Hidden Numbers: Reconsidering the Place of the Bible in Ancient Mathematical Cultures

About this event

Thursday October 29th, 2026 | 5:00 P.M. | In-Person Theron Room, Wright Library 25 Library Pl, Princeton, NJ 08540 The Hebrew Bible is filled with counting, calculation, and measurement, but rarely taken seriously as a source of information about numeracy or mathematical thought in the ancient world. In fact, many scholars have gone so far as to say that the Bible is simply “bad at math.” A key text that has been used to justify this claim by biblical scholars and mathematicians alike is 1 Kings 7:23, which is thought to contain a calculation of pi as equal to 3. In this talk, Liane Feldman will take a fresh look at this passage and situate the calculations around Solomon’s great basin within the heterogenous contexts of ancient Near Eastern mathematical cultures. Feldman will use this case as a starting point to explore both what these assessments of the Bible’s mathematical prowess get wrong about math in the ancient world and offer a few examples of what we might miss by ignoring seemingly insignificant moments of calculation in our literary texts. Presented by: Liane Feldman Liane Feldman is an assistant professor in the Department of Religion and Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of the award-winning The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source (Mohr Siebeck, 2020) and The Consuming Fire: The Complete Priestly Source from Creation to the Promised Land (University of California, 2023 and 2024). She is currently writing a monograph on numerate education and mathematical thought in the Bible under contract to be published in the Anchor Yale Reference Library.

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