🚀 go-pugleaf

chapm19@ibm.net writes:

> Actually, in English translation we miss something.  
> 
> There are slight differences in the sizes for the sea (bath) in the 
> Hebrew original in the two biblical books.  When these numbers are set in 
> a ratio, you end up with something like 3.14--not 3!
> 
> Unfortunately, I don't remember where I picked this up.  I am not 
> learned in ancient Hebrew.  I picked the following up in reading a journal 
> article somewhere.  Is there a Hebrew scholar or historian or a 
> mathmatician out there that can help what is probably an over 10-year 
> memory?

There is someone who has a copy of a similar article :)

\begin{quote}
The key to an alternative reading of the verse 1 Kings 7:23 is to be found
in the very ancient Hebrew tradition to differently write (spell) and read
some words of the Bible;  the reading version is usually regarded as a
correct one (in particular, it is always correct from the point of view of
the Hebrew grammar, and this is why it could be easily either remembered or
reconstructed from the written version), whereas the written version slightly
deviates from the correct spelling.
...
In our case there is such a disparity for the word "line": in Hebrew, it is
written as "QVH (Qof, Vav, Hea)", but it has to be read as "QV (Qof, Vav)".
...
Tradition asserts that not only does this disparity testify to an approximate
character of the given length of the line circling around the "sea" (tank),---
a much more accurate approximation to \pi is hidden in the choice of the
written version.
\end{quote}

This is then followed by some numerology, where the standard numbering of
the Hebrew letters gives numerical equivalents QVH = 100 + 6 + 5 = 111
and QV = 100 + 6 = 106.  This is then used to compute the value:

    \pi_{Hebrew} = 3 * 111/106 ~ 3.1415094...

In the parallel passage (2 Chron 4:2) it is observed that the text is
almost verbatim the same as the above, except that there is no disparity
between the reading and written versions.  A suggested explanation is
that the much later chronicler was 'more preopccupied with rebuilding the
Temple and preserving the spirit of the Torah, than with the "correct" value
of \pi hidden in the descriptions of dimensions of the sacred object in the
First Temple'.  The other paper presumably makes the same computation
based on the difference in spelling in the written version.

The title of this paper is "On the Rabbinical Exegesis of an Enhanced
Biblical Value of \pi", Shlomo Edward G. Belaga.  A footnote declares
"An earlier version has appeared in the Proceedings of the XVIIth Canadian
Congress of History and Philosophy of mathematics, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, May 27--29, 1991, pp 93--101."  The paper which you
remember is probably A.S. Posamentier, N. Gordan, 1984: "An astounding
revelation on the history of \pi", The Mathematics Teacher 77 (1).

Cheers,
bruce

-- 
Bruce Cox                                  bruce@maths.usyd.edu.au
School of Mathematics and Statistics F07   +61 2 9351 3814
University of Sydney 2006
AUSTRALIA