Welcome, Believers!My first newsletter (for lack of a better word) Is going to mostly talk about the numerics in the bible, that aim to prove that there is no reasonable doubt outside of a divine authorship of the bible, and the obvious side-effect of that, which is there is a God, who singularly authored the Bible. Now, don't everybody jump on my case at once about the fact that many PEOPLE wrote the bible; this is true. They were guided by God in one form or another, and this actually shows up when researched thoroughly.
This letter is dedicated to Ivan Panin, who is responsible for many of the thoughts shown here, in fact, some are just links to his stuff & similar works
Mathematical Codes Found in The Bible; Part 1,
The Astonishing Pattern of SEVENS in Genesis 1:1,
Computer Analysis & Proof That God is author of the 66 Books Of The Holy Bible,Here is a great quote from Panin, it is his challenge to the worldly thoughts of the Bible not being the literal word of God. "My friend of the world, whose 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."
Here are a couple tastes of the numbers in the Bible.In the Gospel according to John (21 vs. 11), Jesus and his disciples return from a successful fishing trip on the Sea of Tiberias. When they haul in the catch, they find 153 fish in the net: "Simon Peter went up ,and drew the net to land full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken." What is so special arithmetically about the number 153?
To begin with, 153 equals 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17. In other words, it is equal to the sum of all the integers from one to seventeen. This makes 153 what the Pythagoreans called a triangular number. The Pythagoreans promoted the idea of representing numbers by dots arranged in patterns. For a triangular number the pattern of dots forms a triangle all of whose sides have an equal number of dots.
(they go on to show several more details on that particular numbers; there is an entire concept based on the numerology in the bible, theometics or something like that; basically that no number is 'wasted' in the bible, that EVERY number used has a specific meaning, and purpose.
Here is one of Panin's examples from the Old Testament. Just the very first sentence in the Bible. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1) That's the way it comes out in English, in the Hebrew it is exactly 7 words. The 7 words have exactly 28 (4x7) letters. There are 3 nouns (God, heavens, and earth) [three is the biblical number for earth]. Taking the letters of these, substituting their number equivalents and adding them up. you get a combined total of 777 (111x7)! There is one Hebrew verb: created. ItŐs total numerical value is 203 (29x7) . The first three words contain the subject with exactly 14 (2x7) letters, likewise the other four are the object with exactly 14 letters. The Hebrew words for the two objects (heaven and earth) each have 7 letters. The value for the first, middle and last letters in the sentence is 133 (19x7). The numeric value of the first and last letters of all the words is 11393 (199x7): the value of the first and last letters of the first and last words of the verse is 497 (71x7). The value of the first and last letters of each of the words between is 896 (128x7). And so on, and so on... in this verse alone there are 30 different features of 7. Only 11 of them are listed. The chance of this happening accidentally is 1 in 33.000.000.000.000 (33 trillion).(just for a grain of salt, I will tell you that I've seen some writings of people that try to contradict this concept; i.e. writing a paragraph or two and finding similar 7s; it's there; Edgar Allan Poe, etc. However, the nature of the entire Bible showing this, and NOT the other religious books, etc.)
I have NO idea who came up with the chance figure, but I don't believe at all there would be a chance. I know better. I just sit back in AWE of what an amazing thing God wrapped up into his book as evidence of his unbelievably great power. There is no computer on earth that could do this, no power we can imagine that could do this, the ONLY explanation that makes ANY sense is an omnipotent GOD. Isn't that cool?
Ivan Panin, started as an atheist, but was a genius who was a master of Hebrew and Greek, and a mathematician. I can't remember right now what was the spark that got him started, but near the end of his life, he submitted his life's work to the Nobel institute (43,000 pages worth), and a letter stating that this was his proof that there is a God, and HE wrote the bible. Their reply is priceless. "We found the evidence overwhelmingly in FAVOR of such a statement" [my emphasis]. Now tell me How cool is THIS, and why don't we learn about these things? Some times I think God hides things like this (Noah's ark, etc. because with too much proof, there is no room for faith). To me it's not a matter of faith anymore. I need a new word to describe it). I have seen recent evidence pointing toward the CIA finding something in Ararat that is likely Noah's actual ark, they call 'The Ararat anomaly". I have heard that the Russians actually found it early in this century, but all the photos were actually destroyed (on purpose), some on accident. Like I said before, I 'see' Gods hand at keeping that a mystery. If that boat is every actually found, how ridiculous for anybody to dispute the literal nature of Genesis? If people can't dispute, than what is the point; the bible says our faith WILL be tested.
Other literature, including the Apocrypha, have been tested with negative results. No other book of any kind, and specifically all the well know religious books. It only makes sense; they were written by MAN, not GOD. Man could never come up with something so amazing! Oh, almost forgot, EVERY verse of EVERY chapter of EVERY book of the Bible does this! when a single word is removed, it falls apart. I am more and more awed the more I read scripture and find statements that Jesus made, like not a single letter being changed until he comes back to fulfil the prophecies of the book.
I AM very concerned about the people who have added to or changed the bible; Revelations 22:18 is VERY clear about this concept: 18 I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. Pretty clear to me, not to screw with it.
I found a FANTASTIC web site that shows the major holes in the major cults who claim to be Christian and clearly are not. It's very a powerful tool, because if you don't know WHAT the problems are, how do you defend your faith, and have ANY hope of showing somebody they are wrong. (i.e. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and to some point Catholics* for sure).
Christian Apologetics Research Ministry
*a special case, since at least you can be both Catholic and Christian, yet if you are a true follower of the Mormon faith, etc. you are clearly NOT Christian. It's a crying shame, considering how great Mormons are, but I figure it's Gods way of MAKING a POINT that we are saved by GRACE, NOT works, they are the supreme example. Do not be offended if you are Catholic, rather, GO LOOK at the site, and tell me what YOU think. My own father is Catholic, and also Christian, and that is my background as well. I wouldn't mind a one-on-one with anybody out there who is still Catholic.
What is MY point? I have seen far too many wondrous works to believe anything other than God is the true single author of the Bible. I have seen many things that show this is the ONLY case, and I've seen a ton of material that people have tried to use against these claims, but none of it truly holds any water. The bible was written for anybody possessing the Holy Spirit within to understand and to actually find the TRUTH. (about anything, actually).The trickiest thing is to try to show somebody else the truth in the Bible, because it's really up to the individual to "find" it. I will try to point out the paths that I followed to find what I understand, and they can hopefully do similar. It's good to compare notes, and learn from each other. There is a lot in there, and it's easy to get lost, or confused, and although the Bible does say that you can find the truth, it doesn't say it's going to be immediately obvious on all counts.
Here's an example of a paradox in the Bible of late: the "Bible Code". Most of you have heard of this, made famous by a guy who claims to be agnostic, but wrote a book of the same name a couple years back. The topic fascinated me, so I bought a couple books on the subject, including the famous one, and one that wasn't so famous, but much more informative regarding the actual math behind the "code".
Here's what I've found with at least 80-100 hours of research on the "Bible Code". There is 'something' there, but I wouldn't put too much into it; here's the thing: there are enough letters in the Bible, that EVERY event that will EVER HAPPEN can be encoded in there some how. I got an impression, I'd like to think was from the Holy Spirit, when I was doing the research, that when the Bible talks about your name being in the Book of Life, and most people would think of a concept of a List that God keeps of the chosen, I got the distinct impression that the Book of Life is simply
(yeah, right, simple), the Bible, and that everybody who is chosen actually HAS their name in there. There are so many combinations, I have no doubt it's more than likely. With the marvelous stuff that is there, why not?
However, and this is a big however, and this is the paradox; there is a huge following of people, who are trying to use the 'bible code' to find the future, fortunes, etc, and this is obviously wrong. (It also has been proven NOT to work). If there is something there that can be used to detract from the true meaning of the Bible, is it meant to be there by God, or is it just something that man is making up to take our attention away from the meaning of the Bible?
When I read Romans 16:25, I actually got a sense that the mystery kept secret for long ages could have been the bible code; it actually fit; it was famous throughout the world, and brought the word of God to the front of people's attention, giving people the choice of obedience to the faith...Most bible scholars will say that it's the gospel referred to in 16:25, and although I can't really disagree with that, lately, I've come to think it could be the rapture. Think about that: if there is a rapture before the very end, that will more than anything of all history, bring a quick turnabout of faith. The thing that makes the previous examples weak is that they don't really make the words "bring about obedience of faith" SING to me, but rapture sure does.
I am still developing my own thoughts on rapture. There can be no doubt that rapture WILL occur at some point, and it has to be a time that makes sense and will not contradict any of the Bible, or it's prophecy. I had a major monkey wrench thrown in my discoveries this week, and my studies on the subject are put back a bit. (Has to do with the word 'restrainer' in 2 thes 2.) I can't find enough collaborative works that point to a simple answer. it's used two different ways in two adjoining verses, to make it more difficult. The first is neuter, the second singular and masculine. If it means the "strength" of the Holy Spirit, i..e., the "church", then it works very well into a pre-tribulation rapture, but if NOT, i.e. Michael the archangel, then we are back to dunno.
Back to the Biblical proofs of Truth, God, etc. Here's a great web page with many links:Contacted: Bible is Extra-terrestrial [from a paper showing that there is NO chance of life coming to be 'by chance']Here's an example quote: in Chuck Misslers book "The Creator Beyond Time and Space" he looks at this number a little differently. "This number is so large it would take several thousand blank books just to write it out. To put this number into perspective, it is more likely that you and your entire extended family would win the state lottery every week for a million years than for a bacterium to form by chance."
Missler also states in his book "Mathematicians tell us that if an event has a probability which is less likely then one chance in 1050, then that event is mathematically impossible. Such an event, if it were to occur, would be considered a miracle."
Somebody has a website where they sell books and works by Ivan Panin. if you're interested, it's here:
Bible Numerics as established by Ivan PaninI wanted to talk about some interesting thoughts I've gotten from some of the list members, but It's getting too late today, I will write again later. Please feel free to send me ideas, and of course, feedback on this letter.
Andrew