1 Kings 7:23 describes the bronze 'Sea' in Solomon's temple as ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference, implying a value of pi equal to exactly 3.0 rather than the true value of approximately 3.14159 -- an apparent mathematical error in the text.

1 Kings 7:23, and its parallel 2 Chron 4:2, describes a large functional and architectural bronze basin using ordinary round numbers for its overall dimensions, ten cubits across, thirty cubits around, consistent with standard Ancient Near Eastern, and indeed virtually all pre-modern, architectural and technical practice of rounding large physical measurements to convenient round figures for record-keeping and construction, not offering a precise mathematical constant. Nowhere does the text present 3.0 as, or claim it to be, an exact value of the ratio of circumference to diameter; it is simply the practical relationship between two independently rounded measurements, exactly what results when both figures are rounded to the nearest whole unit of a fairly coarse measuring scale. This rounding practice is documented across ANE architectural and mathematical texts generally, including Old Babylonian mathematical texts that use similarly coarse working approximations for pi-like ratios depending on the precision needed. Worth noting, though not necessary to the primary resolution: the text separately specifies the Sea's rim was 'a handbreadth thick' (v.26) and may have had a slightly out-flared rim, meaning the outer brim circumference could plausibly differ slightly from a strict cross-section circumference computed from the main-body diameter -- by itself this could account for some of the discrepancy, though the simplest and fully sufficient answer remains that ancient technical texts across the whole ANE routinely round measurements exactly this way, and no reasonable ancient reader would have understood these numbers as a scientific assertion about the mathematical constant pi.

Applying the same standard used for any other ancient architectural or technical document, where round-number reporting is the norm rather than the exception in pre-modern measurement records worldwide, is simply consistent, non-selective historical method -- holding the Bible alone to a stricter standard of decimal precision than we would ever apply to Herodotus's or Vitruvius's numeric reporting would itself be a double standard.