Hi,
Pi and the Bible has been the subject of debate before. However, I had not seen this information which clear up the 1 Kings 7:23 issue before so I am posting here. Also, the two constants, Pi and e encoded in the first verse of the OT and NT respectively, see second article.
Full details in the URL at the start of each topic.
The Value of Piby Chuck Missler |    |
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When I was a teenager, I was confronted by a skeptic (a Unitarian, actually) concerning an apparent discrepancy in 1 Kings 7:23. This passage deals with Solomon's Temple and the products of Hiram the Bronzeworker:
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
1 Kings 7:23
The huge cast bronze basin in 1 Kings 7:23 was 10 cubits 1 in diameter and its circumference was 30 cubits, which is mathematically inaccurate. Almost any schoolboy knows that the circumference of a circle is not the diameter times 3, but rather, the diameter times a well-known constant called "pi".
The real value of pi is 3.14159265358979, but is commonly approximated by 22/7.
This is assumed, by many, to be an "error" in the Old Testament record, and is often presented as a skeptical rebuttal to the "inerrancy" of the Scripture. How can we say that the Bible is inerrant when it contains such an obvious geometrically incorrect statement? How do we deal with this?
24-Hour Hot Line
It is interesting that whenever we find such a thing, we should simply take it to the Throne and claim the commitment Jesus made His disciples:
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. - John 14:26
Is this really true? Then why don't we resort to it more often?
In this case, the Lord ultimately brought to our attention some subtleties usually overlooked in the Hebrew text. 2
A Spelling Lesson
The common word for circumference is qav. Here, however, the spelling of the word for circumference, qaveh, adds a heh (h).
In the Hebrew Bible, the scribes did not alter any text which they felt had been copied incorrectly. Rather, they noted in the margin what they thought the written text should be. The written variation is called a kethiv; and the marginal annotation is called the qere.
To the ancient scribes, this was also regarded as a remez, a hint of something deeper. This appears to be the clue to treat the word as a mathematical formula.
Numerical Values
The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number.
The q has a value of 100; the v has a value of 6; thus, the normal spelling would yield a numerical value of 106. The addition of the h, with a value of 5, increases the numerical value to 111. This indicates an adjustment of the ratio 111/106, or 31.41509433962 cubits. Assuming that a cubit was 1.5 ft., 3 this 15-foot-wide bowl would have had a circumference of 47.12388980385 feet.
This Hebrew "code" results in 47.12264150943 feet, or an error of less than 15 thousandths of an inch! (This error is 15 times better than the 22/7 estimate that we were accustomed to using in school!) How did they accomplish this? This accuracy would seem to vastly exceed the precision of their instrumentation. How would they know this? How was it encoded into the text?
Implications
Beyond simply these engineering insights of Solomon's day, there are more far-reaching implications of this passage.
1) The Bible is reliable. The "errors" pointed out by skeptics usually derive from misunderstandings or trivial quibbles.
2) The numerical values of the letters are legitimate and apparently can carry significance.
This, in itself, is a major controversy among some. There are some who maintain that the numerical assignments in the Hebrew alphabet were borrowed from the Greek alphabet in a later period, and the influence of Pythagoras, et al. (580-500 B.C.) However, the Babylonians also employed "gematria" (the numerical values of letters and words) during the time of Sargon II. The wall at Khorsabad was supposed to have been built according to the numerical value of Sargon's name. 4 The Hebrew use of an alphanumeric alphabet also predates these assumptions.
Fundamental Constants? The Mysteries of Pi and e
The Mysteries of Pi and eby Chuck Missler | |
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RESOURCES Learn the Bible in 24 Hours Hidden Treasures in the Biblical Text ARTICLES The Value of Pi |
The recent discovery that the speed of light is not a constant has created quite a stir - and rethinking - in both physics and cosmology. (Although the spate of recent articles always fails to credit Barry Setterfield for calling this to our attention over a decade ago!) However, there does appear to be at least two intrinsic constants in the universe: p and e.
We all met p ("pi") in school when we had to deal with the circumference of a circle and similar matters. "Pi are squared" sounds like bad grammar, but it is correct geometry for the area of a circle, p r 2 . We approximated it with 22/7, until we got into engineering circles where we learned that, more precisely, it was 3.141592654... (It has recently been calculated to a trillion decimal places! 1 ) As we have previously mentioned in several of our materials, p is also a "hidden treasure" in the Hebrew text of 1st Kings 7:23. 2 When one corrects the letter values for a variation of the spelling, the 46-foot circumference of Solomon's "molten sea" is specified to an accuracy of better than 15 thousandths of an inch !
Natural Logarithms
Perhaps less well known to most of our less technical subscribers is the base of Naperian ("natural") logarithms,e . It shows up in myriads of places in advanced engineering and mathematics such as:
| In wave mechanics, | X = Ae kt |
| Or electrical theory, | Q(t) = Qe -t/RC |
| In advanced math, | E i x = Cos x + i Sin x, where i = (-1) 1/2 |
| And the distribution of prime numbers: | A(x) = x/log e x |
| It is defined by | e = lim (1 + 1/n) n n - > ¥ |
and it is usually approximated by 2.718281828…
A Rabbinical Tradition
The ancient Hebrew sages believed, of course, that God created the heavens and the earth. However, some of them believed that the Word of God was the very template with which He did it. This strikes some of us as simply a colorful exaggeration that goes beyond any direct evidence. there are hints here and there… There are two well-known references to the creation in the Scripture: Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. Let's look "underneath" the text of each of these.
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
In Hebrew:
If you examine the numerical values of each of the Hebrew letters, and the numerical value of the words (see chart), and apply them to this formula:
The number of letters x the product of the letters
The number of words x the product of the words
You get 3.1416 x 10 17 . The value of p to four decimal places! Hmm.
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In Greek:
This time if you take the numerical value of each of the Greek letters (see chart), and the numerical value of the words, and apply them to the same formula:
The number of letters x the product of the letters
The number of words x the product of the words
You now get 2.7183 x 10 65 , the value of e. Curious!
Significance?
Each of these is another of those puzzling ostensible "coincidences" that are too astonishing to dismiss, and yet present challenges in suggesting any real significance. 3 And taken together, they do evoke some conjectures. There are, however, at least two problems: why just four decimal places (they both deviate from the fifth place onwards) and what do you do with all the "extra zeroes"?
I frankly don't know. Nevertheless, I thought it would be an excellent conversation piece as we return to our academic schedules this month. The rabbis would suggest that each of these may simply be a remez , a hint of something deeper.
Let me know if you have any suggestions. Meanwhile, let's continue to praise our Creator-Savior for His marvelous Word!
All the best,
Stephen