The Bible And Science Agree About More Than You Probably Realize

Though it's a central facet of many lives across the globe, the text of the Bible isn't widely held up as a scientific one. It contains many parables, historical accounts, and words of poetry, but you are less likely to see it used as a medical textbook or physics primer. But a close look at some key verses, balanced with an understanding of historical context and some more recent research, shows that the ancient writers of the Bible weren't too far off from the truth, at least where science is concerned.

Some of those Bible verses are pretty well backed up by established fact. Others are admittedly more open to interpretation but are certainly plausible under certain conditions. For instance, the evidence for a world-covering flood that submerged the entire planet and set Noah's ark afloat simply isn't there. But if you're willing to believe that a large-scale regional flood fits the bill, then key elements of the Noah story could well have happened. And while the story of an earthquake rending the temple during Jesus' crucifixion sounds like an example of divine wrath alone, seismological data has something different to say. These stories and more from the Bible are surprisingly shored up by very real scientific data.

When it comes to the overall structure of the Earth, a handful of Bible verses get things pretty right considering they were composed by ancient writers. For one, Isaiah 40:22 describes the Earth as a circle, which perhaps isn't all that surprising when you learn that Greek writers by 500 B.C. had generally agreed that the Earth was a sphere (the book of Isaiah is believed to have been compiled from texts written between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C.). Job 26:7 also notes that Earth is hanging out in space, unsupported by any structure, bringing to mind the gravity-based balance of our planet and the rest of the solar system in the near-total vacuum of space.

Meanwhile, Job 28:5 states: "As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire." While it's unlikely that ancient Hebrews were doing the sort of deep-level drilling modern geologists undertake in order to learn more about the hot core of our planet, this image is not too far from what we understand of Earth's geology today. Modern measurements of seismic waves from events like earthquakes give us a sense as to whether those waves are traveling through liquid or solid material, indicating a solid inner core and liquid outer core and mantle, all of which are at seriously hot — dare we say fiery — temperatures.

In the very first verses of the Bible, the Earth is not yet fully formed. Instead, according to Genesis 1:1-2, God had created the earth and heavens, but "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." To at least some readers, this speaks to a watery primordial existence, which is backed up by studies of the environment of early Earth.

A water world in the far-distant past isn't necessarily a fantasy. A 2020 paper published in Nature Geoscience outlined geological research that examined ancient seawater sediments and oxygen isotopes, noting that changes in the isotopic composition of these sediments indicate that true continents did not start to emerge from the ocean until somewhere between 3 and 2.5 billion years ago. That was well after Earth's formation 4.5 billion years ago, and such a global ocean would have had a dramatic effect on the environment and the emergence of life at the time.

A 2021 study in AGU Advances further supports this idea, proposing that the planet's oceans were once as much as twice the size of today's water cover and could have flooded the vast majority of the planet. Researchers examined oxygen and hydrogen atoms left behind in geological materials, calculating previously collected data to determine how much water might have been stored in the Earth's mantle, as opposed to sitting on its surface.

The water cycle may seem like a basic scientific theory you learned in high school or even middle school, but there's no denying that water is absolutely central to life on today's planet. If you need a general refresher, the model outlines the movement of water through the planet's various environments, from evaporating up into the atmosphere, falling back down as precipitation, and throughout the Earth as ice, groundwater, rivers, and much, much more.

Though they were written thousands of years ago, some Bible verses appear to show that ancient writers had a handle on the water cycle long before modern science came along. Amos 9:6 claims that God "calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth," while Job 36:27-28 gives the Almighty credit for creating rain-producing clouds. Ecclesiastes 1:7 notes that all rivers eventually make their way to the sea but, given that the ocean isn't utterly full, water must return somehow back to the river's source. Meanwhile, Psalm 135:7 says that "He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth."

Maybe this knowledge is not all that surprising, given how central water-consuming agriculture would have been to humanity's existence in the period these books of the Bible were being written. Around the same time, ancient Greek and Chinese writers were discussing similar concepts, underlining the careful attention many gave to the movement of life-giving water through their environment.

Today, the idea that germs cause illness is so basic that young children all over the globe learn to wash their hands in order to stave off disease. Yet it wasn't always so broadly understood. Various scientists and public health officials over the centuries have proposed the idea, but scientists in much of the 19th century had largely grown skeptical of the idea. But, by the 1870s, the work of surgeon Joseph Lister, chemist Louis Pasteur, and others lent credence to the theory that small, practically invisible organisms could cause humans and other animals to grow ill.

Of course, people who lived long before that era generally knew that filth was linked to illness. Consider the text of both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, books of the Old Testament written centuries before Jesus. In Leviticus 11:28, believers are instructed to carefully clean their clothes after handling dead animals. Leviticus 13 gives highly detailed directives for dealing with humans who present with skin lesions, with a learned priest determining if it's contagious leprosy and ordering quarantine if necessary. Other instructions explain how to handle potentially germ-ridden garments, which sometimes requires the affected cloth to be burned. 

Leviticus 15:13 likewise gives a sick person instructions for washing themselves and their clothes. And Deuteronomy 23:13 tells those answering the call of nature outdoors to dig a hole and bury their leavings, much like modern backcountry campers are urged to dig catholes for the same hygienic purpose.

When discussing the story of Noah and the ark from a scientific perspective, it's important to get one key detail straight: there's no evidence of a global flood. Yes, Genesis 7 maintains that God called down rains that submerged the whole planet, but if clear scientific evidence is a key component of your belief, then you may have to get a bit more flexible. As geomorphology professor David Montgomery told Live Science, there simply isn't enough water on the planet then or now to submerge everything. It would, at most, cover the planet with mere inches of water.

However, if you are okay with the theory that the flood was a large-scale regional event, there is scientific evidence backing up the story. A 2009 study published in Quaternary Science Reviews presented evidence of a massive flood in a geological basin in the Black Sea region around 9,400 years ago. Oceanographer Robert Ballard, now famous for his 1985 co-discovery of the wreck of the Titanic, has supported this theory. While conducting underwater archaeological research off the Turkish coast in 2012, he told ABC News that the theory was indeed possible. His team found evidence of a shoreline that could have been suddenly and dramatically submerged about 5,000 years ago. "It was probably a bad day," he said. "At some magic moment, it broke through and flooded this place violently," estimating that some 150,000 square kilometers (nearly 58,000 square miles) would have been flooded.

There is plenty of legend surrounding the notoriously bad Sodom and Gomorrah, condemned for destruction by God in Genesis 18. By Genesis 19: 24-25, the two cities are destroyed by a rain of fire and brimstone, presumably leaving little evidence behind. The biblical account doesn't exactly include a map, either, leaving archaeologists guessing. Some have suggested that they were part of a region near the Dead Sea, now partially submerged after a major earthquake shook the region nearly 4,000 years ago. Released gases in the area may have ignited and contributed to the fiery image of the cities' destruction.

That's not exactly destruction raining on down from above, however. So, some turn to the site of Tall el-Hammam. This settlement, one of the largest cities in the region, was destroyed around 1,650 B.C., according to a 2021 paper published in Nature Scientific Reports. This mysterious destruction event appears to have brought intensely high heat down upon the city, and fast, to the point where pottery began to melt on the outside — but remain untouched inside — while structures, including towers and five-story buildings, were devastated by high heat and impact. Study authors suggest that an impact event involving an astronomical body like a comet could have produced an appropriately intense shockwave and firestorm that melted mud bricks, produced tiny diamond-like structures, and practically vaporized any humans or animals who were unfortunate enough to be in the path of destruction.

In Matthew 27:51-52, an account of Jesus' crucifixion maintains that, amongst the dramatic and devastating events of that day, an earthquake shook the region. As the verses have it, "the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose." The historicity of resurrected dead people is perhaps best left for another time, but the reality is that there may be some truth to this account of a crucifixion-adjacent earthquake.

At least that's according to a 2012 paper published in International Geology Review. The research specifically looks at the report from Matthew 27 and compares it to sediment analysis from the region. Deformations in these deposits indicate that a major earthquake really did happen in the region around Jerusalem and the Dead Sea in the first century, most likely in the years between A.D. 26 and 36. This gets the seismological event pretty close to the time that most scholars agree Jesus would have died. However, it's worth noting that precisely dating earthquakes is very difficult and comes with a years-wide margin of error (the study authors state that their estimation should come with a five-year margin on either side of A.D. 31).

In the Bible, after the death of Moses, Joshua was the prophet's successor who took over leading the Israelite people, conquered the rival Canaanites, and finally led them to the long-awaited Promised Land. The Book of Joshua tells this story and, amongst the other exploits of this man, contains an odd little detail that might not be so far from scientific truth. In Joshua 10:12-13, Joshua says, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon." The heavenly bodies do just that, demonstrating the power of God and Joshua's special connection with the divine.

It might also demonstrate a historic solar eclipse. As described in a 2017 issue of Astronomy & Geophysics, the account in Joshua appears to describe one of the oldest known solar eclipses that can be assigned a date, and likely happened on October 30, 1207 B.C. The paper's authors argue that the 17th-century King James translation didn't get the original Hebrew quite right when it said that the sun and moon stopped moving, when really they stopped shining as normal. The event would have been an annular eclipse, in which the moon doesn't fully block the sun but instead leaves a small ring of light around it at the height of the eclipse, leaving the area in its path below with levels of light equivalent to dusk.

There is admittedly quite a lot about the Noah story that doesn't make sense, at least if you're looking to science to back it up. Besides the issue of the planet not holding enough water to submerge everything, there's the tricky business of the ark itself. It's meant to be a massive structure that can not only withstand the rigors of a storm so massive it drowns most of life on Earth, but can safely hold at least two of every animal.

In Genesis 6:13-22, God delivers instructions on what kind of wood to use, how to seal it, the dimensions of the ark, and where to place a window and door in the structure. Could it have held exemplars of every animal on the planet? Frankly, the math doesn't work out for millions of animals, though apologists like to argue that species progenitors they deem "kinds" could cover multiple modern species.

But, large as it would have been (over 500 feet long, for starters), perhaps the structure of the ark wouldn't have been so completely off from reality. In 2013, students at the University of Leicester calculated that the ark could have been the right size to both stay afloat and contain weight equivalent to 2.15 million sheep (used as a handy stand-in for the average weight of all the animals).

Today, Moses is considered one of the biggest prophets of the Bible and a key leader of the ancient Hebrew people. But he wasn't always taken so seriously. When attempting to ask the Egyptian pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery, Moses was forced to resort to plagues. According to Exodus 7, those included, in order: water turning to blood, frogs, lice, flies, ill livestock, skin lesions, hail, darkness, and the death of all non-Hebrew firstborn children.

Reading the account, you may think it was all direct divine intervention. But there is a possible scientific explanation for the series of disasters that may have beset Egypt. If we accept the traditional assumption that Ramesses II was the resistant pharaoh facing off with Moses, then it's interesting to note that a serious and extended drought took place during his reign in the 13th century B.C. This could have allowed toxic red-tinged algae to bloom in the Nile, killing fish, increasing pest populations, and allowing for disease spread, as a paper in Medical Hypotheses suggests.

As for the hail and darkness, some point to an intense sandstorm that may have swept over the region, while others blame a massive volcanic eruption on Greece's island of Santorini for flinging sun-blocking ash high into the atmosphere, where it may well have been observed in Egypt. Sure, the eruption occurred centuries before Ramesses came along, but perhaps much later writers conflated a disaster or two.

In Exodus, Moses finally convinces the pharaoh to release the Israelites from servitude. But, while they're making their way out of Egyptian territory, the pharaoh changes his mind and orders his forces to pursue the fleeing group, who are then trapped on the shore of a sea. In Exodus 14:21-29, Moses reaches out and miraculously parts the waters so the Israelites can walk forth. The Egyptians follow, but with another wave of Moses' hand, the waters swallow the enemy up.

To many, this is a major miracle that goes beyond science. Yet it could have really happened if the environmental conditions were right, according to a 2010 paper in PLOS ONE. If Moses and his followers were crossing the right point in the Red Sea, a phenomenon known as wind setdown may have come into play. In this situation, high winds push back water and expose previously submerged land. Moreover, study co-author Carl Drews told The Washington Post that perhaps a mistranslation meant that what we thought was the Red Sea was actually a shallower sea of reeds, one that would have been easier to navigate with the help of wind setdown.

All of this is not definitive proof of such an event happening, and it's unlikely to be accepted by those who wish to believe in the power of an almighty God who can part whole seas (or even other scientists, as Drews discovered). But for others, the scientific link remains compelling.