Physics Constants?: The Book of the Prophet Jonah...somewhere in the 700's B.C.... "Lists" the Exact Speed of the Acceleration of Gravity Acting Upon A Mass In A Vacuum?
When will scientists catch on to searching for physics constants in the Bible? They might all be embedded there, along with far more important truths!
There is a book in the Bible called the Book of Jonah. It tells the story of an Israelite man named Jonah who was called to go prophecy a warning from God to an enemy city, an Assyrian city called Nineveh that was the perennial adversary of Israel, telling the Ninevites that they must repent of their Assyrian wickedness or be destroyed by the God of the Israelites.
Jonah wanted nothing to do with the assignment, and fled to a boat, arranging passage to a distant place. But once at sea God sent a very great storm to endanger the ship, and soon it became known to the crew that their passenger was the cause of this strange and mighty storm. Jonah also realized that his disobedience was the cause! He was a good enough person that he did not want the other people aboard to drown because God was angry at him. So, Jonah volunteered to be tossed into the raging sea to appease God's anger. The crew actually resisted the idea at first, but finally, frightened for their lives, they tossed Jonah into the sea and he began to sink.
The storm immediately calmed and the ship's crew realized the power of Jonah's God and were amazed. They sacrificed to Jonah's God and made vows to Him, it says.
Jonah prayed to God as he sank and sank. God heard him and a great fish, some type unknown to us today, swallowed him and carried him to shore in its belly, disgorging him there still alive to get up, recover, and embark upon the original mission God gave him.
Yes, seeing the power of God to punish his disobedience Jonah went to Nineveh and preached repentance to these enemies of his own people Israel, and amazingly they, the Assyrian people of the great and mighty city of Nineveh, heard Jonah, believed him, and repented, crying out to Jonah's God to forgive them and not destroy them. Perhaps the story of the quelled storm had reached them. Perhaps someone had observed Jonah being disgorged upon the beach by the large fish. It doesn't say why Assyria was wise enough to repent. But God, seeing their genuine repentance, showed them mercy and did not send destruction upon them until almost 160 years later when their evil became very great once again.
Many like to assume that the story of Jonah is fictional. I do not. God could accomplish any portion of the story about Jonah's reluctance to serve God, and about Jonah's personal repentance as he sank towards the bottom of the sea.
It only takes about 10 minutes to read the Book of Jonah, so...read it. It is a very interesting book of the Bible. It will pull right up on your smart phone or computer, right? Maybe read it if you haven't, and think about it. See what the Holy Spirit puts in your mind and heart.
But the famous Book of Jonah may have an interesting physics secret as well: It is the only place in the Bible where a person is falling and falling and falling, sinking towards the center of the Earth (Though he was actually in the Mediterranean sinking towards the bottom of the sea.) praying to God as he sank. And why was he sinking? Gravity! He was heavier than water, so it was possible for him to sink into the water. And there was the Force of Gravity pulling him ever downward, accelerating him ever downward. Yes, in the Book of Jonah you will find the Bible's only long description of a person falling and falling.
Do any of you English speaking readers remember the magnitude of the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Earth? In school they taught us that it was 32 feet per SECOND per SECOND. Jonah would not have known that number, I think. But God would have known it exactly, in any unit system that was ever to be invented by man, because God foresaw all of the future from the very beginning. God would have known exactly what the acceleration of gravity was...if He is the author of the Creation, that is. If He is the one who built it all...if He created the Earth.
And it is 32 feet per SECOND per SECOND in a vacuum. That is the magnitude of the acceleration force acting upon Jonah as he sank and sank and sank, falling through the sea towards the roots of the mountains, as it says there. Jonah didn't fall in a vacuum, but it was a virtually 'air free environment', right? It was the Mediterranean Sea that he sank downward and downward into. So there is even that correlation to add to the oddity of it all.
And which book is Jonah in a Protestant Bible? Where can it be found? It is Protestant Bible Book number 32. It is the 32nd book of the 66 book Protestant Bible. And where exactly is the part of the Book of Jonah where Jonah, saved and in the belly of a great fish that God sent, prays about the experience he just had experienced of sinking and sinking into the sea...the experience which God has just rescued him from? It is the Second chapter beginning in the SECOND verse. He dwells for a fair amount of time on the experience of sinking and sinking and sinking into the sea. You will find him describing sinking into the sea in the SECOND chapter and the SECOND verse. Again...the only place in the Protestant Bible describing how a person falls and falls and falls, pulled ever downward by the acceleration from the Force of Gravity (32 feet per SECOND per SECOND) is Book 32, SECOND chapter, and the SECOND verse is right where that description begins. He begins recounting it in the SECOND verse of the SECOND chapter.
So, could God have decided to provide some proof of 'divine origin' for the Earth when He gave us the Book of Jonah? As He showed us, the listener, the fate of a person who knew what God wanted them to do but refused to do it?
A 'Great Fish' saved Jonah, and the symbol of the Christian Church is a fish. Meaningful? Can we be shown mercy and be saved via Jesus Christ through the church? Is there a hint of something similar to that? Can we change our ways and begin to share God's words with others who are as lost as we were/are?
God knows! But here is yet again a seeming proof that God chose to show us, using the English unit system for what ever reason, that He knew the exact magnitude and units we would use to describe the various of our physical forces of nature. There are several accounts on this Deeds of God website showing that it seems that He did do just that very thing with at least a few of our physics force definitions. At least I think He probably did based on the surprising strength of the evidence. Read the account about James Clerk Maxwell on the Deeds of God website...it's amazing also.
Here for your consideration is Jonah chapter 2, King James Version:
2 Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly,
2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.
10 And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
End Quote
God Almighty authored this miraculous Creation, and may the scientists who claim they know differently, the scientists who claim that it was some accident and try to convince others that it is so...may they think again and carefully. Do you honestly know what happened 'in the beginning', scientists? Are you witnesses...did you see the events about which you speak so authoritatively?? The eternal state of a scientist's own scientist soul is probably at stake as they mislead the souls of the people of their generation on certain points.