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Does scripture get the value of pi wrong?



      

1 Kings 7:23

ESV - 23 Then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.

Clarify Share Report Asked August 29 2016 Open uri20170227 18896 3j5vss Dane Prey Supporter

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Mini Tim Maas Supporter Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army
Since the value of pi calculated according to the dimensions of the sea of cast metal given in the verse cited in the question (a thirty-cubit circumference divided by a ten-cubit diameter) would have been exactly 3.00 (instead of 3.14159265358...), I think that one can safely conclude either that the dimensions in the verse were not expressed with the required degree of exactness by the writer, or that the sea of cast metal was not perfectly round, both of which would have been attributable to human actions, rather than reflecting a divinely-commanded change in repeatable, verifiable laws of geometry (which were part of the orderly universe that God created).

August 29 2016 3 responses Vote Up Share Report


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My picture Jack Gutknecht Supporter ABC/DTS graduate, guitar music ministry Baptist church
Good question, Dane! 

This Bible verse mentions the measuring of something round. That could help us to remember that the ancients rounded off their numbers. In this case it was rounding from 3.1416 (the way I learned "pi" in school) to 3. 

Even when the ancients recorded measurements of something that was not round, rounding occurred.

June 14 2019 0 responses Vote Up Share Report


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