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Science and the Bible by Bolton Davidheiser Chairman, S cience D ivision Biola C ollege (
MIRACLES IN THE WILDERNESS
I n t h i s a g e of science the tendency is not to believe that miracles re corded in Scripture were supernatural acts of God. The basic facts are gen erally accepted, but they are “ ex plained” as not being miracles at all. Those who do not wish to believe will not believe, but it is unfortunate that others are influenced by them, for if one looks into the matter more deeply, it becomes evident that the explanations of the skeptics do not really explain the statements recorded in the Bible. Some textbooks of botany tell the students that it is generally believed that the manna which was eaten by the Israelites in the wilderness was a certain plant, a lichen named Le- canora esculenta. It is reported that natives in that part of the world still eat it during times of famine. This is apparently sufficient to convince the uncritical that the Israelites ate lichens in the wilderness for 40 years and that no miracle was involved. The textbooks do not mention that these lichens produced food every day except on the sabbath, and to com pensate for this they produced twice as much the day before the sabbath. Some authors of books about insects are even more certain that the manna was a secretion of a scale insect (e.g. Gossyparia mannifera) than the bo tanists are that it was a plant. They say that the natives still eat it and call it “Man,” that it tastes something like honey, and that it melts when the sun shines on it. This may con vince some, but it is hard to believe that insects would observe the sab bath any better than a plant. A book which ably describes and pictures plants of the Bible includes the burning bush, which Moses ob served in the desert. We are told that “ it was not the bush that was burning. Rather, the ‘flame’ was rep resented by a mistletoe which covered the shrub. It had berries, red, glow ing, and transparent, needing only the l’ ght of the Lord Jehovah to give the appearance of true fire.” * This is a somewhat poetic way of saying that the bush was not burning at all and that Moses was fooled by the sunlight striking some red berries that be
longed to a parasite which was grow ing on the bush. The account contin ues by saying, “When the audience was over, and Moses found himself once more alone, he saw that the bush had not been consumed.” There is nothing miraculous about a bush burning. The miracle was that the burning bush was not consumed. This is why Moses turned aside to look at it. To avoid the miraculous, the author replaces the fire with ber ries and says that Moses noticed that the bush was not consumed after he had turned aside to look and after his talk with the Lord. When the Israelites were punished by the bites of serpents, they were told that they would be miraculously healed and would live if they would look upon a serpent of brass which was raised upon a pole. Christ tells us that this was a type of His cruci fixion and that all those who look to Him, in faith accepting His cru cifixion as atonement for their sins, will have eternal life. This is too much for some authors, and they say that the serpents were really parasitic worms, called Guinea worms, which are contracted through drinking wa ter.** We might think that if miracles of this sort were witnessed today there would be no skeptics. But the people who experienced at first hand many miracles in the wilderness made a calf of gold and said, “ This is what brought us out of Egypt.” We are told that some would not take heed even though someone miraculously came back from the dead to warn them.*** Thomas would not believe when the other disciples told him they had seen the risen Lord. When the Lord appeared to Thomas, he believed, and the Lord said to him, “ Thomas, be cause thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” We are living in the age of grace and are justified by faith. *All the Plants of the Bible. Winifred Walker. , *For more about this, see THE KING’S BUSINESS, October, 1958. ***Luke 16:19-51.
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A P R IL , 1963
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