The Honest Truth
An Interactive Handbook of Bible and Science for the Non-Professional
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
There are a few things we need to consider before we look at the honest truth found in the Bible. In the first place, you do not have to be a theologian to understand the Bible. All you need is a desire to understand and a willingness to accept what God reveals to you through His Word. Then, when we study the Bible we are dealing with absolute truth. Because of this, you do not need a knowledge of such things as the culture of the Bible days, geological or religious backgrounds or the languages of Greek and Hebrew to understand the Bible truths. This all helps. The Bible is its own best interpreter, and is for all cultures and generations. We can get all God wants for us by getting a good translation of the scriptures, and letting God help us to understand it. (See I Corinthians 1:18-2:16). Beware! All the new Bible translations need to be compared to the received text or the Authorized Version (KJV) for accuracy. There are several Bible concordances, histories, dictionaries, handbooks, interlinear Bibles and word study books you can get to help you. (See Appendix A for a list of places you can find the Bible study helps.) The account of creation, found in Genesis 1 and 2, is best understood when we look at it in the light of a Universe that was unaffected by the curse of sin. Because of this the created universe functioned differently than it does now. There was no degenerative element in the original earth before the fall of the human race. You need to think what the earth would be like if it was regenerative in nature rather than degenerative in nature. We do not say a person is talking in circles when witnessing of a crime he saw. Why do we say the Bible is talking in circles when it records God's witnesses to us? If you are a witness to a criminal act, you must tell what you have seen to the court. The Bible is God's witness to us of Himself and His dealings with the human race. Believe it, God is not "talking in circles" on any subject He addresses! Now let us look at 300+ "keys" to understanding the Bible. Remember the Bible deals with relational absolute truth. Bible science deals with God's revealed truth. Because of this we do not need to prove the Bible. What we do need to do is to understand and apply the Bible to our daily life. The rest of this part of our handbook will be devoted to letting the Bible speak for itself with the "keys" to understanding the area under review. There will also be some hints on how to apply these truths to our daily living. We will follow this with some questions you can use to review the material, and gain a better insight into the concepts covered in that chapter. In this part of our handbook we are going to look at "good science" as well as some of our present day illusions of "science, falsely so called." We will begin by showing the "good science" and end with some examples of "science, falsely so called." We will show you how to examine the journals and textbooks that you will be using, with some examples to help you see the difference between "good science" and "science, falsely so called." Because the field of science has to do with sound reasoning, we need to get a picture of how to keep our reasoning powers from getting side tracked. In Chapter 1 we are going to help you do this by giving you a model to follow which will enable you to test your reasoning to see if it is good or bad. (Notice: Much of what is peddled as sound reasoning is only someone's philosophy of the facts before us.) As a good scientist, you need to use sound reasoning that will give you correct premises leading you to correct conclusions. Chapter 2.1 will deal with the importance of using all of the facts at hand. Chapter 2.2 will deal with using as many senses as you can. Chapter 2.3 will show how to have your results tested by others in and out of your field. Chapter 2.4 will show you how to test scientific formulas. Chapter 2.5 will show you how to apply the tested scientific formulas to real life situations. Chapter 2.6 will talk about how to keep honest in your dealing with the material at hand. Chapter 2.7 will show you how to work with other people in non-scientific areas. Chapter 3 will give you the basic assumptions most of the good scientist is working with today. Chapter 4 will give you some results of their research. Chapter 5 will give you some good results of good science. Chapter 6 will give you some bad result of "science falsely so called". Chapter 7 will show you how to avoid the pitfalls of false science and thus help you develop a feel for good science. When we accept God as the Creator of all things we are well on our way to developing good science. May this part of the handbook help you enjoy the wonderful things God has made.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
When I realized the confusion in the Church and the Secular world concerning the common ground between the Bible and the Sciences, I decided to "light a light rather than curse the darkness". It was necessary to have a format that would do justice to the Bible and the Sciences. After a number of years of research, I decided to approach this subject as follows: There needed to be a thorough coverage of the Bible and the Sciences. The first part has over 300 "keys" to understanding the Scriptures. The second part covers "Real Science" vs. "Science falsely so called". The hard part was bringing the Bible and the Sciences into a loving, caring "marriage". This I have done in the third part where the Holy Bible (The Bride) and the True Science (The Groom) are reenacting their "marriage". To make this book useful I wanted to make it into an all-purpose self-help guide. Thus, it is interactive. As you look at the above paragraph you see this book takes a different approach than others. Perhaps, this is the approach that has been needed to clear the confusion that has reigned for centuries between the Bible and the Sciences.
About the Author
The author, Pastor Howard E. Wright, who has written The Honest Truth: An Interactive Handbook of Bible and Science for the Non-professional, had been an ordained pastor for thirty-five years. He has been a student of the Bible most of his adult life. He has attended two Christian colleges: Trevecca Nazarene University and Northwest Nazarene University. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BA in Small Group Speech Communications and minors in the Earth Sciences and the Biological Sciences. He also holds a MA in Christian Clinical Therapy from Cornerstone University. He taught high school chemistry while he was a pastor in North Dakota. He has also done course work in a wide range of the sciences. These studies have included: Biology, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Microbiology, Histology, Genetics and Geology to name a few. He had the opportunity of comparing the Special Creation vs. the Evolution Theory on several occasions. He has written an article for the Bible-Science Newsletter entitled: "The Mythology of the Evolutionist".