the construction of solomon's temple???

Post by **_Anonymous** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:28 am

1Kings 6:2, 2 Chron. 3:3 Solomon's temple was only about ninety feet long by thirty feet wide, yet:
1 Kings 5:15-16" 153,300 persons were employed to build it"
1 Kings 6:38 "It took seven years to build."
1Chon. 22:14 "7,500,000 lbs. of gold and 75,000,000 lbs. of silver were used."
1Chron. 23:4"24,000 supervisors and 6,000 officials and judges were employed to manage it."

(Note: Inasmuch as there seems to be uncertainty as to the exact weight of the biblical talent, some estimates place the weight of gold at more than 13,000,000 lbs. and the weight of silver at more than 116,000,000 lbs.)

What are we to make of this?

Post by **_Allyn** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:42 am

I know you have a point of contention to make, so I would say go ahead and make it then we will now how to discuss this with you.

Post by **_Anonymous** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 1:51 pm

Well, I am a Christian, and believe the bible is God's Word. I believe that it has inspiration in some sense or degree, yet this here appears to be unrealistic or unusual. Like if you do the math on how big the builing was, and how long it took with so many people, it doesn't seem to make sense. So what are we to make of this??? Is there something I am missing or don't know? Bible skeptics look at this and say see here, this is ridiculous. So how are we to understand this?

Tha Seeker

Post by **_loaves** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 2:06 pm

I've heard mathematical arguments too from sceptics. And you know what? Every single one can be refuted. Using what? 5th grade mathematics. Amazing!!

A good book to get is "A Closer Look at the Evidence" by Richard Kleiss. http://www.searchforthetruth.org/viewbooks.php

"A Closer Look at the Evidence" is probably the only book of theirs worth getting.

Or Ken Ham's books. http://www.answersingenesis.org

Evolutionists circumvent 5th grade mathematics why? They are trying so hard to disprove this stuff, so they won't feel accountable to a supreme God for their actions. Isn't that the case?

loaves

Post by **_Les Wright** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:09 pm

I don't know about you, but it sounds like a typical government project to me. But then again, I live in Canada!

Les

Post by **_SoaringEagle** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 1:40 pm

Why Did It Take So Many People So Long to Build Solomon's Temple?
by James Patrick Holding
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Kings 5:15-16 Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen.

1 Kings 6:38 In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details according to its specifications. He had spent seven years building it.

1 Kings 6:2 The temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high.

Converting the latter to modern dimensions of 96 X 32 X 48 feet, C. Dennis McKinsey sarcastically comments upon the number of men needed and the length of time the project took. He first fails to note that in 1 Kings 5:14 it is added that Solomon sent his workers to Lebanon in shifts "of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home." The same was probably done with the other workers as well, so that those numbers relative to the number of men working at one time should be reduced by a third. Even so, one may ask whether McKinsey or any skeptic has even bothered to investigate as to whether this was indeed a reasonable number of men and amount of time in the context of an age when most building labor was done by HAND - and when there were no climate-controlled construction cranes to hoist the heavy stones and lumber. Rain, snow, high wind, or excessive heat -- without slave labor to force the issue -- would easily put a stop to construction. We can also add that thanks to the Sabbath, 1/7 of that time was already out of bounds! Add to that the amount of detail-work that was needed for carvings and woodwork, and you have plenty of reason for people to be occupied for seven years. Those who know the ANE do not consider these numbers excessive at all.

Post by **_SoaringEagle** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 1:42 pm

"The Numbers of the Book"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Refutation
James Patrick Holding
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, once again, we have a skeptic objecting to overlarge numbers in the OT. Here's an old example, 2 Chr. 7:5: And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. C. Dennis McKinsey, and other skeptics, say this scenario is "incredible" for it would have required continual sacrificing of 5 oxen and 24 sheep per minute for a week. The writer, Fred Titanich, breaks it down to one animal killed every 4.3 seconds and a pile of dead animals 5 feet high covering 18 acres. All, he says, done in a week.

All in a week? Not so fast, folks. There's not a word in the text that says that all of it was done in one week; all that is said is that the observance of the festival lasted one week. If you really want to read it overliterally, you can take it to mean that Solomon sacrificed all 142,000 animals at once. Did he pile all of them up in one vertical column and use a very long knife? No, what we have here is Sol's entire offering to supply the Temple cultus for an extended period of time, well beyond the festival. Titanich also complains about the "economic impact" this would have had on Israel, but if they were not all killed at once, and kept reproducing, this amounts to an economic boon for the average Israeli as Solomon redistributes his own wealth.

Next complaints, 1 Chr. 22;14: "Now, behold, in my trouble I have prepared for the house of the LORD an hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver; and of brass and iron without weight; for it is in abundance: timber also and stone have I prepared; and thou mayest add thereto." Titanich has a mind picture of priests cramming all this into the Temple and having to crawl over mounds of gold, but he's not thinking out of the box again. All this says on the surface is what was prepared and available; it does not say all of it was used. Beyond that, where did the rest go? 1 Kings 7:1-2, "But Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house. He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon; the length thereof was an hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits, upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars." Read more construction details in 1 Kings. And let's not forget that gold and silver and other metals were the closest things to legal tender in those days; who paid to feed all those workers and how? See also here.

Titanich goes on to complain about the number of workers in the Temple (1 Chr. 23:4-5) and says it "must have been a pretty slack job." He's right -- it was one of those sort of jobs where you worked once a year, just like the priestly rotation in NT times. But that's only working in the Temple -- beyond that the Levites had to minister to the needs to the people and tend the herds donors like Sol were giving them. Let's think out of the box!

Post by **_Paidion** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:22 am

The exact weight of a talent might be debatable, but the approximate weight is known, and is given in any good encyclopedia or dictionary.
It is about a half ounce.

So the 1000 talents of gold in the temple is a long way from the 7,500,000 lb. which you gave. Rather it is a little over 31 lb.

Post by **_SoaringEagle** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 9:52 pm

Thanks Paidion, that may be very helpful