Rosa Rubicondior: How We Know The Bible Is Wrong - ESA/Hubble Picture Of The Week

Thursday, 19 February 2026

How We Know The Bible Is Wrong - ESA/Hubble Picture Of The Week

A neighbouring vista of stellar birth | ESA/Hubble

The simplest way to tell whether the Bible is the inerrant description of reality that creationists claim it to be, or the work of ignorant people doing their best to fill the gaps in their knowledge and understanding with stories that complied with the prevailing culture which imagined a world that ran on magic in which invisible spirits made things happen, is by comparing what it says with what science is revealing.

Almost invariably, what we see is that the descriptions in the Bible bear little or no resemblance to the real world, as we can see most clearly by comparing the biblical description of the universe with what the universe is really like. The Bible describes it as consisting of a small, flat planet with a dome over it, at the centre, with all the celestial bodies such as the sun moon and stars attached to the dome, above which is water.

This was conjured into existence out of nothing by some magic words spoken in a language no-one was alive to understand, apparently.

So, lets remind ourselves of the Bible's description again, and compare it to the latest image of a tiny fragment of the universe from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Hubble space telescope - the ESA/Hubble picture of the week.

First the bible:

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1.6-10)

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.(Genesis 1.16-18)

How the Bible's authors saw the Universe.

And ESA/Hubble's picture of the week:

Today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week highlights another view of a distant stellar birthplace. Captured in a parallel field to a recently released image, this scene reveals a neighbouring region of the N159 star-forming complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud, approximately 160,000 light-years away.

Thick clouds of cold hydrogen gas dominate the scene, forming a complex network of ridges, cavities, and glowing filaments. Embedded within these dense clouds, newly formed stars begin to shine, their intense radiation causing the surrounding hydrogen to glow in deep red tones.

The brightest regions mark the presence of hot, massive young stars whose powerful stellar winds and energetic light reshape their environment. These forces carve out bubble-like structures and hollowed cavities in the gas, clear signatures of stellar feedback in action. Dark clouds in the foreground are lit from behind by new stars. Together, the glowing clouds and sculpted bubbles reveal a dynamic interplay between star formation and the material from which stars are born, capturing the ongoing cycle of creation and transformation within this neighbouring galactic system.

N159 is one of the most massive star-forming clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is the largest of the small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. This image shows just a portion of this expansive star-forming complex, as the entire complex stretches over 150 light-years across.

A field filled with stars and covered by clouds of gas and dust. In the centre, a thick column of dark black dust blocks light from stars that light it up from behind. More clouds behind those stars are illuminated in pale colours. Complex, layered filaments of red dust lie to the left and right. Blue, white and gold stars in various sizes can be seen around, within and through the colourful layers of dust.

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Once again ESA/Hubble are revealing a reality which bears no relationship to the description of the universe in the Bible that some fundamentalists believe is the best available description of reality, far surpassing anything modern science can provide - a position that can only be maintained by diligent wilful ignorance of either what science is revealing or what the Bible says, or both.

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