Rabbi Nehemiah

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Rabbi Nehemiah was a Hebrew priest, circa AD 150.

He authored the Mishnat ha-Middot (ca. AD 150), the earliest known Hebrew text on geometry. In it, he explained away the common misconception that the Bible defines π as being equal to 3, based on the description in 1 Kings 7:23 of the great bowl placed outside the Temple of Jerusalem. He maintained that the diameter of the bowl was measured from the outside brim, while the circumference was measured along the inner brim, which yields a ratio closer to the actual value of π. He does not explain how or why they would have measured an interior circumference. However, there are other explainations for the passage from Kings, and it probably suffices to say that the measurements made by the Hebrews were simply rounded off to whole numbers.^[1]