What has Pythagoras to do with Jerusalem?

Last month, I toyed with the idea of taking a temporary job as a high school math teacher. Apparently I toyed too long, because they gave the job to someone else. But the process got me remembering everything I used to love about teaching math. I don't actually have much of a head for numbers themselves, but I love the concepts... solving triangles, simplifying radical expressions, imagining imaginary numbers...concepts so elegant and compelling as to be almost poetical. With the ancient Greeks, I'm pretty sure there's something spiritual about math.

So, with all apologies to those who would sooner solve a root canal problem than solve a quadratic equation, indulge me in few reflections on math and the Christian faith.

Let's start with wisest man to ever live. 1 Kings 7:23 records that Solomon built a solid brass "sea" for the Temple that measured 30 cubits (approx. 540") in circumference, and 10 cubits (approx. 180") in diameter.

Now any student of basic geometry can tell you that the circumference of a circle is equal to its diameter times pi (C=πd). This puts the diameter of the basin at about 565", not 540". Somewhere we lost 1.4 cubits. Put differently, the measurements for Solomon's basin yields a value of 3.0 for π, not the constant 3.14.

The wisest man to ever live couldn't do simple geometry?

Not so fast, says the staunch supporter of inerrancy. You're forgetting that 1 Kings 7:26 says the sea was a handbreadth (approx. 3") in thickness. Now (he goes on to say), let's suppose the the diameter was measured from the outside edges, but the circumference (540") was measured on the inside edge.

If we subtract 6" (3" on each side), we get a diameter of 174" for the inside of the sea. This gives us a value of 3.103 for π (540/174). Now we're only off by a mere 0.04 (say 5-6", depending on the breadth of your hand).

QED.

But what have we proved, really?

Not much. And that's my point. Maybe we've seen this kind of thing before-- attempts to force the Bible into the square hole of our presuppositions about what makes it inerrant. Like those Sunday school discussions growing up, about whether there might be enough air in the belly of a sperm whale to have kept Jonah alive for 3 days. Do they make the sacred text any more sacred? Have we heard the Word speak more clearly because of some speculative proof that the Bible got pi right after all? Have we come any closer to understanding the truth of 1 Kings 7:23 (which, in my view, is how the worship of Yahweh reached a pinnacle of splendour and extravagance under Solomon that it would never see again- until Jesus radically inverted the whole project and said, "That splendour is now found in my humiliated, crucified body.")?

Well no.

But with any hope, after (or before) we've exhausted ourselves in such efforts to weigh the Bible against our scientific measures of what makes it true- after all such vain "proofs" have left us unaccountably empty-with any hope, the Truth himself will meet with us, and gently teach us what it really means to think his thoughts after him.