From: cjhs@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Quotes from the Bible.
Date: 18 Dec 92 10:14:15 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

HEATHER LEE FYFFE (910773f@axe.acadiau.ca) wrote:
: In article <BzCy0o.1v8@apollo.hp.com> stave@apollo.hp.com (Joel H. Stave) writes:
: >(quotes are from my online version of the bible)
: >  1st Kings, 7:23
: >  "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."
: >
: >  If its 10 cubits wide and 30 cubits around then pi = 3.
: >
: >  BUT - later it says:
: >
: >  1st Kings, 7:26
: >  "And it was a hand breadth thick, and the brim thereof was wrought
: >  like the brim of a cup...(blah blah blah)"
: >
: >  The argument that fundimental believers use is that the "10 cubits
: >  from one brim to the other" is the distance from the *outside* edge
: >  of the brim, while the "line of 30 cubits" is the *inside*
: >  circumfrence.  A cubit is 18 inches and a "hand breadth" could be
: >  considered 4 inches, so if you do the math using this twisted
: >  interpretation, pi comes out to just under 3.14 - any diffence can
: >  be explained away as inconsisancies in "hand breadth".
: >  Its silly, I know, but this is the argument used.

This atheist is embarassed everytime the pi=3 point comes up.
It is absurd to claim that this is any kind of evidence against
the bible being written by God. Especially when there are perfectly
reasonable arguments that could have been used.

: I agree, that may be stretching it.
: _But_, you must remember that handsbreaths and cubits were very subjective 
: measurements.  Is it possible that the description given is only meant to 
: give an idea of the size of the thing, and not to provide blueprints of how 
: to build yourself another one?  Isn't this known as significant figures?
: Would you rather 31.415926etc cubits?  The Bible is the word of God, but it 
: was written by men, who at that time simply didn't have such precise 
: measurement equipment, and even today that kind of appoximation is common 
: in all but scientific and architectural texts.  Just because somebody 
: rounded off when they described a circumference does NOT imply that God 
: thinks pi=3.

:   >>|> The sun revolves around the earth
: >Somewhere it mentions that God stops the sun in the sky.  It didn't
: >say that the sun *seemed* to stop moving in the sky, so it must be
: >literally moving, so it must go around the earth, rather than the
: >earth move around a stationary sun.
: 
: 
: Yeah, that's what it says, in Joshua (I don't know offhand exactly where).
: Once again though, remember that this was written by a man (Joshua himself I 
: believe, though I may be wrong), and for all the evidence he saw, the sun 
: stopped moving.  I'm sure we all, as children, thought the sun moved until 
: someone explained to us how WE are the ones moving... Well, noone had 
: explained it to Joshua, as noone had figured it out yet.  This statement by 
: a man is again no reason to conclude that God thinks the sun revolves around 
: the Earth.  

Here I think it is Heather who missed the point. If you are willing to
admit that the bible is written by people, and that the nature of its
(supposed) inspiration is other than simple dictation, then it is ok to
concede the existence of all sorts of errors in the bible.

The arguments being proposed here are to refute the suggestion that
the bible is literally the direct word of God. If we concede that
Joshua was written by Joshua (or more likely some priestly historian)
in words chosen by the historian, then the extreme literal approach
has already been abandoned.

Cheers -- Chris Ho-Stuart
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