admin asked Staff ago Your pamphlets deal with scientific inaccuracies of Chazal. But even King Solomon was poor at maths.
The Biblical description of the large bowl in the Temple gives a ratio of 3 for circumference/diameter which is less than the value of “pi”. See Book of Kings.
Solomon also had a difference of opinion about the price of timber bought from Hiram, so that even after ceding twenty towns from Galilee to the Phoenicians(a precedent for Ariel Sharon!!!) Hiram was displeased. See Book of Kings.
David Zohar
jsadmin Staff answered 21 years ago
Dear David,
About the Scriptural claims on the value of pi, see our essay What the Sages Knew About Pi.
I don’t understand what conclusion you draw from Solomon’s negotiations with Hiram. For the public’s benefit I will cite the text (I Kings 9:11-22):
King Solomon in turn gave Hiram twenty towns in the region of Galilee. But when Hiram came from tyre to inspect the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. “My brother,” he said, “what sort of towns are these you have given me?” So they were named the land of Cabul, as is still the case. …This was the purpose of the forced labor which Solomon imposed…All the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, and Perizzites, who were not of the Israelite stock — those of their descendants who remained in the land and whom the Israelites were not able to annihilate — of these Solomon made a slave force, as is still the case. But he did not reduce any Israelites to slavery; they served, rather, as warriors and as his attendants, officials, and officers, and as commanders of his chariotry and cavalry.”
What is interesting is that Solomon did not kill the descendants of the Seven Nations (the Amorites, Hittites, etc.) despite the commandment to kill them (Deuteronomy 20:16-17): In the towns of the latter peoples, however, which the Lord your G-d is giving you as a heritage, you shall not let a soul remain alive. No, you must proscribe them — the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites — as the Lord your G-d has commanded you.”
Nachmanides (Deuteronomy 20:10) explains that this was because they accepted upon themselves the seven Noachide commandments.
These are the Jewish values. The one truth is found there, and anyone who does not accept it is sentenced to death and being killed.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet
jsadmin Staff answered 21 years ago
Thank you for your note.
This is the citation: “At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon constructed the House of the Lord and his palace — Solomon also rebuilt the cities that Huram had given to him, and settled Israelites in them.”
Those who believe that all 24 books were written with Divine guidance and should be treated as a single unit with no internal contradictions — how do they settle this contradiction?
Thus did Radak write: “It is possible to say that Hiram gave Solomon cities in his country…and Solomon gave Hiram cities in the Galilee…In Kings it is recalled what Solomon gave Hiram, and in this book [Chronicles] what Hiram gave Solomon.”
Another example for the contradiction between the two books [brought in the portion of Beshalach] about the Sea of Solomon. In I Kings 7:26 it is said that its volume “encompasses 2000 bat [a measure of volume]” while in II Chronicles 4:5 it is written “It held 3000 bat.”
How do religious people settle this contradiction?
Solomon’s pool held 3000 bat when filled beyond its lip so that a mountain-like overfill was created, and 2000 bat when filled normally (Eiruvin 14b).
About this it should be said: Let all who hear it laugh.
Sincerely,
Daat Emet