> Were you expecting a casual observer to give a fully accurate (!) rendering of the exact measurements of an artefact;
No, I surely wouldn't, but I would expect from all-knowing God to pass any fact that wasn't commonly known at that time as a proof of his all-knowledge (like, "there are atoms" or "the speed of light is..."). Irrational numbers or some really exceptional (for these times) approximation of some constant would also be a nice "touch". And not to put in one of 10 commandments slaves, women and donkeys together. But He surely knew his priorities.
And note that there are enough of people that really consider and study the Bible as the source of such "all-time truths."
Your tone seems quite petty. The Bible's purpose is not to be a treatise on science; it is seeking to communicate deeper truths, not the exact nature or value of Pi. Knowing that Pi is an irrational number has not removed war, greed, nor poverty.
For the Christian bible? Well, ignoring any theological points for their own sake, I suppose it's generally accepted as attempting to imply that seeking power, riches, and glory for their own sake is futile at best if not evil and wrong, and that instead the noblest path consists of approaching the world using humility, self-sacrifice, and respect for the intrinsic dignity of one's fellow man (even strangers, foreigners, and one's traditional enemies) and one ought to pursue what is right regardless of the persecution and oppression one faces for doing so.
It supports these ideas most obviously through the headline New Testament events of the Incarnation, which puts a supreme omnipotent omniscient Divine Godhead who is purportedly worthy of all glory and honor into a dirty barn with the animals as a helpless infant, and the Passion, which flogs him brutally before crucifying him as a sacrifice for what the theology represents as the crimes of others.
However, there are also attempts towards these deeper truths in books like Wisdom and Ecclesiastes:
"I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well - the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."
>I would expect from all-knowing God to pass any fact that wasn't commonly known at that time as a proof of his all-knowledge //
Not wanting to extend this beyond the bounds of what is appropriate on HN but a simple (and simplistic) counter-argument is that this is exactly what God does - he reveals through inspiration of various people ideas that lead to revelation. So for example giving Newton the idea that white light was composite. We by our limitations seem necessarily to be unable to cope with a conception of the entire truth of the nature of the universe and so all our understanding is always going to be shadows on the cave wall. Revelation of the full truth of any one facet seems impossible? If the Bible said "there are atoms" then you might well argue, but it doesn't mention electroweak and strong forces, etc., etc. ad infinitum.
Revelations out of context, like telling a Phoenician what the permittivity of free-space is, would almost certainly be dismissed as nonsensical wittering. Indeed that's what happened to the Ancient Greek conception (wrong as it was) of atoms. Perhaps in a millennium or so man will look down on the atomic model as limited in the same way we look on the classical elements.
Re the 10th commandment, things you shouldn't wrongly desire (ie covet); given it's an short list of examples of things not to covet I can't see that there's much significance in those things being together other than that they're examples of things that people look at (even today) and think "I want that". Donkey (chamawr, https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/exo/20/1/t_conc_70017) is as likely chosen for the alliteration with (chamad). If I say to you "don't look at your neighbours beautiful wife, his truck [ox] or flash car [donkey], his servants or friends [the word used in Exodus can mean either] and lust after them for yourself instead" will you accuse me of considering the things desired for to be equal somehow.
Yes, yes, "god works in mysterious ways," "people aren't ready" "they can't never know the truth anyway" etc. Doesn't hold water: religious people were quite good in preserving through the centuries a lot of material that they didn't understand.
The "ten commandments" were given from the God "in stone" and it is claimed that the texts in the Bible are the preserved words received directly from the God (not to mention that Muslims claim that the whole Quran are all the direct words of Allah).
Only whatever people preserved turned out to be trivial, never "deep" for our current knowledge. And often not only trivial, but flat-out wrong (like in Islam, that semen is produced "between the backbone and the ribs," really) so much that now the religious must claim that most of that "knowledge" was not meant to be verbatim anyway.
>so much that now the religious must claim that most of that "knowledge" was not meant to be verbatim anyway //
You know that's a very recent turn to read scripture literally? The idea that figurative interpretation is somehow a reaction to scientific challenge would be easy for you to dispel with a modicum of research.
>it is claimed that the texts in the Bible are the preserved words received directly from the God //
Not by mainstream Christianity or the Bible itself (which claims scripture is inspired by God).
> You know that's a very recent turn to read scripture literally?
Yes, and if you read my first now unfortunately gray comment, I addressed exactly the literal readings as those that limit what's easy to pass in the US: I wrote that Pi "doesn't question the literal interpretation of the Bible, 6000 years and all that. So let's celebrate that innocent number." It's right there.
> >it is claimed that the texts in the Bible are the preserved words received directly from the God //
> Not by mainstream Christianity or the Bible itself
I've meant the texts of the "ten commandments" in the Bible (you've cut the first part of my sentence, it's obvious it's about the ten commandments and I've mentioned the whole Quran as the exact words as believed by Muslims(!)) not the whole Bible, of course! If you're a believer, do you consider the text of the "ten commandments" (e.g. in Deuteronomy 5:4–21) as the actual words of God or not? Were these words exactly preserved or are they already "corrupted" in the Bible?
No, I surely wouldn't, but I would expect from all-knowing God to pass any fact that wasn't commonly known at that time as a proof of his all-knowledge (like, "there are atoms" or "the speed of light is..."). Irrational numbers or some really exceptional (for these times) approximation of some constant would also be a nice "touch". And not to put in one of 10 commandments slaves, women and donkeys together. But He surely knew his priorities.
And note that there are enough of people that really consider and study the Bible as the source of such "all-time truths."