Posted on 12/12/2004 3:07:51 AM PST by The Loan Arranger
For a lot of people, the Bible and mathematics are dry subjects, but not for Edwin Sherman – he believes he's found how the two fit together.
Sherman, founder of the Isaac Newton Bible Code Research Society and a professional mathematician, is convinced that the Hebrew Bible contains coded messages that are evidence of God's authorship of the Bible. His book, "Bible Code Bombshell: Compelling Scientific Evidence that God Authored the Bible," describes numerous examples of encoded phrases and sentences that are both lengthy and relevant to the text where they were found.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Biblical numerics provides the meaning of the number 19.5
E.W. Bullinger writes:
Nineteen is a number not without significance. it is a combination of 9 and 10, and would denote the perfection of divine order connected with judgment. It is the number of the Hebrew names for Eve and Job. Number in Scripture, E.W.Bulliger, p. 262
Though the ominous meaning of 19 is evident, there is more to the equation. The repeating 19.5 throughout the geometry of Cydonia reveals the complete message is one of hope. The typology of the number five connected to 19, the number of judgment, is the provision for escaping that judgment -- 5 is the number of "grace" and "forgiveness". Evidence on Mars points to the judgment which befell the inhabitants of Cydonia long ago. The destruction of Cydonia, combined with the typology of the monuments themselves, serves as a reminder of God's future judgment upon the "inhabitants of the earth". (Isaiah 26:21)
1776-1=0665
I had a link to the explanation of how this is used, but I've lost it.
Caviling on your part. You asked for a certain type of evidence. I provided that type of evidence. Now you want to strain on superfluous details.
Kind of a dead giveaway when the math is all basic arithmetic, too. Doesn't the creator of heaven and earth know anything about special functions and elliptic integrals? (lol).
Right, but my point was that, for example, at the time of Newtonian physics, that was the be-all and end-all. Today it's relativity, with Newtonian physics just being a special case of relativity. I imagine in a few hundred years there will be something that supercedes relativity. Let's say that the Bible contained the wonders of Newtonian physics -- would you then say the Bible was wrong when relativity was discovered? Likewise, if the Bible contained relativity, people would then criticize the Bible once something else was discovered. Therefore, saying God should give us something that science has discovered in order to prove He exists is silly, because its likely that (a) we still haven't discovered the REAL ULTIMATE truth, and (b) if the Bible contained the REAL ULTIMATE truth, and science was simply unable to make use of it at the current time (and therefore test its validity, or had some apparent but not real contradiction with current science), then science could simply say "hah! you're wrong!"
Anyway, you can already see (b) happening with the Bible's history (whether or not you include the beginning of Genesis).
Various snippets on the subject:
I would argue that ``Bible Coding'' represents, from a Christian perspective, a clear occult practice, and that Christians should thus regard ``Bible Codes'' in the same fashion that the Bible indicates they should regard other occult practices such as palmistry, witchcraft, necromancy, divination.
Critics of the “Bible Code” theories point out that if one has a substantially lengthy text, and he does enough computer searches, if he can go anywhere in any direction in the text, he can “find anything.” Professor Don Foster of Vassar College, who specializes in using computers to analyze ancient texts, says that code searchers, employing the same techniques, could secure the identical results from “a telephone directory”
In 1997, in defense of his methodology, Drosnin issued this challenge: “When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in ‘Moby Dick’ I’ll believe them” (Barry/Rogers, p. 67).
Be careful about making rash challenges!
Professor Brendan McKay, of the Department of Computer Science at Australian National University, accepted Drosnin’s challenge. Running computer searches similar to those employed by Drosnin, he scanned the text of Moby Dick. By the Drosnin/Jeffrey method, he was able to construct “prophetic” messages foretelling the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, Indira Gandhi, Rene Moawad, Leon Trotsky, Martin Luther King, Sirhan Sirhan, John F. Kennedy, and Princess Diana! Must one now conclude that Moby Dick was inspired of God by means of the pen of Herman Melville?
Beware of Drosnin’s work. Any work that draws an interpretation of the Bible and doesn’t lead to Christ is the work of the devil. All Biblical interpretation, whether based on the words or the structure of the Bible, must lead to Christ. It is the hiss of the serpent “hath God said.”
Bible Code numerology is, in fact, a technological Ouija board. A frightening new form of occultic technology. Statistical “tuning.”
Ignoring the clear and plain message of the Bible takes us down a detour of speculation and away from the practical pursuit of obedience and growth. The speculative chasing of “Bible codes” is not something found in historic orthodox Christianity. Seeing the “inner” meaning of Scripture as opposed to the literal and historical meaning was a mania of the Kabbalists in the 14th century. These Jewish mystics guided by Theosophy, mystical psychology, Gnosticism, myth and superstition ignored the plain, straightforward meaning of the Scripture.
He did and we're about to celebrate His birth at Christmas.
Or 3.2000. In Indiana, in committee, in 1897.
"Moses taught the Oral Torah...to the prophets..."
Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial, Elijah, Daniel etc all taught orally by Moses?
>>The Judeo Christian God doesn't operate by sleight of hand. Yes He uses numbers for symbolic reasons BUT He doesn't hide things so only a few can know. <<
Ah, yes. THat's what was meant by the "CATHOLIC Church," when the term first appeared in the early 2nd century: That truth was universal, not the hidden knowledge of an elect few.
Thanks for the ping! Seven_0, you might be interested in this article also.
Obviously you haven't read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
And also, in base 13, 6x9 does indeed equal 42.
I agree with you Sam. The subject does make for interesting discussion. But let me share something with you. I've found that where the Bible is concerned I've gained much more insight into what it says by assuming it's correct and any problem was a lack of understanding on my part, than I ever did trying to shoe horn what it says into what I thought was correct.Actually, if this discussion was about the actual message of the bible --- the words of the literal text themselves --- I'd be much less critical than I have been here in this thread.
Remember, we are not discussing the message of the bible, but rather a claim that using some sort of voodoo statistics (in my view, anyway) on the frequency of letters in the bible we can prove the inerrancy of the textual message of the bible.
That makes this a much different discussion than "whether or not the bible is true".
In "whether or not the bible is true" discussions, we discuss what was written. But when the subject shifts to things like "Biblical Mathematics", we leave the fertile ground of theocracy, philosophy, religious history and human psychology and enter a kind of Biblical Area 51.
And in Biblical Area 51 I feel much freer to post my skepticism.
There are several thoughts on who actually wrote Genesis, the first book of the five attributed to Moses. One is the "Tablet Theory" and is broken down as follows:
Tablet Starting Verse Ending Verse Owner or Writer
1 Genesis 1:1 Genesis 2:4a God Himself (?)
2 Genesis 2:4b Genesis 5:1a Adam
3 Genesis 5:1b Genesis 6:9a Noah
4 Genesis 6:9b Genesis 10:1a Shem, Ham & Japheth
5 Genesis 10:1b Genesis 11:10a Shem
6 Genesis 11:10b Genesis 11:27a Terah
7 Genesis 11:27b Genesis 25:19a Isaac
8 Genesis 25:12 Genesis 25:18 Ishmael, through Isaac
9 Genesis 25:19b Genesis 37:2a Jacob
10 Genesis 36:1 Genesis 36:43 Esau, through Jacob
11 Genesis 37:2b Exodus 1:6 Jacob’s 12 sons
Tablet #1 begins with the first verse of Genesis, and ends with the toledoth phrase in Gen.2:4a, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.”
In this first tablet, there’s no author’s name in that closing verse. Who could have personal knowledge of what was written there? Only the Creator Himself. God could have written this with His own fingers (like He wrote in Exodus 31:18). I think it’s just as possible that He orally dictated it to Adam. At that same time He might have been using this as a teaching tool, showing Adam how to write, and maybe this served as Adam’s “practice slate.” Whatever the mode, God was the personal author of that first tablet, the actual creation account.
And so on for 11 tablets to get us through Genesis.
Am I selling this version? No, just pointing out that Moses as author is not an absolute. Did Moses author some of the five books attributed to him? Yes, there are many references supporting this:
Passages in the Pentateuch itself: Exodus 17:14 "Then the Lord instructed Moses, 'Write this down as a permanent record...'"
Exodus 24:4 "Then Moses carefully wrote down all the Lord's instructions."
Exodus 34:27 "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Write down all these instructions, for they represents the terms of my covenant with you and with Israel.'"
Leviticus 1:1 "The Lord called to Moses from the Tabernacle and said to him, 'Give the following instructions to the Israelites...'"
Leviticus 6:8 "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Give Aaron and his sons the following instructions...'"
Deuteronomy 31:9 "So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests."
Deuteronomy 31:24-26 "When Moses had finished writing down this entire body of law in a book..."
Passages elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures: Joshua 1:7-8 "...Obey all the laws Moses gave you."
Joshua 8:31-34 "He followed the instructions that Moses the Lord's servant had written in the Book of the Law..."
Joshua 22:5 "...obey all the commands and the laws that Moses gave to you."
2 Chronicles 34:14 "...Hilkiah the high priest...found the book of the Law of the Lord as it had been given through Moses."
Passages in the Gospels which show that Jesus and John the Baptizer believed Moses to be the author: Matthew 19:7-8 "...why did Moses say a man could merely write an official letter of divorce and send her away?", they asked. Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted divorce...'"
Matthew 22:24 "Moses said, 'If a man dies without children...'"
Mark 7:10 "For instance, Moses gave you this law from God..."
Mark 12:24 "...haven't you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush..."
Luke 24:44 "...I told you that everything written about me by Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must all come true."
John 1:17 "For the law was given through Moses..."
John 5:46 "But if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote about me. And since you don't believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?"
John 7:23 "...do it, so as not to break the law of Moses..."
Passages elsewhere in the Christian Scriptures: Acts 26:22 "...I teach nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen..."
Romans 10:5 "For Moses wrote..."
But nowhere in the Bible is it specifically stated that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch. Even if one believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, a case can be made that he authored only parts of the Torah, and that other writers added sections of their own and/or edited the resultant text.
Some clues that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch:
One passage describes a sequence of events; a later passage states that they happened in a different order. Presumably Moses would have remembered the proper sequence.
In the story of the Flood, one passage has Noah collecting two of each species while another passage states that he collected 14. One verse describes water coming from the heavens and from below the ground; another describes all of the water falling as rain. The duration of the rain differs between two verses.
Genesis 11:31 describes Abraham as living in the city Ur, and identifies that location with the Chaldeans. But the Chaldeans did not exist as a tribe at the time of Abraham; they rose to power much later, in the 1st millennium BCE
Deuteronomy 34 describes the death of Moses. It is difficult to attribute the description of a funeral to the deceased.
One passage in Genesis 33 has Jacob legally purchasing the location Shechem for the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Genesis 34 has Jacob's sons killing all of the men of Shechem by a deceitful trick.
The first part of the story in Numbers 25 about the rebellion at Peor referred to Moabite women; the second part said that they were Midianites.
Moses is described as going to the Tabernacle in a passage where the Tabernacle had not yet been built.
A list of Edomite kings included some monarchs who were in power after Moses' death.
Some locations are identified by names that were invented long after the death of Moses. One example is seen in Genesis 14:14; it refers to the city of Dan. That name did not exist until a long time after Moses' death.
There are many verses in the Torah that state that something has lasted "to this day". That appears to have been written by a writer who composed the passages at a much later date.
Numbers 12:3 states "Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth." (NKJ) If Moses were that humble, it is unlikely that he would have described himself in these terms.
Deuteronomy 34:10 states "There has never been another prophet like Moses..." (NLT) This sounds like a passage written long after Moses' death.
Food for provocative thought. Hence my original posted question. These are just a sampling of what is out there in discussions on the subject. There are tablets in early libraries that give detailed accounts of creation and the flood, with details of life in those times. These predate Hebrew writings. Does that in any way negate God's inspiration of the Hebrew scriptures? No, I think not.
I wonder if anyone has looked for "freerepublic.com" in the bible code...
Pfui. I have too read Hitchhiker...so long, and thanks for all the fish!
Yes, very good provocative thought. Just as "tents of Shem" implies a school of teaching and not in the actual tent of one Shem, surely there was a tent of Moses
Well, Clinton sorta was 42nd. Actually there had been only 41 Presidents up to that time, because Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and 24th President, Harrison having been the 23rd.
That makes GWB the actual 42nd (as a person) President....
No, each generation taught the next the true meaning of the Torah. The only reson the Oral Torah was put into writing was the prospect it might be forgotten. The Mishnah is the Oral Torah but you still need teachers to explain how it all fits into carrying out the Torah's commandments. Which led to the Gemara. And while the Talmud is the discussion of a generation of great scholars, its not over. Jews still argue what it all means in yeshivas the world over even today.
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