The example of Solomon's "Sea" is one of my favourite examples of an argument sceptics should not use (to parallel the arguments creationists should not listed by AiG). It is a really dreadful argument. There are perfectly sensible reasons why the numbers would not be exact; but even more amusingly there is nothing in the passage to prevent the dimensions being given with perfect accuracy.
Sceptical discussion mostly just assumes that the two measurements -- 10 cubits and 30 cubits -- apply to the same circle.
They don't.
This is not special pleading, or esoteric avoidance of hard questions, or projections and assumptions added to the text. Just read the passage from the bible; it is unambiguous and explicit that the two measures are not applied to the same circle, and the description on the face of it is such that we should
expect a ratio significantly less than pi.
And he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference. Below its brim were ornamental buds encircling it all around, ten to a cubit, all the way around the Sea. The ornamental buds were cast in two rows when it was cast. It stood on twelve oxen: three looking toward the north, three looking toward the west, three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; the Sea was set upon them, and all their back parts pointed inward. It was a handbreadth thick; and its brim was shaped like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It contained two thousand baths.
1 Kings 7:23-28 (NKJV)
The passage also refers to the method of measurement, which was standard in those times. They used lines, or strings.
One line was around the circumference. Now, how do you measure a circumference? Not across the top; your line will fall off. You measure it around the main trunk, below the brim.
The measure from one brim to the other was ten cubits. This also would be measured with a line, and you can't measure across at the same point you measure the circumference. You have to measure across the top, above the brim.
Would these two circles have the same dimension? Yes, if this was an unadorned pipe. No, if this was a vessel ornamented as described in the passage.
The brim is described; it is like a lily blossom. That means that it opens out from the middle, and extends beyond the main trunk. That means that even if no numbers had been given, the physical description alone is sufficient for confidence that the measure around the trunk will be less than pi times the measure across the top.
The description of the measurements is my own; the ideas I obtained from
Answers in Genesis, who are in this case perfectly correct to dismiss the sceptical argument as absurd and poorly thought out.
Cheers -- Sylas
(Edited to correct the quoted passage from the bible. I originally left out six of the oxen. Thanks to Rocket for pointing this out. I have applied the correction in a slightly different color, so that Rocket's subsequent reply still makes sense.)
[This message has been edited by Sylas, 04-07-2004]
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