1 Kings 6: 2 “And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.”
God gave King Solomon a detailed set of directions for the building of the Jerusalem Temple (also called King Solomon’s Temple or The Temple of God).
The dimensions were given in cubits. One cubit is standardized as the distance from a man’s finger tips to the inside of his elbow. That length has been further standardized in modern thinking to 18” or one and one-half feet.
God also gave Noah the size to build the ark. It was to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high (450’ x 75’ x 45’). Modern ship builders have tested and found that dimensional ratio is the most efficient for an ocean going vessel.
We should note that the dimensions of the ark indicated a three dimensional box. Nothing in the Bible suggests a ship with a contoured hull as many artists depict it to have been. All it had to do was float. There was no rudder, sail, diesel engine or anything else implying a navigation or propulsion system.
We live in a three-dimensional world. To measure objects is our nature and to set boundaries on time, space or physical objects is a natural tendency of man.
Having worked as a tradesman in several different areas, to measure building materials has been a part of my life. I have several tape measures, zig-zag rules, machinists’ scales, a micrometer, framing and speed squares and other English measurement tools.
Where would we be without the ability to measure things? We buy a pound of bacon, ounces of pepper and gallons of milk. Food producers are putting less in packages and pricing it higher and think we won’t notice.
To our human minds everything has to be encapsulated. Not to set sizes and time frames drives us crazy. Our lifetime has a beginning and an end. A church service, a movie and a ball game have a start time and an end time.
Astronomers and religionists want to place an age on such things as the earth, the sun and even the universe. Some students of the Bible believe the universe is 6000 years old because of the word “day” in Genesis chapter one and years stated throughout the Old Testament. Astronomers determined after the Hubble space telescope was launched April 24 th , 1990, our universe was formed by a “big bang” and because of the expansion rate determined the universe is 13.7 billion years old. A massive amount of matter became so compressed it exploded to form the universe. Seriously?
Where did the matter come from and what caused the pressure that compressed it? Do we really have to place a size and age on the universe? It may simply be better to admit we do not know and never will.
Here’s the truth or at least this writer thinks it makes more sense than either of the previous two. The universe is infinite and eternal. Psalm 90: 2 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”
If God is eternal both in the past and in the future, are we supposed to believe He lived in this vast expanse of nothingness for all eternity, then 6000 years or 13.7 billion years ago suddenly said, “Hey, I’ve got a great idea, I think I’ll create a universe!”
We usually think of our eternity as being from our birth day forward. But in reality, eternity is both past and future. If God has been “forever,” would it be unreasonable to believe the universe is “forever” in both time and space?
Astronomers tell us the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. If this is true, no telescope can ever be produced that can see to the end of the universe. The suns (stars), planets and galaxies are speeding away from us faster than the light from them can get here.
Realizing the light seen by telescopes (ground based and space telescopes) left those galaxies billions of years ago, we are actually looking back in time. One source says astronomers can see 13.7 billion light years and another says 50 billion light years.
If either of those numbers/ distances are correct, they are beyond our ability to comprehend. If an alien race is looking at us from 65 million light years away they are seeing dinosaurs and numerous volcanos.
Our insatiable proclivity to set boundaries in distance and time has created questions that can never be answered with any sustainable or unarguable conclusion.
Human opinions are of course, the lowest form of human thought but we all have them and that is not likely to change. A point to be made is that so many of those ideas and concepts really do not matter.
Since our life spans have to be measured, we must realize they are brief in the span of eternity. We rarely read an obituary that did not give the age of the deceased? James 4: 14 “Whereas ye know not what shall be on tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears a little time, and then vanishes away.”
So, what really matters? Only Jesus Christ provides a way to eternal life. John 14: 6 “Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Do we really have to measure and verify all of the details?
The Bible teaches there is only one eternal salvation. That is determined by a faith based belief (Ephesians 2: 8) that Christ Jesus was crucified (Matthew 27: 35) for the remission of sin (Romans 4: 25), resurrected (Matthew 28: 6) and ascended alive into Heaven (Acts 1: 9).
Van Yandell is a retired Industrial Arts teacher, an ordained gospel evangelist and commissioned missionary. His email is vmy3451@gmail.com