That's not what the Bible says! -or- Bob Jones vs Pi

[dropzone]

I am not a mathematician. I managed to have a career as “engineer” by using tables and formulae taken from books aimed at my fellow engineers without formal education. CAD was godsend as I no longer had to figure out the area of an arc segment by drawing it extra large, dividing it into a bunch of rectangles, treating the leftover bits like itty bitty triangles, and tossing in a fudge factor. In retrospect, knowing what I was doing would have been faster, and an eensy bit more accurate.

Every few years I resolve to cure my ignorance. I buy a cheap, elementary math text, stare at it for a lunch hour or two, then abandon it on the sale table at the library. This time it was a geometry textbook that turned out to have been published by Bob Jones University. I first hear of that institution in the late '60s, when the security guards were issued submachine guns to repel an expected hippie invasion. Well worth a buck, if only for the laughs.

Now, I was in Roman Catholic schools until high school, so know how religion can make itself known in the oddest places. For instance, it wasn’t until I was fourteen that I learned that Protestants were also involved in American History. I had learned about Fathers Marquette (explored the Mississippi) and Serra (founded all those missions in Califas that became the cities named San, Santa, or Los Whatever), St Isaac Jogues (the nuns told us the Mohawk cut off his thumbs so he could only serve Communion with his forefingers–this stuff sticks when you are nine, even if it isn’t precisely accurate), but the books didn’t mention JFK because they were too old. Presidentially we had to be satisfied with Al Smith.

Our other texts were decorated with the usual Imprimaturs and Nihil Obstats, but Math, at least, was mostly religion free. Not so with ol’ Bob! This book has short biographies of some of the non-Catholic giants of mathematics, and there are interjections of religion in some. In Euclid’s biography there is this note:

@BJU

Euclid’s works, like the Scriptures, would not exist today if they had not been hand copied many times. The oldest known copy of The Elements is dated A.D. 380, at least 650 years after it was written. In contrast, the oldest copies of the New Testament are from the second century A.D., less than 100 year after its writing. No scholars dispute the reality of Euclid, his existence 300 years before Christ, or his teachings. Liberals, however, attack the apostles on these grounds, even though there are many times more ancient manuscripts of the New Testament and archaeological finds to confirm Bible history.

There are other sections named “Geometry and Scripture.” Here they get into the issue of Pi, as defined in I Kings 7:23-26:

@BJU

Notice that the Jews measured circumference by stretching a line around a circle. Compare this with the discussion of circumference (p 98). Notice also that pi=30/10=3 from these verses.

Be careful, though! It does seem close to 3.14159, but some ancient civilizations already had better estimates for pi. Egypt used 4 * (8/9)[super]2[/super] or 3.16 and Babylon used 3-1/8 or 3.125. Because some civilizations had more accurate estimates, some modern critics have called this an error in the bible.God knows everything! He knows more than the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and modern critics. Let’s look more closely at what God said.

8. Reread the diameter measurement. It measures from where to where?

9. Reread the circumference measurement. What does it measure around?

10. Does the sea have the same diameter as the brim according to verse 26? What is the diameter of the brim?

11. Use the conversions from Chapter 3 to give these measurements in inches: AD, AB, AC, BC, and the sea’s circumference.

12. Using problem 11, what do you get for the value of pi? Is it better or worse than the ancient values listed above?

Ooh! A test! I can’t do math, but I was born doing tests!

To illustrate the problem they show two concentric circles, the larger labeled “brim” and the smaller “sea.” There is a line segment across the diameter of the brim with point A at the start, B and C where it crosses the left and right edges of the sea, and D at the right end.

So for question 8 the diameter of the sea is BC, or 10 cubits. The accepted length of a cubit is 18 inches, so the diameter is 180 inches. For question 9 the circumference is measured around the sea, being 30 cubits, or 540 inches. And for question 10, obviously the sea does not have the same diameter as the brim, since the brim is 1 handbreadth wide. Mine measures about 3.25 inches wide, depending on where I measure it, but given that the Ancients were crazy for fractions I will round that down to 3 inches, or 1/6 cubit. So let’s get the answers for 11:

AD = 186 inches
AB = 3 inches
AC = 183 inches, but that’s a pointless dimension irrelevant to the problem
BC = 180 inches

Circumference of the sea = BC * pi = 585.4862, or 31.4159 cubits.

Wait–that’s more than 30 cubits! It is better than the other ancients, because I used pi. Or was I supposed to interpret the verse differently? “And He made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other…and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.” Hmmm, a reasonable person would see “from brim to brim” as an inside dimension, the same way we don’t measure the width of the Atlantic from California to Kamchatka the long way around, but maybe God wants us to measure from the outside, AD, with the diameter also measured on the outside, which I admit would be much easier to measure in the field. That would be 10.33 cubits and 30 cubits divided by 10.33 cubits gives us a value of 2.904 cubits. Which is less than the Egyptians, or even what we had before. My calculator is so going to Hell.

Further research shows that this is a common heresy taught by Fundamentalist Christians:

@http://creation.com/does-the-bible-say-pi-equals-3

The first concerns the meaning of the word cubit, and how it would have been used in measuring the vessel. A cubit was the length of a man’s forearm from the elbow to the extended fingertips. The Hebrew cubit was about 45 centimetres (18 inches). It is obvious that a man’s forearm does not readily lend itself to the measurement of fractions of a forearm. In the Bible half a cubit is mentioned several times, but there is no mention of a third part of a cubit or a fourth part of a cubit, even though these fractions of ‘a third part’ and ‘a fourth part’ were used in volume and weight measurements.2 It therefore seems highly probable that any measurement of more than half a cubit would have been counted as a full cubit, and any measurement of less than half a cubit would have been rounded down to the nearest full cubit.

From 1 Kings 7:23 (‘a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about’), it appears that the circumference was measured with ‘a line’, i.e. a piece of string or cord on which the distance was marked, and this length would then have been measured off in cubits by the measurer, using his own or someone else’s forearm, or possibly a cubit-long rod. Similarly the diameter would have been marked on a line and ‘cubitized’ in the same way.

If the actual diameter was 9.65 cubits, for example, this would have been reckoned as 10 cubits. The actual circumference would then have been 30.32 cubits. This would have been reckoned as 30 cubits (9.6 cubits diameter gives 30.14 circumference, and so on). The ratio of true circumference to true diameter would then have been 30.32÷ 9.65 = 3.14, the true value for pi, even though the measured value (i.e. to the nearest cubit) was 30 ÷ 10 = 3.

…

Let us consider the details given in 1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2. These are:

The diameter of 10 cubits was measured ‘from brim to brim’ (v. 23), i.e. from the topmost point of the brim on one side to the topmost point of the brim on the other side (points A and B in the diagram).

The circumference of 30 cubits was measured with a line, ‘round about’ (v. 23), i.e. the most natural meaning of these words is that they refer to the circumference of the outside of the main body of the tank, measured by a string pulled tightly around the vessel below the brim. It is very obvious that the diameter of the main body of the tank was less than the diameter of the top of the brim. And it is also obvious that the circumference of 30 cubits could have been measured at any point down the vertical sides of the vessel, below the brim. For a measured circumference of 30 cubits, we can calculate what the external diameter of the vessel would have been at that point from the formula:

diameter = circumference ÷ pi = 30 cubits ÷ 3.14 = 	9.55 cubits.

Thus the external diameter of the vessel at the point where the circumference was measured must have been 9.55 cubits.

Which the author rounds up to ten cubits instead of down to nine-and-a-half cubits to make the Bible right, though he just noted that God uses half cubits in the Bible. And measuring the circumference anywhere you damn well please gives me the vapors.

When she teaches Sunday School for preschoolers, my wife has a game in which she tells a Bible story, then retells it, inserting patent nonsense, like “Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a Harley Davidson motorcycle,” that causes the kids to call out, “That’s not what the Bible says!” But she belongs to a Catholic Lite denomination and can be expected to play fast and loose with Biblical Truth. And Bob Jones University permits the use of some translations in addition to the King James Version, so plenty of people find their Christianity impure, even evil. But every translation uses the same ten cubit/thirty cubit numbers, and acknowledges that God had created a universe of better than clockwork precision. He is not a god of rounding errors, twisted logic, willy-nilly measurements, or fuzzy math. He has Satan, the Prince of Lies, for that shit. Which leaves me with the inescapable conclusions that in God’s heavenly realm pi = 3 and that it only appears otherwise here because the Cathars were right and Satan, creator and ruler of this earthly realm, lies to us every day through his tools, like my TI-55 III calculator, though the imps at TI changed the keyboard from the utterly satanic one used in the TI-55 II. Satan may lie to us, but he hates keybounce, too.

Other than that, the textbook is pretty good.

[dropzone]

Note: Because it is so mild this was supposed to go into MPSIMS, not the Pit (I pressed the wrong button), but I suppose I’ll get the same accusations of shooting fish in a barrel anywhere.

[Morgenstern]

@dropzone

… He has Satan, the Prince of Lies, for that shit. Which leaves me with the inescapable conclusions that in God’s heavenly realm pi = 3 and that it only appears otherwise here because the Cathars were right and Satan, creator and ruler of this earthly realm, lies to us every day through his tools, like my TI-55 III calculator, though the imps at TI changed the keyboard from the utterly satanic one used in the TI-55 II. Satan may lie to us, but he hates keybounce, too.

…

Satan was my Chem 1A & 1B professor. He had a slide rule then.

[Knowed_Out]

@dropzone

Note: Because it is so mild this was supposed to go into MPSIMS, not the Pit (I pressed the wrong button), but I suppose I’ll get the same accusations of shooting fish in a barrel anywhere.

Maybe you used the wrong value for pi when you counted down the forum list.

[Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake]

FWIW, I am a mathematician, and I have read the whole bible. That shit’s totally like, “hey, everybody, pi is 3.” Like, all over the place.

[dropzone]

I know you are being sarcastic, but He only needed to say it once. Like the bumper stickers say, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” For approximate values of pi, of course.

My point is that it amuses me to no end watching the twists and turns some people make to “prove” the inerrancy of the Bible, while others look at those verses and, like the workers who built the sea, say, “Close enough for [del]government[/del] religious work,” and make it work. “Just make it work,” being what management tells workers, apparently since time immemorial, when a design bumps up against reality.

[elucidator]

When come back, bring pi.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake

FWIW, I am a mathematician, and I have read the whole bible. That shit’s totally like, “hey, everybody, pi is 3.” Like, all over the place.

Okay, this made me LOL.

[elucidator]

@dropzone

… in the late '60s, when the security guards were issued submachine guns to repel an expected hippie invasion…

We were going to, but more on the lines of an infiltration than “invasion”. We were alarmed and dismayed at reports that Bob Jones U was the last major preserve for the free-range American virgin. (Nature abhors a vacuum, but celibacy is right up there, and vacuums do not require action. Nor do they inspire enthusiastic volunteerism.)

However, information derived from exploratory investigation revealed that the threat was wildly exaggerated, and no further action was required, as the incidence of inappropriate hymen preservation was far, far less than had been suggested. (Much like similar probes of the population of Baylor University, in my home town.)

[Kobal2]

@dropzone

while others look at those verses and, like the workers who built the sea, say, “Close enough for [del]government[/del] religious work,” and make it work. “Just make it work,” being what management tells workers, apparently since time immemorial, when a design bumps up against reality.

Ain’t nothing wrong with a kludged faith. Just wrap enough duct tape around it to cover the plot holes and call it a day.

[Emtar_KronJonDerSohn]

What kind of animal even considers partial cubits? That.14159 is someone’s fingers you dirty bloodthirsty heathen!

[dropzone]

Just his fingertips. Easily sacrificed for the good of biblical inerrancy.

[elucidator]

Cut off the tip of a finger? Like that’s a big deal, or something?

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

No scholars dispute the reality of Euclid, his existence 300 years before Christ, or his teachings. Liberals, however, attack the apostles on these grounds, even though there are many times more ancient manuscripts of the New Testament and archaeological finds to confirm Bible history.

At least we get closer to the definition of ‘liberal’.

[Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake]

@BJU

No scholars dispute the reality of Euclid, his existence 300 years before Christ, or his teachings. Liberals, however, attack the apostles on these grounds, even though there are many times more ancient manuscripts of the New Testament and archaeological finds to confirm Bible history.

OK, I got this.

I’m a liberal academic professor whatnot.

I totally dispute the existence of Euclid. In class. Like, to my students.

As far as I can tell, it’s just as likely that “Euclid” was a school of mathematicians, and that The Elements was simply their introductory textbook.

…and I lifted this so-called liberal heresy from wikipedia.

[dropzone]

That’s your problem. You should’ve used Conservapedia, where they prefer their ancient history a little less relativistic and a little more absolute.

Oddly, they don’t seem to have any qualms about quantum mechanics.

[Derleth]

Liberals, however, attack the apostles on these grounds, even though there are many times more ancient manuscripts of the New Testament and archaeological finds to confirm Bible history.

Actually, no. The existence of Jesus and the apostles doesn’t seem to be seriously doubted even in the most Liberal of Liberal Academia, at least in the parts of it concerned with History, as opposed to Philosophy, where if you aren’t disputing the “existence” (thing as thing, as opposed to thing as essence, or thing as such, or thing as ding, or thing as that thing over there) of five patently obvious objects you’re just not trying.

Of course, they have the temerity to question the reality of the miracles, the soundness of the logic used to prop up the miracles, and the goodness of the moral teachings, but that just means they’re Hell-bound.

There are people who doubt that Jesus (and, I suppose, the apostles, too) existed, but they’re not mainstream and typically not very academic.

[RTFirefly]

If I were in a conversation with someone from BJU or wherever, what I’d be asking for is the Magic Formula that they use to distinguish the verses that don’t need any special workarounds and explanations - i.e. the ones where they just shout, THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD!! - and the multitude of verses that do.*

AFAICT, the Magic Formula itself is nowhere in Scripture, so it must be the work of humans, not God.
*E.g. why don’t inerrantists have rails around the roofs of their houses, like Deuteronomy instructs them to? With OT dietary laws, they can say Peter’s dream in Acts said those laws were no longer applicable (even though, oddly enough, that’s not what Peter himself said the dream meant), but this isn’t a dietary law. So it should still be binding.