Reading the Bible as a Christian

Map shows the dispersion of the R1b people out of Africa.

Alice C. Linsley

This is the third installment in a series of articles of the Bible and Science. In Part 1 we considered this question: If Scripture is reliable and the empirical method is valuable, shouldn't the two work together for those who want to understand the Bible?

It is an error to think that biblical assertions cannot be tested by science. The Bible makes extraordinary assertions that can be found to align with the findings of different fields of science: anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, climate studies, DNA studies, linguistics, etc. In an age when it is generally assumed that the Bible is nonsense, identifying the alignments is an essential task of Christian apologetics.

Approaching the Scriptures with an empirical eye involves noticing details that clarify the context and the meaning. We should note that Nimrod was a Kushite kingdom builder (Genesis 10:8) because this speaks of the Kushite migration out of the Upper Nile Valley, something that has been confirmed by DNA studies of Haplogroup R1b.

Linguists and Bible scholars have noted that many of the roots (radicals) found in the early chapters of Genesis are Nilo-Saharan roots and date to a time when the Sahara was wet. This suggests that Noah, Nimrod’s great grandfather, probably lived in Africa during the time when it was prone to floods. That would make Noah a Proto-Saharan ruler. Interesting information has come forward about Proto-Saharan rulers. They kept royal menageries, and the animals were brought in pairs, a male and a female, in hopes that the species would reproduce.

The anthropological tools of kinship analysis have identified the rulers of Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36 as historical persons with an authentic marriage and ascendancy pattern. Their kinship pattern is identical to that of Moses’s family. This suggests that Cain, Seth, Lamech, Noah, Methuselah, Abraham, Sheba, Seir the Horite, and Moses share a common ancestral tradition.

Archaeological research reveals that this common ancestral tradition expressed itself in burial practices that suggest the hope of resurrection and immortality. Among those practices are the mummification of rulers, burial in red ochre (an archaic symbol of blood), and monumental tombs and temples with entrances aligned to the rising sun.

In Part 2, we focused on the relation of faith and science, and considered this question: Does faith play a role in scientific research and how Christians interpret data?

There is no doubt that faith informs our worldview and we filter data through a faith template. We may argue over questions of inerrancy, human agency, seeming contradictions, etc., but most Christians are confident that the Bible has been divinely superintended over the centuries. If we believe that the Bible is divinely superintended, we may trust that the biblical data can stand up to empirical investigation.

Attitude is important when reading the Bible. If we approach the text seeking ammunition to fight for a cause, we will fail to understand the divine message. If we approach in arrogance, we will find nothing of real value. The best stance when approaching the Bible is humble inquiry, as a beggar seeking entrance to the King’s palace.

In this installment, we explore how a Christian should read the Bible in the face of secular challenges.

Focus question: In an age that challenges the assertions of the Christian faith, how should Christians read the Bible?

The short answer is that we should be like the noble Bereans who investigated the Scriptures to see if these claims be true (Acts 17:11). Investigation means digging deep into the text, not reading a commentary on the text. It means questioning the text, not taking it for granted. It means recognizing that the Bible does not answer all questions, only the essential ones. It means making a lifelong pursuit of the mysteries of God that are hidden in Jesus Messiah. True students of the Bible are like scientists for whom every answered question leads to new questions. Discovery leads to further discovery.

Anselm of Canterbury approached truth with the right attitude. He wrote, “For I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe - that unless I believe I shall not understand.”

The Hubris of Scientism

Arguments among Christians arise over a text or a doctrine when people insist that their interpretation alone is the correct one. Such dogmatism is not unique to Christians. We find it among scientists who believe that science alone confirms truth. This “Scientism” was exposed as fraudulent by the late Dr. Austin Hughes in “The Folly of Scientism” (The New Atlantis, Feb. 2012). He wrote:

When I decided on a scientific career, one of the things that appealed to me about science was the modesty of its practitioners. The typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion. This attitude was attractive precisely because it stood in sharp contrast to the arrogance of the philosophers of the positivist tradition, who claimed for science and its practitioners a broad authority with which many practicing scientists themselves were uncomfortable.

The temptation to overreach, however, seems increasingly indulged today in discussions about science. Both in the work of professional philosophers and in popular writings by natural scientists, it is frequently claimed that natural science does or soon will constitute the entire domain of truth. And this attitude is becoming more widespread among scientists themselves. All too many of my contemporaries in science have accepted without question the hype that suggests that an advanced degree in some area of natural science confers the ability to pontificate wisely on any and all subjects.

Of course, from the very beginning of the modern scientific enterprise, there have been scientists and philosophers who have been so impressed with the ability of the natural sciences to advance knowledge that they have asserted that these sciences are the only valid way of seeking knowledge in any field. A forthright expression of this viewpoint has been made by the chemist Peter Atkins, who in his 1995 essay “Science as Truth” asserts the “universal competence” of science. This position has been called scientism — a term that was originally intended to be pejorative but has been claimed as a badge of honor by some of its most vocal proponents. In their 2007 book Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, for example, philosophers James Ladyman, Don Ross, and David Spurrett go so far as to entitle a chapter “In Defense of Scientism.”

Today the challenges to our Christian faith are so great that we can’t be complacent about the claims of Scripture. We must counter ignorance of the text with clear and concise evidence. If a claim is true there will be evidence to that effect. Investigate the claim! We can no longer accept something by faith. We must also confirm it by every possible means, and God will help us in the pursuit of truth.

Christians are to demonstrate that the Bible is more than an account of irrelevant past events. We do this by reading the Bible daily and reflecting on its application. We do this by taking it as our primary authority for faith and practice. If we are to rise to the challenges of secularism and scientism we must also read empirically. That means identifying and verifying the accuracy of biblical data so that the world may know that the supernatural message of the Bible is written everywhere in the natural world (Romans 1:20). As St. Jerome reminds us, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ!”


Related reading: Ian Hutchinson on Faith and Science; When is the Evidence Sufficient?; Always Be Prepared to Give an Answer; The Bible and Anthropological Investigation

How Plants Find Water

R. RELLÁN-ÁLVAREZ ET AL/ELIFE 2015

Plants are familiar. We live with them, tend them, and rely on them for food and materials. We take them for granted and fail to recognize that plants are amazing.

Vertebrates develop in wombs or eggs, but plant roots respond to outside environments, revealing sensitivity to life-sustaining elements around them.

José Dinneny wants us to see plants as stranger things. He says, "They’re able to integrate information and make coherent decisions without a nervous system, without a brain."

Dinneny studies how plants find water. He and his colleagues developed a system to observe plant growth called GLO-Roots. It makes roots in soil easier to watch because the roots glow as they spread through the soil. Computer analysis of images tracks where root tissues luminesce as various genes turn on in the underground observatory, giving researchers clues to how roots detect and respond to their environment.

Read more here.

Emerging Phone Service May Cost You

Phone companies will be more aggressive in blocking robocalls to customers' phones, but it may come with a cost.

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday issued an order to "expressly authorize voice service providers to block robocalls that appear to be from telephone numbers that do not or cannot make outgoing calls, without running afoul of the FCC's call completion rules."

The new authorization from the FCC applies to voice service providers including mobile phone carriers, traditional landline phone companies like AT&T and Verizon, and VoIP carriers such as cable companies.

Carriers will be "allowed to block calls purporting to be from invalid numbers, like those with area codes that don't exist, from numbers that have not been assigned to a provider, and from numbers allocated to a provider but not currently in use," the FCC said.

Read more here.

Evidence of a Wet Sahara

There is no doubt that climate changes take place. The Sahara of Africa is an example. Between 10,000 and 4000 years ago the Sahara was much wetter. There were many lakes and rivers and it was possible to travel great distances along the interconnected water systems.

The map below shows the water ways of the eastern African Shear Zone. The waters of the Sahara collected and flowed along rifts. These include the Atbara Rift, the Blue Nile Rift, the White Nile Rift, the Abu Gabra Rift, the Bahr El-Arab Rift, and the Muglad Rift. There were also basins that filled with water, especially during the rainy monsoon season, and Lake Victoria. Hydrologic studies indicate many periods of flooding from the Nile to the Atlantic coast of Nigeria.

The Central African Shear Zone (shown below) was riddled with lakes and rivers. The gray shaded areas show the ancient water ways in the African Sheer Zone. The area was prone to flooding.

In 1984, United States Geological Survey researchers located some of the covered channels with the aid of a satellite navigation device modified for land use. Archaeologist William P. McHugh directed excavations on the shorelines of two sand-covered valleys. McHugh uncovered hand axes and other stone artifacts, evidence of tool workshops used intermittently over tens of thousands of years at the ancient water systems. Animals uncovered at the sites included crocodiles and turtles. Researchers estimate that the annual rainfall during the Aqualithic was at least 20 inches.

Noah lived in the region of Lake Chad. This lake is located at the northeastern boundary of Nigeria, between Nigeria and Chad. The region is called Borno, which means "Land of Noah." This is the only place on earth that is claimed by the native population to be Noah's homeland.

There is a considerable evidence that boats were once prevalent in the Sahara. The black mahogany Dufuna dugout (above) was found in the Sudan buried 16 feet under clays and sands whose alternating sequence showed evidence of deposition in standing and flowing water. The dugout is 8000 years old. By comparison, Egypt's oldest boat is only about 5000 years old. 

Peter Breunig (University of Frankfurt, Germany) has written this description of the Dufuna boat: “The bow and stern are both carefully worked to points, giving the boat a notably more elegant form”, compared to “the dugout made of conifer wood from Pesse in the Netherlands, whose blunt ends and thick sides seem crude”. Judging by stylistic sophistication, Breunig reasons that, “It is highly probable that the Dufuna boat does not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development, and that the origins of water transport in Africa lie even further back in time.”

Boats appear on prehistoric rock paintings in the Sahara. Many show people transporting long horn cows by boat. The Proto-Saharan were cattle-herding. Here are examples of the sickle, incurved sickle, square, incurved square, and flared boat types found on the prehistoric rock art of the Central Eastern Desert of Egypt.

The historicity of Noah’s concern for animals is supported by the discovery that Proto-Saharan rulers kept royal menageries of exotic animals. The oldest known zoological collection was found during the 2009 excavations at the city of Nekhen on the Nile. The royal menagerie dates to about 3500 BC and included hippos, elephants, baboons and wildcats. Noah would have known Nekhen. This painting was found on the wall of a tomb in Nekhen, the earliest known Horite Hebrew shrine city.

Related reading: The Historicity of Noah's Flood; Boats and Cows of the Nilo-Saharans

Forests in the Transantarctic Mountains

Researchers have identified two distinct environments at the South Pole at the close of the Permian Period. There was a warm rainforest with tree-ferns, palm trees and baobab trees at the lower elevations, and a cooler mountainous region dominated by beech trees and conifers.

Fossil tree trunk in what was an ancient polar forest

Credit: Erik Gulbranson

During Antarctica's summer, from late November through January, UW-Milwaukee geologists Erik Gulbranson and John Isbell climbed the McIntyre Promontory's frozen slopes in the Transantarctic Mountains. High above the ice fields, they combed the mountain's gray rocks for fossils from the continent's green, forested past.

By the trip's end, the geologists had found fossil fragments of 13 trees. The discovered fossils reveal that the trees are over 260 million years old, meaning that this forest grew at the end of the Permian Period, before the first dinosaurs, when Antarctica was still at the South Pole.

At the Permian Period's end, Antarctica was warmer and more humid than it is today. 

By studying the preserved tree rings, Gulbranson and colleagues have found that these trees transitioned from summer activity to winter dormancy rapidly, perhaps within a month

Read more here. 

Related reading: Ancient Arctic Camels; Antarctica Once Had Baobab Trees

Build a 3-D Zoetrope

Build Your Own 3D Zoetrope With This Desktop Animation Kit

Inspired by the pre-film animation devices of the 1800’s, company 4-Mation has created a DIY kit that allows users to produce their very own tabletop animations. Unlike historic zoetropes, the kit is built for 3D objects. Using synchronized strobes and carousel rotation, the machine animates objects placed on its circular base, giving life to ravenous fish or leaping frogs.

The kit is available in three models. You can choose from a laser cut plywood frame, a machined walnut frame (as seen in the included videos), and an electronics version which comes with instructions for how to cut your own.

Read more here.

Ice Houses in the Persian Desert

Ancient Persia (Iran) was famous for mud structures to collect fertilizer (pigeon towers) and to create ice in the desert. The ice houses are called yakhchāls.

Beginning around 400 BC, Persian engineers created domed yakhchāls for the production of ice. These can still be seen in Iran in the region of Isfahan. The structures have an underground square-shaped containment area over which the dome was built. The dome and exterior surface of the yakhchal was waterproofed with a layer of mortar called sarooj. It is a mixture of clay, sand, ash, goat hair, and lime.

Ice was brought from the mountains and placed inside the containment area to start the process of freezing. Often walls were built to keep the water shaded as it was channeled to the yakhchāls so it would freeze faster. Water captured in the yakhchal would freeze overnight during the colder months. The ice was then cut into blocks so that it could be transported. In addition to storing drinking water, the yakhchal was also used to keep food from spoiling much as we use refrigerators.

The ice is used to make faloodeh, a traditional Persian frozen dessert made with thin noodles and semi-frozen syrup.

Read more here and here.

Watch this video of the inside of a yakhchal.

Related reading: The Yakhchals of Persia

Massive Polynya in Antarctica

An hole in the sea ice as large as lake superior has opened in Antarctica. This is called a "polynya" and scientists have observed them before. This hole is unusual because of it great size. It has a diameter of about 30,000 square miles.

The first time scientists spotted something like this was in the 1970’s, but the opening disappeared for several decades before appearing again.

The blue curves represent the ice edge, and the polynya is the dark open water within the ice pack. Image: MODIS-Aqua via NASA Worldview; sea ice contours from AMSR2 ASI via University of Bremen

A polynya forms when water that is above freezing moves from the lower depths of the ocean to the surface. Heat transfers from the warmer water to the ice, melting it, and preventing new ice from forming. This type of polynya is called a "sensible heat" polynya. The ocean itself provides the heat needed to melt the ice. Sensible-heat polynyas usually form in mid-ocean areas, far from coasts or other barriers.

Polynyas are important as a source of heat and moisture in the atmosphere. This has an effect on the climate of the region. Polynyas also provide access between the ocean and atmosphere for a variety of animals, including seals and penguins. The overturning ocean water in a polynya brings nutrients to the surface, like phytoplankton, microscopic plant-like organisms that are a food source for marine life. During the summer, Antarctic polynyas are one of the most biologically productive regions in the world's oceans.

Related reading: A Massive Hole in Antarctica's Sea Ice; Sea Ice Features: Polynyas

Teen Discovers Lost Mayan City

A young teen who has a keen interest in the ancient Mayan culture and the stars has made a truly incredible discovery. William Gadoury has always been fascinated with ancient civilizations and in particular his imagination was captured by how they used to worship the stars. He found that all of the ancient Mayan cities matched up with the brightest stars in the sky. Using maps of the night sky, satellite images and even google maps he found that 117 Mayan cities perfectly matched up with the constellations we see in the night sky.

One constellation in particular was a little odd compared to the rest as it was made up of 3 stars but William could only find 2 cities to match up with it which led him to believe that there could be a hidden city still to be discovered.

Read more here. 

Ancient Languages

This fragment of a tablet from Nimrud contains a list of synonyms.
It gives Malku as a synonym for Šarru.
(British Museum ND 5434.)

Linguistics is the study of languages and their structures. Some branches of linguistics include:

Applied linguistics is the systematic study of language structure, how children acquire a language, how subsequent languages are acquired, the role of language in communication, and the status of language as the product of particular cultures and sohttps://asa-cwis.blogspot.com/2016/09/what-is-phoneme.htmlcial groups.

Computational linguistics is a discipline between linguistics and computer science which is concerned with the computational aspects of the human language faculty. It overlaps with the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science.

Dialectology is the study of the way sounds, words and grammatical forms vary within a language.

Psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language.

Sociolinguistics is the study of how language serves and is shaped by the social nature of human beings in their communities.

Historical-comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. This branch is especially helpful to Bible scholars, biblical archaeologists, and biblical anthropologists who want to understand the relationship of the ancient Afro-Asiatic languages, the oldest known languages. Knowledge of ancient Afro-Asiatic languages helps them to understand ancient texts. Of special importance are Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Elamite, Arabic, and Hebrew.

Here are basic lexicons for 2 of those languages:

Ancient Egyptian Lexicon

Akkadian Lexicon


Related reading: Interview with Christopher Ehret; What is a Phoneme?;  Glossary of Linguistic Terms; Phoneme Study Pinpoints Origin of Modern Languages; Comparative Linguistics

Geologic Studies Confirm Biblical Data

Three regions are named in the Bible as being rich in minerals like copper and gold: Havilah at the source of the Nile in Kush (Genesis 2:11); Dedan in southwestern Arabia, and Ophir, south of Dedan.

The region of Dedan and Ophir is riddled with lava caves dating to many thousands of years ago. The archaic populations of Dedan and Ophir lived in these caves and collected epithermal gold. This is gold that is mined close to the surface because it has been brought up by volcanism.

Scientists have been studying this area. They are especially interested in the lava caves of Harrat Khaybar. Here researchers have found hundreds of stone walls surrounding large basaltic lava fields. The largest of the walls reaches almost 1,700 feet long. The stone walls were built during active volcanism. The structures at Harrat Khaybar are regarded as “works of the old men” by the Bedouin. The Bible calls them the "mighty men of old."

The lava caves and walls of Harrat Khaybar (Arabic for "White Mountain") are in the news today. Scientists have known about this region for 30 years. This is the region of biblical Dedan and Ophir, described as rich in precious metals. This is probably the oldest known site of recovery of copper and gold, and the miners lived in the caves, many of which collapsed long ago. Ophir was one the sons of Joktan (Gen. 10:26-28). The Joktanite clans still live in this region of Arabia.

This area of Saudi Arabia and Yemen is a site for porphyry copper and epithermal gold deposits captured by people living in the caves.

In 1946 an inscribed pottery shard was found at Tell Qasile (Tel Aviv) dating to the eight century BC. The Paleo-Hebrew inscription says, "gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon [...] 30 shekels." This, and other such finds, confirm that gold was exported from Ophir. 

Every three years Solomon received tribute of gold, silver, sandalwood, precious stones, ivory, apes and peacocks from Ophir. Solomon's navy traveled to Ophir, taking "four hundred and twenty talents of gold from there" (1 Kin. 9:26-28; 22:48; 2 Chr. 8:17-18; 9:10).

Related reading: The Afro-Arabian Dedanites; The Gold of Ophir; Kushite Gold; The Lava Caves of Khaybar in Saudi Arabia; The Religious Symbolism of Gold; The Lava Fields of Saudi Arabia

How Heavy Elements are Produced

An artist’s illustration of merging neutron stars.

Credit: Robin Dienel; Carnegie Institution for Science

Monday's (Oct. 16) historic announcement of the detection of gravitational waves produced by two colliding neutron stars has provided explanation as to where in the elements heavier than iron are synthesized.

Until astrophysicists were able to observe the merger of two neutron stars, there only had theories about how heavy elements like gold, platinum and lead are created in the cosmos.

Neutron stars are the corpses of massive stars whose cores collapsed in supernova explosions. While they’re not that big, they’re incredibly dense, packing a sun’s worth of mass into the size of a city. A teaspoon of neutron-star stuff weighs around a billion or so tons.

Neutron stars contain some of the building blocks of atomic nuclei. If these neutrons are somehow released from a neutron star, they undergo reactions that allow them to stick together, creating elements heavier than iron. All of the post-iron elements are formed in these supernova explosions. So much energy is released during a supernova explosion that the freed energy and copious free neutrons streaming from the collapsing core drive massive fusion reactions, past the formation of iron.

Researchers are witnessing a distant heavy-element factory synthesizing "maybe hundreds of Earth masses' [worth] of gold and … maybe 500 Earth masses' worth of platinum," astrophysicist Daniel Kasen said in a new video.

Related reading: New Era of Astronomy; The Collision of Two Neutron Stars; Gold from Neutron Star Crashes

Climate Change is Real. Is Global Warming Real?

The chart shows factors that influence climate change.

Global warming is a hotly disputed topic. This article attempts to expose "myths" about global warming. Let's look at some of the myths.

* Earth has had many cycles of warming and cooling.
This isn't a myth. Earth's climate changes. The Sahara was once wet. Antarctica was home to a diverse range of tropical plants including Baobab trees, ferns, palms, and rainforest trees.

* Earth's climate is cooling.
This certainly is not true for recent history. The decade of 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.

* Weather records only go back to about 1900.
NASA bases climate change on a 136-year record. Records of weather were kept in England that go back to the 17th century.

The England and Wales Precipitation series, which measures rainfall and snow, goes back to 1766. The Central England Temperature series has kept weather records since 1659.

"They were kept on a personal basis by amateur meteorologists," says Sancha Lancaster, a spokeswoman for the Met Office. "We have an archive here of thousands of people's weather diaries. Many don't just record the weather, they also record the effects on wildlife and plants. It takes years to quality-control them and put the data on to a computer." (From here.)

Local weather records have been used to develop computer models that suggest global warming, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.

According to NASA, 16 of the 17 warmest years in the 136-year record all have occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998. What happened to make 1998 different? This marked the completion of Earth's axial precession, a cycle of about 25,800 years (Earth's Great Year). We don't have records going back that far.

In the cycle of Earth’s Great Year the line off the North Pole axis (extending toward Polaris) scribes a complete circle in the heavens about every 25,800 years. A complete cycle takes between 25,000 and 28,000 years, depending on the amount of Earth's wobble. One cycle is Earth’s Great Year (also called a "Platonic Year.") Climate and atmospheric changes appear to become more acute toward the end and beginning of a new year.

* There is no consensus among scientists on global warming.
Scientists agree that Earth's climate changes. They don't all agree that we are faced with a catastrophic global warming. It is estimated that 97% accept the theory of global warming as a reality.

*Global warming may have positive effects.
Regions of the Earth, such as Greenland, may benefit from an extended growing season. Other regions may see an expansion of deserts, though many factors contribute to desertification.


Related reading: Kansas Bill Calling for Objectivity in Science Fails; Climate Cycles Indicate a Dynamic Earth

Gene Therapy Halts ALD

The disease, called adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) is an extremely rare degenerative disorder that affects about 1 in 20,000 people worldwide, virtually all of whom are boys. Boys with ALD are unable to make a protein that helps break down certain fatty acids, causing their nerve cells to die and neurological function to rapidly deteriorate.

In the new study, published online Oct. 4 in The New England Journal of Medicine, Eichler and his team treated 17 boys ages 17 or younger with a single dose of the experimental gene therapy. When the researchers followed up on the boys two years later, 15 were functioning without any major disability or progression of their disease. The other two had died, one from a worsening of the disease and the other from complications of a donor transplant he got after he withdrew from the study.

For the gene therapy, the children had their own stem cells harvested from their blood rather than bone marrow. Then, scientists used a unique tool to infuse the cells in a lab with the healthy ABCD1 gene: a lentivirus made from a disabled form of HIV. The lentivirus acts as a "vector," carrying and inserting the healthy gene into the stem cell DNA.

"These vectors are kind of like living medicines," said Dr. David Williams, the chief scientific officer at Boston Children's Hospital and the senior author of the study. Once in the body, these altered blood stem cells constantly regenerate to keep treating the patient's disease. The advantage of using disabled HIV over other viral carriers is that HIV actually delivers the healthy gene more safely, without apparently altering any neighboring DNA, Williams told Live Science.

Read more here.

Ultracold Strontium Atomic Clock

 Ultracold Strontium apparatus

A new kind of atomic clock is more precise than any yet built, with the ability to tick smoothly for a thousand times the lifetime of the universe. In addition to being the best timekeeper to date, the new so-called quantum gas clock might one day offer insights into new physics.

Researchers at JILA (formerly also referred to as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics) used a combination of strontium atoms and an array of laser beams to create a clock so precise it might be able to measure the interaction of gravity at smaller scales than ever before. In doing so, it might shed light on the nature of its relationship to other fundamental forces, a mystery that has baffled physicists for decades.

Atomic clocks measure time by using the vibrations of atoms like a very precise metronome. Current atomic clocks are off by seconds over tens of billions of years. This newest iteration stays precise enough that it will be off by only 1 second over about 90 billion years. [5 of the Most Precise Clocks Ever Made]

The clock can measure seconds down to 1 part in trillions.

Read more here.

Related reading: The Clepsammia; The Clepsydra; Ultracold Strontium

Origami Meets Robots

In experiments, self-folding, heat-activated origami suits created for robots could help the machines walk, roll, sail and glide, according to the new study.

"Imagine future applications for space exploration, where you could send a single robot with a stack of exoskeletons to Mars," study co-author Shuguang Li, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, said in a statement"The robot could then perform different tasks by wearing different outfits." [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

Read more here.

Einstein's letters up for auction

Two letters written by Albert Einstein to his friend Michele Besso are to be auctioned by September 28 and the bidding starts at 60,000.

One letter outlines Einstein's early thoughts on a grand unified theory of physics. This was written in Berlin on September 5, 1929. The other letter is dated April 15, 1950 and in this epistle Einstein wonders what can be known and whether some physical theories can be proved definitely.

This signed Albert Einstein letter was written on April 15, 1950.

Credit: Nate D. Sanders Auctions

The bidding for each letter starts at $60,000. Sam Heller, a spokesman for the auction house, said the letters came from a private collection, whose owner didn't want to be identified.

Read more here.

Zealandia

The proposed world map below shows Zealandia, the eighth continent. Though most of the continent is submerged, scientists say it has all the geologic hallmarks of a separate continent.

Credit: Nick Mortimer/GNS Science

A nine-week voyage took scientists from around the world to drill and explore the seafloor off New Zealand and Australia. They found evidence of land-based fossils, revealing that the ancient landmass wasn't always buried beneath the waves.

"Zealandia, a sunken continent long lost beneath the oceans, is giving up its 60 million-year-old secrets through scientific ocean drilling," Jamie Allan, program director in the U.S. National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, said in a statement.

Read more here.

The Southern Lights

An astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) has shared some stunning footage of the Aurora Australis, otherwise known as the southern lights.

Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli captured this beautiful aurora display as the ISS passed over the Southern Hemisphere. The display's vibrant colors lit up the southern sky as the Antarctic Circle was just emerging from the long winter night. While Nespoli took the video on Aug. 20, the European Space Agency (ESA) released it on Sept. 15.

Go here to see the images.

Faith Tucker on the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)

Faith Tucker

I came to my first ASA meeting five years ago fresh out of college with a double major in astronomy and religion, a passion for the intersection of science and faith, and absolutely no idea what I was going to do with my life.

I had grown up with a love of science that started with digging up earthworms and looking through my granddad’s telescope. But that easy childhood enthusiasm became more complicated in high school. I was confused by the mixed signals my church and Christian school were sending me. I was encouraged to study God’s creation and told that science was an important part of my education, but in the same breath I was also warned of how science and scientists might attack my faith. I lost count of how many cautionary tales I heard of good Christian kids going to college, studying science, and consequently losing their faith.

Perhaps it was my own form of adolescence rebellion then that led me to study Astronomy and Religion at Whitman College, a decidedly secular liberal arts college in WA state. I knew I wasn’t in my conservative evangelical bubble anymore when in the first weeks of freshmen year a fellow student in a religion class concluded his biting critique of Genesis 1-3 with, “Therefore, it is clear that God is the source of all evil in the world and is himself evil!”

Over those four years, my love of science and my personal faith intersected with each other in ways I never expected. I came to find that science wasn’t something that undermined my faith, but actually sustained it. When God seemed distant and when my own brokenness was too much to carry, I would stand in the science building hallway in front of a massive poster of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field showing thousands of galaxies and think, “All this was created by the God that not only created me, but who knows me and loves me.” By the end of college, I knew that whatever I did, I wanted it to be at the interface of science and Christian faith.

And when I walked into that first ASA meeting, I quickly felt like I had finally found my people. People who took science just as seriously as their faith, and vice versa. People who fearlessly sought to learn about God through his creation. People who worshipped God and advanced his kingdom at the lab bench, in the classroom and even in their journal articles. I was inspired and excited by the possibilities before me.

I have since, rather miraculously, found gainful employment at the intersection of science and faith! I am a physics and astronomy teacher at a Christian high school. And every day I get to share both my faith and my love for science with my students. Instead of mixed messages and a sense of apprehension about science, I hope that they walk out of my classroom understanding that there is nothing to fear when we study God’s creation.

For the last 5 years, ASA has continued to be a source of personal and professional encouragement and inspiration for me. When I come to ASA meetings, I am reminded of the importance of fostering understanding between the scientific and Christian communities. And as wonderful as the plenaries and talks always are, my favorite part of these meetings has been the conversations I have and the friendships I’ve built with all of you.

I often have the feeling of being a fish out of water both as a scientist in Christian communities and a Christian in scientific communities – as I know many of you do as well. But at ASA, being passionate about the intersection between science and faith isn’t an unusual quirk, it’s the thing that ties us all together. And that common ground has laid the foundation for other connections. I’ve gotten teaching tips from experienced professors, found the perfect textbook for my class written by ASA members, discussed what it’s like to be a woman in the sciences, and so much more. Leslie and Vicki have even personally come to my school to share with my students how science and faith can coexist and even complement each other.

This last year, I have had the honor of serving on the ASA’s Executive Council as the Student and Early Career Representative. And while I confess council meetings do have their rather dry moments, my respect and appreciation for this organization has only grown as I’ve seen the faith, conviction and integrity that have marked both the history of the ASA as well as its direction going forward. I look forward to many more years with this organization as it continues to thoughtfully and boldly bridge the divide between the Christian church and the study of God’s creation. This is no small task indeed, but God has been faithful the last 76 years, and it is a privilege to get to participate with all of you in the work God is continuing to do in and through the ASA.

RIP Marian Diamond

By Harrison Smith

Marian Diamond, a pathbreaking neuroscientist whose research — including a study of Albert Einstein’s preserved brain — showed that the body’s three-pound seat of consciousness was a dynamic structure of beautiful complexity, capable of development even in old age, died July 25 at an assisted-living community in Oakland, Calif. She was 90.

A daughter, Ann Diamond, confirmed her death but did not know the cause.

Dr. Diamond, a professor emerita of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley, was for decades known on campus as the woman with the hat box. Inside the container, decorated on the outside with a floral print and carried by a bright blue string, was a preserved human brain.

It was the crucial prop for a lesson she spent a half century teaching: that the brain was, as she once wrote, “the most complex mass of protoplasm on this earth and, perhaps, in our galaxy.”

Read more here.

Michael Faraday: Man of Faith and Science

Michael Faraday's father, James Faraday, was a blacksmith from Yorkshire in the north of England. His mother, Margaret Hastwell, was the daughter of a farmer. Early in 1791 James and Margaret moved to Newington Butts, a village outside London. They already had two children, a boy Robert and a girl,  and Michael was born only a few months after their move on September 22, 1791.

The Farraday family were Sandemanians, a group of Protestants which had split from the Church of Scotland. The Sandemanians interpreted the Bible literally and this approach had a lasting influence on Michael. Faraday came to view the view the Bible as speaking about spiritual things whereas science explores material things. He did not see a conflict between the Bible and Science. His attitude was typical of many 19th century Christians in the sciences. The proper way to pursue science was a matter of great concern to him. He was very much a British empiricist.

The sciences that interested Faraady most involved magnetism, electricity, and chemistry. These are not explicitly mentioned in the Bible. He once said, “I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.”

In 1804, Michael served as an errand boy for the bookseller George Riebau. One of his tasks was to deliver newspapers. Faraday read many books during the seven years that he worked for Riebau. One work that captured his attention was Isaac Watts' The Improvement of the Mind.

Riebau wrote a letter in 1813 in which he described how Faraday spent his days as an apprentice (see for example:

After the regular hours of business, he was chiefly employed in drawing and copying from the Artist's Repository, a work published in numbers which he took in weekly. ... Dr Watts's Improvements of the mind was then read and frequently took in his pocket, when he went an early walk in the morning, visiting some other works of art or searching for some mineral or vegetable curiosity. ... His mind ever engaged, besides attending to bookbinding which he executed in a proper manner.

In October 1812, Faraday took a position as a bookbinder but still he hoped to become involved in science. He wrote to Humphry Davy, whose chemistry lectures he had attended. He sent, him copies of the notes he had taken at Davy's lectures. Davy arranged a meeting with Farraday and advised Faraday to keep working as a bookbinder, saying:

Marble statue of Faraday
in the Royal Institution

Science[is];a harsh mistress, and in a pecuniary point of view but poorly rewarding those who devote themselves to her service.

However, Faraday's fortune was about to turn. Davy's assistant lost his job for fighting and Davy invited Faraday to fill the empty post. In 1813 Faraday took up the position at the Royal Institution. He then had access to scientific equipment in a laboratory.

Faraday worked on chemistry until 1821 when he began experiments with electricity. He was interested in the work of some scientists in Paris, including Arago and Ampère, who established a relation between electricity and magnetism. Davy became interested in this and this provided Faraday the opportunity to work on the topic. Faraday published On some new electro-magnetical motions, and on the theory of magnetismin the Quarterly Journal of Science in October 1821. Pearce Williams writes:

It records the first conversion of electrical into mechanical energy. It also contained the first notion of the line of force.

Faraday's work led to deep mathematical theories of electricity and magnetism. The mathematical theories developed by Maxwell relied on the laws Faraday had established by his experiments. 

The Christian message of Jesus as the Incarnate God was important to Faraday. This, of course, is the message of Christmas. Beginning in 1826, Faraday presented a series of six Christmas lectures for children at the Royal Institution, and continued to do so for the rest of his life. These lectures gave Faraday a venue in which he could discuss two things he loved: Christianity and science.

In the years 1859 and 1860 he gave the Christmas lectures on the forces of matter. The following Christmas, he gave the children's lectures on the chemical history of the candle. These two final series of lectures by Faraday were published. The Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution, begun by Faraday, continue today but now reach a much greater audience since they are televised.

In August 1867, Faraday died in his Hampton Court Green home after a period of declining health. He was 73. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery, London N6. As an elder in the Sandemanian Church, he was buried in the Sandemanian plot of the Western Cemetery. His wife Sarah was buried there in January 1879.

Related reading: Biography of Michael Farraday; Michael Faraday's Lasting Legacy; Faraday's Constant; Documentary of Michael Faraday

RIP Cassini. Job well done!

NASA received its last data transmission from the Cassini spacecraft at 4:55:46 a.m. PDT (7:55:46 a.m. EDT, 1146 GMT) on Friday, Sept. 15, before losing contact with the probe as it hurtled into Saturn's atmosphere and broke apart.

Cassini orbited Saturn for 13 years before its fiery grand finale. NASA officials expect that Cassini broke apart about 45 seconds after that final transmission, due to the intense friction and heat generated by the fall.

Cassini's descent into Saturn was intentional. The spacecraft was rapidly running out of fuel, after spending nearly 20 years in space, and NASA scientists decided to make use of the mission's inevitable conclusion. By crashing into Saturn, Cassini had the opportunity to see what the planet's upper atmosphere is made of, and that's the data that the probe sent back to Earth during its final few moments of life. Read more here.

Related: Mystery of Saturn's Epic Storms; Cassini's Greatest Images

Robots that Hand Off Leadership

Retired mechanical engineer Paul Hanner helps students build a robot

 for the Meltdown Robo-Challenge at Newton’s Attic. 

A team of scientists led by Marco Dorigo (Free University of Brussels) has created robots that work together and decide which one will lead them. These autonomous robots know how to work as a team and even how to choose the best leader. By linking up, these Voltron-like robots can create a kind of central nervous system.

If the head robot breaks, another will take the lead. The team built a robot that can link up to another robot, react to its environment, and delegate authority to a single member of a group. The robots have an internal map of the robots that are connected to them, and that map looks like a hierarchical tree.

When two groups of robots join together, the leader of the first group can transfer its internal map of the other robots to the leader of the second group, giving up the leadership position.

Read more here.

Monster Solar Flares

The sun fired off another powerful solar flare on Sunday, Sept. 10. It was the seventh solar flare in seven days.

There are three categories of solar flares, and Sunday's was the highest classification: an "X" event. Two of the other recent flares were also X-class, including Wednesday's (Sept. 6) X9.3 flare, the strongest solar blast in 12 years.

The effects of such powerful flares include interruption or degraded communications on land and at sea.

Read more here. 

The Religious Symbolism of Gold

This crescent-shaped gold collar (lunula) was found in Cornwall, England. The Penwith Lunula is dated to the Early Bronze Age (2500-1550 BC). It was worn by a ruler in England around the same time Abraham established himself as a ruler in ancient Edom.


Alice C. Linsley

From ancient times, gold has been a highly prized commodity. Gold is mentioned over 400 times in the Bible. The word for gold is similar in these Afro-Asiatic languages: Ancient Egyptian - nub (nwb); Akkadian - dahh-ubu; Arabic - dha-hab; and Hebrew - za-hab.

Some of Abraham's ancestors lived in the region of Kush, at the source of the Nile River. Kush was a great chief and one of Noah's grandsons.

Genesis 2:11 calls this Ha'vilah, indicating a place where the waters form a V at the source of the Nile. Ha'vilah is said to be rich in gold. This area of the Upper Nile is also known as Nubia, which means "land of gold".

In 2007, archaeologists from the Oriental Institute discovered a 4000 year gold-processing center along Nile. The site is called Hosh el-Guruf and is located about 225 miles north of Khartoum. More than 55 grinding stones made of granite-like gneiss were found at the site. The ore was ground to recover the gold and water was used to separate the flakes from the particle residue. Similar grinding stones have been found at Timnah in southern Israel.

A temple dedicated to Hathor was discovered at the southwestern edge of Mt. Timnah by Professor Beno Rothenberg of Hebrew University. In his book Timna, Rothenberg concluded that the peoples living in the area were "partners not only in the work but in the worship of Hathor." (Timna, p. 183)

Another area described in the Bible as being rich in gold is Ophir. Ophir was in southwest Arabia. This is the territory of Sheba and Ramah (see map below). Every three years Solomon received tribute of gold, silver, sandalwood, precious stones, ivory, apes and peacocks from Ophir. Solomon's navy traveled to Ophir, taking "four hundred and twenty talents of gold from there" (1 Kings 9:26-28; 22:48; 2 Chronicles 8:17-18; 9:10).

This map shows Ha'vilah's eastern range. 

Genesis 2:11 states that Ha'vilah is in the land of Kush in the Nile Valley.

This gold of Ophir was mined heavily and became scarce. This is attested in Isaiah 13:12, which says,"I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold and mankind than the gold of Ophir."

The Religious Symbolism of God

In ancient times gold was associated with rulers and with the sun. The rulers among Abraham's ancestors were believed to be appointed by God to rule as the Creator's representative of earth. The sun symbol appears as the initial Y (a solar cradle), in the names of many biblical rulers: Yaqtan (Joktan); Yishmael (Ishmael); Yishbak; Yitzak (Isaac); Yacob (Jacob); Yosef (Joseph); Yetro (Jethro); Yeshai (Jesse) and Yeshua (Joshua/Jesus).

The solar cradle is also seen on images of Hathor. She wears a headdress of bull horns shaped like a Y. She is the only woman in the history of the Horite Hebrew to be shown in ancient images as divinely appointed to bring forth the son of God.

The divine appointment of rulers was sometimes indicated by a solar symbol such as this tattoo on the ruler's cheek.

This is one of the Tarum Mummies found in China. The mummy dates to 1000 BC and is called the "Ur-David" mummy, or Chärchän Man. He was tall and had red hair and a red beard. This mummy's hair is similar to that found on the redheaded man in Burial no. 79 at Nekhen on the Nile.

 Divine appointment was depicted in ancient images with the sun overshadowing the ruler. Solar imagery also was used to designate the chosen woman who would conceive Messiah, and the animal to be sacrificed. Here are some examples.

Hathor the Overshadowed

Hathor was appointed to bear the "son"of God, Horus. In this image she is shown overshadowed by the sun, the emblem or symbol of the Creator. Hathor foreshadows the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Messiah. When Mary asked the angel how she would conceive a child, seeing that she "knew" no man, Gabriel explained, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1)

Horus the Golden Calf

Hathor's animal totem was the long horn bull. Her offspring, Horus, is sometimes portrayed as the golden calf. 

Horus the Golden One

One of the most famous depictions of Horus was found at Nekhen, one of the oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship. This shows Horus under the sign of his totem, the golden falcon.

This great gold plumed falcon represents Horus, the son of the Creator. Nekhen was named for Horus of the Falcon: Nekheny.

Gold was associated with Horus. This is evident in the Babylonian word for gold hur-asu. The Egyptian word hr means "the One on high." The Turin Canon, which provides important information on Egypt's early history, describes the predynastic rulers as "Followers of Horus" and Horus as the "Ruler of the Two Horizons."

Important references to gold in the Bible

Genesis 13:2 says that Abraham was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold.

Genesis 24:22 says that Abraham's servant delivered a gold ring and two gold bracelets to Rebekah as a gift from her future husband, Isaac.

Exodus 28:6 says that the ephod worn by the high priest was made of gold.

Exodus 32:2 says that Aaron fashioned the golden calf from the gold rings worn by the Israelites.

Related reading: The God of Ophir; Minoan Golden Bee; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y; Kushite Gold; Nubia in Biblical History

Tar as an Adhesive and Sealant

For thousands of years tar has been used as an adhesive and a sealant. This material is mentioned in Genesis 11:3 in connection with the construction of buildings made of brick. The bricks were mortared together using tar. The substance they used is called bitumen and is also known as asphaltum. It is a black, oily form of petroleum that occurs in nature as a byproduct of decomposed plants.

Tar pits are found all over the world. Genesis 14:10 reports that "the valley of Siddim [in Israel] was full of tar pits." The La Brea Tar Pit in California is a tourist attraction. Tar deposits are found in Africa, the Dead Sea, at various sites along the Indus River (Isa Khel), in Central and South America, in Switzerland, and in northeastern Alberta, Canada.

Throughout the biblical world, bitumen was used for the construction of buildings and water-proofing of reed boats like the one shown in the image above. The earliest known reed boat to date that was coated with bitumen, was found at the site of H3 at As-Sabiyah in Kuwait. The boat dates to about 5000 BC. 

According to Genesis, Noah's ark was made of reeds (gopher). Noah was a great Proto-Saharan ruler. He would have had boat builders (shipwrights), household servants, and gardeners. He is remembered for having a vineyard (Gen. 9:20). As a king, Noah had access to the best and the most plentiful supply of boat building materials.

The historicity of Noah’s concern for animals is supported by the discovery that Proto-Saharan rulers kept royal menageries of exotic animals. The oldest known zoological collection was found during the 2009 excavations at Nekhen on the Nile. The royal menagerie dates to about 3500 BC and included hippos, elephants, baboons, and wildcats. 

Noah would have known about the shrine city of Nekhen. It was one of the earliest worship centers for the Horite Hebrew.

The Neanderthals used bitumen at sites such as Gura Cheii Cave (Romania) and Hummal and Umm El Tlel in Syria. Here archaeologists have found stone tools with bitumen adhesive to fasten handles to tools and blades to spears used for hunting. The tar adhesive helped to strengthen and waterproof bindings made of sinew, hide, or plant fibers used to attach bone or stone tools and weapons to handles. The technique is known as hafting with tar.

Related reading: The Archaeological History of Black Goo; The Animals on Noah's Ark

Asteroid 3122 Florence

A mountain-size asteroid zoomed past Earth on the morning of Friday, September 1st. It is the largest asteroid to come near Earth since NASA starting tracking asteroids. It passed at a distance of about 4.4 million miles from Earth.

Florence was discovered by astronomer Schelte "Bobby" Bus in 1981 at Australia's Siding Spring Observatory. The space rock loops around the sun every 2.35 years on an elliptical path, getting as close to our star as 1 astronomical unit (AU) and as far away as 2.5 AU. (One AU is the average Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km.)

Go here to see asteroid 3122 Florence, as seen by the Virtual Telescope Project on Aug. 30, 2017 — two days before its closest approach to Earth.

Related reading: Asteroid Florence to Pass Earth

Lead Contamination of Water

Lead pipes in Rome

Lead is harmful to humans. In recent years, the water supplies of some American cities has been found to have high concentrations of lead. Flint, Michigan made the news when it was discovered that the water wasn't properly treated. Lead from aging service lines began leaching into the Flint water supply after the city tapped into the Flint River as its main water source.

The problem of lead contamination is not a new problem. The water systems of ancient Rome used lead pipes. These pipes disintegrated, leaving lead residue in the soil. Researchers can use these lead trails to figure out the urban expansion around 33 BC.

Here is a report:

Just as modern cities struggle with lead pollution, so may have ancient Rome. And muddy waters preserved the city’s legacy of lead pipes, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined lead levels in dirt drilled from two Roman harbor sites, Ostia and Portus, on the Tiber River. The samples spanned 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1000. Up until around 200 B.C., harbor waters were pristine, but then contamination started to creep in.

The most likely source of lead would have been runoff from pipes in the city’s water system. The timing supports the idea that before aqueducts went in around 300 B.C., Rome’s water system initially employed terra-cotta or wooden pipes that were replaced with lead ones at least a century later. The researchers also link the ups and downs of lead levels to the expansion of the pipe system around 33 B.C. and periods of neglect beginning around A.D. 250.

Read more here.