Rex Trulove
We now know of many major ocean currents and quite a few minor ones. We also know that they have an enormous impact on the weather. Both the El Nino current and the La Nina current have direct effects on the weather in North and South America. Did you know that the existence of ocean currents was mentioned in the Bible and the passage was written roughly 3,000 years ago? It is from that passage that the ocean currents were “discovered” in the mid-1800’s.
The discoverer was Matthew Fontaine Maury, who served in the US Navy. Matthew’s grandfather was the Reverend James Maury, who taught Thomas Jefferson. Naturally, when Matthew was young, he benefitted from Bible instruction as well. That gave him a valuable background that led to the discovery.
Maury became an oceanographer when he was in the navy since he was in an ideal position to study the ocean. As he also read the Bible, he came across a passage written by King David that says, “the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. (Psalm 8:8 NIV)”
Note in specific that it says, “paths of the seas”.
At the time, ocean currents were unknown and had not been studied. However, Maury knew that since the Bible was the truth, King David wouldn’t have written that there were paths in the seas if there weren’t actually paths there. He began to search and study for these paths. He found them.
We call them currents, but it is as valid to refer to them as paths. Since Maury was also a meteorologist, it is likely that he was also among the first to tie the weather with the behavior of the ocean currents.
William Fontaine Maury is credited with discovering the ocean currents. Yet, King David clearly knew about them well enough to write about them in Psalm 8. King David was not a sailor, though he probably knew a number of them, so the most likely explanation for his knowledge of the ocean currents is that the knowledge came from God.
Amazing, isn’t it?
Actually there are currents in the Mediterranean Sea so it is quite possible that the people of the time were aware of the concept even if they didn’t know about the currents in the oceans. The Philistines were great sailors.
Agreed that they were great sailors. However, they had no idea that they were actually currents as in steady paths. They also had no idea of how currents could change, as they do (El Nino and La Nina being prime examples). King David also had a tendency of writing about what he knew, first hand. He wasn’t a sailor. He was an excellent king, a great leader, an accomplished warrior, but wasn’t a seaman.
That is truly remarkable. How knowledge today of the marine currents comes direct from the bible.
I agree entirely. Yet, naysayers try to say that science and religion are opposites. Obviously, they aren’t.
Science is always making new discoveries, what was once science yesterday maybe old hat or disproved.
Think you should just keep on learning and be amazed.
Yes. What we don’t know far exceeds what we do know. Many times, new science also disproves old science. For 1,500 years, the best scientific opinion was that the earth was flat. Nowhere in the bible does it indicate that the world is flat and later, science proved that it isn’t.
Very interesting and this shows that religion and science do go together. God is the creator.
Absolutely, they go together. Over and over, science has proven the bible, too. Many of the most renowned scientists were strongly religious. For that matter, quite a few of the best-known evangelists were scientists who set out to disprove the Bible, originally.