What does the book, Moby Dick, have in common with the Bible? You might be surprised.

Moby Dick is an adventure story where Ishmael, a schoolmaster, sets out with Captain Ahab in search of the very whale responsible for robbing the Captain of his leg. The author, Herman Melville, uses the backdrop of whaling to explore his novels themes. The struggle for meaning, adventure, survival, and the self-destructiveness of revenge are all interwoven with whaling. Captain Ahab is consumed with the need to destroy the whale that maimed him.

Reading this novel, as enthralling as it may be, is not the place to learn whaling techniques. It is certainly not the place for contemporary whalers to learn their trade. Moby Dick is not a treatise or textbook on the science of whaling.

One might find valuable insight here about the power of an obsession to control a person's life so that it can lead to death. One might even find here some insight into how devotion to a misguided leader can continue beyond reason.

Perhaps Moby Dick reveals a lot about human pride and frailty; even perhaps human madness. But don't read Moby Dick if your goal is to learn how to sail a ship or catch a whale.

The books in our Bible that capture the earliest stories of creation were written to explain God's role as causal agent. The stories are faith documents and not scientific treatises on how the world and we ourselves were made. Creation is the backdrop against which the nature of God and the nature of human beings in relation to God are painted.

Arguing from these stories against evolution and for intelligent design is to miss the point. Such is a misuse of science and a misuse of these stories.