A new apologetic for PI
Michael W. Fisher mwfisher@cts.com
Thu, 15 Oct 1998 17:15:28 -0700 (00908514928, 000301bdf89a$14289d60$9d495ecc@mwfisher.cts.com)
>From a site, http://www.polnow.net/fredmw/bibleevidences/ I find the
following:
PI in the Bible
Another Biblical mathematical code. This one reveals the number for PI.
1 Kings 7:
23 He [Solomon] made the Sea of cast metal,
circular in shape, measuring
ten cubits from rim to rim [diameter = 10]
and five cubits high. It took a line of
thirty cubits to measure around it. [circumference = 30]
Since circumference = PI x diameter as any elementary geometry book will
tell you, but the Bible
"seemingly" tells us that PI = 3. Since "this is obviously false, therefore
the Bible cannot be from God..." is
how some people like to reason.
But obviously the wisdom of God is greater than the wisdom of man:
In this verse the word for "circumference" (QaVa in Hebrew) is written with
an extra letter (qavah).
Since in Hebrew all letters are also numbers, we can take the ratio of (the
gematriacal value of) the
unusual word form (qof, vaf, he ) to the regular word form (qof, vaf).
Given that (Gematria Table) Qof =
100, Vaf = 6 and He = 5 we find that
( 111 / 106 ) = ( 3.14150943... / 3 )
The real value: PI = 3.1415926...
The difference between 3 x 111/106 and PI is 0.0000832 which is only an
error of 0.00026%.
For comparison we hope to find out what the usually used approximation of
PI was at that time
(Solomon was King around 1000 B.C.)
The "sound exegesis" answer: The Bible is not a scientific text book
(though sometimes it makes
scientific statements) and this specific passage wasn't intended to reveal
the value of PI but to give a
description of what the temple and its "furnishing" objects looked like.
But given that the value "3" is
within less than 5% error compared to the real value of PI = 3.14159...
this is an acceptable
approximation, even though "31 cubits" length would have been the
(correctly rounded) answer that we
might have expected. But who knows what "rounding" entailed in these days.
And in a certain sense "30"
is a "rounder" number than "31". And these last remarks are made all under
the assumption that this
above mentioned astonishing approximation is NOT intended.
Another way of looking at it is taking into account the further information
a few verses later:
26 It [the above mentioned metal pool] was a handbreadth in thickness,
and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom.
It held two thousand baths. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
which we can imagine to be like:
`\ /' d = the measured diameter between
| | the extreme points of the rim
| |
| | but circumference is measured below
| | the rim at the actually smaller
| | diameter c
\_________________________/
*--------------d-----------------*
|/'
*-----------c------------*
Given this information and assuming that exact numbers are given we could
even calculate the width of
the rim, if we want to... [that is a home work problem for the interested
reader].
=================================================
ELF
No explanation is given for WHY " we can take the ratio of (the gematriacal
value of) the
unusual word form (qof, vaf, he ) to the regular word form (qof, vaf)", or
why any ancient writer would have hidden the value of PI in any word
however spelled (nor, of course, is anything but the writers assertion that
it is so offered for the variant spellings[oh, but for Yoel to return) ,
but desperation . . .
Since the inerrantists here are keeping their heads down, some may wish to
peruse the site for amusement.
Ciao!
Elf