Scientific Accuracy of the Bible IV: The Power Source

In this post I will attempt to link theology, science, electricity and predictability. Prediction or statements about the future which only God can do.

The more we know about the start condition of systems the more accurate we can ascertain their outcomes. It is a necessary attribute of a theory in physics that it should be capable of predicting new, as well as explaining old phenomena. The power of prediction is then most decisive proof of the validity of a theory. It is also the proof of the truth and veracity of Scripture and Scripture's prophecies. In physics and astronomy there are many examples of this power. The Bible itself conforms to this searching test of correctness. 

About one-third of the Old Testament is predictive prophecy encompassing the fate for over three thousand years of insignificant nations as well as the greatest empires that existed or will exist in the future. These nations include Assyria, Chaldea, Babylon, Egypt, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, Israel and many other vanished cities and peoples. Most importantly the Bible prophesied the arrival of the Messiah in nationality, place and time. Scripture, thereby God foresaw His sufferings, death and resurrection. All foretold with painstaking precision.

So science seeks to explain the future with the same exacting precision as the Bible via hypothesis or theory. Let us examine one of the oldest known observed scientific phenomena and the lengths to which it took science to understand it while the Bible understood and correctly identified it millennia beforehand.

The triboelectric effect is a type of contact electrification on which certain materials become electrically charged after they are separated from a different material with which they were in contact. Rubbing the two materials together increases the contact between their surfaces, and hence the triboelectric effect. Rubbing glass with fur for example, or a plastic comb through the hair, can build up triboelectricity. Most everyday static electricity is triboelectric. The polarity and strength of the charges produced differ according to the materials, surface roughness, temperature, strain, and other properties. This ‘effect’ was around for three millennia before it was accurately theorized and explained…or was it?

The triboelectric effect is unpredictable and only broad generalizations can be made about it. For example Amber or fossilized tree resin can acquire an electric charge by friction with a material like wool. Today we most often see it rubbing birthday balloons against our hair and then they stick to the wall.  This property was first recorded by Thales of Miletus. The word "electricity" is derived from William Gilbert's initial coinage, "electra", which originates in the Greek word for amber, ηλεκτρον/ēlektron.

The prefix tribo- (Greek for ‘rub’) refers to ‘friction’. The observation of the electrification of amber, which Thales recorded was destined in the course of ages to grow into the greatest of all trees beneath whose branches a multitude of the phenomena of physics would find shelter. For thousands of years this electrical effect lay dormant until Dr. Gilbert’s experiments in the 16^th century.

The triboelectric effect or static electricity is mentioned in the Bible every single time lightning is mentioned but nowhere is it more evident than Ezekiel 1:4. In it we see the word chashmal/חַשְׁמַל in the Greek Septuagint, you guessed it… ηλεκτρον/electron. In this verse we see that the triboelectric effect is correctly identified. Yet the description of lightning itself is contained in the ‘fire infolding’ wordage earlier in the passage. What should we make of the comment about ‘amber’? Ezekiel goes on to state that out of the midst of the fire there was a ‘color of amber’ (or around it). I posit that what the Bible is describing is what’s known as black-body radiation. Lightning is an electrostatic discharge causing the instantaneous release of energy. The discharge produces electromagnetic radiation from very hot or superheated plasma. That plasma is created by the rapid movement of electrons to brilliant flashes of visible light in the form of black-body radiation.

In the dark sky, a black body (object below visible light spectrum) at atmospheric temperature appears black because most of the energy it radiates is in the infrared spectrum and cannot be perceived by the human eye. Since the human eye cannot perceive light waves below the visible frequency, a black body at the lowest just faintly visible temperature subjectively appears black. It is invisible, even though its objective color spectrum is in the 'red' range. The human eye essentially does not perceive color at low light levels. When the object becomes a little hotter, it appears dull red…or amber. So it is ironic that this effect was observed by Thales on, of all things, amber the mineral or fossilized tree resin. The resin itself being an insulator like glass. The electrical charge is in reality only on the surface.

Ezekiel was essentially (and inadvertently scientifically) explaining the very end of the cooling process of the air after a lightning strike just prior to infrared in an accurate manner. Black Body Radiation was theorized in 1860. Max Planck's law of black-body radiation wasn’t formulated until 1900. We must consider the fact that Ezekiel was likely written between 590-570 BC or almost 2500 years before the black body effect was scientifically explained…yet the Bible was scientifically correct in its explanation.

Ezekiel 1:4 “And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself (lightening), and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber (chashmal / חַשְׁמַל/ηλεκτρον/elektron), out of the midst of the fire.”

Jump forward 2500 years to Alessandro Volta discovery of electric current, hence the term volt as a measure of electromotive force. In him we see the beginning of a monumental paradigm shift in science similar to Ezekiel paradigm shift foretelling of the fall of an empire. Volta and people like him would usher in a new age in science just as Ezekiel would usher in exile. Volta's change wouldn't just affect physics. It would also affect all the other sciences and even understanding of reality itself. Old science would be sent into exile never to return.

[That reality altering paradigm shift will be explained in the conclusion in my next post...]