Agnostic needs help with bible study

[Ralph Shumaker]

Lan Barnes wrote:

>On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 08:01:52PM -0800, Rick Carlson wrote:
>  
>
>>Okay, now that I have a little more to go on check these out:
>>
>>http://bible.cc/1_kings/7-23.htm
>>
>>http://bible.cc/2_chronicles/4-2.htm
>>
>>http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1KGS%207;&version=31;
>>
>>http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/value_of_pi.html
>>
>>http://www.roundearth.net/PI.htm
>>
>>http://www.apocalipsis.org/difficulties/pi.htm
>>
>>http://bibleforums.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13834
>>
>>http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/pibible.htm
>>
>>http://www.chaoticnotrandom.com/2004/05/things-that-need-to-go-away-right-now.html
>>
>>http://answering-islam.org.uk/Religions/Numerics/pi.html
>>
>>And there are many more. But, I think this sufficiently beats this dead 
>>horse.
>>
>>Rick
>>    
>>
>
>Well, it all strikes me as too cute by half. Nice rationalizations on
>why a geometric absurdity in the text is not to be taken at face value,
>while other absurdities in the same text are.
>  
>

I have not checked any of those links and likely will not (for lack of 
time).  I don't know if any of them mention that there were varying 
lengths of cubits.  A cubit was generally a measurement from the elbow 
to the tip of the finger.  A very convenient ruler since you always had 
it with you.  Unfortunately, it varied slightly from one person to the 
next.  (My own personal cubit is slightly longer than 18 inches.  But I 
get something *very* close to 18 inches if I only go from my elbow to 
the tip of my pinkie.)  They had a common cubit and they had a royal 
cubit, among several others, as standards.  The common cubit was 
slightly less than 18 inches.  The royal cubit was pretty close to 18 
inches.  Anyway, my point is that it is quite conceivable that they used 
a different cubit for circumference than they used for other 
dimensions.  I haven't done the research to know if this could have been 
the case.  But we *do* have a modern day example of a term of 
measurement having two different meanings depending upon what is being 
measured.  If you are weighing wheat (or almost anything else) you have 
16 ounces to a pound.  But if you are weighing gold (or silver or 
_______) you have only 10 ounces to a pound.  I do not know if a pound 
of wheat weighs the same as a pound of gold.  I do not know if an ounce 
of wheat weighs the same as an ounce of gold.  For all I know, neither 
the ounce nor the pound is the same between the wheat and the gold.  So 
if when measuring circumference the cubit normally used was about .75" 
(or so) longer than the cubit normally used for measuring the diameter, 
then the Biblical description wouldn't even need to be explained away as 
being concerned only with round numbers (even though in other places it 
can be shown that rounded numbers were clearly used).  It may even turn 
out that if a special cubit was used to compensate for pi, then the 
Bible's dimensions for the font may have actually been  not only close, 
but exact.

Just my $.02 .