steen said:
Here is what it said in that verse:
[23] Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.
Well, you got the verse right. Its a shame you didn't read the whole passage. Actually, I'm sure you did, but it would be inconvenient for you to mention that, wouldn't it? Verse 26 mentions the thickness of the Sea as being a "handbreadth" which would be approximately 3.5" to 4", depending on which guild of artisans was using the measurement. As we'll see in the coming paragraphs, also, this wasn't the volume in which exact measurements were recorded anyway.
Also, I made an error, because I was in a rush to get out of town Friday, and I stated the facts backwards. It would be the interior diameter vs. the exterior circumference that would explain the apparent discrepancy. Also, there is the fact that the cubit is never, throughout the rest of the Bible, divided more than in half. Though "quarter" or "tenth" are common divisions of measures of volume, the cubit apparently is rounded to the nearest whole or half. Hyram from Tyre, who made the Sea, would have known the requirements of the measurements. The Book of Kings was not written as a storehouse for blueprints, but for the purpose of recording history. The need for exactness in mathematical equations was lacking.
There is an excellent examination of this problem at "answersingenesis.com":
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i2/pi.asp
I've left out the first part of the explanation, because I summarized that viewpoint above (re: the rounding off of the measurement in the historical writings of the Bible):
From 1 Kings 7:23 ('a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about'), it appears that the circumference was measured with 'a line', i.e. a piece of string or cord on which the distance was marked, and this length would then have been measured off in cubits by the measurer, using his own or someone else's forearm, or possibly a cubit-long rod. Similarly the diameter would have been marked on a line and 'cubitized' in the same way.
If the actual diameter was 9.65 cubits, for example, this would have been reckoned as 10 cubits. The actual circumference would then have been 30.32 cubits. This would have been reckoned as 30 cubits (9.6 cubits diameter gives 30.14 circumference, and so on). The ratio of true circumference to true diameter would then have been 30.32 ÷ 9.65 = 3.14, the true value for pi, even though the measured value (i.e. to the nearest cubit) was 30 ÷ 10 = 3.
While the above seems reasonable, we have no way of knowing for certain whether the measurements were approximated in this way. However, even if it is assumed that the measurements given were precisely 10 and 30 cubits, the following appears to provide a definitive answer.
2. Verse 26 of 1 Kings 7 says that the vessel in question had a brim which 'was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies' (KJV), or a rim 'like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom' (NIV), i.e. the brim or rim turned outward, suggesting the curvature of a lily.3 It is believed by Bible scholars to have looked like the drawing below.4
Let us consider the details given in 1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2. These are:
1. The diameter of 10 cubits was measured 'from brim to brim' (v. 23), i.e. from the topmost point of the brim on one side to the topmost point of the brim on the other side (points A and B in the diagram).
2. The circumference of 30 cubits was measured with a line, 'round about' (v. 23), i.e. the most natural meaning of these words is that they refer to the circumference of the
outside of the main body of the tank, measured by a string pulled tightly around the vessel
below the brim. It is very obvious that the diameter of the main body of the tank was less than the diameter of the top of the brim. And it is also obvious that the circumference of 30 cubits could have been measured at any point down the vertical sides of the vessel, below the brim. For a measured circumference of 30 cubits, we can calculate what the external diameter of the vessel would have been at that point from the formula:
diameter =
circumference ÷ pi
=
30 cubits ÷ 3.14
=
9.55 cubits.
Thus the external diameter of the vessel at the point where the circumference was measured must have been 9.55 cubits.5
It is thus abundantly clear that the Bible does not defy geometry with regard to the value of pi, and in particular it does
not say that pi equals 3.0. Skeptics who allege an inaccuracy are wrong, because they fail to take into account all the data. The Bible is reliable, and seeming discrepancies vanish on closer examination. [See also
Does the Bible Give a Wrong Value for Pi? from Tekton Apologetics Ministry.]
REFERENCES and FOOTNOTES
- pi, or the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, is what has been known as an irrational number or infinite non-repeating decimal, of which the first digits are 3.1415926536
. A value of 3.14 is close enough for our purposes.
- Abingdons Strongs Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.
- The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia 4:368, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids (Michigan), 1988.
- Adapted from reference 3. An NIV footnote (not part of the inspired text) to 1 Kings 7:26 suggests that the vessel had a greater volume than the above figures allow. This could indicate that the vessel may have been shaped more like a lily than imagined (i.e. part of it may have been bulbous), or that the conversion factor used by the NIV commentator was incorrect.
- Some have suggested that there is one other explanation that fits all the dimensions given in the biblical text, if the circumference measured refers to the inside of the vessel. (This is a possibility, although, as already stated, it was most likely the external circumference which was measured.) The diameter was 10 cubits or 4.50 metres, the circumference was 30 cubits or 13.50 metres, and the walls were a hand breadth thick (verse 26) or 10 centimetres (to the nearest centimetre). If the diameter of 4.50 metres was the outside measurement, we subtract 10 centimetres x 2 (to allow for the thickness of the wall on either side) to arrive at a figure of 4.30 metres for the internal diameter of the vessel, and we can now calculate the internal circumference using the formula: circumference=diameter x p= 4.3 metres x 3.14
= 13.50 metres
= 30 cubits
which is exactly the figure given in 1 Kings 7:23. But as shown, there is no need to resort to this solution.
- The New Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 5, p.677, 1992.
