1 Kings 7:23 He also made the large bronze basin called “The Sea.” It measured 15 feet from rim to rim, was circular in shape, and stood seven-and-a-half feet high. Its circumference was 45 feet.

2 Chron 4:2 He also made the big bronze basin called “The Sea.” It measured 15 feet from rim to rim, was circular in shape, and stood seven and one-half feet high. Its circumference was 45 feet.

How precise are the dimensions given in these passages for the bronze basin (15 feet in diameter, 45 feet in circumference)?

I discuss this, not because I think it’s intrinsically important, but because of its bearing on the debate about biblical inerrancy.

Most scholars who express an opinion say that the dimensions given here are approximate.  This does not please some inerrantists, as Bill Mounce writes:

‘My dad [Robert Mounce], a well-respected New Testament scholar, wrote an article years ago about a supposed error in the Bible. It concerned the large caldron located in front of Solomon’s temple that was called the “bronze Sea.” The text says it was ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference…However, we learned in high school math that you can’t express the diameter and circumference of any object in real numbers—you must use pi. Did the Chronicler make an error here? Of course not. As my dad argued, it’s an approximation.

‘A condescending author wrote that Dad was wrong and had a deficient view of inspiration, claiming that if you measured the inside circumference of the caldron and the outside diameter, the measurements were exact. Not only was this comment foolish—the numbers still don’t add up, and I wonder if the author ever saw a handmade object—but it was cruel. My father was no longer allowed to be a conference speaker at a well-known Christian ministry that my family had been involved with for years, all because this author had concluded that Dad had a low view of Scripture.’

(Why I Trust the Bible)

The ‘condescending author’ referred to is Harold Lindsell, writing in The Battle for the Bible (p165f).

According to this summary:

‘The text says that the sea was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in circumference. According to mathematical theory, a ten cubit diameter should yield a circumference of 31.4 cubits. Lindsell solves this discrepancy by suggesting that the sea walls were probably four inches thick and that the circumference described in the text referred to the inside of the sea. So an outside diameter of ten cubits would yield an inside circumference of 30 cubits.’

I note in passing that Lindsell assumes a standard length for a cubit: ‘a cubit was a cubit was a cubit’.  But, according to the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch:

‘As with weights, precision was rarely an issue with lengths and distances in ancient Israel. For example, the basic unit of length was the cubit; however, its precise length varied from place to place and from time to time. In Deuteronomy 3:11, a cubit is defined as the length of a forearm—and because body lengths vary, so must the length of a cubit. According to 2 Chronicles 3:3, Solomon’s temple was constructed based upon the old standard of cubits, indicating that there must have existed a new standard of cubit length. Ezekiel defined a cubit as 20.6 inches (Ezek 40:5). The Roman cubit used in NT Palestine was seventeen inches. As O. R. Sellers comments, “That there were different cubits in Israel is clear”.’

But to return to the main point: Lindsell’s proposal that the measurements pertain to the inside circumference and outside diameter is conjectural.  It is, in fact, a case of reading data into the biblical text in order to arrive at the desired conclusion.

Ryrie (Dr Ryrie’s Articles) offers the same attempted solution in What You Should Know About Inerrancy.  He thinks that Mounce’s approach, which understands the numbers as approximate and yet ‘inerrant’, involves ‘sleight of hand’.

Lindsell and Ryrie, then, regard the dimensions given in these two passages as accurate, and not approximations.  To regard them as approximations is to deny biblical inerrancy.  It is ironic, that Norman Geisler (always eager to ‘name and shame’ those who do not aspire to his own standard of inerrancy) , has no hesitation in declaring these dimensions to be approximate.  Geisler states bluntly that the text gives an ‘inaccurate’ value of pi.

In the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Geisler identifies two problems with Lindsell’s view:

‘First, one has to assume a width of the bronze container of 21 cubits, which is not stated in the text. Second, one must assume that the diameter is measured from the outside but the circumference from the outside. But this seems unusual and is not mentioned in the text.’

It is a mistake, write Geisler and Howe, to assume that ’round numbers are false’:

‘Like most ordinary speech, the Bible uses round numbers (1 Chron. 19:18; 21:5). For example, it refers to the diameter as being about one third of the circumference of something. It may be imprecise from the standpoint of a contemporary technological society to speak of 3.14159265 … as the number three, but it is not incorrect for an ancient, non-technological people. Three and fourteen hundredths can be rounded off to three. That is sufficient for a “Sea of cast metal” (2 Chron. 4:2, NIV) in an ancient Hebrew temple, even though it would not suffice for a computer in a modern rocket. But one should not expect scientific precision in a prescientific age. In fact, it would be as anachronistic as wearing a wrist watch in a Shakespearian play.’

‘[…] This is not an error. The biblical record of the various measurements of the different parts of the temple are not necessarily designed to provide precise scientific or mathematical calculations. Rather, the Scripture simply provides a reasonable approximation. The rounding of numbers or the reporting of approximate values or measurements was a common practice in ancient times when exact scientific calculations were not used.’

(When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook of Bible Difficulties)

(Geisler and Nix write similarly in A General Introduction to the Bible).  So does Gleason Archer (another staunch inerrantist) in the New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (commenting on 1 Kings 7:23).

So also another publication committed to biblical inerrancy – the Apologetics Study Bible for Students (in a note on 1 Kings 7:23):

‘By pointing to the measurements for the circular bath taken from this passage (also see 2Ch 4:2), many skeptics have claimed that the Bible lists an incorrect value for the mathematical constant pi (beginning with the numbers “3.14159265 …”) that is used to measure the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. According to the numbers given here, the circumference appears to be 3.0. Yet it must be understood that biblical numbers are often rounded, something we still do today. For instance, instead of casually saying that an item at the store costs exactly $19.53, it might be said that the item is $20; instead of saying 64,843 attended a football game, we might say there were 65,000 fans and still be considered accurate. When we consider the fact that the commonly stated value 3.14 is actually a rounding down of pi, we see that the Bible should not be faulted to using an approximation to describe a number that is infinitely complex and long.’

Many evangelical commentators pass over this issue without mentioning it.  Of those which do mention it, the Evangelical Commentary on the Bible states:

‘The dimensions of the bronze basin (15 × 45 ft.) are approximate at best.’

Dillard (WBC) discusses the dimensions of the Sea.  He thinks, with Mounce and others, that the dimensions given are probably approximations:

‘Many commentators have noted that the circumference of the Sea (thirty cubits) divided by its diameter (ten cubits) does not yield the value of π (3.14159). Most likely the number thirty represents a round figure for the circumference. Some suggest that thirty cubits was the circumference of the inside rim, while if a handbreadth were added (ca. three inches; cf. v 5), the circumference of the outside rim would approach the figure for π quite closely. Zuidhof (BA 45 [1982]) suggests that the diameter was measured from rim to rim, but that the circumference was measured at the narrower waist beneath the flared, lily-like rim (v 5), the point at which it would be easiest to draw a line around the vessel.’

Conclusion

My conclusion is that, once again, the term ‘inerrancy’, in the context of the truthfulness of the Bible, is irrelevant.   Or, rather, it is meaningless.  If its keenest advocates cannot agree on its meaning; if they cannot agree on what standard of factual accuracy is required; if it is subjected to a thousand qualifications; if it is wielded as a blunt instrument to ‘cancel’ people with whom you disagree; if it distracts the reader from the main point of a biblical text; if it forces people to retreat into into the safety of (what James Barr called) ‘maximal conservatism’; – then it does more harm than good.