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Frequently Asked Questions
• Why do you use the verses when they were only added later?
Many people think that since the verse system of the Bible was added much later that it means they are not ‘Biblical.’ This criticism however is really missing the point in a very big way. The verses of the Bible have been standardized by publishers for hundreds of years, so they are real in a very modern sense. The all knowing God of the Bible, by the very definition of His Being, would absolutely have to be aware of this eventual standardization of the verses. It is well within His power then to decide to encode for them.
A God who knew all things before the beginning of the universe, would know that someday the first seven words of the Bible would be known world wide as the first verse. Packing that first verse with more mathematical marvels than can be imagined is very much in keeping with the God of the Bible.
Additionally most verses of the Bible record complete thoughts, which is another valid way to define a set of words. God, however, isn’t limited to verses but it is His prerogative to do so and it appears in many cases (like the first verse) that He certainly has.
To see the proof it read CHAPTER & VERSE and TRINITIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
• Didn’t Jesus speak Aramaic not Hebrew or Greek?
The idea that Christ spoke in Aramaic has recently become a popular notion, especially with the advent of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. All this however is a great oversimplification of history. New Testament scholars rediscovered Aramaic when they realized that certain portions of the New Testament were Aramaic references. They then erroneously concluded that this was the language of Jesus and the Disciples.
The truth, as always, is more complicated.
The people of that region at that time were very multilingual. We know from New Testament references that Christ spoke in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Recent discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls show a preponderance of writings and letters in Hebrew. David Flusser, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period, writes:
“Today, after the discovery of the Hebrew Ben Sira (Ecclesiaticus), of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bar Kochba Letters, and in the light of the more profound studies of the Jewish Sages, it is accepted that most people were fluent in Hebrew.”
To be Jewish then and now is to have a learned and profound reverence for the language of Moses and Abraham and the sacred writings of the Tanakh (Old Testament). A more extensive compilation of the evidence can be found here: First Century Fluency
• Why do you use both Hebrew and Greek gematria at the same time?
In the study of Christian Biblical numerics, one must employ both languages, as they are the two original languages of the text. The reason that the secrets of the Bible remained hidden for so long, is that gematria scholars tended to only look at one language or the other. When you do this, the pieces of the puzzle are incomplete. It is only when you mix the gematria of Hebrew and Greek together, that the entire mystery is revealed.
• Why do you include words and phrases that are Extra-Biblical?
The majority of the work is focused primarily on the mathematics of the Scriptures. However, like the question of the versification of the Bible, God is not limited to only the Word. God is not just the Lord of the Bible, He is also the Lord of all creation.
Recently, Divine Codes have been discovered in the Amino Acids that make up all genes, in the elements of the periodic table and in the pure mathematics of number theory. It would seem hopelessly short sighted to ignore these powerful proofs simply because they are Extra-Biblical.
Similarly, the languages of Hebrew and Greek (the languages of the Bible) show again and again demonstrative evidence of programming that reflects the theology of the Trinity. These words and phrases in Greek and Hebrew, do not always appear in the Bible. For instance, the word for ‘Trinity’ does not appear in the Bible, yet there are few concepts in Christianity as important as the theology of the Trinity.
Here again the answer is: God is not only the Lord of the Scriptures, He is Lord of all language as well.
• How do you account for the scribal errors and the variations in the manuscripts?
This is by far the best question asked and it is not an easy answer because of the great complexity involved with the thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament.
The answer comes to us via the Masorectic Text of the Old Testament. This text has been shown to have been perfectly preserved through time down to the letter, any scribal errors were noted with Kethib-Qere insertions. This is the key to understanding the hand of God in the transciptions of His Holy Word. The evidence for this is beginning to amass and a good place to start is here in ‘The Mathematics of Mistake.’
The basic idea is this: God is incapable of mistake but he left the transcription of His word to man, who is very capable of mistake. When we look, however, at the mistakes of man through a mathematical lense, we see the all abiding providence of God at work, where even the mistakes add up to mathematical marvels.
There are no mistakes in the Bible. There are only puzzles yet to be solved.
• What’s the difference between Historical and Ahistorical gematria?
Historical gematria is an alphanumeric system that at one time in history was used by a society as both letters and numbers. This includes Hebrew and Greek, standard and ordinal.
Ahistorical gematria, is an alphanumeric system that was never used as a numbering system at anytime in history. These are invented systems, which is why they must be excluded from any survey of Biblical mathematics. Because ahistorical gematrias are invented they can be engineered to have a particular outcome.
• Why would God use Yeshu HaNotzri in the first verse?
ישו הנוצרי = Jesus Christ (Yeshu HaNotzri)
This rendering of Jesus Christ may seem irregular to some familiar with Biblical Hebrew and that is exactly the point. The best rendering of Jesus Christ in proper Biblical Hebrew would be Yahoshua HaMeshiach יהושע המשיח (Joshua the Messiah).
The proper name of 'Jesus' in the Hebrew language, has undergone many transformations. The reason for the changed spelling by the Hebrew scholars is claimed to be a differentiation from the name of the Biblical Joshua (Jesus). The other more devious reason for continually changing the spelling and pronunciation of the name over the centuries, was to denigrate the name for the Jewish reader.
The rendering ישו הנוצרי Yeshu HaNotzri is the most denigrated and altered name for Jesus Christ in Hebrew. The first name is barely recognizable to Joshua (Yahoshua) and the second name simple means 'Of Nazareth.' Nevertheless this denigrated version is translated as Jesus Christ.
In a word, the reason God would choose this rendition is 'Irony.' For centuries the Jewish scribes attempted to alter the name of Jesus further and further from its Biblical form, a form that means 'God is Salvation,' a perfect name for the promised Messiah. So it is ironic that after all this time and all those attempts to alter the sacred name, the final version ended up only fulfilling the most startling fact of their own most sacred book.
• Why would God put puzzles in the Bible?
Because He knew one day they would be discovered!
The Bible says that when Jesus spoke to the people, He always spoke in parables (Matthew 13:34), which are a simple form of riddle. That is well known, what wasn't known until now, is that he was speaking in far more sophisticated riddles as well.
The puzzles are also test. They are a test of faith and the purity of heart. There are some who will see the evidence, as obvious as it is, and yet will still scoff, quibble and quarrel because of the wickedness of their hearts. For the meek and the pure of heart, they will see the truth of it immediately.
Here is a riddle from Jesus himself, from Luke 8:11. Its meaning is as plain as it would have been 2,000 years ago. It means the Cross is the way to heaven. The star represent heaven both figuratively and numerically. The Greek word for 'The Seed' (O Sporos) has seven letters and makes a centered heptagram. There are 37 remaining letters which make a mathematical Star of David. When you put the seed inside the Star of David you have solved this ordinal puzzle.
This riddle is the 37th verse in the Bible containing the word Parable.
• How does math prove anything?
Philosophy and Science both agree that mathematics is the underlying truth of all physical phenomena. If one looks around at the modern world and what man has been able to build from the tallest skyscraper to the fantastic technology in your cell phone, what you see is the byproduct of science. All science is predicated on the fundamental underlying truth of mathematics.
Philosophers have long since proven this point. Read the works of Immanuel Kant or the more modern Ludwig Wittgenstein for fulsome displays of this logic.
To see how math and more specifically ‘Probability Theory’ proves the Bible to be divinely inspired read, Biblical Gematria 101.
• Why did it take so long for these things to be discovered?
Primarily it had to do with technology and the dissemination of information over the internet. The other obstacle was that few scholars ever studied both the gematria of Hebrew and Greek. The complete portrait of Biblical Numerics requires both sides of that equation.
• Why is it complicated? Why didn’t God just make it easy?
Complication is a relative term and to many mathematicians the work here is not complicated in the slightest. The real answer is twofold. One God is fair and is using mathematics not magic to encode. Mathematics has rules and limitations and these are made more complex by the rules of grammar and syntax and history itself for that matter.
• How is this all possible?
God is not infinite; He is infinitely infinite! And yes that is mathematically correct (see the work of Georg Cantor). God’s mind is more infinite and marvelous than a human could ever hope to begin to imagine. The Mathematical Standard is an attempt to crack open the door just a bit on God’s infinite imagination.
When it comes to the endless mathematics of the first verse (Protoverse Mathematics are an infinite set) we are still struggling to comprehend how it was accomplished. The best theory so far is The Seam of the Universe Theory. Being that God is omniscient (All-knowing) he could survey all the physical sciences, all number and numbering systems and all mathematics. Here He must have detected a seam in the data connected to the primes of 3 and 7.
Ask any scientist or mathematician: "If there were codes in the Bible what would they be based on?" That person in all likelihood will respond: 'Prime Numbers.'
A good analogy to the amazing mathematics of God is when one first encounters the math of magic squares and cubes. Before one knows about a magic square, mathematics seems rather dull, but afterward one has a whole new respect for the power of numbers.
Here is a simple example. Below is an Order 3 magic square. It has been known about for thousands of years. Adding up the rows, columns and diagonals you will notice that they all come to an even 15.
Order 3 Magic Square
15 15 15
Amazing? Well we haven’t even begun.
We can do this with an Order 9 magic square and see that complexity move up a step. Here every complete row, column and diagonal come to 369.
Order 9 Magic Square
All rows, columns and diagonals = 369
We can also do this in three dimensions or in a cube. Below is an Order 4 cube from one of the greatest mathematicians of history: Pierre Fermat. Imagine every square to be one level of the cube. Each level will be 520 and each row or column will be 520 and each individual row or column of each level will be 130.
Pierre Fermat’s Order 4 Perfect Cube
Each level, column and row = 520
If you think that is an amazing level of complexity, try the Order Twelve Tri-magic Square. Here each row, column and diagonal come to 870 the sum of ‘The Lord’ in Greek.
Ο Κυριος = The Lord = 870
This trimagic square was constructed by Walter Trump in 2002. It has been mathematically proven that no smaller trimagic squares of this type can ever be constructed: The Smallest Trimagic Square Not only do the rows, columns and diagonals add up evenly, the squares of each cell of each row, column and diagonals are even at 83,810 and even the cubes of each cell of each row, column or diagonal are even at 9,082,800.
Order 12 Trimagic Square
The sum and square and cube of each cell of all rows, columns and diagonals are perfectly equal.
The same way that each one of these magic squares is amazing to you the first time you see it, so too is the mathematics of the Bible, only more so, because they come from the mind of the Creator Himself.
• What about evolution?
For that I will refer you to the world's leading experts on the subject. They are scientists and scholars of the highest pedigree and publish their findings in peer-reviewed science journals.
If you want the short answer, it is Irreducible Complexity
• Aren’t you just ‘Cherry Picking’ the numbers?
A: YES! Absolutely we are ‘Cherry Picking’ but we are Cherry Picking for very good reasons. Gematria is a practice that is at the crossroads of mathematics and language. If one cherry picked in pure mathematics one would be wrong, but in the realm of language we have every reason to pick one thing over another.
Traditional gematria has certain rules that makes sense of the oceans of data in any language. These rules are based in the logic of grammar and universal linguistics. For instance, in Greek, there are many different ways of writing a name, but in standard gematria the nominative form is used. We can see this in the name Jesus, in which the nominative form comes to 888.
When it comes to gematria there is a common misunderstanding concerning word values and numerical values that they are both interchangeable. This arises because gematria links words and phrases with numbers. Numbers are governed by mathematics, words however are not. Numbers that are equivalent are mathematically identical and interchangeable. Words do not share this function.
Gematria by itself is intriguing and sometimes even strongly suggestive of design. It is however Contextual Relevancy that makes the mathematics of Probability Theory work. It is contextually relevant that the prime factors of the first verse of the Bible, perfectly match the modern Hebrew name of Jesus Christ. The contention of Christianity is that God came to earth in the guise of a man, now called Yeshu HaNotzri in modern Hebrew. Should we find this pattern of letters and numbers in a mathematical reference in the very first verse of the Bible it should give us deep philosophical, religious and theological pause.
The basic nuts and bolts of gematria works on theological primaries and hierarchies. There are many words that add up to the number 86 in both Greek and Hebrew. The vast majority of the words however are not in their proper dictionary form and often are a prepositional phrase. These types of words have never been considered viable in the history of gematria. Similarly, words in Greek about pagan mythologies are excluded as they are non-Biblical (out of category).
More importantly, there are some words that add up to 86 but are unimportant (trivial). Clearly many words can add up to 86 but only one is really important: A persons name דבלים which means ‘Double Cake’ or the verb מים which means to be defective or an Ephah אפה a common measure of dry goods, all add up to 86. Now compare those meanings to the word Elohim = 86, which is thee Hebrew in dictionary form for ‘God.’ Clearly, all words that sum to 86 must theologically first fall under the primary meaning of Elohim.
A dry measure of goods is incapable of creating a universe or orchestrating codes in the Bible, but an Elohim whose number is 86 could do such things and would certainly know that Elohim added up to 86!
• 13, 666, the Pentagram and Lucifer!?
At this time in history, most people believe that the numbers 13 and 666 and the name Lucifer are all synonymous with evil and the devil. This belief is not only misguided it is fundamentally wrong. If the number is evil then why are there 13 letters in the name of Jesus Christ in the original Greek? And why is the sum of God’s most holy name (Yahweh) 2 x 13?
We know why people think 666 is of the devil, because of the reference to it in the book of Revelation. However that is a historical reference to Rome and the Caesars that can be seen here: ROME 666 The fact of the matter is that 666 is one of God’s most holy numbers, which is why it figures so prominently in the mathematics of the first verse.
‘In the beginning God created the heavens’ = 666 + 666 + 666
That’s a Trinitarian signature coupled with 666. Clearly the number is not evil. To a practicing Jew interested in the mysticism of Judaism, 666 has a very clear connotation. It is Tiphereth, the sixth sephira on the Tree of Life, whose Order-6 magic square has a sum of 666.
What about Lucifer?
The biggest joke in history is on those that practice satanism. There is only one reference to ‘Lucifer’ in the Bible: Isaiah 14:12 Heylel הילל [H1966]. Lucifer means ‘Lightbringer’. What an odd name for the Prince of Darkness! This is a mistranslation from the 3rd century. Check and see the footnote in your Amplified Bible. The Greek word for Lightbringer is Phosphoros φωσφορος [G5459] from II Peter 1:19. This name is actually a title of Jesus Christ, who is of course the Lightbringer.
So literally, the biggest joke in history is on satanists. They proudly show off one of God’s most holy numbers (666) and they pray to Jesus Christ in the name Lucifer!
In fact, the much feared 'Pentagram' which is nothing more than a five pointed star and appears 50 times on the American Flag alone, literally cannot be satanic to any Bible believing Christian for the following reason: The name Jesus in its correct Biblical form creates a pentagon the geometric basis of a pentagram.
Using figurative mathematics we see the name Jesus is the basis of the pentagram of Paul.
• How is this proof? Where is the proof? Is this proof?
It is the mathematics of probability theory that proves the point. Probability theory is that branch of mathematics that determines the chances of random events occurring. In every instance of any of the mathematical puzzles or correlations you see on this website, we can use the principles of probability theory to determine with a high level of accuracy just how probable these features we see in the Bible are. When we do so, we find they are always improbable and mostly highly improbable (less than 1%).
The mathematics of probability theory tells us that these improbable events multiply together to determine the final probability that all of these events could happen. When highly improbable events multiply they become spectacularly and exponentially improbable.
Exempli gratia: What are the chances that the Greek words Faith and Lord would have the same numerical value? Both Pistis and Kurios have a standard value of 800. As Greek words can number anywhere between one and several thousand, it is safe to say that it is at least a 1 in an 800 chance.
ΠΙΣΤΙΣ = 800
ΚΥΡΙΟΣ = 800
1/800 = 0.125%
What are the chances that the words Faith and Lord would have the same numerical value in the ordinal numeration? Both Pistis and Kurios have an ordinal value of 89. We can say that in the least that is a 1 in 89 chance.
ΠΙΣΤΙΣ = 89
ΚΥΡΙΟΣ = 89
1/89 = 1.123%
0.125% x 1.123% = 0.0014%
That is roughly the equivalent of a 1 out of a 100,000 chance of occurring. As the human head has roughly 100,000 hairs, this is like being able to blindly pick out one designated strand of hair out of all the hairs on your head. AND that is but one minor feature in an ocean of highly improbable features, all of which multiply together to make an exponential impossibility of random occurrence.
By looking around this website and its many, many articles it should be plainly obvious that the events recorded here are all improbable and collectively are, by random chance and reasonable mind, impossible, save that there is a God and that God made it so.
Many of the articles here do not list the probabilities involved because it would become tiresome and not all authorities would agree on the exact parameters of the question. But in every instance an estimate based in probability theory can be made and they always show improbability.
All of this is common sense and can be see even by the simpleton with only just a gaze.
In a large enough data set there will always be incredible coincidences. The way randomness works in large data sets often produces surprising coincidences, such as how two of the American Presidents share the same birthday and that this was quite likely to occur (James K. Polk and Warren G. Harding, Nov. 2).
Statisticians know this rule well. An example is of a person who won the lottery twice in less than five years. To that person it was the most amazing coincidence of their life. But when statisticians looked at the data of the whole set of all persons playing lotto’s across the country, they saw that it was highly probable that at least one person would win the lottery twice in five years.
So we could expect to see amazing coincidences in a data set as large as the Bible, however it would be haphazard and unorganized and any attempt to argue for its design would seem desperate and dubious. When we look at the ‘coincidences’ in the Bible we see patterns that are clearly indicative of intelligence and design.
The first verse is a perfect example of why these features are not just random coincidences masquerading as design. We can expect amazing coincidences in a data set the size of the Bible, but we would not expect all these coincidences to be clustered on the very first verse of the Bible. Rather they would be spread out in a random distribution.
Yes amazing coincidences would occur in the Bible but how would they appear? One must use reason and common sense to pass this test of faith.
• How do you explain the Genesis account with the age of the universe?
The Genesis account of creation does not contradict modern science. There are, in fact, in full agreement. In physics, when you talk about the beginning of a universe, you are talking about time and space. The fundamental theory that governs time and space, is Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
You cannot talk about the expansion of an entire universe, without the Theory of Relativity, yet both literal six day creationist and secular atheist always seem to ignore that most fundamental scientific fact. The Israeli physicist, Dr. Gerald Schroeder, however, did not. Depending on your place and time in the universe, time and space are relative. In other words, the universe can be both 13 billion years old and around 6,000 years old, all depending upon your place and perspective in the universe.
Here is the basic outline from Gerald Schroeder's essay and book on the subject:
The calculations come out to be as follows:
• The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.
• The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
• The third 24 hour day also included half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
• The fourth 24 hour day ― one billion years.
• The fifth 24 hour day ― one-half billion years.
• The sixth 24 hour day ― one-quarter billion years.
When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology.
Gerald Schroeder's online essay: Science Agrees with the Genesis Account
You can purchase his book here: Genesis and the Big Bang
Want to get the latest discoveries in biblical mathematics? Then email johnelias@israelmail.com Subject Line: Updates!
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