Hi Mike,
When I speak of statements with scientific content, I mean statements that reveal an understanding of how the stuff around us is structured and how it operates in a proximate manner. For example, if I release a pencil from my hand, it falls to the ground due to gravity.
So when we read a Bible passage that says that God sends the rain, I would agree that it is devoid of scientific content. It manifests no “model” of how clouds and rain operate. Such a statement can peacefully coexist with a statement about the water cycle.
When a statement asserts that God stores up the waters above the raqi’a in great jars, however, that contains an understanding of structures and proximate causality in the physical universe. It is a statement with scientific content.
Do you believe that the ancient Hebrews had no conception of how the stuff around them was structured? Anthropologists have surveyed many hundreds of cultures, and every single one without exception has had an understanding of how the world works, how animals reproduce, where diseases come from, etc.
It would be a most astonishing thing for a sacred text with the size and scope of the Bible to manifest no understanding of how the world above and below operates. To suggest that I am importing a Western view into the Scriptures is basically an assertion that Israel, unlike any culture known in the history of the world, had no view of how the world around them worked.
Now if I were to condemn them on the basis of their imperfect knowledge of the world, you could well accuse me of cultural hegemony. But if I read God’s revelation to them with sensitivity to the fact that their culture is different than mine, how am I importing my worldview into their text?
I’m not saying that I can see with 100% clarity. However, claiming there is no cultural difference to focus on does not seem helpful. We need scholars of the ancient Near East to help us understand their culture, including their science, so we can understand what God spoke to them millenia ago.
Also, your phrasing of “Sola Scriptura” seems like it will lead nowhere in a discussion like this. If I am reading you correctly, once someone arrives at a conclusion, there is no deviation from it. So how would you apply assumption 2a to Marcion, Arius, Mary Baker Eddy, or Joseph Smith?
Grace and peace,
Chris Falter