Re: Peer review and ID

On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 18:51:19 -0600 (MDT) gordon brown
<gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu> writes:
>
> On Sat, 22 Oct 2005, D. F. Siemens, Jr. wrote:
>
> > Gordon,
> > You can produce a possible explanation for the ratio of the laver.
> But no
> > lagomorph (hare, Strong's 768) or hyrax (coney, 8225) chews the
> cud
> > (1625). The root of the last (1641) has a primary meaning of drag
> or drag
> > away, and is specifically associated with bringing up the cud.
> The
> > scriptures thus present the erroneous natural history of
> antiquity. The
> > claim I have encountered that the hare ingesting some of its feces
> is cud
> > chewing won't wash. The scriptures are not, contrary to a popular
> claim,
> > scientifically inerrant. Consequently, I consider it wiser to
> recognize a
> > crude estimate of pi, less exact when measures were a cubit, a
> span, a
> > hand, a fingerbreadth, a pace--all connected to human movement or,
> in
> > other cases, activity
> > Dave
> > .
> >
>
> I don't expect the Bible to be written in such a way as to be
> inconsistent
> with the scientific understanding of its original readers, but I
> would
> expect people who had made measurements to realize that pi is
> definitely
> greater than three. I would guess that the measurement of the
> circumference of the laver would be made by putting a string around
> the
> cylinder (if it was a cylinder) and for the diameter by laying a
> rod
> across the top, thus including the protrusion there.
>
> Gordon Brown
> Department of Mathematics
> University of Colorado
> Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>
I follow you on the shape. Whether cylindrical or hemispherical or of a
related shape, the top was circular. This gives us an outer diameter (od)
and an inner one (id). A cord can only be wrapped around the outer
circle, so we have pi x od. If the measurement across reached the outer
edge, the ratio (pi x od/od) would have to be ~3 1/7. However, the
measurement across might have involved the inner edge, in which case the
ratio (pi x od/id) would be >pi, not 3. According to I Kings 7:26 (od -
id)/2 = one handbreadth or about 7.5 cm.

What about measuring the diameter to the outside of the knobs? If the
cord stretched around the sea was 30 cubits, the diameter would have to
be about 9.55 cubits, requiring knobs stretching out about 10 cm.
However, there were 10 per cubit, that is, 10 in every 45 cm, roughly.
Even putting only 5 in each of the two rows, they wouldn't fit.

I think there is a further problem. A table of measures gives 1 cubit =
0.444 m; 1 bath = 38.88 l. I tried to run a quick calculation. It seems
that even a cylinder 10 cubits across and 5 cubits deep would not contain
2000 baths.

What have I misunderstood or missed?
Dave
Received on Mon Oct 24 00:14:11 2005