Israel's Other Temple: Research Reveals Ancient Struggle over Holy Land

[mongers]

It's 95% accurate, if its estimate of the value of pi is any indication.

I don't get it.

Do the math, Pi is about 3 in the bible ?

[chipwich]

My understanding was once the upper class people got back from exile in Babylon the peasants and various yokels had a version of their original religion still going back home.  So there was a conflict between the Babylon version and the Judaism the locals had evolved on their own.  Is that the source of the Samaritans I wonder? 

Traditionally the Samaritans were descendents of the Northern tribes survivors of the Assyrian exile. They both returned to Palestine at the same time as the Judeans since Cyrus liberated  the former Assyrian territories at the same time as Iraq.

Nthing that this isn't a surprise. Did none of you go to Sunday school?

[grumbler]

Do the math, Pi is about 3 in the bible ?

Where, in the bible, does it say pi is "about 3' (which, of course, it is)?

A statement that pi is "about 3" is quite accurate, if not very precise.

[mongers]

Do the math, Pi is about 3 in the bible ?

Where, in the bible, does it say pi is "about 3' (which, of course, it is)?

A statement that pi is "about 3" is quite accurate, if not very precise.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Kings+7%3A23&version=KJV

1 Kings 7:23

King James Version (KJV)

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.

[grumbler]

1 Kings 7:23

King James Version (KJV)

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.

Don't see any mention of pi.  Unless you are going to argue that anything "round" must be perfectly circular.

[sbr]

1 Kings 7:23

King James Version (KJV)

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.

Don't see any mention of pi.  Unless you are going to argue that anything "round" must be perfectly circular.

That's not just "anything "round"", it is "round all about."  I read that as as pretty damn close to perfectly circular.

[grumbler]

That's not just "anything "round"", it is "round all about."  I read that as as pretty damn close to perfectly circular.

  Okay.  Whatever.  3 is pretty damn close to 3.14159. 

[The Brain]

[sbr]

I agree.

[The Minsky Moment]

At some point, the Israelites stopped sacrificing their first born sons to Baal.  That's a huge step.

You've lost me there.  Baal worship was common to the entire Levantine region.  And there isn't much evidence concerning widespread child sacrifice in the Judean Hill region in the first millenium BCE.