pruest@pop.dplanet.ch wrote:
> > "Iain Strachan" <iain@istrachan.clara.co.uk> wrote to <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net> (29 Jun 2001 01:07:06 +0100):
>
> >[snip]
> > I will state here that when I first heard of the approximation to Pi in =
> > Genesis 1:1, that I was a bit skeptical to start with. Initially, it =
> > was just a formula taking the letter product divided by the word =
> > product, and it gave a figure for pi/4 multiplied by an arbitrary power =
> > of 10. At that point, I reckoned that it was no more than "mildly =
> > interesting", as someone else put it. Then it became clear that the =
> > number of letters (28) was 4 times the number of words, so the =
> > correction to the formula (Num letters) * (letter product) / (Num =
> > words)*(word product) led to an approximation for Pi, times an arbitrary
> > power of 10. This still wasn't quite enough to convince me that this =
> > was a genuine happening and not a fluke of coincidence; the formula =
> > seems an arbitrary one plucked out of thin air, and difficult to justify
> > unless a different verse could be made to show a similar feature with =
> > exactly the same formula; which would confirm independently that the =
> > formula was in some sense valid.
> >
> > It was when someone else plugged the numerical values of John 1:1 into =
> > precisely the same formula to arrive at a similarly accurate =
> > approximation for e (multiplied by a power of 10), that I was finally =
> > convinced that this merited further attention. It makes coincidence an
> > extremely long shot, as the formula was not tweaked or altered in any =
> > way to produce the "e" result. Also validates the letter count/word =
> > count correction factor. If the original formula had been applied to =
> > John 1:1, there would have been a very accurate approximation to 17e/52,
> > which would hardly have jumped out at anyone.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > Other observations I have made subsequently involve evaluating "the =
> > formula" on every verse in the Torah (some 5000 verses - with a computer
> > program). I can confirm that the formula effectively computes a random =
> > varible. The fractional part of the base 10 part of the logarithm of =
> > the function gives a uniform distribution in the range 0 to 1, as one =
> > would expect. Genesis 1:1 is the verse that is closest to pi, differing
> > by 10^-5. If one selects an arbitrary other constant (say the square =
> > root of two), then one normally finds that the closest one is around =
> > 10^-4 distant, which is in accord with what one would expect with 5000 =
> > data samples. The second closest verse to pi has a difference of 10^-4;
> > so Gen 1:1 is an order of magnitude closer to pi than it.
> >[snip]
>
> With Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew, I got a relative deviation (delta Pi)/Pi of
> 0.001 %, in agreement with Iain Strachan's result. However, with John
> 1:1 in Greek, the relative deviation (delta e)/e was 0.54 %, not
> "similarly accurate". Could it be that I used different letter values
> somewhere? (I used 1 to 9, 10 to 90, 100 to 300 for 21 Hebrew letters
> alef to taw (omitting tsade, unassigned to a number), and 1 to 5, 7 to
> 9, 10 to 80, 100 to 800 for 24 Greek letters alpha to omega, omitting 6
> (Hebrew waw) and 90 (Hebrew qof) assigned to no Greek letters).
>
> But I have difficulties with the assignment of probabilities to these
> findings. Even if 10^-4 is the expected value for the best match in 5000
> Torah verses, it does not look very improbable to me if one of the
> verses gets to 10^-5 of some particular value aimed at. And 0.005 seems
> to be not at all remarkable. Would any one of you who are knowledgable
> in probability calculations care about describing here how to find
> relevant probabilities?
One point that seems to have been missed in all this is the fact that verse divisions were not part of the
original Hebrew text of the OT or the Greek text of the NT. These divisions often seem quite arbitrary. Thus the
numerical evaluations of "every verse" of torah, or the rest of scripture, aren't
very meaningful.
It might be argued that this criticism doesn't apply to Gen.1:1 and Jn.1:1 because those are complete
sentences. But the sentence punctuation is also later and to some extent arbitrary. With Genesis, there has been an
extensive debate among biblical scholars about whether v.1 should be read as a complete sentence which stands as a
heading for the whole creation account or whether it should be read, as a number of translations do, "In the
beginning, when god created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void ..." (NRSV). I think Westermann
has made a good case for the first & more traditional reading but a decision can't be made on grammatical or
syntactic grounds alone.
It is also quite common to read Jn.1:1 as a single sentence but we wouldn't have to. One could read it as
"In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God."
(This wouldn't be elegant Greek, but John isn't very elegant Greek anyway.) This corresponds to Phillips'
paraphrase: "In the beginning God expressed himself. That personal expression, that word, was with God and was God,
and he existed with God from the beginning."
My major reason for considering this whole line of argument to be at best "mildly interesting" is, however,
theological, and can be stated in 3 parts.
1) Getting pi from Gen.1:1 & e from Jn.1:1 yields little of theological significance. It's supposed to
prove that the Bible is divinely inspired but at most it could prove that those 2 verses are inspired. & one could
even argue from the fact that there isn't any similar mathematical correspondence for other parts of scripture that
_only_ those verses are inspired.
2) The argument can be of value only for getting the attention of unbelievers and suggesting to them that
the message of the Bible deserves some consideration. Has it done so? How many conversions have begun with this
argument?
3) If anybody does take this message seriously, it's going to be very easy for them to get the idea that pi
and e are the really deep level of scripture hidden below the surface details about the history of Israel & the
church - just as in _Contact_ pi is hidden below the primes and Hitler and
the plans for the transit device. & this would be disastrous theologically, for the deep meaning of scripture is
Jesus Christ.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Dialogue"
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