“And he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference. Below its brim were ornamental buds encircling it all around, ten to a cubit, all the way around the Sea. The ornamental buds were cast in two rows when it was cast. It stood on twelve oxen: three looking toward the north, three looking toward the west, three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; the Sea was set upon them, and all their back parts pointed inward. It was a handbreadth thick; and its brim was shaped like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It contained two thousand baths<\/em>” (I Kings 7:23-26).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The laver was called “the Sea” because it was so big. To give you a rough idea of how big it was, it was 18 feet in diameter (probably bigger than your living room) and held 16,000 gallons of water.<\/p>\n
Ahaz removes the bronze sea from the oxen II Kings 16:17<\/p><\/div>\n
First off, notice that the Sea had a brim; that is, there was a lip on the bowl that stuck out. There is one artist’s rendering of what it might have looked like. When we are measuring the brim, was it from the outside edge or the inside edge? It does make a difference because the bowl was handspan (roughly four inches) thick. Was the circumference measuring from the inside or the outside of the bowl? Was the circumference measured at the very top or a bit further down, say at the waterline level?<\/p>\n
Assuming the measurement for the diameter was outside to outside edge and the circumference was on the inside, we easily account for the missing 1.4 cubits that a 10 cubit bowl demands. A 10 cubit circumference would have a 9.55 cubit diameter. Assuming an 18-inch cubit, that gives us an 8.1-inch difference between the given diameter and the needed diameter for the circumference. That would mean the bowl’s thickness was roughly 4 inches thick (a handspan).<\/p>\n
Thus, there is no mathematical error. The only error is in assuming where the measurements were taken.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Is the Bible mathematically wrong in I Kings 7:23? If the diameter of the laver is 10 cubits, then shouldn’t the circumference be 31 cubits? Answer: “And he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[568,793,915],"class_list":["post-40660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-accuracy-of-the-bible","tag-apparent-contradictions","tag-i-kings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4044,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-was-the-sea-of-bronze\/","url_meta":{"origin":40660,"position":0},"title":"What was the Sea of Bronze?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What is the Sea Of Bronze? Answer: One of the furnishings in the tabernacle and the temple was a laver to hold water so that God's requirements for the priests to wash before doing certain ceremonies could be done. \"You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/03\/scan0002-300x211.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18190,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-solomons-sea-hold-2000-baths-or-over-3000-baths\/","url_meta":{"origin":40660,"position":1},"title":"Did Solomon’s Sea hold 2,000 baths or over 3,000 baths?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 10, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Did Solomon build a facility containing 2,000 baths (I Kings 7:26), or over 3,000 baths (II Chronicles 4:5)? Answer: \"Now he made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference. Under its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31029,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-goliath-six-cubits-and-a-span-or-four-cubits-and-a-span\/","url_meta":{"origin":40660,"position":2},"title":"Was Goliath six cubits and a span or four cubits and a span?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: The King James Bible reports the giant Goliath as \"six cubits and a span\" in height - over nine feet tall, (over 2.75 m) (I Samuel 17:4), but the Septuagint,\u00a0a Greek Bible, also gives Goliath's height as \"four cubits and a span\" (~2.00 m). 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John is trying to give us\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42787,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/archaeology-and-the-old-testament\/","url_meta":{"origin":40660,"position":4},"title":"Archaeology and the Old Testament","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Isaiah 41:21-29 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mankind\u2019s memories of the past are poor at best \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In general, we don\u2019t keep extensive records and those records we do keep are often on material that does not last. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There is a branch of science, called archeology that attempts to bring\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Joash-Inscription.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":56215,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-first-ancient-mariner\/","url_meta":{"origin":40660,"position":5},"title":"The First “Ancient Mariner”","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dillard Thurman in Gospel Minutes, May 8, 1964 The original story of \"The Ancient Mariner\" was written several centuries before \"The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner\" was added to our literature. 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