According to mathematics, Solomon's temple (where dat?) was made of solid gold with no place for the 7000 wives to sit and knit! Poor Brum and Gregoree! They don't even try to defend Scripture. It is (after all)...so devastatingly absurd! But then why do they put on their little "we are the superior chosen people" act??
The Bible is Mathematically Impossible
Or, the alternate title, Solomon's Tardis.
And no, I don't mean the whole pi = 3 thing. I did a quick calculation in my head on that passage, and that mistake is well within the error margin for the number of digits given.
Nah, I got something much funnier. You see, there's a page on this website that lists biblical contradictions. Now most could probably be explained away in some convoluted matter (poorly, but hey, we all know that). But this? This is funnier. And you can't argue with math.
Here's the cut and paste of the notepad I kept to keep track of my work...
[COLLAPSED] Quote:Solomon’s Temple (http://thethinkingatheist.com/page/bible...adictions) 1 Kings 6:2 The temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high. 1 Kings 5:15-16: Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stone cutters in the hills, as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen. Why were 153,300 p...[SNIP]...4.899 lb/ft3 gold weight = 7 million lbs gold volume = 5810 ft3 (cube = 17 ft/side) density of silver = 655.515 lb/ft3 silver weight = 75 million silver volume = 114414 ft3 (cube = 48 ft/side) Total volume = 120224 (cube = 49.35 ft3) Size of Cubit = 1.7225 ft Size of Temple = 60 x 20 x 30 (cubits)= 36000 cubits = 62010 ft3 (If the building were a perfect cube side length would be 39.58 ft)
Look carefully at the temple volume and the total volume of JUST the silver and gold. The total volume of the riches of gold could not fit in the temple, even if the temple itself was just a solid block of gold and silver. The passage also mentions quantities of bronze and iron too great to mention, which meant they were at least the same 75 million pounds as the silver. They each weigh about 80% as much as silver, so even taking the most conservative estimate (And leaving out the stone and wood altogether) this building was at least three times too small to be even a solid structure of gold, silver, iron and bronze, and almost certainly at least four times.
For reference, let's go with the combined volume of all those four components at the 4x volume. That means that a solid cube of the materials that went into the building would be about 63 feet long on all sides, assuming the quantities of iron and bronze were only there in slightly larger quantities than the silver, and without counting stone and wood.
Biblical inerrancy is mathematically out the window. 'Interpretations' aren't allowed here, because, I'm sorry, numbers don't get interpreted. The only way out is to admit that the Bible has some mistakes in it. Or point out to me how these two temples (Which are reference in different books) aren't the same. That's not unreasonable, I never bothered to check the bible (Because reading the bible is not nearly as fun as math). Or lastly, point out that this page does not properly convert the ancient units. But if they are the temples are the same, and the pages math and my math are correct, this is a contradiction in the Bible that no amount of apologist clap-trap can even attempt to reconcile. There is simply no way to make the numbers match up.
EDIT: On impurities. The only other excuse I can think of is a question of impurities. You can call something that isn't 100% gold, gold. Fair enough. But remember, to reduce the volume, the impurities have to be of a heavier element than the base material. Let's take Osmium, the heaviest naturally occuring element. It has a density of 22.5 g/cm, which is about 3 times that of bronze or iron, about twice as heavy as silver, and 10% heavier than gold. Now, let's make one of those elements 50% osmium (Any more osmium, and it wouldn't be silver with Os impurities, it would be Os with Ag impurities). Silver is now 50% composed of an element twice it's density. This will only reduce the volume by 25%. Note that the silver alone was almost twice the volume of the temple. Even ignoring the gold, bronze, and iron, and making the silver as impure as it can be while still being silver, the temple is too small to fit all the silver, even if the temple were nothing but a solid cube of silver.
Hell, even if the temple were made of Osmium, it would still be too small, as that would only attain a 50% reduction in size. The 'silver' could just barely fit as a solid cube inside the temple, but there probably wouldn't be room for the gold, and certainly not for the iron, bronze, stone and wood. |
