Myth About the Bible - Busted!

[durangodawood]

Thank you.
You are an agnostic, aren't you?
If my guess is wrong, please forgive me, but you don't seem to be an atheist, but more open minded.

Im an agnostic by the traditional definitions. I dont have evidence, internal or external, to decide on the matter of realms besides ours.

The Bible seems to consist of lots of literary forms. None of it seems intended to serve as a science text book. So for example I dont say Noah's flood is "wrong". Its a myth, and meant to say something about Gods relationship to humans. Its not meant to be a definitive text on geology or meteorology.

 

[CoreyD]

Part of the point is WRT the "perfection" of the Bible. If instead of

He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits[a] to measure around it.​

It said, "And a line of thirty cubits could not quite measure around it." Then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

What about approximation? Would that satisfy the skeptic? Of course not.

 

[BCP1928]

What about approximation? Would that satisfy the skeptic? Of course not.

By and large, skeptics assume that it is an approximation. It is the biblical literalists who assume it cannot be anything but exact. And it is that literalist assumption that the skeptics are skeptical of.

 

[CoreyD]

It depends on what you mean by "get it right." You won't be able to hold both of those dimensions exactly. If it is perfectly circular and to be exactly 10 cubits across then the circumference will be about 31.4... cubits. on the other hand, if you want it to have a circumference of exactly 30 cubits then the diameter will be about 9.549... cubits.

Agreed, but the key to my question is "if I am not interested in mathematical calculations?"
I would get it right, because an approximate value give me the shape I want. Notice I did not use the word, "exactly".

I never get anything I buy that is exactly the measurement it gives.
Even my 15" monitor is not exactly 15 inches across. Everything... almost everything, uses approximation. Unless, perhaps when dealing with certain things requiring exact precision.

 

[BCP1928]

Agreed, but the key to my question is "if I am not interested in mathematical calculations?"
I would get it right, because an approximate value give me the shape I want. Notice I did not use the word, "exactly".

I never get anything I buy that is exactly the measurement it gives.
Even my 15" monitor is not exactly 15 inches across. Everything... almost everything, uses approximation. Unless, perhaps when dealing with certain things requiring exact precision.

Except for biblical literalists, who assert exact precision for all numbers in the Bible.

 

[CoreyD]

An attack on the Bible is not contemplated. What it is, is skepticism of a particular hermeneutic.

It's not a problem for skeptics, it's a problem for biblical literalists, because if the vessel is perfectly circular then one or both of those measurements must be imprecise.

Okay. I understand.
I see what the problem is.

The skeptics do not like when anything is said to be accurate in the Bible, and so they look for anything they can find to attack that, in order to have a "fighting chance" to say, "Hey, Your Bible isn't so accurate."
Whether that be referring to precision or not... figurative, or not.
For example, the earth being on pillars... etc.

I know for a fact that many persons who value the Bible do not take everything literally, but neither do they think everything is figurative,
So, I don't see it being a problem for Biblical literalist,
I see it as the former, and it will always be a problem, simply because that war will not end until the end.

 

[CoreyD]

Now those are good question to ask.

... because the circumference of a circle is always divisible by pi, except in this particular case where the values given do not equal pi. In what way shape or form is that NOT a human error?

I see you identify as Deist.
I do not know much about Deism, because I haven't looked into that before, since I never spoke to a Deist before... at least not knowingly.

What is your response to someone telling you that the value of 30 cubits, and 10 cubits are approximate values?

 

[CoreyD]

Im an agnostic by the traditional definitions. I dont have evidence, internal or external, to decide on the matter of realms besides ours.

The Bible seems to consist of lots of literary forms. None of it seems intended to serve as a science text book. So for example I dont say Noah's flood is "wrong". Its a myth, and meant to say something about Gods relationship to humans. Its not meant to be a definitive text on geology or meteorology.

Right. The Bible is a record of past events involving people God dealt with.
It is also a book that reveals God's purpose for mankind and the future. Which is why it contains prophetic utterances.
It also is written for those who seek a relationship with God.

So, while it is religious, it is also historical, and most people believe it is a reliable and trustworthy book... much better than a books written on how to have a successful marriage, or find happiness, or make peace, and so forth.

That's another topic for another thread, though.

 

[CoreyD]

By and large, skeptics assume that it is an approximation.

That is a surprise to me.
I would have to see that in writing, anywhere else, besides a public forum, in order to believe it.
That is not my experience, for sure.

It is the biblical literalists who assume it cannot be anything but exact. And it is that literalist assumption that the skeptics are skeptical of.

That is not my experience.
Can you name a handful of these literalists, or even find 5 links on the internet that takes these as more than an approximation?

 

[CoreyD]

Except for biblical literalists, who assert exact precision for all numbers in the Bible.

This is shocking to me. I have not found that. I have found the opposite.
Most people whom I have spoken to, that identify as Christian, take almost everything in the Bible - numbers included, as figurative.
Which is what prompted me to create this thread - Who Decides - God or Us?.

 

[BCP1928]

Okay. I understand.
I see what the problem is.

The skeptics do not like when anything is said to be accurate in the Bible, and so they look for anything they can find to attack that, in order to have a "fighting chance" to say, "Hey, Your Bible isn't so accurate."
Whether that be referring to precision or not... figurative, or not.
For example, the earth being on pillars... etc.

I know for a fact that many persons who value the Bible do not take everything literally, but neither do they think everything is figurative,
So, I don't see it being a problem for Biblical literalist,
I see it as the former, and it will always be a problem, simply because that war will not end until the end.

No, you don't see what the problem is, because the "skeptics" you are talking about include many devout Christians who value the Bible as the inspired word of God and reject the literalist hermeneutic to be misguided at best and perhaps the work of the Devil.

 

[BCP1928]

That is a surprise to me.
I would have to see that in writing, anywhere else, besides a public forum, in order to believe it.
That is not my experience, for sure.


That is not my experience.
Can you name a handful of these literalists, or even find 5 links on the internets that takes these as more than an approximation?

Talk to anyone who believes the Earth to be 6000 years old.

 

[BCP1928]

This is shocking to me. I have not found that. I have found the opposite.
Most people whom I have spoken to, that identify as Christian, take almost everything in the Bible - numbers included, as figurative.
Which is what prompted me to create this thread - Who Decides - God or Us?.

I scrolled through that thread, and my impression is you have completely misunderstood the position of Christians who are not Fundamentalists.

 

[CoreyD]

Because it changes the values of the measurements for the diameter.
17.5 inches x 30 = 525 inches
The diameter will then be 167.1 inches.
Divide 525 by 167.1 gives Pi - 3.14183123878

I never said the calculation was incorrect. I was pointing out that not using the unit values given was dishonest.

I'm sorry, but you either refused to accept that I edited the OP because the calculation there was wrong, or you refused to consider what I was saying to you.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:
There's a difference to rounding an infinite number, and going "Oh, we've got one value here we can use... but we'll ignore that an use an entirely different value instead!"

Warden_of_the_Storm said:
And that's important when you're dealing with anything related to maths because maths uses numbers specifically and clearly (well, in this case at least), so to use another value instead of the original one given does not smack of honesty.

I'm not talking about Pi. It's obvious that I'm talking about you saying that the Ancient Jews used 17.5 inches to refer to a cubit, but you decided to use 18 inches for a cubit for no reason at all.

I am saying to you that using 18 inches, or 17.5 inches makes no difference.
You multiplied the circumference - 17.5 inches x 30 = 525 inches, but you did not multiply the diameter. Why?
17.5 inches x 10 = 175 inches
Divide 525 by 175 gives 3

18 inches x 30 = 540
18 inches x 10 = 180
Divide 540 by 180 gives 3

Whatever value a cubits is in inches times 30, and times 10, and you divide the greater value by the lesser, the result will always be 3.
That is what I was saying.

 

[CoreyD]

Talk to anyone who believes the Earth to be 6000 years old.

Oh, those.
They are hard to talk to.

I scrolled through that thread, and my impression is you have completely misunderstood the position of Christians who are not Fundamentalists.

Can you explain, please, what you mean? I don't understand.

 

[CoreyD]

No, you don't see what the problem is, because the "skeptics" you are talking about include many devout Christians who value the Bible as the inspired word of God and reject the literalist hermeneutic to be misguided at best and perhaps the work of the Devil.

I was not aware that those were skeptics.
I suppose we were speaking two different languages, then.

That's weird though. How do you identify "skeptics" - "devout Christians who value the Bible as the inspired word of God and reject the literalist hermeneutic to be misguided at best and perhaps the work of the Devil", from skeptics - One inclined to skepticism in religious matters; A person who doubts the existence and perfections of God, or the truth of revelation; one who disbelieves the divine origin of the Christian religion.?

Wouldn't you have to be always explaining what you mean?

 

[CoreyD]

The problem is you keep making conflicting statements.

How so?

“The estimated 1.39 million years for the formation of the mountain is not to say mountains take that amount of time to form.”

I thought it was 2 million.
You see. the figure changes, because it is an estimation given on an assumption.
It's not the actual age of the mountain.

If they estimate it took 1.39 million years for a mountain to form, they are, in fact, saying it took that amount of time for it to form.

No. They are giving you a window based on the fact that they do not know, but assume that the former assumption still allows for more than one million years.

If I say I’m 40 years old, that means I’m 40 years old, not that I’m actually 20 years old.

Yes, because you know. You are not assuming, and giving an estimated figure... until you find out your actual age.

And a “geologic instant” is not a unit of measurement. It’s an abstract. In a world where fossils are 3.5 to 4 billion years old, where it takes millions upon millions of years to form fossil fuels, to say a mountain only takes a million years to form would a comparatively speedy process. But to go from “mountains grow rapidly over 1.39 million years” to “that means mountains grow in a geologic instant which means they change dramatically over 6,000 years, which makes my theory right” is magical thinking.

Did you understand my post to say that? ?
If I had a penny for every millions of years chopped off of things that were assumed to be older than they were thought, I'd be a rich man.

The moon is 85 million years younger than previously thought

Dating the Moon takes a lot of smart guesswork, and that means we're probably going to be hearing much more about the age of the Moon in the years ahead. Future crewed missions to the Moon will be able to collect more lunar rock samples, and could hopefully plug some of the remaining gaps in our knowledge.

This isn't the only recent study exploring these mysterious unknowns. It was only three years ago that the age of the Moon was pushed back some 140 million years, while more recent research suggests the Moon is older still.

I not sure you understood what was said.
What I am saying is the guess work is not a fixed age, as you are suggesting... like '2 million... No, 1.39 million... No, x million...'

6,000 years of 1,390,000 is roughly .43% time elapsed, which is nothing. Or, doing some assumptive math, with Everest being 29,032 feet high, pretending it started perfectly flat and grew the same amount each year, that means it grows .25 inches a year, which means that 6,000 years ago it was 28,907 feet. A difference of 125 feet. So it would be the same height as it is now, minus the height of a lighthouse, plus 20 feet. Not appreciably different at all. Not even as high as the Tower of Terror in Disney, by a lot.

That's just it.
The fact that you said this, demonstrates you did not get the point.
"grew the same amount each year" is the assumption that is being revised.

"We've always assumed that the folding and faulting in the upper crust produced high elevation mountains. Now we have data on ancient mountain elevation that shows something else is responsible for the mountains' uplift."

Scientists have thought that the Earth’s mountain ranges are formed through this process over many millions of years.

At the same rate is to assume you know the process, and that process is constant. That is not the case.
Perhaps you did not read through, but you clearly missed the point.

 

[sjastro]

Since π is an irrational number with an infinite number of decimal places, a geometrical model representation as found in Kings will by definition be an approximation.
Similarly the Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Indians and Chinese used geometrical models to calculate π to various degrees of accuracy.
Although the Greeks introduced the idea of the irrational number, π was proven to be an irrational number in the 18th century.

In the 14th century Indian mathematicians who were centuries ahead of their Western European counterparts in the field of trigonometry found inverse trigonometric functions such as arctan(x) could be expressed as a series expansion from which π could be expressed as the series.

This series was found by the Indian mathematician Madhava in the 14th century and independently discovered by Isaac Newton’s great rival Gottfried Leibnitz three hundred years later.
By summing more terms in series resulted in a greater accuracy of π.

When π was found to be irrational the series was modified to the following.

What this equation states π is a limit, since the number of terms summed can only be finite the more terms summed the closer the limit is reached without ever attaining it.

This is illustrated by a computer code I wrote up for the Madhava-Leibnitz series summing it from 1 term to 20000 terms in increments of 10.
Note the summed terms will never reach the value of π irrespective of how many terms I used to sum the series.

 

[BCP1928]

I was not aware that those were skeptics.
I suppose we were speaking two different languages, then.

That's weird though. How do you identify "skeptics" - "devout Christians who value the Bible as the inspired word of God and reject the literalist hermeneutic to be misguided at best and perhaps the work of the Devil", from skeptics - One inclined to skepticism in religious matters; A person who doubts the existence and perfections of God, or the truth of revelation; one who disbelieves the divine origin of the Christian religion.?

Wouldn't you have to be always explaining what you mean?

What I mean is that we are as one in regarding certain religious matters with skepticism, religious matters which seems to be important to you. Pointing out that the literalist position on the passage in Kings we are discussing leads to an untenable conclusion is hardly an attack on the Bible or the Christian faith no matter who is doing it.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Who says it can't be rounded down?

I always round pi to SQRT(10)