"Modern Engineering in the Bible"

                "How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and

                 the man who gains understanding. For its profit

                 is better than the profit of silver, and its grain than

                 fine gold. She is more precious than jewels; and

                 And nothing you desire compares with her.        

                                         Proverb 3 : 13-15

          Imagine some time ago a man was invited to address the gathering of the Engineer's club, and they assigned him this odd the title was "Modern Engineering in the Bible." He accepted the invitation with the understanding that there would be an open discussion following his lecture. In the course of address he reminded the engineers of the difficulty of setting a permanent or stable structure on a sand foundation.

         The archeologist face this problem when they make a camp in the desert. Our tents have floors sewed into them-partly because it is annoying to get up in morning and discover that a snake has shared your sleeping bag or scorpion have set up housekeeping in your boits. So when they make a camp in the desert. Our tent havefloors sewed into them-partly because it is annoying to get up in the morning and discover that a snake has sharedyour sleeping bag or scorpions have set up housekeeping in your boots. So when we make a "permanent" camp, we know that it will be as transient as a permanent camp, we know that it will be as transient as a "permanent wave" on a woman. The wind gets under the floor and moves the sand grain, and in a few days the tents are sagging and have to be reset.

           Moses faced this problem and overcome it. When the famous tabernacle was erected in the wilderness, it was a masterpiece of engineering ingenuity. The secret of its stability was in the walls which were made of boards tha came in pairs. The Hebrew text calls them "twinned boards." Two of them were set together like a giant letter "V" inverted, like an "A." A metal becker fitted down over the top and clasped the two boards together; the bottom rested i. Metal troughs called "oches."

An eye bolt came from each board, and when the two eyes crossed in the center, a long metal rod was thrust down the length of the wall, locking all of the "twinned" unit together. The  no matter how the wind blew, regardless of its velocity,  when these gour walks were set in place, they were unmovable!

         When they had finished my address and the meeting was open For discussion, an engineer arose and said, "I want to comment on what the speaker has said about the tabernacle. I can agree with that part of his lecture, particularly because of an experience I've just had a friend of mine devised a type of bunkhouse for construction crews who have work in the desert, and he used this very idea of  twin wall, boards.locked with a rod and eye-bolts. He applied for a patent, which the office refused to grand. He sued in Federal courts force the Patent office to grant his claim and lost his case. The judged ruled that since Moses used this idea 3500 years ago, it's too late to patent it now!""

         The engineer sat down amid the delighted laughter and applause of his fellows having unconsciously illustrated the modernity of the ancient Book! This oldest volume in human keeping is as modern as twentieh-century engineering practices.