Results obtained from non-biblical literature would merely confirm it as non-biblical and sets an artifically low bar for a test of 'divinely inspired' (as opposed to a concordance or commentary for example) biblical literature to meet. The only divinely inspired biblical literature I know of, is the bible.
We already know the bible contains many instances of '7', '40', '1000' for example, whereas non-biblical literature does not have that same proportion. If something non-biblical were then used as part of a 'control' sample, it's lack of occurrances of instances of '7', '40', '1000' would by contrast make such instances in the bible stand out more, when we know they are normal and not hidden.
Those instances of '7', '40', '1000' in the bible are there in plain text by God's inspired writing, not secretly hidden in the text letter sequences and man's chapter/verse boundaries. But a flawed control having no instances of '7', '40', '1000' would leave the impression of the bible being encoded in ways God did not encode it.
Did that make sense?
The bible is unique and we must be careful how we compare it to other literature, especially if the purpse of our comparison is to form conclusions about how God wrote the bible.
I think there's a flaw in your reasoning etc. But I'm not about to ferret it out at this hour or soon.
But say you're right. Fine. Get a bunch of commentaries by people fascinated with counting things in the Bible and noting such surface stuff.
Analyze those texts. They ought to have enough surface such stuff to satisfy you as it being more reasonably equal.
I think the study presented contended that the differences were so many orders of magnitude that any fantasies of comparison--regardless--were laughable.
Yes, it made sense.
We'd have to control for overt appearances of those numbers because they are regularly used.
A reference to "12" tribes or apostles; a reference to "7" churches or deacons....those we'd have to agree didn't count.
If we were to take a random passage from "Job" or from "Romans," I think we'd have a fair baseline....maybe.
Your thoughts?