Modern Cosmology Repeatedly Anticipated by the Old Testament

“He…who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.”  (Isaiah 22)

At least two things are beyond dispute in the mainstream scientific community with respect to the cosmos.  It is first of all recognized that in the Big Bang the entire cosmos (all space, time, matter, and energy) had an absolute beginning out of nothing approximately 13.7 billion years ago.  It is also recognized that the cosmos has been expanding ever since that beginning, much like a balloon that is being blown into by a child.  Prior to the 20^th Century neither of these were either acknowledged or even anticipated by the scientific community.  Yet they were anticipated repeatedly in the Holy Bible.

Ever since the scientific community distanced itself from the influence of the church, scientists had held that the cosmos is stationary and eternal.  But as a result of recent scientific discoveries their old dogmatic position is now overthrown.  It was the authority of the Holy Bible alone which had declared several thousand years earlier that our universe had a beginning (Genesis 1:1) out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3).  And as I will further describe in the next paragraph, it was also the Bible alone that anticipated the ongoing expansion of our universe.  Let me here clarify two things about the Big Bang:  First of all the Big Bang is not an explanation of beginnings.  It is instead a description of what happened from that beginning.   So it is merely a description which demands reflection on the only plausible explanation for that beginning.  Second, it follows that the Big Bang does not support atheism.  Atheism is utterly incapable of accounting for the absolute beginning of the cosmos.  To the contrary the Big Bang points inescapably to the personal, intelligent, and omnipotent Creator of the universe.

In addition to the absolute beginning of the universe out of nothing, the Bible also repeatedly, yes repeatedly, states that the cosmos is in continual, constant expansion in like manner to the description in my opening paragraph.  No other biblical expression, with respect to creation, is used nearly so often.  The following eleven Biblical references include five separated authors over a span of centuries who all speak of the Lord “stretching out the heavens.”       

Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15, and Zechariah 12:1

Connecting these passages to present cosmological discovery does not involve wrenching them out of their original context.  To the contrary, the consideration of cosmology in relation to the Creator is the single context of every passage.  Each verse reflects the clear intentional revelation (2 Timothy 3:16) of the God who made the heavens and the earth.  The Bible is vindicated as God's revealed word in this matter.