The idea that science contradicts the Bible divides our society into believers and non believers: the former accept the authority of the Bible, the latter accept the authority of science. If science only contradicts a particular interpretation of the Bible, it is not the Bible, but those who interpret it that divide our society.
The Bible doesn’t say that the Earth is flat: it mentions the 4 corners of the Earth to refer to the 4 points of the compass. It also doesn’t say that the first people on Earth lived less than 6.000 years ago: it says that God created man in His image – male and female He created them – and mentions unions of sons of God with daughters of men. Therefore, Adam and Eve do not refer to the first people on Earth, but to the first people who disobeyed a rule that enabled people to live in harmony with others and with the environment .
The main idea of the Bible is that our ancestors once lived in harmony (paradise), that 10 generations after putting an end to it due to a change in their diet (the forbidden fruit), a cataclysm (the great flood) almost killed everybody. Therefore, its main message is that a society that doesn’t live in harmony is destined to destroy itself. Science doesn’t contradict this idea. Scientist realize that nuclear weapons, the climate change and virus threaten mankind’s survival, but have not yet come to the conclusion that there are nuclear weapons and there is a climate change because we struggle for resources.
Whoever reflects upon mankind’s evolution can realize that new inventions – including weapons – continually become more sophisticated, and continually allow a smaller percentage of the world population to appropriate an always larger percentage of all the resources. When on one side, there are always more devasting weapons, and on the other, there is always more tension between the different groups of people and between people and the environment, one can conclude that a society that doesn’t live in harmony is destined to destroy itself.
Believers don’t realize that this is the most important message of the Bible; non believers don’t realize that this is the most important lesson that mankind has to learn.
Believers accept miracles; non believers reject them. Our pagan ancestors accepted the Bible as a sacred book, not because they understood its wisdom, but because they believed in miracles. The authors of the New Testament may thus have referred to miracles to attract our pagan ancestors.
The New Testament starts with a chapter that made people assume that Jesus was born of a virgin but in reality indicates who his father was. Saint Matthew suggested that Jesus was born of a virgin because in those days the Egyptians were familiar with the idea of a God who was born of a virgin and the Persians with the idea of a Messiah who was born of a virgin. The New Testament conceals who was Jesus’ father because in those days adulterers were stoned to death and their illegitimate children were discriminated.[1]
Whereas those interpretations of the Bible that contradict science divide people, an interpretation that doesn’t do so reunites people. When believers stop paying attention to miracles, and become interested in the wisdom of the Bible, they encourage also non believers to become interested in the main message of the Bible.
[1] My booklet “WHO SAID THAT JESUS WAS BORN OF A VIRGIN?” refers to this enigma in the first chapter of the NT.