places that age at 4.54 billion years.²⁴

The Genesis flood narrative (Genesis 6–9) describes a global inundation that destroyed all terrestrial life except the inhabitants of Noah's ark. A literal global flood is contradicted by multiple lines of geological evidence. There is no geological stratum corresponding to a worldwide flood event within the past 10,000 years.²⁵ The geological record instead preserves clear evidence of environments incompatible with continuous submersion: desert dune deposits, evaporite minerals that form only through prolonged evaporation, coral reefs that grow incrementally over millennia, and annual ice layers in polar ice cores extending back hundreds of thousands of years with no discontinuity corresponding to a recent global flood.^{25, 26} The National Center for Science Education notes that "an honest appraisal of the physical evidence on earth reveals no evidence for a global flood in the last 10,000 years" and that by the 1830s, geologists had already concluded the evidence supported only localized floods.²⁶

The biogeographic distribution of species further contradicts a recent global flood. If all terrestrial animals descended from pairs aboard a single vessel in the Middle East only a few thousand years ago, there is no mechanism to explain how kangaroos reached Australia and nowhere else, how lemurs colonized only Madagascar, or how the thousands of endemic species on isolated islands came to exist in their present distributions.²⁵ The distribution of species across the globe is consistent with millions of years of evolution and continental drift, not with a recent dispersal from a single point.^{25, 26}

The Bible and geocentrism

The history of the relationship between the Bible and science includes one of the most famous episodes in the annals of science: the conflict between geocentrism and heliocentrism. For centuries, the dominant Christian interpretation of Scripture held that the earth was stationary at the center of the universe, and this view was enforced by institutional authority.²⁷

The biblical texts cited in support of geocentrism are numerous. Joshua 10:12–13 describes the sun and moon standing still at Joshua's command, implying that they are normally in motion (rather than the earth rotating). Ecclesiastes 1:5 describes the sun as rising, setting, and "hastening to the place where it rises"—language that treats the sun as the moving body. Psalm 93:1 and 1 Chronicles 16:30 state that "the world is established; it shall never be moved." Psalm 104:5 declares that God "set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved."^{5, 27}

When Galileo Galilei published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in 1632, defending the Copernican heliocentric model, the Roman Inquisition found him "vehemently suspect of heresy" and forced him to recant. The charges were explicitly based on the claim that heliocentrism contradicted Scripture.²⁷ Martin Luther had earlier objected to Copernicus on similar grounds, reportedly declaring: "This fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside down. But as the Holy Scripture declares, it was the sun and not the earth which Joshua commanded to stand still."²⁸

The geocentrism episode is directly relevant to the modern claim of biblical scientific accuracy because it demonstrates how confidently the Bible can be read as teaching a scientific position that turns out to be wrong. The same hermeneutical methods used by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theologians to "prove" geocentrism from Scripture—citing specific verses, arguing for their literal truth, and dismissing scientific evidence as incompatible with God's word—are structurally identical to those used today to argue that the Bible teaches a young earth, describes the water cycle, or anticipates the expanding universe.^{5, 27} Modern Christians almost universally accept that the Bible's geocentric language is phenomenological (describing appearances rather than physical reality), but this concession itself demonstrates that the Bible's descriptions of the natural world cannot be taken as scientifically authoritative.¹⁴

Ancient science, not modern science

Mainstream biblical scholarship, including work by devout Christian scholars at evangelical institutions, has increasingly recognized that the Bible reflects the scientific understanding of its ancient authors rather than revealing modern scientific truths. This position does not entail a rejection of the Bible's religious authority; rather, it distinguishes between the theological message of Scripture and the incidental ancient cosmology through which that message was communicated.^{3, 14}

Denis Lamoureux has termed this approach the "Message-Incident Principle": the spiritual truths of Scripture (the message) were communicated through the incidental scientific understanding of the time. Just as God "accommodated" divine truth to the language of the original audience, the Holy Spirit used the cosmological categories familiar to ancient writers rather than revealing modern astrophysics, biology, or geology that would have been incomprehensible to them.³ Lamoureux writes: "The Word of God features an ancient science. This is the science-of-the-day a few thousand years ago in the ancient Near East. Stated precisely, Holy Scripture includes ancient astronomy, ancient geology, and ancient biology."³

Walton similarly argues that Genesis 1 must be understood within the cognitive environment of the ancient Near East. He emphasizes that the creation account is not a scientific treatise but a theological statement about God's sovereignty and purpose. Attempts to extract modern scientific information from it are misguided not because the text is unimportant but because they misunderstand the kind of text it is.¹⁴

This understanding is shared across a broad spectrum of Christian traditions. Peter Enns, a former professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, has argued in The Evolution of Adam that the early chapters of Genesis were "written in the context of the ancient world" and that "the stories of Genesis were shaped by that world."²⁹ The Catholic Church, through papal encyclicals and the Pontifical Biblical Commission, has long accepted that the Bible is not a scientific textbook. Pope Leo XIII stated in Providentissimus Deus (1893) that the sacred writers "did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time."³⁰

The recognition that the Bible contains ancient rather than modern science resolves the apparent conflict between Scripture and scientific discovery. It explains why the Bible describes a solid firmament (because that is what ancient Near Eastern peoples believed), why it treats the earth as stationary (because that is how it appeared to its authors), and why it groups bats with birds (because ancient classification was based on observable behavior, not anatomy). These features are not errors that need to be explained away but reflections of the historical context in which the texts were composed.^{3, 5, 14}

The problem of selection bias

A fundamental methodological flaw in the scientific foreknowledge argument is its reliance on selection bias. Advocates highlight a handful of passages that can, with creative interpretation, be made to align with modern discoveries, while systematically ignoring the far more numerous passages that contradict modern science.^{4, 6}

This approach has been called the "Texas sharpshooter fallacy"—the logical error of drawing a target around a cluster of bullet holes after the shots have been fired. When one begins with the assumption that the Bible must contain scientific foreknowledge and then searches for passages that can be interpreted to match modern discoveries, one will inevitably find some, just as one would find "predictions" in the works of Homer, the Bhagavad Gita, or the Quran.^{4, 6} Indeed, Islamic apologists make structurally identical claims about the Quran containing scientific foreknowledge, citing passages they interpret as describing the expansion of the universe, the development of the human embryo, and the barrier between salt and fresh water.⁴ Hindu scholars have similarly claimed that the Vedas contain references to atomic theory and the speed of light. These parallel claims, which rely on the same methods of selective quotation and post-hoc interpretation, illustrate that the method itself is unreliable.⁴

The Talk Origins Index to Creationist Claims addresses the most common "scientific foreknowledge" arguments point by point, noting that in each case the passage is either too vague to constitute a genuine prediction, reflects common ancient knowledge rather than unique revelation, or requires importing modern meanings that the original language does not support.⁶ A passage that can only be recognized as "scientific foreknowledge" after the science has already been discovered is not a prediction in any meaningful sense. If the biblical authors truly understood the water cycle, germ theory, or the shape of the earth, one would expect to find clear, unambiguous statements rather than poetic metaphors that can be recognized as "accurate" only in retrospect.^{4, 6}

What scholars conclude

The scholarly consensus on the Bible's relationship to science can be summarized in a straightforward principle: the Bible is a collection of ancient religious texts, not a scientific textbook, and it reflects the cosmological understanding of its time.^{3, 5, 14} This conclusion is held not only by secular scholars but by leading evangelical academics who maintain high views of biblical authority.

The BioLogos Foundation, which represents the views of many evangelical scientists, states explicitly that "we do not expect the Bible to teach modern science" and that "the biblical authors wrote in the context of their own cultures and used the scientific understanding of their day."¹¹ Tremper Longman III, a prominent evangelical Old Testament scholar, has written that "the Bible does not intend to teach science" and that reading modern science into the text "asks the wrong questions" of an ancient document.³¹

The claim that the Bible is scientifically accurate thus fails on multiple levels. It overstates the significance of a few ambiguous passages, ignores the Bible's many scientific errors and its thoroughly ancient cosmological framework, relies on selection bias and post-hoc interpretation, and reflects a misunderstanding of the kind of literature the Bible is. Acknowledging this does not require rejecting the Bible's religious or literary significance. As Lamoureux, Walton, Enns, and many other Christian scholars have argued, recognizing the Bible as an ancient text that speaks theological truth through the scientific language of its time actually frees readers to engage with both Scripture and science on their own terms, without forcing either into a role it was never meant to play.^{3, 14, 29}