16/04/2026

i have job :D anyway

1 Kings 7:23, π = 3 and the universal obligation of partial belief

i am not a religious man, but i play one on tv. i have at least a passing interest in (analyses of) scripture, and being the western yokel i am, i'm most familiar with the new york times best-seller "BOOKS". of course, with me having the reading patience of a contemporary preschooler, i haven't actually read it cover-to-cover, but then few people actually have, so i should have at least some authority on the matter

anyway the most familiar version of the verse in the title is this:

cubit is an old word for half a yard. now, i don't blame you if you didn't catch it, it took me a while too before i got it. the issue is this: the encompassing line should be at least 31 cubits long. anyone who paid attention in math class knows that the circumference of a circle is 2πr, or the diameter times pi. it's a classic gotcha, so let's talk about it

verses that seem like logical contradictions on the surface are really nothing new in this discipline. many christians who are way more qualified than i am have already offered resolutions to many of them. for even more people, stuff like this is a complete non-issue. despite that, i think it's useful that more people are aware of contradictions like these, and not even necessarily as a means of deconstructing religion. if your worldview isn't shattered by little things like this, all the more power to you

which brings me to the people who should be concerned: those who take the bible as literal truth, word for word, in the present day. it's a minority to be sure, but they are out there. what can they do about this verse, as to ensure that pi remains pi?

one common resolution is to measure two different circles. suppose that, instead of measuring the outside edge of the molten sea, you measure the inside edge. however, you still measure the distance between the two poles of the outside edges. this also leaves you with a thickness of 0.45 cubits (for scale, that's a 20cm thick rind)
another is to posit that it's ever so slightly elliptical. lo and behold, with a major radius of 5 and a minor radius of about 4.54, you get a circumference of 30. with stuff that large, you could forgive an iron-age civilization for not making a perfect circle
another, more cynical possibility is that you could get your ropes calibrated by two different guys. tal's particularly short cubit was used for the diameter, and yossi's particularly long cubit was used for the circumference. it could just be a matter of forearm length if the measurement was actually done by hand after the fact
lastly, they could've just estimated it. they saw about 10 cubits across from the ground, figured 3 was a good enough number for calculating the circumference, and wrote that down. decimal points weren't invented yet and the trusty abacus is only as powerful as its user

(one particularly psychotic interpretation i came across while """"researching"""" this is about the hebrew word used to describe the tool for measuring 30 cubits, קוה. as far as i know, this is a non-standard version of קו (kav), meaning "line". using this word and some hebrew numeral division bullshit, they got an approximation of pi. sure, verbs are weird in the, like, 20 words of hebrew i know, but i'm pretty sure this word choice isn't the author trying to tell me he definitely knows the value of pi)

they are all plausible to some extent (except the one), with some leaning towards mathematical correctness and others leaning towards historical convenience. the kicker is this: are any of these interpretations natural readings of an infallible text? by huram's hand and king solomon's command, did god design, with full intention, this mathematical disaster of a molten sea? if "round all about" means a divinely commanded perfect circle, does pi equal 3 in the kingdom of heaven? is all math deeply, irrevocably heretical for making pi irrational?

it's absurdities like these that make biblical literalism completely unworkable. even if you think i'm dumb for not being one of you, proclaiming the bible to be an absolute, incontrovertible truth means undoing even the most basic innovations in human knowledge, stuff that we take for granted. the factual information in a fossilized, prescientific document is desperately due for revision if it is to remain relevant today

it's a relief, then, that the vast majority of christians don't give this verse a second thought. they all learn that π = 3.14 or thereabouts, they don't point to this verse in church, and solomon's palace is remembered in images rather than measurements, if at all. 1 kings 7:23 has zero bearing on their worldview, and even less on the worldview of our secular society, and that's decidedly a good thing

the moral is that it's okay, even commendable, dare i say required, to be selective in what you believe. if you can point to a single source (not written by you) that encapsulates literally everything you believe in for a given discipline, you're doing it wrong, and it probably doesn't encapsulate literally everything either. when it becomes okay to acknowledge that people are wrong sometimes, you let yourself and your community stand on more solid ground by accounting for that

all of that is rich coming from me, i expect perfection NOW