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.
Well the opening of the article states "...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."
Kinda makes your statement looking more like "an answer looking for a problem to have" in my estimation. Though I've no doubt your statements are applicable to some popular ideas that have been promoted lately, I really don't think they are relevant to the thesis of the book if the openning paragraph is the statement of that thesis.
And in Biblical Area 51 I feel much freer to post my skepticism.
Is not one of the biblical definitions of "foolishness" giving an answer before knowing a matter?
You:
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.