I'm saying that the Pentateuch gave the Israelites (and Christians by extension), the practical applications of both germ and dietary theories 3500 years ago. Long before the sciences behind either had any inkling of them.
It is also good as a response to your own requirement in the
The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists where you state one of the proofs that would be convincing to you as being:
"
Scientific knowledge in holy books that wasn’t available at the time.
If the Bible (or any other religious text) contained some piece of knowledge that the people of the time couldn’t possibly have known but that is now known to be true, that would be highly convincing to me."
Okay. Thank you for making that clear, I just wanted to understand you.
Now, you've made your point, and made it clearly, so I hope I shall do the same in response.
And my answer is:
Soap.
Why isn't there a recipe for soap in the Bible?
It's not at all hard to explain in simple terms to uncivilised people, or to make it with primitive ingredients. But it is hard to think of, isn't it? Hard to just come up with the idea. And, for that matter, why doesn't the Bible explain the importance of washing and of boiling your water?
Answer: because God, in the Bible, knows nothing more than humans can know. Curious, that, isn't it? If God wants to teach people how to be healthy, why did He tell them only the things that any bright human could have figured out from simple observation? If people tend to get sick after eating certain animals, or if cleaning your genitals results in them not smelling so bad, or if people who handle dead bodies tend to get sick - well, it's fairly obvious cause and effect. But what about the things we know now that are not obvious cause and effect? Why didn't God tell His people about those?
Because it was humans who wrote the Bible, and who put God's words in the text.
And that's the answer to your answering The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists. I don't mean to mock - thank you very much, it was a good attempt. But no, it doesn't count, because there's nothing in the Bible that the people of the time couldn't possibly have known then.
Not even the recipe for soap.