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It's hard to get inside the minds of people from other cultures, especially when we are separated by time as well as distance. And the main problem here is cultural: We have an expectation of greater precision than ancient people did. The other answers hint at this, but IMO they don't fully appreciate the divide between modern and ancient levels of ...

Many different explanations have been proposed. The best article I've read on the subject is The Number Pi in the Bible by Abarim Publications. I'll begin with what I think is the obvious and correct explanation, then mention some other explanations (mentioned e.g. in the article above). 10 ≠ 10.0 (rather, "10" means (10.0 ± 0.5)) 1 Kings 7:23 says ...

To start with, compare the circle the diameter we're given would make with the circle the circumference we're given would make: Since a circumference is π times the diameter, a 'pure' circle of 10 cubits in diameter as we describe the sea as having would be 10π cubits in circumference, or roughly 31.4 cubits. Now, since the circumference attributed to ...

This is an ancient question... The rabbis of the Talmud [BT Hullin 5a] discuss both opinions: What is meant by ‘the ravens’ ['orevim]? Ravina said: It means actual ravens. R. Ada ben Manyomi said to him: "Could it not mean two men whose names were Orev?" He replied, "How could it have happened that both were named Orev?" "But perhaps they were so named ...

It is not uncommon for God to use animals to perform tasks in the Tanakh/Old Testament, so this would not be an anomaly. At the same time, ancient Near East (ANE) hospitality makes 'Arabs' a possibility (it is plausible). Concerning the issue of ritual impurity, Elijah was out in the wilderness, nowhere near the temple nor other Jews. Who cares if he became ...

Was he insecure or unsure that God who performed miracle through him, would also save him from Jezebel? We aren't told explicitly of course, but we do know that he was afraid Jezebel would kill him: 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this ...

There does not seem to be any way to narrow the gap. This might be intentional, the intent being to establish a generally negative moral value to kings gathering harems, but allowing for the necessity of politically expedient marriages with foreign royal families. The term "many wives" is as specific as the OT gets. Kings 11:4 is clearly an indictment of ...

The portrayal of David in the books of Samuel and Kings is ambivalent. In the current idiom we might say "conflicted". There is much positive material, but also a vast amount of negative material. The ambivalence is consistent throughout the narrative, almost from David's first appearance. This last picture we get of David epitomizes the ambivalence, and it ...

According to the Talmud, certain things associated with a king (his horse, e.g.) are forbidden ever to be used by a commoner. Specifically, the widow of a king is forbidden to marry anyone but another king. And if the next king is his son, she can’t marry him either—the laws in Leviticus still apply. Avishag was not married to David, and so was not ...

From a post by Cecil Adams, aka The Straight Dope In 150 A.D. a Hebrew rabbi and scholar named Nehemiah attempted to explain away the anomaly in Chronicles by saying that the diameter of the tub was 10 cubits from outer rim to outer rim, whereas the 30 cubit circumference was measured around the inner rim. In other words, the difference between the ...

This should not be taken as a prophecy but as a lesson on true faith. If you read before this passage, you see that Jesus has been having issues with the religious leaders. Over and over they fail to believe, or more specifically, fail to recognize who he is. Now, go back to the Hebrew scriptures. Jonah was pretty cool, but you would really only expect ...

In 1 Kings 12:20, it is written, "...there was none who followed the house of David except the tribe of Yehuda only." Regarding this phrase, Rabbi David Kimchi (RaDaK) wrote, כבר כתבנו כי שבט בנימין בכלל שבט יהודה, כי ירושלם בין שניהם היתה ומי שימלוך בירושלם בודאי ימלוך על שניהם, לפיכך נכלל שבט בנימין בכלל שבט יהודה which is translated as, We have ...

No, David is not The Godfather - at least not in the Don Corleone sense of a family head establishing his dynasty through corruption and murder. A dynasty is established - the chapter indeed concludes: "The kingdom was now firmly established in Solomon's hands." But the previous commands of David are introduced to explain that Solomon's rise to power is not ...

The Kerith Ravine is home to a river somewhere east of the Jordan, which marked the eastern border of the land given to Israel. On a purely physical level, it functions (unlike the Jordan) as a place far away and hidden from King Ahab who was seeking Elijah's life because of the drought. The name Kerith means a "cutting" or "separation." While having to do ...

At the outset 1 Kings, King David is near death and he hasn't explicitly chosen a successor. David's first three children, Amnon, Absalom, and the unnamed child from II Samuel 12 are dead, so Adonijah is next in line for the throne. Adonijah thinks he will be king and he has an entourage, but he doesn't have the support of the whole nation (1 Kings 1:5-10). ...

Traditional theology holds that the book of Deuteronomy was either given at Sinai or written by Moshe (modulo the last eight verses), so in that framework, knowledge of the Deuteronomy text ought to be sounding alarm bells when reading Kings. However, scholars generally ascribe later authorship to Deuteronomy, which complicates things. Conventional ...

we don't even know what the real numerical value of pi is. When written out as a number, it will always be rounded. The question is: At which decimal place will you believe God's Word is true? The hundredth decimal place, the thousandth decimal place? I'm guessing for most, there will never be enough decimal places. For me pi = 3 is close enough.

First, it seems that Wikipedia transliterates the name as Cherith. With that information in hand, I discovered an article [PDF] by James Tabor that mentions: Directly across the Jordan River from the Aenon/Salim area is the rugged Wadi el-Yabis, which I take to be fairly securely identified with the famed “brook Cherith” associated with Elijah’s ...

Obadyah is trying to convince Elijah not to disappear on him. There is an implication that he had done so in the past; at least that others had reported Elijah’s whereabouts to Ahab only to have the prophet vanish before the king’s agents arrived, likely with a poor outcome for the reporter. But since Obadyah is an official of Ahab’s government, perhaps ...

I'm reasonably certain that 24 oxen is, well, a lot of cow. What can we learn from this? First and foremost, that Elisha's family or clan was well-off. The entire Elisha cycle is a set of legendary stories with strong echoes in folklore all-over. (My book on the subject is not with me today, or I'd give the reference. Expect an edit in a week when I get ...

The Covenant curses included being eaten by the birds and the beasts. The fact that the prophet, out in the world, away from the Covenant people, was being fed during a famine by unclean birds is a deliberate irony. While the grain of the old order was starving away, the "oil and wine" of the new would not be harmed. We see the same process during the first ...