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 ...
Labeling a person a Republican doesn't make it so. Stating a religion is Catholic doesn't make it a "universal" belief. Labels are meaningless when they are untrue.
I certainly agree with you - I don't think those hidden numbers in written material, even the Bible, reveals anything.
I do not believe humans will ever have the ability to prove the existence of God with formulae, stories, or messages from mystics.
We are still evolving on a plan that was determined before we became human. The magic of life is to continue to learn and evolve - that was God's plan.
Can anyone provide a mathematical proof of the existence of the word "existance", which appears at least twice in the first half dozen posts (I stopped reading after that; I mean why continue?!) in any English dictionary?
I think you misunderstood my intention. I wasn't offering that as proof that the Roman Catholic church is doctrinally correct (although I do happen to believe that). And I'm also not sure you grasped what I meant by universal.
I was not defending the Roman church against Protestantism, but defending the "universal" church against the heresy of gnosticism or, if I may coin a term, hyperesoterism. By this heresy, I mean the belief that one can infer more about the Truth of the gospels through the unlocking of some code or hidden knowledge. This heresy has been less common in traditional America, but with the DaVinci Code and the Bible Code, it has been spreading lately. Most Protestant churches consider themselves to be catholic in this sense, and many still use the Apostles Creed by which they declare themselves catholic. It was this sense of the word catholic (with a small "c"), which Protestants share with Roman "Big-C" Catholics that I was defending.
Secondly, the word "universal" or "catholic" does not mean everyone believes it. Rather, it means that everyone has access to the knowledge for themselves. Inded, the alternative, gnosticism, was very popular in the first centuries after Christ.
O come on, now... it was only slightly ovoid.
"His book, "Bible Code Bombshell: Compelling Scientific Evidence that God Authored the Bible,""
Another fake, fraud and phony out to make a buck from gullible, malleable people. The torrah is just a book of myths and fables.
Bring on the Mothership!
Isn't 19.5 the number of Imperial Inches in a Cubit?
I hope you have your asbestos undies on!
The so called "Christian" naysayers tend to be the worst. But the rabidly-hostile-to-anything-supernatural-that-might-upset-my-rebellious-hedonistic-lifestyle-and-options crowd can get pretty ornery and nasty, too.
Thanks for this thread.
You might find this thread interesting--it has a similar doc or so at the beginning of it and some other interesting docs along the way in the 1,000 posts:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/1274030/posts?page=1012
1. God has HIS OWN REASONS for doing things the way He chose to do them.
2. One of those tendencies, at least, tends to be to provide EVIDENCE FOR FAITH for those genuinely interested; genuinely with hearts toward God--while still leaving the rebellious and arrogant stuck apart from God with only their rebelliousness and arrogance for comfort.
3. Those of us with vibrant, intense, intimate relationships with God have plenty of dialogue with Him and need no 'concrete proof.' Some may need a boost toward faith. God is loving enough to provide it. It's still TRUE THAT: THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. But an introduction to God fostered by GROUNDS for faith, is fine.
4. Regardless of the grounds for faith or proofs--God has declared that He will have a tried people. Having been through plenty refiner's fires . . . He seems to do a pretty thorough job of putting us through refiner's fires. Our faith will be tried and often by fire, so to speak.
5. The Bible indicates that God will be doing many dramatic things in our end times era which will provide plenty of opportunity for people to have His existence and power rubbed in the faces of the rebellious. But Scripture says that many will still "curse God and die."
You are wrong.
Those comparison experiments have been run with the Scriptures and Hebrew version of WAR AND PEACE. There's no comparison in length and quality of the codes found in Scripture compared to ANY other text. Your info is out of date.
Later research continues to pile up the differences between codes available in Scripture and in no other text.
Shorter pseudo codes can be found. They are obviously a function of chance factors alone. CLEARLY NOT SO with the longer and much more robust and beautiful Codes found in Scripture.
Well that's probably true, but this is not unlimited code it is usually done using regular and uniform letter spacing. The other important factor is to consider is that the phrases you do find have to be relevent to the plain reading segments in which they are found. Finally consider that Hebrew is a more flexible language, using letters for numbers and also containing no written vowels.
Thanks for the ping!
There's NOTHING akin to soothsaying about the Codes. Numerology that's proscribed by Scripture has to do with imputing to numbers magical satanic powers. There's NOTHING about the Codes ANYWHERE CLOSE to that--though a lot of garbage is ont he net by well meaning Christians pontificating otherwise.
I don't personally think the Codes are greatly more than God having fun with man's arrogance--revealing His timeless majesty with His 'foolilshness' to confound man's wisdom.
It also boggles my mind that anyone could consider ANYTHING SO INTIMATELY, PART AND PARCEL OF THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT AND WHICH BIBLICALLY AFFIRMS THAT CHRIST CAME IN THE FLESH ETC. . . . HOW COULD ANYONE CONSTRUE ANYTHING SO INTIMATELY, INHERENTLY PART OF SCRIPTURE'S VERY TEXT [HEBREW] be anything else THAN FROM HOLY SPIRIT WHO DICTATED THAT TEXT????
There have been some noises about some Codes in the Greek NT but I haven't seen anything of great substance about it.
Genesis is evidently the most unique book from a number of straight forward statistical counts of letters and their combinations etc. Incredibly unique. That one fact alone seems to indicate design for a purpose.
Yea Ivan.
Some of his stuff is available at this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/1274030/posts?page=1012
He did and we're about to celebrate His birth at Christmas.
Good answer cyn!
The sages have said for ages that there are 70 faces to the Torah. There is much more than the plain reading. And the Hebrew language is very good for these kinds of interpretations beyond the plain meaning of the words - numerology, metaphor, letter spacing, the choice of words used and where etc all contribute to these many different simultaneous readings of the same work.
I wish you'd check your facts before writing such stuff.
There's absolutely nothing occultic about the Codes. IF you have a good dictionary, you should know that if you've examined the true story significantly at all.
Exactly. It's all about faith. That's the whole point.
Faith is too complex for scientists.
Wrong.
It turns out, there's not a great deal of options given the HEBREW without the consonants. And, they have a team of excellent Hebrew scholars in Israel and here to consider all the options. When varients are possible, they are given.
You make it sound like roulette. It's absolutely not. If you'd examined the evidence thoroughly, you'd know that.
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