But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Ephesians 4.15f

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+ A Great Cloud of Witnesses + The Eternal Circle + Symmetries of the Bible Wheel + The Sevenfold Canon + Derivation of the Sevenfold Canon + Fearful Symmetry + Probabilities: What are the Chances? + Answer Thou Me + The Canon Wheel

One way to look at the Wheel of God is as a scientific model of the Holy Bible. Just as physical phenomena have been studied with various models, e.g. Ptolemaic vs. Copernican Astronomy, Classical vs. Quantum Physics, Newtonian vs. Relativistic Mechanics, so the Bible has been subject to various models. Perhaps the most notable (notorious?) example is the failed Documentary Hypothesis that so violently ravaged the Holy Word.

But never in the history of Biblical Studies has a fully coherent model of the Bible as a whole been presented. The question now is this: does it make any predictions? Does it provide anything new to our knowledge of Scripture?

What follows is a derivation of the sevenfold structure of the Christian Canon from first principles, using nothing but:

1) A Model
2) Two Initial Conditions
3) Two Symmetry Constraints

This follows precisely the same pattern as many of the greatest scientific discoveries of the last century, as discussed in my review of A. Zee's Fearful Symmetry. Let us begin:

Object to Model:

The traditional Protestant Canon of 66 Books (the Proto-canon of the Catholics)

Model:

Construct a Wheel with 22 Spokes and three concentric circles called Cycles. This forms a circular grid of 66 Cells, with three Cells on each Spoke. Place the 66 books sequentially on the Wheel, so that Cycle 1 consists Books 1 - 22, Cycle 2 consists of Books 23 - 44, and Cycle 3 consists of Books 45 - 66.

Method:

To derive the Seven-fold Canonical structure of the Holy Bible, impose two initial conditions and construct the minimal Canon that satisfies maximal symmetry constraints as follows:

Definition:

A canonical division is defined as a radial line between Spoke m and m+1 (modulo 22) on Cycle c, denoted as CD(m,c). Cf. image below.

Definition:

The set of books contained between two canonical divisions CD(m,c) and CD(n,c) is defined as Block(m,n,c), where m denotes the starting division and n the ending division. E.g. The Torah is Block(22,5,1). Cf. image below.

Initial Conditions:

History has given us two incontrovertible constraints on any possible canonical structure:

1) There must exist a canonical division between the first five books (The Torah) and the rest of Scripture.

2) There must exist a canonical division between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Maximal Symmetry Constraints:

Construction:

Now construct the minimal Canon that satisfies the above constraints:

1) The initial conditions demand that there are three canonical divisions.

There must be a CD(22,1) and a CD(5,1) to form Block(22,5,1) corresponding to the Torah.

There must be a CD(17,2) between the Old and the New Testaments.

2) Bilateral symmetry demands that there are two more canonical divisions to match the initial conditions:

There must be a CD(17,1) to match CD(5,1)

There must be a CD(5,2) to match CD(17,2)

3) Radial symmetry demands that there is one additional canonical division:

There must be a CD(22,2) to match CD(22,1).

The initial conditions and the symmetry constraints are now satisfied. This is the minimal solution. Mapping these divisions on the Wheel results in the traditional Seven Canonical Divisions of the Christian Canon: