When I was in seminary -- something I never mention -- they used to joke that the Trinity was revealed math: 3=1=3. Apparently there is revealed math in the Bible.
To save you the trouble:
1 Kings 7:23-27
New International Version (NIV)
25 The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. 26 It was a handbreadth[b] in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.[c]
27 He also made ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three high.[d]
[Damien's note on I Kings: Doesn't exactly say that pi is 3. What it says is that a specific circular shape in the real world (as opposed to a circle in the abstract) that was measured at ten cubits from side to side was then measured as being thirty cubits around, or possibly only that you needed a cord thirty cubits long to measure it.If I say I measured something with a yardstick, that doesn't mean the object was a yard long necessarily.]
Ezra 1:7-11
New International Version (NIV)
9 This was the inventory:
| gold dishes | 30 |
| silver dishes | 1,000 |
| silver pans[b] | 29 |
| 10 gold bowls | 30 |
| matching silver bowls | 410 |
| other articles | 1,000 |
11 In
all, there were 5,400 articles of gold and of silver. Sheshbazzar
brought all these along with the exiles when they came up from Babylon
to Jerusalem.
[Damien's note on Ezra: So the Bible seems to say 30+1000+29+30+410+1000=5,400. Secular math says it is 2,469]
Of course, the point of the comic is that people who believe every word in scripture has to be literally true cannot seriously believe that these mathematical imprecisions are true. The reality is that despite their protestations to the contrary, pretty much no one believes every word in the Bible is literally true. They all pick and choose what is true, what used to be true, what is figurative and so on. This is the problem when your oracle is a text.
Of course, millions of Christians are not fundamentalists or literalists in any sense and so this is all nonsense to them anyway. For them, the Bible is an inspired and inspiring text but their faith depends on God and not on bibliolatry.
[Damien's note on Ezra: So the Bible seems to say 30+1000+29+30+410+1000=5,400. Secular math says it is 2,469]
Of course, the point of the comic is that people who believe every word in scripture has to be literally true cannot seriously believe that these mathematical imprecisions are true. The reality is that despite their protestations to the contrary, pretty much no one believes every word in the Bible is literally true. They all pick and choose what is true, what used to be true, what is figurative and so on. This is the problem when your oracle is a text.
Of course, millions of Christians are not fundamentalists or literalists in any sense and so this is all nonsense to them anyway. For them, the Bible is an inspired and inspiring text but their faith depends on God and not on bibliolatry.
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