Personal Update, April 1998
When I was a teenager, I was confronted by a skeptic (a Unitarian, actually) concerning an apparent discrepancy in 1 Kings 7:23. This passage deals with Solomon's Temple and the products of Hiram the Bronzeworker:
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. (1 Kings 7:23)
The huge cast bronze basin in 1 Kings 7:23 was 10 cubits (note
1) in diameter and its circumference was 30 cubits, which is mathematically
inaccurate. Almost any schoolboy knows that the circumference
of a circle is not the diameter times 3, but rather, the
diameter times a well-known constant called 
("Pi").
The real value of 7r is 3.14159265358979, but is commonly approximated by 22/7.
| This is assumed, by many, to be an "error" in the Old Testament record, and is often presented as a skeptical rebuttal to the "inerrancy" of the Scripture. |
How can we say that the Bible is inerrant when it contains such an obvious geometrically incorrect statement? How do we deal with this?
24-Hour Hot Line
It is interesting that whenever we find such a thing, we should simply take it to the Throne and claim the commitment Jesus made His disciples:
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (John 14:26)
Is this really true? Then why don't we resort to it more often?
In this case, the Lord ultimately brought to our attention some subtleties usually overlooked in the Hebrew text (2). In Hebrew, it reads:
A Spelling Lesson
The common word for circumference is 
(qav) Here, however, the
spelling of the word for circumference, 
(qaveh) adds a heh (h) 
as a conjunction
for the masculine singular noun.)
In the Hebrew Bible, the scribes did not alter any text which
they felt had been copied incorrectly. Rather, they noted in the
margin what they thought the written text should be. The written
variation is called a kethiv, 
and the marginal annotation
is called the qere 
To the ancient scribes, this was also regarded as a remez, a hint of something deeper. This appears to be the clue to treat the word as a mathematical formula.
Numerical Values
The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number.
The 
has a value of 100; the 
has a value of 6; thus,
the normal spelling would yield a numerical value of 106. The
addition of the with a value of 5, increases the numerical value
to 111. This indicates an adjustment of the ratio 111/ 106, or
31.41509433962 cubits. Assuming that a cubit was 1.5 ft. (3) this
15-foot-wide bowl would have had a circumference of 47.12388980385
feet.
This Hebrew "code" results in 47.12264150943 feet, or an error of less than 15 thousandths of an inch! (This error is 15 times better than the 22/7 estimate that we were accustomed to using in school!) How did they accomplish this? This accuracy would seem to vastly exceed the precision of their instrumentation. How would they know this? How was it encoded into the text?
Implications
Beyond simply these engineering insights of Solomon's day, there are more far-reaching implications of this passage.
1) The Bible is reliable. The "errors" pointed out by skeptics usually derive from misunderstandings or trivial quibbles.
2) The numerical values of the letters are legitimate and apparently can carry significance.
| The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number. |
This, in itself, is a major controversy among some. There are some who maintain that the numerical assignments in the Hebrew alphabet were borrowed from the Greek alphabet in a later period, and the influence of Pythagoras, et al. (580-500 B.C.) However, the Babylonians also employed "gematria" (the numerical values of letters and words) during the time of Sargon II. The wall at Khorsabad was supposed to have been built according to the numerical value of Sargon's name. (4) The Hebrew use of an alphanumeric alphabet also predates these assumptions.
Caveats
These numerical values of letters and words can, however, easily lead to mysticism, such as the subjective speculations of the Kabbalah of Judaism--or the mystical conjectures deriving from the Pythagorean Brotherhood--and this is spiritually hazardous and contrary to Scripture. (5)
When Pythagoras returned from travel and study in Babylon, India and Egypt, he founded a secret cult in southern Italy based on the numerical explanations for the phenomena of the universe. The Pythagoreans considered numbers to be the elements and origin of everything. While he is credited with the theory of the functional significance of numbers in the objective world and music, the bulk of his intellectual tradition belongs to mystical wisdom rather than scientific scholarship. (The famed Pythagorean theorem regarding the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle probably developed later in the Pythagorean school he founded.)
Pythagorean doctrine applied number relationships to music theory, acoustics, geometry, and astronomy, and deeply influenced the development of classical Greek philosophy and medieval European thought, including the astrological belief that the number harmony of the universe decidedly affects all human endeavor. This numerical mysticism also was embraced with the rise of Gnostic heresies, which plagued the early church and which also flowered in the medieval church. Numerical mysticism is also deeply involved in Freemasonry and other occultic practices.
The Bible warns against the occult. Spiritual warfare is a reality, (6) and there is great power in the occult. (7) We have serious enemies, that are extremely resourceful and malevolent. The Bible warns of a personal devil and myriads of demons, who should be regarded as cunning enemies," and who are active in the affairs of Planet Earth. (9) In fact, the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One. (10)
The devil's tactics include masquerading as an "angel of light" and a servant of righteousness. (11) False teachers and false prophets are linked to evil spirits, and there are "doctrines of demons." (12) Demons work through people by giving them psychic abilities. (13) Supernatural manifestations are to be tested by the Word of God. (14)
Excerpted from Cosmic Codes: Hidden Messages From the Edge of Eternity, by Chuck Missler).
Notes:
1. Hebrew ammah ("mother of the arm"), the forearm, was the nominal distance from one's elbow to the fingertip; the term "cubit" is from the Latin cubitus, the lower arm.
2. The answer to this difficulty was discovered by Shlomo Edward G. Belaga and appeared in Boaz Tsaban's Rabbinical Math page on the Internet, <http://www.cs.biu.ac.il:8080/~tsaban/hebrew.html> and is also reported in Grant Jeffrey's The Handwriting of God, Frontier Research Publications, Toronto Ontario, 1997.
3. There were several "official" cubits in the ancient world, varying from about 18 inches to almost two feet. Some authorities assume 20.24 inches for the ordinary cubit, and 21.888 inches for the sacred one. We have used 18 inches in this discussion.
4. Vincent F. Hopper, An Encyclopedia of Religion, Philosophical
Library, New York 1945, p.62.
5. Colossians 2:8; et al.
6. Ephesians 6:10-18; 2 Corinthians 2: 11; 1 Peter 5:8.
7. Isaiah 47:9.
8. Jn 8:44; 13:27; Mt 6:13; 9:34; 12:24; Lk 8:12; 13:16; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1: 13; 2 Thess 2:9; Acts 16:16-18; 2 Cor 2: 11; 11:3; 2 Tim 2:26.
9. Ephesians 2:2; Daniel 10:12, 13, 20.
10. 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 5:19.
11. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15.
12. 1 Timothy 4: 1; 1 John 4: 1.
13. Acts 16:16-19; Exodus 7:11, 22; 8:7.
14. 1 Jn 4: 1; Rev 2:2; Acts 17:10-12; Dent 18:20-22; Mt 24:24, etc.
These numerical values of letters and numbers can, however, easily lead to mysticism, and this is spiritually hazardous and contrary to Scripture.
Another craze has been recently stimulated by the publication of "Bible Codes" involving equidistant letter sequences. The dangers in these provocative "codes" will be the subject of subsequent articles in this series.
Original Articles: