The Sea Around Us
In Job 38:16, God asked, "Have you explored the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep?" (Amplified Version).
How could the writer of the book of Job have known that beneath the oceans of the world are springs or fountains of fresh water? Or, did you even know that?
An article in the Saturday Review (July 1, 1967) said, "Although they usually remain undetected, submarine springs of fresh water are often more common along certain types of shoreline than are rivers and other surface streams." Along some shorelines, as much as 20 million gallons of fresh water a day flows into the sea for every mile of shoreline.
In fact, one major submarine spring in the Persian Gulf flows with enough volume to create a large area of fresh water in the midst of the sea, because of favorable limestone geology in Iran and Saudi Arabia. In Greece, an estimated 100 million cubic feet of fresh water goes into the sea through submarine springs.
But about four thousand years before, God asked Job if he knew about the springs in the sea!
INCREDIBLE!
What about the "recesses of the deep"? Tell me — how could Job have known there are deep trenches of the oceans — such as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific, 36,198 feet deep, discovered in September, 1959 by the Soviet ship Vityaz — except by divine revelation? The same ship discovered a depth of 35,702 feet in the Tonga Trench; there are four other deep trenches in the North Pacific. The greatest depth in the Atlantic Ocean is north of Puerto Rico — the Puerto Rico Trench, 27,498 feet deep.
The dark world of the bottom of the ocean is now being explored by scientists in bathyscaphes, and special cameras, mounted with strobe lamps, have been lowered miles into the depths.
New instruments have revealed that the ocean bottom is surprisingly rugged. Depths of valleys and canyons running underwater when averaged out are five times greater than heights reached on continents. The undersea world is cut, and sliced, by huge canyons bigger than the Grand Canyon. One such canyon is the Hudson Canyon off New York. Sixty miles off shore, this mammoth canyon knifes downward to 8000 feet, and then slopes on down to 16,500 feet.
The sea floor is called the abyssal plains. At their edge are sometimes found tremendous chasms or trenches, averaging 20 miles wide at the top and hundreds of miles long. The deepest such trench discovered is the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, almost seven miles down.
Thousands of years ago, God asked Job what he knew about these "recesses" or TRENCHES deep under the ocean! In the original Hebrew, the word for "explore" is cheger and means to "search out, examine; secret, inmost part." The word for "deep" is tehown and means "confusion" — or "the ABYSS, the great deep."
How could such words have been written — unless they had been inspired divinely?"Paths of the Seas"
Matthew Fontaine Maury, when reading the Bible, was struck by the words of Psalm 8:8 — "The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." His curiosity aroused, he set out to map the currents of the oceans of the world and became the foremost hydrographer of his day (1806-1873). He discovered the ocean routes which would make best use of prevailing ocean currents and winds. His research enabled ship owners to cut many days from the time required to make their voyages and helped them save many thousands of dollars. He was called the "Pathfinder of the Seas." The Bible was his source of inspiration!
But how did King David, who lived about one thousand years before Christ, know about these paths of the seas and the great currents in the oceans? Could it be this knowledge was much more general and widespread in ancient times than modern scientists like to give credit for?
Once again, the Bible is proved to be scientific!
The Gulf Stream
In 1855 Matthew Fontaine Maury, pioneer oceanographer, wrote, "There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream" (The Physical Geography of the Sea, 1855).
Truly a river in the middle of the sea, the Gulf Stream flows for the most part through the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico and leaves through the Straits of Florida, from where it flows out into the broad Atlantic across to Northwestern Europe.
"Seaward of New England, where the Gulf Stream is most robust, it can be 100 miles wide and 16,400 feet deep, and have a surface velocity of six miles an hour. There it carries past a given point about 150,000,000 tons of water every second; this makes it the equal of 700 Amazons or 8,800 Mississippi’s" ("A Capsule History of the Gulf Stream," by Thomas Lineaweaver III, Holiday, Nov. 1967).
If the Gulf Stream were emptied upon the United States, it would flood the entire nation to a depth of over four feet in just one day!
This mighty river is truly a PATHWAY in the sea. The larvae of a snail (Cymatium Parthenopeum) found from Brazil to the west coast of Africa ride the Gulf Stream, perhaps taking 300 days to cover 2,640 miles from the Bahamas to the Azores. Although the "odds" against a successful passage for the snails may be 2 million to 1, it is commonly done!
The Gulf Stream is just one of many mighty ocean currents, such as the cold Humboldt Current, pushed by Antarctic winds up the west coast of South America. Then there is the Japan Current, or Kuroshio, in the Pacific.
The earth's great wind systems push before them the great sea currents, and have enormous impact on world weather. The westerlies drive the Gulf Stream and Japan Current; the polar easterlies drive before them the Humboldt Current and Brazil Current, and others. The Labrador Current, in the North Atlantic, flows down from the North Polar Region, pushed along by polar easterlies.
All these mighty currents are virtual rivers or paths in the seas. But — how did David, one thousand years before Christ, know such mighty paths in the seas existed? How indeed, unless navigation was far more advanced in his day than skeptics like to admit?
Winging their way over the seas, in giant paths through the skies, are the Golden Plover and the Arctic Tern — navigating many thousands of miles every year. Navigating in paths through the seas are species of eel, turtles, whales, and many species of fish.
How did David understand these things about the "fowls of the air" and the "fish of the sea" and other migratory creatures? How was he so familiar with the biological sciences of the earth?
Clearly, the Bible is far more scientific than most people would suppose!
Even in the days of David, facts about bird migration and fish migration were understood!
Knowledge About Air Pressure
You are probably familiar with the fact that air has weight. At sea level air pressure is 14.7 pounds per square inch. As you go up in altitude, air pressure is less and less. A mountain climber ascending Mount Everest finds the air so thin that he has to take oxygen along to breathe.
When did science discover that air has weight? Any textbook on Physics reveals that the laws of pressure, temperature and volume of gases were not discovered until the last few hundred years. It was not known, previously, that the invisible air actually had weight.
Nor was it understood that rain behaved according to definite LAWS of physics and chemistry. But notice what God wrote in His Word over three thousand years ago:
"God . . . looks to the ends of the earth; beneath the whole heavens he sees. When he made a weight for the wind, and meted out the waters by measure [rainfall on the United States averages 29 inches every year!]; when he made a LAW for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt" (Job 28:23-26).
The Amplified Bible makes it even more specific: "When He gave to the wind weight or pressure. . ."
Here is another remarkable instance of SCIENCE in the Bible — thousands of years before modern science discovered these same laws of nature and principles of physics!
How could it be — unless GOD inspired the Bible?
God showed Job the relationship between barometric pressure of the atmosphere and the weather three thousand years before Torricelli, an Italian physicist (1608-1647) proved the same relationship with his barometer!
The Great Pyramid
In his book, A History of Egyptian Archaeology, Fred Gladstone Bratton states, "Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Giza Pyramids alone have survived the ravages of time and the destructive hand of man. They are still the most massive and impressive buildings in the world today.
"As with astronomical measurements where the scientist has to resort to comparisons in order to demonstrate the immensity of the universe, so it is with the Pyramid of Cheops. No OTHER BUILDING IN HISTORY has called for so much study of construction, dimensions, and purpose as this pile of thirty million cubic feet of limestone. It has been estimated that the Great Pyramid . . . is large enough to accommodate St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, St. Peter's in Rome, and the Cathedrals of Milan and Florence. It consists of 2,300,000 limestone blocks, each one weighing 2½ tons and measuring 3 feet in each direction. Originally it was 481 feet high but now is 451 feet. The average length of the four base lines is 755 feet." (p. 87)
This author continues, "By using one of the celestial bodies, the Cheops builders were able to orient the Pyramid to the four cardinal points, the errors being only in the following fractions of one degree: north side, 2' 28" south of west; south side, 1' 57" south of west, east side, 5' 30" west of north; west side, 2' 30" west of north. The four corners were almost perfect right angles with the following measurements: 900 3' 2"; northwest, 900 59' 58"; southeast, 890 56' 37"; and southwest, 900 0' 33"." (p. 88)
Archaeologist Flinders Petrie calculated that 100,000 men were used in transporting the blocks to the base of the Pyramid, and some 4,000 in its actual construction. The precision is such that Petrie said any errors in the angles and degrees "can be covered with one's thumb."
Eight centuries ago Abd al-Latif observed that the stone blocks were fitted together so well that a knife cannot be inserted in the joints — a truly remarkable evidence of precision engineering and sheer architectural genius!
In his book The Pyramids, Ahmed Fakhry declares, "The Great Pyramid of Giza represents the culminative effort of the pyramid builders. Not only is it the largest monument of its kind ever constructed, but for excellence of workmanship, accuracy of planning, and beauty of proportion, it remains the chief of the Seven Wonders of the World" (p. 99).
It has been calculated that if all the stone in the Great Pyramid were sawn into one foot square blocks and these blocks were laid end to end, they would stretch two thirds of the way around the earth at the equator, or 16,000 miles. Put another way, these one foot blocks could make a five-foot highway stretching from the east to the west coast of the United States!
Said Fakhry of the Great Pyramid, "Even equipped with modern tools and instruments, and profiting from nearly five thousand years of experience, architects and engineers TODAY might well quail if called upon to erect a duplicate" (pages 120-121).
Who Built It?
Whoever built the Great Pyramid was familiar with the sciences of astronomy, geology, mathematics, physics, and had brilliant engineering skill. Who was the builder?
None other than the Biblical patriarch Job!
Allusion to this fact is found in the book of Job itself. God said to him, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the EARTH? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?" (Job 38:4-5)
God was telling Job that his accomplishment of building the Great Pyramid was as NOTHING compared to the great works of God!
Challenged God, "Whereupon are the foundations [of the earth] fastened? or who laid the CORNERSTONE thereof,. when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:6-7).
God showed Job that his ability, his accomplishments, counted for nothing with God. He could not earn his salvation by his good works.
It should be clear that Job was no ignoramus. He was a tremendous SCIENTIST of his time, well endowed with ability, genius, and engineering skill!
Yet, today, men ridicule the men of God in the Bible, calling them ignorant. They assume that God's Word is of no account — just the ancient stories and traditions of an ignorant race of superstitious men! What folly!