Posted on 11/28/2004 4:42:56 PM PST by Quix
NOTE: If I know anything about the rabid naysayers on FR, at least some of the RELIGIOUS [vs spiritual] types will wail and rant that ANYTHING having to do with numbers and The Bible has to be crossing the line into dealing with Biblically forbidden NUMEROLOGY. This is nonsense. The dictionary definition of “numerology” makes clear that numerology is the study of numbers, as the figures designating the year of one’s birth, “to determine their supposed influence on one’s life, future, etc.” [Quix color, bold emphasis on the definition from:
HERE: http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0562554.html
Clearly, the Biblically prohibited issue is INTEREST IN, TRUST IN, FASCINATION IN, FAITH IN A SUPERNATURAL OCCULTIC CONNECTION, PHENOMENA OR DYNAMIC rather than Faith in God.
Please note also, I didn’t go back and insert the italics codes for the rather many italicized words. Sorry. Have other priorities today, too. As usual, the color bolded is my emphasis.
CHAPTER 12 excerpt for fair use discussion from
The Signature of God
By Grant R Jeffery
The Book has many chapters of impressive study and research including photos from Sinai Peninsula re Moses’ led crossing at the EXODUS etc. I encourage people to buy and read the whole book. It’s well worth the time. NOTE: Jeffrey uses Hebrew Letters in the text. I’ve forgotten my Hebrew alphabet and certainly don’t know how to post them. If someone can clue me in (listing the Hebrew alphabet with the letter’s names in English letters—as well as how to post the Hebrew), I’ll see what I can do, later.
The Mathematical Signature of God in the Words of Scripture
The Scriptures reveal God as the great mathematician who knows the smallest detail of His creation, and measures and numbers all things. This character of God is consistent with the revealed phenomenon of staggering complexity involving mathematical patterns within the text of the Scriptures. The Bible declares that God is so concerned with the details of His children's lives that He has numbered the hairs on our head. "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matthew 10:30). The prophet Isaiah speaks of His majesty and His concern for numbering and measuring all things [paragraphing added by Quix]:
"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" (Isaiah 40:12, NKjv). When you consider the Bible's declaration that God "measured the waters," "measured heaven with a span," and "calculated the dust of the earth in a measure," it does not seem unusual or out of character that this same Almighty God would inspire His writers to record His precise message to mankind in the Scriptures with a mathematical precision within the original text that surpasses our ability to understand fully.
Evidence of Divine Authorship of the Old Testament
Ivan Panin was one of the most remarkable Christians to live in this century. Almost one hundred years ago, this fascinating and famous mathematician left Russia to settle eventually in Canada in the town of Aldershot, Ontario, not far from where I live. Although he was a committed atheist in his early years, he discovered the reality of Jesus Christ later. In 1890, Panin embarked on an exciting journey of scientific exploration of the text of the Bible that would prove that the Bible is truly the inspired Word of God. This century has witnessed a progressive abandonment of the doctrine of verbal inspiration of the Scriptures by many biblical scholars and religious leaders. As the leaders of many mainline churches succumbed to the continuous assaults on fundamental doctrines and the authority of Scripture, many Christian laymen began to lose their confidence that they could absolutely trust that the Bible was truly the inspired Word of God. As Ivan Panin wrote, "In the early centuries Christianity suffered most from its avowed enemies; in the last, from its professed friends."
Panin completed an astonishing study during the ^•'course of fifty years that revealed the most amazing mathematical pattern beneath the surface layer of the text of the Bible. He worked diligently up to eighteen hours a day for half a century to illustrate the divine inspiration and authority of Scripture. As one small example, Panin discovered that the first verse of the Book of Genesis contains an astonishing number of mathematical patterns that illustrate divine inspiration. “ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1).
The phenomenon of these mathematical patterns cannot be understood until we realize that the Bible was composed in alpha-numeric languages—Hebrew and Greek. These ancient languages did not possess Arabic numbers to express numeric data. Therefore, these languages used various letters of their alphabet to express numbers such as " 1,2,3," etc. In addition, a small portion of the Bible was written in Aramaic, which is also alpha-numeric. Each letter in these languages stood for a number. -In other words, each of the letters expressed both a letter and a number. When they wished to express a number, such as 22, they would choose two Hebrew letters—one letter [HEBREW LTR] stood for 20 and the second letter [HEBREW LTR] stood for 2.
The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet stood for 1, the second for 2, the third for 3, etc. When we come to the eleventh letter, it represented 20, the twelfth stood for 30, etc., all the way through to 800. Because each letter had a numeric value, every word can be given a numeric value by adding up the total value of each of the individual letters. In addition, every one of the Hebrew and Greek letters was given a place value as well. To help illustrate this phenomenon let's apply this system to the English language. It would look like this:
An Example Illustrated in the English Language
The Hebrew Language
Note that in the above example using the English alphabet the first ten letters have the same place values and numeric values. However, when we get to the eleventh letter K, the numeric value begins to increase by ten with each additional letter until we reach the value of 100. From that point in the alphabet forward the numeric value of each letter will increase by 100.
Every single word in Hebrew contains a series of letters with individual numeric values. For example, the word B'raisheet, "beginning," is expressed in Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew as [HEBREW LETTERS]. If you add up the total value of the individual letters in B'raisheet the numeric value of the word is 913. Since each word has a numeric value, we can add up the value of each of the words in a biblical verse to determine the numerical value of the sentence.
The Astonishing Pattern of SEVENS in Genesis 1:1
Let us begin by examining the first verse of the Bible to explore Panin's discovery.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1)
[Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew]
Ivan Panin carefully examined the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:1 and discovered an incredible phenomenon of multiples of 7 that could not be explained by chance. Genesis 1:1 was composed of 7 Hebrew words containing a 28 letters. Throughout the Bible, the number 7 appears repeatedly as a symbol of divine perfection—the 7 days of creation. God rested on the 7th day, the 7 churches, the 7 seals, the 7 trumpets, etc. In total, Panin discovered 30 separate codes involving the number 7 in this first verse of the Bible.
A Listing of the Phenomenal Features of Sevens Found in Genesis 1:
1. The number of Hebrew words.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
2. The number of letters equals 28 (28-4= 7) . . . . . Seven
3. The first three Hebrew words translated
“In the beginning God created” contain
14 letters (14 / 2 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Seven
4. The last four Hebrew words "the heavens
and the earth" have 14 letters (14-2=7) . . . . . . . .Seven
5. The fourth and fifth words have 7 letters . . . . . Seven
6. The sixth and seventh words have 7 letters . . . . .Seven
7. The three key words: God, heaven, and earth have 14 letters (14 / 2 = 7). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Seven
8. The number of letters in the four remaining s
words is also 14 (14 / 2 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
9. The middle word is the shortest with 2 letters.
However, in combination with the word to the
Right or left it totals 7 letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Seven
10. The numeric value of the first, middle,
(and last letters is 133 (133 / 19 = 7) . . . . . . . .. . . Seven
11. The numeric value of the first and last letters
of all seven words is 1,393 (1,393 - 199 = 7) Seven
When professors on the mathematics faculty at Harvard University were presented with this biblical phenomenon, they naturally attempted to disprove its significance as a proof of divine authorship. However, after valiant efforts these professors were unable to duplicate this incredible mathematical phenomenon. [QX PARAGRAPHING ADDED HERE]
The Harvard scientists used the English language and artificially assigned numeric values to the English alphabet. They had a potential vocabulary of over 400,000 available English words to choose from to construct a sentence about any topic they chose. [QX paragraphing added here]
Compare this to the limitations of word choices in the biblical Hebrew language, which has only forty-five hundred available word choices that the writers of the Old Testament could use. Despite their advanced mathematical abilities and access to computers the mathematicians were unable to come close to incorporating 30 mathematical multiples of 7 as found in the Hebrew words of Genesis 1:1.
If anyone doubts the difficulty of producing a passage following such an intricate pattern of sevens, I challenge you to try it yourself. I have tried, and it is impossible to complete a paragraph on any topic and remain true to the system of interlocking sevens. I doubt that anyone could complete a paragraph of over one hundred and fifty words following such a pattern of sevens, as found in Genesis 1:1 and Matthew, chapter 1, even if they were to devote several years to the effort. [QX added paragraphing, here].
The problem is that with the addition of every I fit single word and sentence the magnitude of the challenge to integrate the new phrase into the existing pattern grows geometrically. Each word and sentence must fit into the pattern existing within me preceding sentences. [Qx added paragraphing here].
In light of this virtual impossibility we need to remember that the writers of the Bible were forty-four mostly common men who wrote their individual texts separated from one another over a period of sixteen centuries. How could these ordinary men contribute to this hidden pattern without consultation when most of them never met their fellow authors? The only logical explanation is that God directed their minds through supernatural INSPIRATION TO WRITE His precise inspired words.
The number "seven" permeates the totality of Scripture because the number speaks of God's divine perfection and perfect order. The actual number 7 appears 287 times in the Old Testament (287 - 41 = 7) while the word seventh occurs 98 times (98 - 14 = 7). The word seven-fold appearst seven times. In addition, the word seventy is used 56 times • (56 / 8 = 7).
Panin discovered literally thousands of such mathematical patterns underlying all of the books of the Old Testament before his death in 1942. I refer the interested reader to Panin's book. The Inspiration of the Scriptures Scientifically Demonstrated,
which discusses these phenomena extensively. Panin and others have examined other Hebrew literature and have attempted to find such mathematical patterns, but they are not found anywhere outside the Bible.
Matthew 1:1-17—Evidence of Divine Authorship of the New Testament
Panin also examined the New Testament to discover whether or not the pattern continued. There were four hundred years of silence between the completion of the Old Testament ft around 396 B.C., and the writing of the New Testament following the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, when God inspired the New Testament authors, including Matthew, to begin writing the Gospels, He again manifested His signature on the pages of Scripture by creating a marvelously complex pattern of sevens beneath the text of Matthew's Gospel.
The first section in Matthew's account consists of seventeen verses from Matthew 1:1 to 1:17 that describe in•detail one particular subject, the genealogy of Jesus Christ. This seventeen-verse text contains 72 Greek Vocabulary words. A Vocabulary word is a particular word different from any other word that was used in a passage. In other words, a Greek word that appears 6 times in the passage would only be counted as 1 Vocabulary word. Obviously, the number of Vocabulary words will differ from the number of total words appearing in the passage. The same system of numeric and place values for letters exists in the Greek language used in the New Testament as we found in Hebrew of the Old Testament.
A Listing of the Phenomenal Features of Sevens Found in Matthew 1:1-17
1 The total numeric value of the 72 Vocabulary
words is 43,364 (42,364 - 6,052 = 7) . . . . . . . Seven
2 The number of Greek nouns in the passage
IS 56 (56 / 8 = 7)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
3 The Greek article for “the” occurs 56 times
(56 / 8 = 7)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
In the first eleven verses of Matthew 1:1-11 we find these additional features:
4 The number of Greek vocabulary words is 49
(49 / 7 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
5 Of these 49 words, 28 words begin with a vowel
(28 / 4 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Seven
6 Of these 49 words, 21 begin with a consonant
(21 / 3 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
7 The number of letters in these 49 words equals
266 (266 / 38 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
8 Of these 49 words, 35 words occur more than
one time (35 / 5 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
9 Of these 49 words, 14 words occur only one time
(14 / 2 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
10 The number of proper nouns is 35 (35/5=7) . . . . Seven
11 The number of times these proper nouns occur
is 63 (63 / 9 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
12 Of the 35 proper nouns, the number of
male names is 28 (28 / 4 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
13. Three women, Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, are named
in this section. The number of Greek letters in
these three names is 7 (14 / 2 = 7) . . . . . . . . . Seven
Only a few of the numerical features that are found in this passage are listed in this analysis by Ivan Panin.
However, these features reveal an underlying profound mathematical design that reveals the signature of the true author of both the New Testament and the Old Testament— God Himself. However, to illustrate that this is not an unusual phenomenon occurring only in this one isolated passage, I will list some additional mathematical features that occur in the balance of Matthew 1:18-25 and describe the birth of Jesus Christ. In this seven-verse section God has placed an astonishing pattern of SEVENS that verify the signature of the original author.
The Pattern of SEVENS in Matthew 1:18-25—The History of Christ's Birth
1. The number of letters in the seven word
passage is 161 (161 -23=7) . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
2. The number of Vocabulary words is 77
. . . . (77-11=7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
3. Six Greek words occur only in this passage
. . . . . and never again in Matthew. These six
. . . . . .Greek words contain precisely 56 letters
. . . . . (56 - 8 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
4. The number of distinct proper nouns in
. . . . . the passage is 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
5. The number of Greek letters in these seven
. . . . . .proper nouns is 42 (42 - 6 = 7) . . . . . . . . Seven
6. The number of words spoken by the angel to
. . . . . . Joseph is 28 (28 - 4 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
7. The number of Greek forms of words used in
. . . . . . this passage is 161 (161 - 23 = 7) . . . . . . . Seven
8. The number of Greek forms of words in the
. . . . . angel’s speech is 35 (35 / 5 = 7) . . . . . . . . . Seven
9. The number of letters in the angel's 35 forms
. . . . . of words is 168 (168 / 24 = 7) . . . . . . . . . . . Seven
This phenomenal discovery by Panin has been examined by numerous authorities and the figures have been verified. In total, Panin accumulated over forty thousand pages of detailed calculations covering most of the text of the Bible before his death. [Qx added paragraphing here]
These incredible, mathematical patterns are not limited to the number seven. There are numerous other patterns. These amazing patterns appear in the vocabulary, grammatical forms, parts of speech, and particular forms of words. They occur throughout the whole text of the Bible containing 31,173 verses. When you consider the amazing details of this mathematical phenomenon you realize that the change of a single letter or word in the original languages of Hebrew or Greek would destroy the pattern. Now we can understand why Jesus Christ declared that the smallest letter and grammatical mark of the Scriptures were preserved by God's hand: "For verily I say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” Matthew 5:18)
Naturally, the religious skeptics did not abandon their atheism in response to these incredible discoveries by Ivan Panin that revealed a staggering pattern of complexity hidden beneath the text of Scripture. After many skeptics had dismissed his research, Ivan Panin issued a public challenge through one of the major newspapers of the day, the New York Sun, in a letter to the editor on November 20, 1899, offering his detractors an opportunity to prove his research wrong if they could. [Qx added paragraphing here].
Panin issued his public challenge to some of the greatest atheist scholars of the day. "I herewith respectfully invite any or all of the following to prove that my facts are not facts: namely Messrs. Lyman Abbott, Washington Gladden, Herber Newton, Minot J. Savage, Presidents Eliot of Harvard, White of Cornell, and Harper of the University of Chicago, Professor J. Henry Thayer of Harvard, and Dr. Briggs, and any other prominent higher critic so called. They may associate with themselves, if they choose, all the contributors to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, who wrote its articles on Biblical subjects, together with a dozen mathematicians of the caliber of Professor Simon Newcomb. [Qx added paragraphing here]
The heavier the calibre of either scholar or mathematician, the more satisfactory to ft me. They will find that my facts are facts. And since they are facts, I am ready to take them to any three prominent lawyers, or, better still, to any judge of the superior or supreme court, and abide by his decision as to whether the conclusion is not necessary that Inspiration alone can account for the facts, if they are facts. All I should ask would be that the judge treat the case as he would any other case that comes before him."
Despite his public challenge in the New York Sun, not one of these prominent men attempted to refute Mr. Panin's undeniable facts or to deal with the unavoidable conclusion that the evidence produced by Panin proved that the Bible was truly inspired by a divine intelligence. The critics could not refute these facts. The only thing they could do was to ignore them. [Qx added paragraphing here]
Were Mr. Panin's research and calculations wrong? If so, where? If they were correct, and if they are, then the evidence exists for all to see that God did truly inspire the words of Scripture. One of Panin's last challenges consisted of this argument. He wrote to his ''detractors: "Lastly, my argument can also be refuted by showing that even though my facts be true, my arithmetic faultless, and my collocation of numerics honest, that men could have written thus without inspiration from above."
However, any honest attempt to create a paragraph on any subject that will contain this astonishing pattern of mathematical features within the surface text will utterly fail. I doubt that even a modern Cray super-computer could produce a passage containing the "wheels within wheels" pattern of sevens as revealed in Genesis 1:1 or Matthew 1:1-25.
To date, no one has succeeded in duplicating the phenomenon produced by the biblical writers in ancient times.
What was Panin’s own view of the Scriptures after a lifetime of diligent study? He wrote the following statement in one of his essays after warning of the limitations of wisdom found in secular philosophy. "Not so, however, with The Book. For it tells of One who spake as men never spake, who was the true bread of life, that which cometh down from the heavens, of which if a man eat he shall never hunger." Ivan Panin's conclusion of the matter was the following challlenge.
"My friend of the world, whoso you are: Either Jesus Christ is mistaken or you are. The answer that neither might be is only evading the issue, not settling it. But the ages have decided that Jesus Christ was not mistaken. It is for you to decide whether you shall continue to be."
QX: AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
PTL!
"Notice the highlighted section above, anyone with a reasonable understanding of the Bible knows that there is nothing in the Bible to support that conception. It appears to come from the assumption that Methuselah’s name is a prophecy. As we will see later it is doubtful that the meaning of the name even is "his death shall bring". Even assuming as Missler does the exact year of the flood and Methuselah’s death, it is not known if Methuselah died before the flood or in the flood. What we do see in this section of Missler’s article is that he likes to read into the texts his preferred meaning rather then to allow the text to say what it says. In hermeneutics what Missler is doing is called Eisegesis, which is the opposite of correct hermeneutics which is Exegesis. From there Missler intends to carry his eisegesis to the next level." (A Hidden Message?)
I think that you should ping Louis Farrakan so he can include this numbers game in his next on-stage ramblings!
To take it further than that one risks entering ego into the equation as you observe - and it will surely fail. People tend to be self-fulfilling prophesies.
It is possible that Methusaleh died in the flood, but I don't get that sense.
The eisegesis/exegesis discussion doesn't always do justice to a bible passage.
At some points I'm more in favor of a direct evidence/circumstantial evidence approach. There might not always be enough evidence to convict, but there's more than enough to be suspicious.
The problem always seems to be in having your hearers understand that you're speculating about things you suspect rather than stating affirmatively the things about which you are sure.
"The new apologetic Crouch discovered that day is popularly referred to as "Equidistant Letter Sequencing" (ELS). I, however, prefer to call it magic apologetics. At first blush it appears compelling. On closer examination, it is little more than "smoke and mirrors."
"In sharp contrast, the Christian Research Institute has denounced esoteric methods of biblical interpretation such as ELS for almost four decades. Even a cursory examination of ELS unmasks it for what it is — little more than a fringe variety of Jewish mysticism (i.e., the cabala) repackaged for Christian consumption. While in the past, cabalistic interpretations of the Torah have not been taken seriously by the Christian community, Crouch and other leaders’ enthusiastic endorsements are today giving it widespread credence.
"Furthermore, ELS is a rigged "game" complete with after-the-fact prophecies and self-validating "messages." Although, as in the esoteric message "CRI yes" used in my illustration above, it might be tempting to conclude that its self-validating message is "the signature of God," in reality this technique is virtually identical to those used by psychics." (Magic Apologetics by Hank Hanegraaff )
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.
(Proverbs 25:2)
Statistically significant yes but inevitably so IMO, because again man has chosen what to decode - rabbi's birth & death dates in this instance as well as having found them. It is man's choosing, that IMO contaminates the method of validation, regardless of what is chosen to be decoded.
To take it further than that one risks entering ego into the equation as you observe - and it will surely fail. People tend to be self-fulfilling prophesies.
My quibble again is not with ego so much as it is the moment man chooses what to decode, man has entered upon a self-fulfilling and invalid endeavor (albeit however decodable). If some other method were posited whereby God told us what to decode instead of us guessing what to decode, that method I would support rather than quibble.
Indeed, but the equations are the language whereby we communicate our awe - why pi, Madelbrot set, Riemmanian geometry, the beginning, information in biological systems (Shannon - successful communications), dimensionality, duality in physics, mathematical structures in higher dimensionality and so on.
Agreed, they are the means by which we communicate our awe, but our awe is not the same as God's signature.
BTW, I always appreciate your very gracious 'Thank you for your reply!' and did not want you think they went unnoticed or that I was not appreciative of your efforts to reply to me in kind. Thank you as well :-)
For what its worth, I personally do not embrace the doctrines or traditions of men at all. So Mr. Hanegraaff's views mean no more or less to me than yours or another other poster here, the mathematicians who discovered the ELS, preachers, teachers, Calvin, Arminius, the Pope, Joseph Smith, etc.
I do appreciate your encouragement, AG.
It seems that speculating on certain ideas is forbidden in some theological traditions. I can understand the concerns of those traditions when it comes to clearly heretical directions, but when it is a faithful direction, then there should be less worry.
The onus, it seem to me, is certainly on the speaker absolutely to do all he/she reasonably can to ensure his audience understands when he/she is speculating.
We are not really as far apart as it might seem to some following our discussion. There is a tendency of people to see what they are looking for in lots of areas. This tendency wrt Freud, Marx and Adler led Sir Carl Popper to propose Science as Falsification. IOW, the ability to falsify a theory is more reliable than the ability to evidence one.
The Scriptures tell us that God spoke it all into being and again that the Word was in the beginning, was with God and was God and that all things were created through Him. For me, the language of God speaking is a signature regardless of the translation (Hebrew, Greek, English, math, physical constants, etc.)
I hadn't thought so. I felt I was quibbling not with ELS for example but with how it is misapplied, and that God having written hidden messages in the bible in an ELS fashion, is a presumption, falsely validated by finding what we choose to seek.
The messages may well be there. My quibble is our misleading presumptions of where they are and how they are encoded.
The Scriptures tell us that God spoke it all into being and again that the Word was in the beginning, was with God and was God and that all things were created through Him. For me, the language of God speaking is a signature regardless of the translation (Hebrew, Greek, English, math, physical constants, etc.)
As with my earlier comments about mathematical & physical order being evident in creation, and that order being the 'signature of God' which we in turn express with equations and formulas, then yes God's speaking is a signature.
You could even argue a hidden signature given the 'discovery' process science goes thru to unveil some bit of orderliness.
But regards hidden messages in scripture, what is lacking is a 'rosetta stone' from God. Something that confirms God in fact wrote hidden messages - not just obscure shadows of 'types' or parallels, but actual encrypted 'sealed up' messages.
If for example in Dan 12:9 "Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time. ..." also included at least one specific example of how they were 'sealed', then that would be the God-provided test case against which some message unveiling methodology could be confirmed, and presumably other hidden messages unveiled by the same method would likewise be authentic.
But God didn't give us that 'test case', He didn't give us a 'rosetta stone' by which we would know we are using the decoding method He predetermined was His.
Determining the 'number of the beast' as 666 in Revelation comes as close to a rosetta stone example that I know of. God clearly revealing that something specific has been hidden - the antichrists identity hidden in the number 666. If some ELS algorithm applied to that text came up with likely candidates, then maybe anything else that algorithm revealed might be authentic. But we don't know (and won't) who the Antichrist is and so that passage isn't much of a rosetta stone because it can't be confirmed (yet).
Perhaps I've beaten this too much.
There is nothing wrong with wondering and searching. But as soon as man's guesses are substituted for decrees we assume were maybe hidden by God, we go astray.
Analysis of God's underlying numerical factors, facts, clues, 'foollishness,' fun etc. is one thing.
NUMEROLOGY in the classic sense of investing or imputing to the numberical stuff magical, protective, omenish, supernatural, manipulatible, occultic etc. dynamics is wholesale against God's Scriptural injunctions to have nothing to do with. THAT is NOT AT ALL what this thread and initial post are about.
Have corresponded with it's author and he's sent me the whole shebang a few years ago when I was in Taipei. I found it more tedius than fun but there were plenty of impressive aspects to consider, if one were a mind to.
Very well said.
Am trying hard to move toward ignoring . . . unhelpful, unfitting, unBiblical, unreasonable . . . sentences, posts. Am not there, quite yet.
The poster of a thread often has little to say about the meaning of the thread. Meaning resides in the reader as much as in the poster of the thread. Authority resides in the reader more than in the writer.
"Even if one has demonstrated through rigorous mathematical evaluation that the author of the Torah inserted some encoded words into the text, in close proximity, it would still be impossible to know how they are related. Suppose that someone could statistically verify that the words 'Yeshua,' 'Messiah,' 'True Prophet,' etc. were deliberately encoded near each other in the Torah. We would still have no way of knowing what the author of the Torah intended to teach us with these encodings. Is he telling us that Yeshua is the Messiah? Or is he perhaps telling us that Yeshua is not the Messiah, but is widely thought to be? Perhaps he is only saying that Yeshua thought that he was the Messiah. Or that many people think Yeshua thought he was the Messiah. The impossibility of interpreting a code would also apply if we demonstrated that the words 'Yeshua,' 'False Prophet,'' 'False Messiah,' etc. were deliberately encoded near each other in the Torah. The author could have meant that Jesus was indeed a false prophet or perhaps that there would be people who would think that he was a false prophet. It is impossible to know." (Jesus Codes: Uses and Abuses )
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