This is a tangental followup to my previous thoughts on scriptural inerrancy. And, yes, my thoughts will be as meandering in this post as in that one. Time and toddler don’t currently permit organized essays—not if I’m actually going to publish something more than once a year.
First (and as always), I want to reaffirm my commitment to maintaining the highest view of Scripture that is possible without overreaching even Scripture’s own claims about itself. I’m not sure in our age of “Jesus seminars” that this can ever go without saying, sadly.
That said, there’s a phrase I hear bandied about when the reliability of Scripture vis-a-vis science is brought up, including from the lips of the aforementioned Dr. Michael Heiser:
The Bible is not a science textbook.
With respect to Dr. Heiser, et al, I’m not aware of any Christians who do use it as a science textbook. Certainly, theism is a necessary precondition for the intelligibility of the universe (giving us, as it does, an expectation of uniformity with regard to the properties of the universe and the laws that govern them), but recognizing that doesn’t de facto mean that any revelations from that God should be scientific treatises, obviously.
The saying generally comes out in places where the Old Earth vs. Young Earth debate rages among the “Bible-believing.” The Old Earth position is forced to:
A) Take a non-literal view of the creation account in Genesis 1 (and Genesis 2, depending upon whether they confess a literal Adam-made-fresh-from-dust, as well) and argue that Scripture’s aim is not to teach science—as per the quote above, and by asserting that the passages are merely intended to be poetic/polemical.
B) Argue that Scripture just plain ol’ got it wrong.
…depending upon whether they retain inerrancy or dismiss it, respectively.
I’m not certain those are the only two choices, but I will digress on that, for now. It seems pretty plain to me that the scientific evidence points convincingly toward a young creation, so insofar as this evidence becomes stronger and more widely known, it might be a moot point.
At any rate, I perceive in the statement above a certain disingenuousness. As I’ve said, I don’t know of anyone who treats the Bible like a science textbook (what would that look like? how would that work?), but the statement has the effect of diverting focus from the real question:
Is the Bible a history book?
That is, does it report, with any degree of accuracy, the true unfolding of the creation, fall, and redemption of God’s handiwork? If so, then scientific truths can be inferred from it (the story of Abimelech’s demise shows that gravity was in effect, and force equalled mass x acceleration then too), even if it doesn’t teach “science proper.” Ergo, for the inerrantist, the Genesis 1 account should be taken at face value for its accurate historical report, not because it is “a science textbook.”
Hence, the phrase “the Bible is not a science textbook” is a Red Herring as it pertains to the truthfulness of Genesis 1. It is recording accurate history, or it is not. If the former, then we are free to make all manner of scientific applications from what inferences can be obtained through study of the historical account—just as we make all kinds of scientific inferences based on the historical writings of Josephus, Pliny, and others.
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