One of those supposed Bible errors!!

I was reminded earlier about this apparent contradiction. It is one of those verses that those with half a brain like to pounce on!! The Bible is allegedly "full" of contradictions, and this is the best they can come up with!!

"23Now he made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference. 24Under its brim gourds went around encircling it ten to a cubit, completely surrounding the sea; the gourds were in two rows, cast with the rest. 25It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east; and the sea was set on top of them, and all their rear parts turned inward. 26It was a handbreadth thick, and its brim was made like the brim of a cup, as a lily blossom; it could hold two thousand baths." 1 Kings 7:23-26

OK, in here are some simple maths measurements. We have a diameter and a circumference. We remember that from maths don't we?!

OK, the circumference is 2 times pi times the radius, or as I preferred to condense it, pi times the diameter! Pi is some weird number like, 3.1415 and so on ad infintitum!

So we have a diameter of ten and a circumference of thirty. Now even with quick mental maths we can see that thirty is 3 times ten and not 3.1415 times ten! Now, am I going to say that they were talking roughly?! No, they were very precise. The problem is that looking at it it would seem if we say the bible is infallible then here we have a very simple maths error.

Here's how to do the maths, for those who don't know and think this is an error!

The measurement from brim to brim, is the external diameter. The circumference is the internal measurement! The brim is said to be a handswidth thick. Now it is not really known what these two measurements were if converted into inches, but for arguments sake let's say a hand's breadth is what we call a hand, which is 4 inches. Now let's take the standard measure of a cubit as 18 inches.

The diameter is ten times 18 minus two times 4 which is 172 inches. Now, 3.1415 times 172=540.338 inches, if we divide that by 18 we get 30.0187 cubits. Now, we don't know the exact measurements of a hand or a cubit as they used them, but I would say that even guessing at them that comes out pretty damn acurate, wouldn't you?!!