Reasons To Believe, Spokane Chapter

November 2003 Newsletter

Table of Contents:

Chapter Meeting: Sunday November 16, 3-5pm.

 

We invite you to attend our monthly meeting. A presentation is offered to the group, followed by discussion and questions, and we conclude with snacks and a little club business. This time we’ll discuss the recent Nova television series on string theory, called “The Elegant Universe”. We always try to start and end our meetings right on time. If you need directions, don’t be afraid to call the phone number below.

 

Date: Sunday, October 19

Time: 3-5 p.m.

Hosts:  Dan and Cathy Bakken

Location: 13003 N. Miami Ct, Mead

Phone: 466-2693  (for directions, etc.)

Dan Bakken to Speak Nov. 23 at Messiah Lutheran Church

 

Dan Bakken, president of our chapter, will  speak at Messiah Lutheran Church on Sunday, November 23, at 9:15a.m. He’ll give the same talk he gave at the Northview Bible event in the summer, so those of you who missed it have another chance.

Location: 4202 N Belt St. That’s on Belt, 3 blocks north of Garland.

Questions? Call Cathy Bakken, 466-2693.

Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Dates Accurately

This intriguing piece of Jewish history has recently been dated to the time the bible says it was constructed.

The Siloam Tunnel, often called Hezekiah’s Tunnel, is a tunnel almost 1800 feet long, carved through the rock underneath Jerusalem. The bible describes how King Hezekiah was preparing for an attack by the Assyrian King Sennacherib. H e decided to find a way to bring a steady supply of water within the city walls as well as to deny water to be sieging forces. This attack was known to have taken place in 701 BC, in the middle of King Hezekiah’s reign (715BC to 686 BC).

1 Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, thinking to conquer them for himself. 2 When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to make war on Jerusalem, 3 he consulted with his officials and military staff about blocking off the water from the springs outside the city, and they helped him. 4 A large force of men assembled, and they blocked all the springs and the stream that flowed through the land. "Why should the kings of Assyria come and find plenty of water?" they said. 5 Then he worked hard repairing all the broken sections of the wall and building towers on it. He built another wall outside that one and reinforced the supporting terraces of the City of David. He also made large numbers of weapons and shields.

30 It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything he undertook. - 2 Chronicles 32

As for the other events of Hezekiah's reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? - 2 Kings 20:20

The tunnel, rediscovered in 1880, still carries water from the Gihon Spring into Jerusalem's ancient city of David, ending up at the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus told a blind man to wash (John 9). An inscription, since removed, was found in the tunnel, describing how two teams of men, working from opposite directions, met in the middle. When it was first built, the tunnel was lined with plaster, some of which remains today. Scientists from Hebrew University of Jerusalem decided to try to carbon date some of this plaster, which, apparently by accident, contains some plant material . They also dated some stalactite samples.

According to the re searchers, the tunnel was plastered around 700 BC. A plant trapped inside the plaster dated to 700-800 BC, and a stalactite formed around 400 BC. "The plant must have been growing before the tunnel was excavated; the stalactite grew after it was excavated," explained the team leader.

The study "makes the tunnel's age certain", says archaeologist Henrik Bruins of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. The Siloam Tunnel is now the best-dated Iron Age biblical structure so far identified. And James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, said, "This scientific verification of historical details in the Bible challenges those who do no wish to take it seriously."

 

What are Bacteria Good for?

 

When we think of bacteria, we often think of germs, disease and illness, and how important it is to wash your hands! However, most bacteria are not harmful to us, and in fact, without bacteria there would be no life on Earth as we know it. Here are some of the useful and vital activities that bacteria perform.

 

- Bacteria living in soil break down and decompose the remains of dead plants and animals. In the process, they make available nitrates and other useful substances living plants can use as they grow, and which are passed on to animals that eat

the plants. If this didn’t happen, the earth would be swamped in waste, and soil would be infertile.

 

- Bacteria play an important role in the nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen is essential for all forms of life. Bacteria re involved in the nitrogen cycle at every stage. Even though over three-fourths of our atmosphere is made of nitrogen, it is cannot be used by most organisms in this form, because it will not easily combine with other substances.

 

Some bacteria can make use of atmospheric nitrogen. They use it to form nitrogen-containing compounds (a process called “nitrogen fixation”), such as ammonia and nitrate. Around 90 percent of the world’s annual supply of “fixed” nitrogen is supplied by bacteria.

 

All plants need nitrogen to ensure their growth, but none can use atmospheric nitrogen directly. Rhizobium bacteria form symbiotic relationships with some plants, including clover, alfalfa, beans and peas. The bacteria live inside nodules in the roots of the plant, feeding off of it, and in return, supplying the plant with nitrogen compounds that the plant uses to make proteins, the basic building block of life. 

 

Many cyanobacteria (bacteria living free in soil and water, and that can photosynthesize) can also fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some types of cyanobacteria form symbiotic relationships with plants and fungi. For example, the cyanobacterium Anabaena associates itself with a water fern called Azolla. This fern is widely found in rice paddies in Asia. The bacteria inhabit cups in the leaves of the ferns. They fix nitrogen, then feed it directly into the plant. Then, as the rice plants grow, they shade the water fern, which dies, and releases its nitrogen for the rice plants to use. Rice plants that grow with the water ferns give substantially better yields than those grown without – thanks to cyanobacteria.

 

- Bacteria live in the digestive systems of humans and animals, where they not only get a safe home and a regular food delivery system, but break down cellulose and other food, thus releasing nutrients for our use that would otherwise be lost as waste.

 

- One type of bacteria that lives in pits at the back of our tongues help kill cavity-causing bacteria by changing one form of nitrogen compound into another.

 

- We use bacteria to ferment milk to make dairy products - cheese, butter and yogurt. And a bacteria found in ‘live’ yogurt, Lactobacilli, helps heals ulcers and other bowel wounds by keeping harmful bacteria at bay.

 

- Septic systems and other methods of sewage disposal depend on bacteria to decompose wastes. The underground septic tanks in many Spokane area yards contain billions of microbes slowly breaking down sewage. Other bacteria are sprayed on sewage at larger treatment facilities to break it down.

 

- We use bacteria in mining processes to dissolve minerals out of rocks. About 25 percent of the world’s copper industry uses ‘biomining’ to extract copper from ores which come from rocks containing sulphur. The bacteria attack the ore, taking nutrients they need from the sulphur compounds and releasing the copper. Another bacterium is currently being used to release gold from low-grade gold ore. In fact, these sulfate-reducing bacteria have been at work in the natural realm for eons. Researchers now recognize that sulfate-reducing bacteria helped produce much, if not all, of the of iron magnesium, zinc, and lead.

 

- Other bacteria have been at work for generations removing low but deadly zinc concentrations from water. So bacteria have helped make the earth’s water safe to drink for humans and animals.

 

- We can use some bacteria to control the number or activities of other organisms. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis is an important bio-insecticide that is used all over the world on a variety of crops. Research is underway to use certain strains of these bacteria against mosquitoes that carry malaria and yellow fever.

 

All these functions – and more – are performed by an organism that man didn’t even discover until the 1600’s, and didn’t’ understand until much later. Bacteria are commonly called ‘the simplest living organism’. Bacteria play a vital role in our lives behind the scene. God’s provision is indeed everywhere!

Resources To Know About:

Reasons To Believe’s Web Site: www.reasons.org. Many useful documents are available, as well as their daily new “reason to believe” from the latest scientific research.

Watch (or record) the "Reasons To Believe" television show. Airs on Thursday mornings, 2:30 A.M. Pacific time on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). An archive of recent shows is also available at www.reasons.org.

Listen to the Creation Update Web Cast on the Internet

Who We Are and What We Do: Your Local Reasons To Believe Chapter

We’re here to answer your questions and help local Christians and churches get more answers about science and the bible issues. 

·        Our monthly meetings enable training and dissemination of new reasons to believe.

·        We help people access Reasons To Believe resources, including the Apologist Training Program.

·        We offer trained apologists to speak at local churches and other events to share these exciting discoveries.

·        We provide a forum for members to discuss the latest scientific discoveries.

·        We bring national speakers into the area to promote the scientific reliability of the Bible.

·        We build alliances with churches, ministries, and groups to share the Reasons To Believe message.

·        We help Christians overcome their fear of science and equip them to use it as an effective tool in spreading the Gospel.

·        We reach out to skeptics and non-believers with gentleness and respect, encouraging them to evaluate their worldviews.

Contact us if you have any questions! And watch this newsletter for more information!

Local Chapter Contact Information:

For more information about the Reasons To Believe Spokane chapter, contact:

Phone: Ray Luse (509) 465-8562
Email:
Web Page: www.reasons.org/chapters
Newsletter Questions? Cathy Bakken, editor, cgbakken@yahoo.com