You had me wondering for a moment. :) Anyway, my comment above was the formal restatement of the "it's not a math textbook" quick quote. Rounding is one of the "givens" of Tanakh interpretation (another is that any mention of "seventy" means "a lot"; it's a direct consequence of the "seven and ten" observation). The exception is when the counting follows the tradition of near-eastern formal documents, as with the censuses [noting that the Hebrew "elef" used to mean "troop", not "thousand" as usually translated]) and the records of donations to the building and dedication of the Tabernacle.
I'm guessing the snark on the skeptics-guide page set you off. I thought the source appropriate for maradydd's journal, but their snarky sidebar obnoxious, fwiw.edited for clarity as to whose snark, and where the referenced comment is relative to this.
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Date: 2009-07-14 01:58 am (UTC)I'm guessing the snark on the skeptics-guide page set you off. I thought the source appropriate for
edited for clarity as to whose snark, and where the referenced comment is relative to this.