smellincoffee

I don't understand why people who want to critcize the Bible use the "pi = 3" line. How much more would that fraction have added to the precision they needed? It's not as if they lived technologically complicated lives back then. God didn't even bother to tell them that the Sun doesn't go around the earth; why would he try to explain what ".14" meant? Wouldn't "3" be well and good enough for their purposes?

It just seems like a silly nitpick that won't accomplish anything but annoy the person you're debating with and polarize them even further.

robto

I agree - this should be at the top of the "arguments not to use" list. I mean haven't these people ever heard of significant figures? Don't they realize that pi=3.14 is just as "wrong" as pi=3? (A better approximation, sure, but still mathematically incorrect.)

gregor

IIRC, the bowl was big enough for the dimension to be 31 cubits, not 30, so it was not a decimal issue.

John Kesler

If you want a good numerical discrepancy, a much better one involves the length of the the Israelite sojourn in Egypt. See this article. The best discrepancies incorporate multiple lines of evidence, so that an inerrantist can't dismiss the discrepancy as due to "scribal error" or intentional inexactness.

JamesBannon

Aye, it's not a good argument as transcendental numbers were unknown at the time.

davidbach

I am not completely sure here.

If you are going to use "pi != 3, therefore all the bible is inaccurate" hard-nosed argument, I do not think that is very helpful.

OTOH, it is part of a very valid general observation that the bible is limited (regardless of "divine inspiration" or whatever) by the tecnological awareness of the authors. Many tenets of the bible, from the Genesis accounts of creation to the prohibition on eating pork, are quite logical given the lack of knowledge at the time. This both gives us an understanding of the writings, and indicates what topics in the bible might be relevant today.

More puzzling is the state that mandated pi = 3, Kansas or Missouri or thereabouts, I think. Did they abandon it when wheels were found to have about 5% of the periphery missing?

David.

JamesBannon

Hi David,
That is true though note that it is perfectly possible to create approximately circular objects without knowing the definition of pi. As you say, many of the prohibitions contained in ancient Judaic law make rational sense given what the scribes knew at the time. Even "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life" can be viewed as a reasonable attempt to limit punishment for crimes though there is definite inconsistency in other areas.

pharoah

Wait a minute here, let's put the blame for this right where it belongs, on the fundies who claim that every word of the Bible is God-inspired and inerrant. Without that specious claim this would be a complete non-issue. Once they make that kind of claim however, then they have to defend the veracity of every verse in the Bible, no matter how "silly" it is. For example, the dimensions in the verse you're referring to were given as 30 cubits by 10 cubits. Why in the world couldn't God inspire the writer to write down 31 cubits instead of 30? That would have been a lot closer to the mark and would have defused this issue.

S.C.Carlson

Why in the world couldn't God inspire the writer to write down 31.4 cubits instead of 31? That would have been a lot closer to the mark and would have defused this issue.

Why in the world couldn't God inspire the writer to write down 31.41 cubits instead of 31.4? That would have been a lot closer to the mark and would have defused this issue.

ad infinitum

Malachi151

Well, they didn't live "technologically complicated lives back then" because they didn't have the knowledge that they needed to do so, so giving them that knowledge would have helped them along.

Which is exactly why it IS a good argument. If the Bible were the leading edge of knowledge then it might look more inspired, but since it just contains the same knowledge that people already had, its obviously not.