Hi Ian, thanks for the excellent post!
> Richard,
>
> You wrote that you crave "intelligent criticism". I'd like to make a
point
> that I think concerns anyone who is involved in this kind of venture. I'm
> well aware of the dramatic effect it must have had on you when the subject
> you had been studying for years suddenly fell into this beautiful
symmetric
> structure. I experienced a similar "epiphany" on discovering an elegant
> geometric representation of the gematria of the word "logos", and then
> realising that the structure was embedded in the text itself, by relation
to
> the phrase "kai theos en" (and God was). (Details available on demand ..
> but I nearly fell off my chair when I saw this).
A similiar pattern is found in Heb 4.12. The entire verse is structured on
three primes 73, 373, and 443, which correspond to the values of Hokmah
(Heb, Widsom), Logos (Gr, Word), and Ho Logos (Gr, The Word). You can see my
results by going to my site www.BibleWheel.com and navigating to Biblical
Holographs (top menu bar) and then selecting "The Logos Holograph" from the
sidebar. Please understand what I have presented there is just an outline of
some ideas and a graphic representation of the results.
>
> However, whenever any such pattern falls into place, however amazed we
might
> be on seeing it, I think we have to take a step back, and ask the
skeptical
> question "OK so it falls into a pattern, and the likelihood of that
pattern
> is very small; but just how many other patterns could have occurred, and
> would we find those equally miraculous?". In other words, given any
> arbitrary set of numbers, how easy is it to find an "interesting pattern"
in
> there? And how does one evaluate if one pattern is more "interesting"
than
> another?
Yes, this is extremely important, especially when dealing only with
alphanumerical relations. My personal standard is to demand a "high" degree
of self-reflectivity before asserting any divine significance. (Note that
"high" would need to be defined before I could solidly defend any
assertions.) This is why I call these structures "Biblical Holographs" - the
term is a reference to the distributed nature of holographic data storage
(break one in half and you don't have half an image, you have the same image
with lower resolution). Also, it carries overtones of wholeness, as well as
the idea of a manuscript written in the hand of the original author (this is
the original meaning of the word, before technology arose.)
An example of a verse with an extremely high degree of self-reflectivity is
the Shema, which I call the "Unity Holograph." It is built on the Number 13
in this fashion:
One (Echad) = 13
Love (Ahavah) = 13
The LORD (YHVH) = 26 = 2 x 13
The LORD is one = 39 = 3 x 13 = 3 x One!
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One = 1118 = 13 x 86
Noting that 86 = Elohim (Cf Gen 1.1) yields this "interesting" result:
Sum of Shema = 13 (One) x 86 (God)
I think this begins to answer your question:
>given any
> arbitrary set of numbers, how easy is it to find an "interesting pattern"
in
> there? And how does one evaluate if one pattern is more "interesting"
than
> another?
Lets look at what we have in the Shema. Its theological significance is
incontrovertable, both Jesus and the Jews declare it to be the greatest
commandment. To see the *numeric value* of the entire verse integrate with
its *semantic value* certainly seems "interesting." To see that "The Lord is
One" relates to 3 x One also catches my mathematico-theological eye. Yet
this is but the beginning. You can read more on my site.
Despite these very "interesting" features, there remains the problem of how
to analyse the statistical significance of such phenomena. Statistics can be
very subtle, and easily misused. Besides, different people will find
different things to be interesting, and that can't be settled with
statitistics.
>
> To put it another way, one could evaluate the probability that the Bible
> Wheel structure occurred by chance alone, and it would be, as you say
> exceedingly tiny. Whether it's 10^-30, 10^-60 or 10^-100 is irrelevant.
> But what you are evaluating is a "posterior probability"; i.e. you have
> observed the data, and then calculated the probability of that pattern
> emerging. But perhaps the more relevant question is "what is the _prior_
> probability" that given a number of books, that it will fall into a
> symmetric pattern - not specifying what the pattern was.
Excellent! You have anticipated my present research. The calculations are
not *too* difficult, and I hope to have them ready to share soon.
>Suppose there had
> been 77 books and they formed a major division at 34 + 43. Would that
count
> as interesting? (incidentally, this structure is present - unknown if
> deliberate - in the Genealogy of Luke 3 in some versions. There are 77
> names back from Christ to God, and King David, arguably the most important
> intermediate in the list, is the 43rd name, and there are 34 thereafter.
> (Actually, this does not work in the KJV, where there are 78 names
present -
> however, many commentaries on Luke mention the fact that the symbolic
number
> of 77 names is present).
>
> However, that is a digression. I don't think the case is sufficiently
well
> established yet to make any claims about the Luke genealogy. It does look
> to me as if your "Bible Wheel" structure has a lot more going for it - but
> you should still ask those questions - or cite important corroborating
> evidence for your model. In fact, of course, you do, and note the
> Genesis-Isaiah-Romans "spoke", but even so, such evidence needs to be
> examined critically e.g. you should ask yourself whether, given any
> arbitrary three books in the bible, (say, Leviticus, 2 Chronicles and Jude
> as the first three that entered my head), whether it would be possible to
> construct an equally convincing argument why they are related. If such an
> argument can be found, and this experiment were repeated with other
triples,
> then the evidence for "spoke 1" starts to look less convincing.
I have many other examples on the site. For example, View Spoke 16 (dropdown
list in upper right). The only NT book that mentions "the eyes of the Lord"
is 1 Peter, which resides on Spoke 16 andcorresponds to the Letter Ayin,
which means Eye! But get this, the verse he quoted is the *Ayin* verse of
the *acrostic* Psalm 34! This means that the overall "acrostic" structure
implied by the Wheel integrates with the internal acrostic structure of the
text of Scripture, and this itself is integrated with the meaning of the
name of the corresponding Hebrew letter. There are many, many converging
lines of evidence.
But obviously, I need to work on the presentation, gather the evidence, and
form a more coherent argument. Also, I need intellegent people to help find
the *errors* that inevitably occur in any human effort such as this!
>
> A general comment. Detecting patterns that are evidence of "design"
> (whether human or Divine) requires imagination, but this must be tempered
> with a good dose of scientific skepticism. A good exercise is to get a
> random number generator to plot a set of about 150 random dots on a piece
of
> paper. Imagine these are stars in the sky. If you can't see
> "constellations" present there, and give them names ("This looks like a
> horse - this looks like a weasel"), then you haven't sufficient
imagination.
> If you start believing the patterns are real, and that God gave you the
> correct seed for the random number generator to give you a "message", then
> you don't have enough skepticism. On the other hand, if the dots all line
> up in a geometric form (e.g. in parallel lines), then there is something
> wrong with the random number generator (according to the famous Press. et
Al
> "Numerical Recipes" book, this is a common fault among random number
> generators, that n-tuples can line on n-1 dimensional hyperplanes). The
> point I'm making is that there is a fine line between what is just random
> coincidence, and what is a genuine effect.
>
> I'm sure that you have asked yourself these questions and convinced
yourself
> that you have an effect that is not down to coincidence, but other people
> coming into this cold, not having studied it for 10 years, and being
> presented with a "fait accompli", are bound to be skeptical, and you can't
> really blame them for that skepticism - critical examination of the
evidence
> is what good science should all be about.
>
Thanks for the reminder. I certainly don't blame anyone for skeptism. I love
skepticism! Where would we be without it?! The introductory arguments got a
little hot, that is all. I think we can all move on now to the really
interesting stuff.
Is there anything to the Bible Wheel? Lets find out!
Peace,
Richard
www.BibleWheel.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <richard@biblewheel.com>
> To: "george murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; "iain.strachan2"
> <iain.strachan2@ntlworld.com>
> Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>; "John W Burgeson" <burgytwo@juno.com>
> Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 2:19 AM
> Subject: Re: Wheel of God
>
>
> > In response to Ian's note, George replied:
> >
> >
> > > The possibilities you speak about may indeed have some value,
> > > but it seems to me that they need to be approached in a tentative
> > > fashion without commitment to a once-for-all grand mathematical scheme
> > > for the whole Bible. Science has generally succeeded by proceeding
from
> > > local to global, not vice versa.
> > > It is conceivable, of course, that such a grand scheme could
be
> > > correct, but when it is presented as a fait accompli to be defended
> > > against attack rather than for possible correction, revision, &c, the
> > > resulting conversation isn't likely to be very profitable. Perhaps
that
> > > wasn't the intention of "The Wheel of God" but that's the way it
seemed
> > > to me to be working out after a couple of exchanges.
> >
> > I agree that I gave that impression, and I recognize it as an
unprofitable
> > approach. I hope that it will not color all future interactions. My hope
> > was, and is, to receive true criticism of my work, an online peer
review,
> if
> > you will.
> >
> > Here's the deal: I am willing to utterly abandon any of my propositions
> that
> > can be objectively demonstrated to be false or intellectually untenable.
I
> > crave intelligent criticism, and I give my word that I will publish a
> > prominant retraction *on my site* of anything that can be objectively
> > demonstrated to to be in error. I don't have all the answers, no matter
> how
> > much I may seem to act like I do.
> >
> > Of course, as the champion of the Wheel of God, it must be understood
that
> > in my heart and soul, it is a fait accompli. The process by which I came
> to
> > this knowledge left no possible alternative. I discovered the Wheel in
> 1995,
> > but did not recognize the symmetric structure of the seven canonical
> > divisions until 2000. Imagine the kind of impact that had on my mind.
Here
> > was a structure I studied for five years, and then all in one day this
> > incredibly beautiful symmetry just appeared before my eyes! It was one
of
> my
> > greatest "Omega minus" epiphanies.
> >
> > Please understand I am not seeking to re-engage in debate. But I am open
> to
> > further mutually respectful exchange of ideas.
> >
> > B'Shem EL Elyon,
> >
> > Richard
> > www.BibleWheel.com
> >
>
>
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