King Solomon’s Temple Furnishings

April 1, 2004

Any beginning geometry student knows that

Circumference= π Diameter

In this bible passage, the Circumference is 30 cubits:  “It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it”.

The diameter is 10 cubits:  “measuring ten cubits from rim to rim”.

C=30

D=10

30 = 10 π

30 / 10 = π

π = 3

It is commonly known that the value of π is approximately 3.14159265358979. In fact, this value has been proven so exactly, that its value is known to hundreds of thousands of digits.

If, the Diameter is 10 cubits, then the Circumference has to be 31.4 cubits.  If the Circumference is 30 cubits, then the Diameter has to be 9.5 cubits.

So, what is the deal here? 
Why does the bible tell us that the value of π is 3?  Is the bible just rounding it off? 
If the bible does that, are there other passages we can let slid a little bit? 
When the bible says: “Thou shalt not kill.”  (Exodus 20), are we really allowed to kill up to 1.4 people?  When the bible says “Thou shalt not steal”, are we really allowed to steal up to half a cubit?  Perhaps when Deuteronomy 14:8 tells us not to eat pig, we can just ignore that completely.

Well, some of us; most of us; probably all of us …  do let things from the bible slide.  And probably none of us point to this bible passage as justification for our cavalier attitude towards the bible.  But, just in case you were:

Let’s look at the passage again.  This “Sea” is contained in some sort of vessel.  Every container has sides, and the volume of the liquid is 5 (π 4.75 ^ 2) cubits.  This is 354.4 cubic cubits of liquid.  Even if this liquid were simply water, this volume weighs quite a bit.   Therefore the vessel must have sides with considerable thickness to them. 

So, King Solomon’s container had to have an inner diameter and an outer diameter.  The passage says “measuring ten cubits from rim to rim”, and it would be logical to say that this is referring to the outside edge of the rim in other words:  the outer diameter.  The same verse says “It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.”  The antecedent to “it” is the Sea … the liquid itself, so it is reasonable to conclude that this would be the inner circumference of the vessel.

So, if the inner circumference is 30, the inner diameter must be 30 / π = 9.549

By subtracting the inner diameter from the outer diameter (.451), and dividing by 2 we find that the thickness of the vessel must be .2255 cubits. 

As I write this, I remember an old bit by Bill Cosby where he is acting out how he imaged the conversation between God and Noah went.  The last thing Noah asks God before the end of the bit is “What the hell is a cubit?”  I thought that was funny.  Anyway, 1 cubit = 17.5 inches[1].  So, .2255 cubits = 3.9 inches

In fact verse 5 says that “its rim was like the rim of a cup” a “handbreadth in thickness”. 

While the exact length of the Biblical handbreadth differs according to various scholars, it literally means the breadth of a hand, or approximately 3 to 4 inches—right about what we calculated![2]