h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

All the Bibles I have read only have FOUR gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in no particular order. Where does your fifth gospel come from? Is it one of the ones kicked out by the Council of Nicea (see appropriate Guide Entry)?

Also, the book of Revalation is the last book of the Bible. It has no "S".

"The New Testament is the most important book to Christians" ? Collection of books, surely?

Finally, for those wishing to look up one of those references listed at the end of this entry as "funny", there are lots of online bibles out there, in case you can't find one lying around. http://www.gospelcom.net/bible lets you search it, if you really want.

Joanna

The 'missing' gospel was the Gospel of St Philip which indeed was cut out at the council of Nicea.

You can see more on this here

http://www.h2g2.com/A307487

I'll cahnge the 'Revelations' now

Thank you

So, they were only 1.4159 cubits off on the Diameter,
Decimals weren't invented yet

It shouldn't have been nessecary for the author to do the calculations though, I would have just measured the dang thing. It wouldn't have mattered if I knew what Pi was then, because (at least in theory) even if you don't know what pi is it is still impossible to create a circle without it.

Notice how they are round numbers? Maybe they were rounded numbers? It is a bit of a pedantic comment.

Also, for another funny, see Deuteronomy 23:1.

The first five books are called the Pentateuch... these and several other books in the OT, along with those biblical criticisms mentioned, make up the Torah.

Many more Gospels were written besides that of Philip. There's one for Thomas and even one for Mary Magdalene that survived. We can only guess what others didn't. There were also many, many other apocalyptic books available, but the Council of Nicea decided they liked John's acid trip best. I have to admit, it is pretty cool, and very psychedelic. But to get back to the point, if this article is intended to describe the current Christian Bible, then four Gospels would be correct.

Here's an outstanding online bible with indexes to Absurdities, Scientific Impossibilities, and Blood and Carnage, to name just a few of their categories: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

What was the purpose of this circle??
I really can not be borther to read and find out!!

I seem to recall it being a fiery lake, presumably to torture people in.

ok, so, the innacuracy in the value of Pi is relevant to about nobody... but it's a neat bit of trivia...

I believe (being too lazy to do the work myself) that the circle in question was actually the top of a rather large bowl that spent most of its time in the Temple. However, I gave up reading the bible some time ago, and it's quite possible that I am wrong.

The object in question is a "molten sea," a big bowl that resided in the Temple of Solomon, which was "perfectly round, ten cubits in diameter, five in depth, and thirty in circumference." It rested on the backs of 12 oxen figurines that were cast with the bowl, all in one mold. The material is not named, but it wouldn't be a far stretch to assume it was all of bronze, since the alter mentioned just before the bowl is constructed of that material. You can read it all for yourselves in 2Chronicles 4:2.

The cool thing is that, with a bowl this big, his circumference measurement is off by a noticeable length. One cubit =17.47 inches. Using this figure, we see that the circumference is short by 24.74 inches, or over 2 feet. It also gives a volume of 3000 measures, but I don't have a conversion amount for this... I'm sure it's way off.

Your length of a cubid is as off as the rest of your reasoning. A cubid is the measure of from your elbow to you fingertips. It does differ from person to person. There was no hard and fast measure as we have today in the meter or foot. The measurements given are the OD. Please use correct math, if you are capable, because any engineer will tell you YOU ARE WRONG!

Yes, obviously, the cubit varied from person to person. This particular conversion unit is arrived at by taking an artifact whose dimensions in cubits was known, and measuring it today by our means. I'm not sure what they used... I just pulled that particular conversion factor off a Christian website.

If I were a Christian historian looking to find an exact standard I could use to translate Hebrew linear measures, I would use Herod's Temple in Jerusalem as my model.

Anyway, I chose to use that number for purely illustrative purposes, to show the layman of today how far off those measurements would be. I'm not trying to engineer the stupid thing, so get a grip on yourself.

And even if you keep the measurements in cubits, you're still off by nearly a cubit and a half.

Off by a cubit and a half? Depends how you look at it.
If the diameter is ten cubits, the circumference should be 31.416 cubits, and it is indeed 'off by a cubit and a half'.
If, on the other hand, the circumference is 30 cubits, the diameter is 9.549, which, to the nearest cubit (because, as has been said, there were no decimals), is 10 cubits - no contradiction.