BIBLICAL CONTRADICTION: HOW HIGH WERE THE TWO PILLARS AT THE TEMPLE?

This question, or actually contradiction, appeared in someone's list on the internet as being one of the top ten reasons for not believing the Bible. The problem to which he is alluding, arises when you compare the measurements concerning the temple found in I Kings 7:15-22 (18 cubit-high pillars) with those in the parallel passage in II Chronicles 3:15-17 (35 cubit-high pillars). One can also compare the length of 18 cubits given in Jeremiah 52:21-22, which agrees with I Kings.

There are other reasons for suspecting that 35 cubits “seems clearly to be erroneous,” in LaSor's words.     1. Comparing these two figures with the dimensions of other ancient structures, it appears that 18 cubits “is inherently more probable.” (D.R. Jones)

    2. Thirty-five cubits is actually higher than the top of the temple roof itself, so that the columns would be useless in supporting it and would have to stick out of the top of the temple. (Bright) This second objection is not an insurmountable one since Thompson and many others mention the obvious alternative that “they stood outside the entrance, which is possible.” In that position they could have either helped support a covered portico in front of the temple or been freestanding decorative pillars instead.

It is for reasons such as these that NEB, for one, simple replaces “35 cubits” with “18 cubits” in its translation of II Chronicles in order to reconcile it with I Kings and Jeremiah.

Then the logical question arises as to where the figure of 35 cubits came from. Bright simply says, “The origin of this alternative tradition is obscure. And Williamson makes the sweeping statement: “It is generally agreed that the Chronicler added to this figure [i.e. 18 cubits in I Kings 7:15] the circumference of the pillar (12 cubits and the height of the capital (5 cubits), but unless his Vorlage [i.e. a prior version or manifestation of a text] was unclear there is no apparent reason for this.”

Despite this “general agreement,” I think there is another far more likely explanation. I was struck by the fact that the Hebrew text does not separately list the lengths of the two pillars. Thus, it is somewhat ambiguous whether the length of each pillar or their combined lengths was being described. What sent me off in this direction was the simple observation that 35 cubits is twice the length of 18 cubits, considering that (a) these are probably only approximate measurements anyway and (b) the exact length of a cubit changed quite a bit during OT Jewish history. At first I thought I was the only one to come up with this solution. And then I read the following:

1. In commenting on I Kings 7:15-22, G.H. Jones notes that the listed circumference of 12 cubits for the columns appears to make it too massive. Thus, maybe the figure referred to the combined circumferences of the two pillars. But that same reasoning, if applied to the 35 cubit height as I had, would lead to no contradiction between the two parallel passages.

2. In addition, the NIV reads in II Chronicles: “two pillars which together were thirty-five cubits long.” Dillard says, “The supplying the word 'together' represents an attempt to harmonize this measurement with the 18 cubits [each] in 1 Ki 7:15.”

Finally, we should point out again, as we have in other posts, that it is much easier to accidentally make mistakes in copying numbers than words and correspondingly, much harder for subsequent scribes to reconstruct the proper numbers, even assuming that they suspected there was an error. In addition, a mere discrepancy in numbers in the text of the Bible is certainly not to be ranked as one of the ten top reasons for rejecting its accuracy elsewhere in areas which are much more important theologically.