The early Christian Sacred Geometers called a circle with a circumference of 888 units “the living Jesus” because the diameter of his circle is 282 units, which is the gematria value of the Greek word bios (BioV), meaning “earthly life.”
~ Daniel Gleason, www.jesus8880.com
The quote above typifies the raving lunacy Daniel Gleason publishes on his site. There is not one shred of evidence that any early Christians drew a circle with circumference of 888 units and called it “the living Jesus.” How then could he make such an assertion? The answer is simple; he believes his numerology proves that’s what they must have been doing. He has since changed his words to “may have called” in response to my email asking for his justification. He said he would restore the original assertion after his book with his numerological proofs is published, as if mere numerology, without any textual or historical evidence, could prove what early Christians actually did and said.
Gleason got on my radar because one of his particularly obnoxious and deluded followers started spamming my comment stream with his theories, asserting they were absolute facts and that anyone who disagrees is either ignorant or insane. I have moved all his comments to this thread. Psychological scatologists should find them a rich resource for the study of how people maintain their delusions when confronted with contrary evidence.
Here is how Gleason explains his theory on his home page:
This may seem incredible: nobody in modern times before the publication of this book has ever recognized that the gematria value of key words such as “fishes,” “loaves,” “the net,” the “sun,” and the names “Jesus,” “John the Baptist,” “Simon Peter,” the collective names of his twelve apostles are all linked to each other through very simple geometric ratios based on “the number” of the name “Jesus” raised by a power of ten to the number “8880.” Matthew, Mark, and John used this geometric relationship extensively in their gospels! All the “mysteries” of Christianity are based on the metaphor of the raised Jesus (8880). Some striking examples are shown in the table below.
All the “mysteries” of Christianity are based on the metaphor of the raised Jesus (8880)? How does that work? Gleason explains:
The most important message of Christianity is that Jesus rose from the dead and the authors of the gospels made a geometric metaphor out of that claim by “raising” his living value (888) by a factor of 10 and then making a circle with a circumference of 8880 units to depict the “raised Jesus.” Enclosing the “raised Jesus” inside a square creates a graph which is a metaphor for “the Kingdom of God.” Circles representing the gematria values of the “living” Jesus, his apostles, and other characters can then be graphically depicted inside the “Kingdom” or “Jesus Graph.”
Every single verse in the Gospel of Mark uses this graph. Volume 1 of this book will demonstrate how the authors of the gospels incorporated gematria and sacred geometry riddles in their stories to proclaim the raised Jesus. Volume 2 will demonstrate how the auther of the Book of Revelation used the same “raised Jesus graph” as the gospels but employed a style of gematria that was far more advanced and sophisticated to reveal “Jesus Christ.”
Is there any evidence that any early Christians ever drew such pictures? Nope. None. Nada. Zilch. He just made that up, and asserted that “Every single verse in the Gospel of Mark uses this graph.”
The graph itself is trivial and meaningless. It has nothing to do with the specific value of the circumference. Ten stacked circles of an arbitrary circumference “c” will always fit in a circle of circumference 10 x c. And there is a much more significant problem. There is no way first century numerologists could have accurately drawn circles with a circumference of 8880 units. Even with modern computer graphics, the circle would have to be 8880/π = 2826 pixels wide for one unit to be represented by just a single pixel. Are we really supposed to think that first century “sacred geometers” were able to construct figures with that degree of accuracy? Here’s what Gleason says on his page Tools and Art of Sacred Geometry: How it was done:
In order to compose quick and accurate diagrams, a large permanent grid would need to be constructed. The grid could be inlaid into a large tabletop or even better, be built into a custom made floor. Thin wood disks or cutout papyrus circles could be placed on the grid to work out different scenarios and quickly create new diagrams. When a story was finished, a scribe could write down the carefully constructed words of the riddle. A skilled draftsman could then record the “mystery” in the form of accurate diagrams made with a compass, divider, ruler, and straightedge on ruled papyrus.
Folks in the first century had no way to accurately measure circumferences of 8880 units. Let’s be generous and assume that they used five foot circles engraved on a “custom made floor.” Such a circle would have had a circumference of 5π = 15.7 feet, so a single “unit” would have been 15.7/8880 = 0.0017 feet = .51 millimeters. That’s half a millimeter, engraved in a floor with ancient tools, and compared with circles made out of word and/or papyrus?
But that’s just the beginning of Gleason’s absurdities. There is no way the presumed numerologists could have marked 8880 units on the circumference. All they could do was “declare” that whatever circle they drew “represented” that number. So the picture itself was just a representation of mathematical calculations, which were either trivial, like 8880 = 888 x 10, or impossible because they would critically depend on an accurate value of pi that did not exist at that time.
| Name or Title | Gematria Value |
Common Factor 74 |
Product |
| Jesus | 888 | 74 x 12 | 888 x 10 = 8880 |
| Christ | 1480 | 74 x 20 | 1480 x 6 = 8880 |
| John the Baptist | 2220 | 74 x 30 | 2220 x 4 = 8880 |
| Son of Man | 2960 | 74 x 40 | 2960 x 3 = 8880 |
| The raised Jesus | 8880 | 74 x 120 | 8880 x 1 = 8880 |
The core of Gleason’s claims are based on a tiny cherry-picked subset of names and titles that he forced to fit his pattern by arbitrarily and inconsistently including and excluding the Greek article. The table on the right is from his home page. Those names and numbers are the “key” to all his claims. To get the numbers he wanted, he omitted the article from both John the Baptist and The Son of Man. Neither of those name/titles are ever written in the NT as he has them in his table. The correct values are:
Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτιστὴς (John the Baptist) = 2290
ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (The Son of Man) = 3030
The only accurate values in his table are those of Jesus = 888 and Christ = 1480. All his claims are based on the single, meaningless, random coincidence that those two numbers share a common factor of 296.
And what about all the other names and titles of Christ that don’t fit his pattern? What about the Savior, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God? What about the Lamb of God, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life? What about the New Adam, the Second Adam, the Last Adam? Hundreds of values could be generated by calculating every variation based on including and excluding the articles. His table is a tiny insignificant subset of the set of all possibilities, and even then, he had to manipulate the numbers by removing articles to get the numbers he was looking for.
Now the really crazy thing is that Gleason inserted the article into the name “Simon Peter” to force it to fit one of his circles. Here is what he wrote (source):
The name Simon is a Proper Name. The word Petros is a Title meaning “The Stone.” The gematria value of the name and the Title together form a Sign that is a geometric multiple of the Raised Jesus (8880). The name Simon has a gematria value of 1,100 units. The word petros is a masculine noun and takes the masculine definite article “O.” The title therefore has a gematria value of 70 + 755 = 825 units. The name and title have a combined gematria value of 1925 units. The diagram below reveals Simon Peter’s sign.
Exactly four circles, each with a circumference equal to the gematria value of Simon the Stone(1925), fit inside a hexagon inscribed in the raised Jesus (8880). The blue circle inside the hexagon represents the “Sea of Galilee.” The gematria value of Simon the Stone (1925) is a geometric multiple of this “Sea” and of the Greek word “Fishes” (1224) as can be seen in the short essay that further explains the Sea of Galilee.
There is no example anywhere in Scripture of the name “Simon Peter” being written with an article before Peter. This shows the radical inconsistency of Gleason’s method. He excludes the articles in “John the Baptist” and “The Son of Man” to get numbers he wanted in one context, and then inserts the article in the name “Simon Peter” to get the number he wanted in a different context. He asserts that these are the numbers “intended” by the authors of the New Testament even though they never once actually wrote those names and titles that way.
Furthermore, his assertion that they fit “exactly” is not true. The radius of the circle with a circumference corresponding to “Simon the Peter” is 1925/2π = 306.37, so the stack of four circles has a length of 4 x 306.37 = 1225.49. The ratio of the large diameter of the 8880 circle (R, the circumradius) to the small diameter of the inner blue circle (r, the inradius) is given by the formula on the right (source). Plugging in the number 8880/2π = R yields 4r = 1223.96 which is off by 1.53. His calculations are not “exact” by any stretch of the imagination. His pages are with these kinds of errors. He is a textbook example of delusions reinforced by The Law of Near Enough described in David Hand’s excellent book The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day.
Here are some final examples of his outrageous inconsistency. To force the words “the way, the truth, and the life” to fit his pattern, he did the following:
The Way: He included the article to get the value 352 and set the diameter, not the circumference, to that value. He then stacked eight of those circles to get a length of 8 x 352 = 2816 and then multiplied that by pi to get 8846.72. He never presented this number to his readers. He chose rather to deceive them by hiding the actual number, which was off by a whopping 33.28 units, and reporting only the ratio of 8846.72/8880 x 100% = 99.6% to create the illusion of precision. His writings are filled with this kind of deception. It is how he deceives himself.
The Truth: He included the article to get the value 72 and set the circumference, not the diameter, to that value. He then stacked 111 nearly microscopic circles and topped it with a circle of circumference 888 (Jesus). He claimed that the result has an accuracy of 100%. This is true, but trivial. All he did was note that 72 x 111 + 888 = 8880. The result had nothing to do with any geometry. It was just basic arithmetic. He had many numbers to play with. He cherry picked the numbers 111 and 888 because he saw that he could use them to create his pattern. He could make up countless patterns with this trick. For example, he could start with 8880 – 666 = 6 x 1369 and stack six circles labeled “1369” topped off with a circle labeled “666.” It’s totally meaningless bullshit.
The Life: He excluded the article to get 815, and set the circumference, not the diameter, to that value. He then inscribed a hexagram in the 8880 circle and said “Amazingly, a Star of David inscribed inside the raised Jesus (8880) graph has sides of “815” units. (by calculation each side is 815.96 units which by the colel rule of gematria makes each side equal to 815 units). At least he reported the true value. Unfortunately, the “colel rule” is just an institutionalized form of the “Law of Near Enough” which numerologists use to deceive themselves.
Well, that’s more than enough attention spent on such a crackpot. Daniel Gleason is debunked.
Almost every proper noun in the New Testament including Jesus, Christ, John the Baptist, Simon the Stone, etc, etc are all based on isopsephy and numerically related by a simple formula. If you truly studied for 10 years you would know that formula.
I presume you are talking about numbers derived from cubes like 64, 729, etc. I am guessing you are in possession of the book “Materials for the study of the Apostolic Gnosis” by Lea and Bond. Is that correct?
2960 = 888*10/3 = ΥΙΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ (Son of Man)
2220 = 888*10/4 = ΙΩΑΝΝΗΣ ΒΑΠΤΙΣΤΗΣ (John the Baptist)
1480 = 888*10/6 = ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ (Christ)
888 = 888*10/10 = ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (Jesus)
That’s a big set of coincidences! Shall I go on?
That’s a tiny set of coincidences, and there is no need to “go on” because I already know all about those identities, and have for many years. It would be better if we had a conversation about the errors of your method. Long lists of random coincidences prove nothing.
This is a perfect example of how numerologists delude themselves by inconsistently picking and choosing “hits” from a large set of data that does not generally fit their pattern. In the Greek Bible, the words “John the Baptist” always occur with the definite article “ho” before “Baptist.” If this letter is included, the numerical value would be 2290, which doesn’t fit the pattern.
Likewise, the definite article was included before “man” in “son of man” but was omitted from the beginning. The correct value of “The Son of Man” is 3030, not 2960. Thus, we see that the articles are omitted when convenient, and included when convenient. This is typical of most numerologists. It is how they deceive themselves and fall victim to strong delusions.
The NT authors were polished Greek writers.
Gematria goes back to the OT. It’s Jewish mysticism. Take Jewish mysticism and add a dash of Greek literature and you get… the New Testament! It’s not that hard to figure out.
It seems like you’re not really interested in the truth. When confronted with real evidence you quickly “lawyer up” and start demanding peer-reviewed papers.
Sorry Jack, you have already demonstrated that you are the one who is at odds with truth. You cherry-pick random coincidences and inconsistently include/exclude the definite article to force the numbers to fit your pattern. You have deluded yourself.
It’s very interesting to see how folks who have deluded themselves attack anyone who exposes the errors in their “evidence.”
It is valid and grammatical to remove the articles Ο and TO. The article is not required. It’s ichthYs not ichthTs.
All you’ve proven is “look I can mess up your pattern if I add some letters.”
You’re deluded. If all those numbers come from coincidence then that’s a bigger miracle than anything in the bible
“John Baptist” without the definite article is attested I’m the Greek text.
You already admitted Greek authors knew gematria. Note you’re using special pleading to say the NT authors are somehow different? It’s getting harder and harder for you to wiggle out of this.
Yes, it is “grammatically valid” but that’s irrelevant. Every occurrence of “John the Baptist” in the Bible uses the definite article. If it fit your pattern you would include it and present that as “evidence” just as you would have excluded it from “son of man” if that’s what fit your pattern.
Not true. I proved that you are cherry-picking numbers using one criterion: Does it fit the pattern you are looking for? That is the definition of confirmation bias.
I presented evidence that you are deluded and you have not refuted it, so my assertion stands.
You have not presented any evidence that the numerical coincidences are anything like a “miracle” so there is no reason anyone should believe your assertion. That’s all it is, an empty assertion. And you certainly have not presented any evidence that I am “deluded.”
That’s three strikes in a row. You’re out.
Also the NT is not a “large set of data.” Mark for example only has about 1000 unique Greek words. So yeah it’s pretty remarkable when the names of the MAIN CHARACTERS all just happen to be mathematically related by the same formula.
That’s not true, the other criterion is that they are all proper nouns. Look it’s obvious the NT is the work of a Jewish/Greek mystic who was into geometry and numbers. That is the only theory that makes any sense.
Which Greek text? Which verse?
I did not admit that all the Greek authors knew gematria. I said there were three examples, by two or at most three authors (depending on whether the same “John” wrote Revelation and the fourth Gospel).
Asserting that it is “obvious” gives me no information about anything but your opinion. If you want to present evidence, then please do so.
The number of numbers you can derive from the NT is a very large data set given the kinds of coincidences you are looking for. You can get four different numbers just for the title “Son of Man” by including/excluding the definite articles. Your methodology is fundamentally flawed. You have presented no reason anyone should think your results are anything but mere coincidence. If you disagree, then please present the statistical calculations that would prove your point. If you can’t do that, then please admit it.
Wow, once you get on the debunking train you really go head first into it, don’t you. You’ve got all the jargon figured out. But I wish you would stop using the word cherry picking like it’s somehow wrong. The whole point behind gematria is that you pick out certain words that have certain numerical values and use them to write a story. That’s what the NT authors did!
There is nothing wrong with cherry-picking so long as you do not say the cherries you picked represent the entire sample when in fact they do not.
The problem with cherry-picking is that you are presenting your cherries as evidence of design. You have not explained how you discern between meaningless coincidences which will necessarily happen in any large data set, and the supposedly “meaningful coincidences” that are supposed to be evidence of design.
Like it or not, the NT authors were numerologists. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence. The Epistle of Barnabas, the Life of Alexander, and the Sybylline Oracles all explicitly refer to gematria as a well-known contemporary literary device. It cannot be denied.
I have denied nothing but that numerology has any actual meaning. It’s like astrology, which also can be found in the Bible.
If you want to present evidence for numerology in the Bible, then please do so. But I don’t see the point. If all you are saying is that the humans who composed the Bible were numerologists, who cares? Why would that be important? What is your method to discern between the numerology deliberately put in the Bible and the random coincidences that can be found in any text?
It’s important because gematria can be used to “encode” additional layers of meaning into a story. You have the surface text, and you can also “read between the lines” to find the secret hidden meaning. This secret is alluded to all through the New Testament. Who is the beloved disciple? Who is 666? Gematria gives us the answer to these questions.
And that’s the problem! The most devout believers and diligent scholars cannot agree about the meaning of the surface text. Adding a layer of “hidden meaning” based on idiosyncratic interpretations of mystical numbers boosts that confusion past the moon to outer space. What are the chances that any two independent interpreters would come to the same “secret meanings”? ZERO. And why is that? Because there is no way to correct for CONFIRMATION BIAS. Every interpreter will fall in love with their own idiosyncratic interpretations and cherry pick numbers to “confirm” them. That’s not science. That’s not knowledge. That’s nothing but delusional mysticism.
As for the method I use, the numbers are represented as circles (or polygons if it is a figurate number) then everything is placed inside a circle of circumference 8880. The diagram is correct if all the lines are tangent to each other.
And yet we have 666. Obviously the author intended the his audience to understand the reference, so you must be wrong.
Is this your site? http://www.jesus8880.com/
No, but I do recommend that site. It has some great info and examples of biblical and non biblical gematria.
Wrong about what? I never denied that the author intended his audience to understand that reference. On the contrary, I have explicitly told you that it was probably a cipher for Caesar Nero(n) which sums to 666 or 616, which accounts for both textual variations. This is the third time I’ve told you this.
Jack,
If you want to pursue this conversation, it would be best if we continued on my forum which has better software for extended conversations.
http://www.biblewheel.com/forum
This comment stream is intended for discussion about the article it is attached to. An extended conversation about your numerology is rather off topic. I think it’s an important discussion, but this is not the best place.
The 666 reference was intended to be understood by a contemporary audience, so the methods for “decoding” must have been well known and unambiguous.
You said:
>What are the chances that any two independent interpreters would come to the same “secret meanings”? ZERO.
But the 666 reference was intended to be understood by a contemporary audience, so you must be wrong. The methods for “decoding” must have been well known and unambiguous.
It is entirely reasonable to assume that process of “calculating 666” could be applied to other names/numbers with similar results.
You’re confusing yourself again. First century readers could have been familiar with the fact that Caesar Nero(n) summed to 666/616. That’s no great mystery. But your suggestion was that there were “hidden truths” that could be “read between the lines.” I’ve seen the fruit of that tree – it is a tower of Babel.
No one said it wasn’t. But there is no reason to believe that they had invented the elaborate mythology seen on the 8880 site you cited.
And you still have no method to discern between meaningless and meaningful coincidences, and you certainly have no method to protect against the errors of cognitive bias. The fact that every man comes to different conclusions is all the evidence you need that cognitive bias rules Bible interpretations WITHOUT the addition of an extra layer of mystical numerology. That extra layer is nothing but idiosyncratic mysticism.
That tower of babble that you speak of is built by nutcases who think the bible is the word of God and Obama is the antichrist, etc.
I’m talking about using hard textual criticism and exegesis to find out what the author actually wrote.
You say 666 is Nero Caesar.
All I’m saying is that Nero isn’t the only character in the Bible who has a special number.
But Nero is the only character in the Bible whose number is in the plain text.
As for the tower of babel – it is filled with numerologists who would disagree with your numerology.
Did you notice my invite to the forum? You may find other folks interested in your work there, so you won’t simply be butting heads with me. If you want to have this be an extended conversation it would be best to continue it there.
http://www.biblewheel.com/forum
Richard
For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”
Isaiah 29:12
Aha! The last resort of cranks who cannot support their claims with evidence: assert that anyone who can’t see the evidence that wasn’t presented is blind. Brilliant!
I can read just fine. I have given you good reasons to believe that your numerology is nothing but a delusion and you have not refuted a word I have written.
Not at all. I’m just showing you one of many, many examples where the author hints at a secret meaning beneath the surface of the text.
OK – I thought you were throwing that verse at me. Please accept my apologies.
But I don’t see how that verses “hints at a secret meaning beneath the surface of the text.” You have taken it out of context and adapted it to your own use, which is another one of the most common errors committed by folks into “mystical meanings.” To understand what the text is really about, you need to read it in context:
Well isn’t that interesting. The Apostle Paul quoted that passage, and explained what he thought it meant:
Was Paul suggesting that we should look for “secret messages” in the Bible? Is that what that verse was about? Of course not. He said it was about the Gospel, not mystical numerology! I have little doubt he would have been appalled by your interpretation which is thoroughly eisegetical.
Have you ever wondered why the beloved disciple is mentioned throughout John’s gospel – but never by name? Or why Mark is always boasting about “mysteries” and “parables” which “no one can understand”? Or why Simon the Stone “sinks” when he tries to walk on the water? These verses are little barbs directed at the reader, challenging him to solve the mystery.
Books like the Bible are bottomless abysses of such “mysteries.” Each person makes up their own explanations. The most devout believers and diligent scholars cannot agree about the surface text, let alone the “mysteries” that you find so seductive. You think that you have all the answers, just like every other believer who disagrees with your answers. There is no end to it – potsherds clashing with potsherds – because you have no objective basis for any of your conclusions. They are all based on subjective choices, cherry picking, confirmation bias, and so forth. If you disagree, then free free to join my forum and enlighten everyone with your wisdom. It won’t be long before you understand the truth of my words; no two believers agree about everything and most disagree about almost everything.
It seems likely based on Paul’s letters that he was in the “outer circle”, never initiated into the “deeper mysteries of the Gnosis.” Paul probably never learned geometry or isopsephy.
The objective basis is gematria. It’s a well known, well attested technique, and it produces the same results every time. Ιησους always = 888, without exception. There is no room for different opinions because it’s basic arithmetic.
Great. Your entire mystical numerology is based on the Christian Bible, but you reject Paul who wrote a third of the NT as “never initiated into the deeper mysteries of the Gnosis.”
That’s a fine excuse you got there for ignoring his words and ignoring the contextual meaning of Isaiah 29.
I’m sorry man, but your beliefs strike me as utterly delusional ludicrous bullshit.
I trust that is clear enough for you.
Yes, the correlation between letters and numbers is an objective fact. Duh. The problem is that the meaning you read into those numbers is not objective. It is totally subjective.
Look at what you have done! You are obsessed with the Bible as a “mystical text” revealing “secrets of gnosis” and yet you ignore what the plain text plainly states, making up ludicrous excuses like “Paul was not initiated into the deeper gnosis.” What a load of unmitigated bullshit!
You are proving my words true. You have made up your own religion by hijacking the sacred text of Christianity and forcing upon it your own idiosyncratic interpretations. Your claims are nothing but the result of cognitive biases supported by irrational rationalization, which is the sin qua non of delusional thinking. You really should read my article The Art of Rationalization: A Case Study of Christian Apologist Rich Deem.
Jack, do you think you could find the version and verse that supports this assertion of yours?
Josh is right even though he’s wrong. You display an intense need to feel that you personally are correct. You are showing all the same zeal and fervor and bias as you did with the Bible Wheel. You haven’t learned anything, except a bunch of useless debunker jargon.
What a load of mindless bullshit. Pure ad hominem. You totally ignore the logic and facts I present and focus on your projected psychological bullshit that describes you, not me.
It is simply insane for you to suggest I have “an intense need to feel that I am personally correct” when I have publicly proclaimed that I was wrong about my own work!
Your comments are typical of the crap cranks spew out when they know the have no facts supporting their delusions.
That the NT authors intended the name Jesus to signify the number 888 is an undeniable fact:
That is hard textual evidence that simply cannot be denied.
And what are the chances that the names of all the main characters just happen to be multiples of the same number? Slim? I’m gonna guess slim.
If you can’t even prove that Shakespeare’s rhymes were intentional, how could you possibly know anything about the intentions of the NT authors?
You can’t. Your only argument is “it seems to be a coincidence.” From your standpoint based on what you’ve written, you can’t positively confirm or deny anything. Your whole argument basically boils down to a big fat “I DON’T KNOW” …which is not much of an argument at all.
Your assertion is both false and irrational. It is irrational because the Greek name Jesus existed long before the NT. The numerologists were happy to find that coincidence. There is no evidence they “intended” anything. It is false because you have given no reason to believe that the Sybylline Oracles are representative of the intentions of the NT authors.
Your assertion that the name of the NT characters are “multiples of the same number” is false. I already showed that you manipulated the numbers by including and excluding the articles in an entirely inconsistent manner.
Bullshit. That’s not my argument at all. My argument is that there is no evidence it is not a coincidence, so my claims of design were not justified.
Ok, let’s get this straight. You claim that the number 666 was intended to stand for “Nero Caesar.” Now explain to me how it is IMPOSSIBLE that the number 888 is intended to represent Jesus. Please tell me all about it. Were you there? Did you write the book?
…Which is really just a long way of saying “I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING.” Great argument. Very compelling.
It’s funny, this site says “DEBUNKED” but there is actually NO PROOF anywhere on this site that ANYTHING is either true or false. It’s just a bunch of debunker jargon and you saying “well it COULD be a coincidence.” That’s not exegetical. That doesn’t prove or disprove ANYTHING. It’s just a meaningless statement.
You need to learn basic principles of exegesis.
Bullshit. The fact that my claim of design was not justified by the evidence does not imply that “I don’t know anything.”
Your assertions are simply absurd.
Wrong again. I showed that my claims of design were not justified. I did not add the claim that the lack of evidence was proof of coincidence. I merely asserted that there is no evidence of design and the best explanation, given the nature of cherry picking and cognitive bias and the many examples of other people finding “patterns” that contradict the patterns others find, is good reason to conclude the patterns I found were probably just coincidence. If you want to challenge that claim, then present some evidence of design.
There is good reason to think that 666/616 was intended as a cipher for Caesar Nero(n) because it fits with the events of the time and the two values found in the textual variations match the two spellings of Caesar Nero(n).
The writers of the NT never identified anyone by the number 888, so your speculations are just that, mere speculations. And your speculation that the number was “intended” by the NT writers makes no sense because the value was already established hundreds of years earlier in the LXX which spelled Yehoshua as Ihsous = 888.
And your primary claim that the NT writers deliberately coded the name of John the Baptist to be 2220 is obvious bullshit because that’s not how they wrote it in the text! In the BGT his title is always written with the article. You have claimed there is some Greek text somewhere that doesn’t use the article, but you have not presented the evidence. Just another empty claim. And even if it was used that way once or twice, that does not explain why the writers, who were supposedly designing the scriptures using numerology, would generally include the article. Your entire argument is full of holes. The same error is seen with the Son of Man which is spelled with the articles to give 3030 not 2960 as you falsely claim.
Hey, I heard that in the Old Testament, the letter sequence Shin-Shin-Kaf is a cryptographic reference to “Babylon.” Can you debunk this “nonsense”? It’s obviously just coincidence and confirmation bias, right?
>Wrong again. I showed that my claims of design were not justified. I did not add the claim that the lack of evidence was proof of coincidence. I merely asserted that there is no evidence of design and the best explanation, given the nature of cherry picking and cognitive bias and the many examples of other people finding “patterns” that contradict the patterns others find, is good reason to conclude the patterns I found were probably just coincidence.
So basically, this is another really long way of saying “I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, BUT I THINK IT’S A COINCIDENCE.” Really convincing stuff.
Why are you saying that is nonsense? I’ve never written anything that would imply that is “nonsense.” Your comments are totally incoherent. You are not following anything like a logical train of thought based on what I’ve written.
Man, you are freaking DENSE. I have explained your error and you just repeat it over and over again.
SON OF MAN is ΥΙΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑNΘΡΥΠΟΥ. Period. Done. There is no “missing article.” You’re a liar and you’re trying to confuse the issue.
Do you see what you’re doing? You’re trying to add additional words in order to deliberately skew the result away from 2960, because you know 2960 is 888*3 and you don’t like that implication.
I’m other words, you’re rationalizing.
I think you are more delusional now than at first.
Wow … your ignorance is exceeded only by your arrogance.
Matthew 9:6 ἵνα δὲ εἰδῆτε ὅτι ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας τότε λέγει τῷ παραλυτικῷ Ἐγερθεὶς ἆρόν σου τὴν κλίνην καὶ ὕπαγε εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου
11:19 ἦλθεν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐσθίων καὶ πίνων καὶ λέγουσιν Ἰδού, ἄνθρωπος φάγος καὶ οἰνοπότης τελωνῶν φίλος καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ ἐδικαιώθη ἡ σοφία ἀπὸ τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς
12:40 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἦν Ἰωνᾶς ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας οὕτως ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας
9:9 καταβαινόντων δὲ αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους διεστείλατο αὐτοῖς ἵνα μηδενὶ διηγήσωνται ἃ εἶδον εἰ μὴ ὅταν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῇ
I could give many other examples, but I’m at work. Can you cite a single example where the son of man does not include an initial article?
A lot of proper nouns are prefixed with articles. So what? Should we change “Jesus” to “the Jesus”? because I can find that in the text, too.
The ONLY reason you are insisting on this one particular word is because it changes the result to a number that is not a multiple of 888, which you cannot tolerate, because you know it would constitute evidence of authorial intent, and you would have to concede the argument. Shameful of you.
Then again, you are the guy who sees Type=888 and Antitype=666 and can’t make the connection, so I’m not supposed. You are hopeless. Good luck in your.endeavors
Your primary assertion is that the Gospels were deliberately coded with numerology. Why then would they consistently include the definite article in both The Son of Man and John the Baptist since that ruins the pattern in both cases? Your theory is entirely inconsistent and has no basis in fact.
That the proper noun Son of Man = 2960 = 888*3 is a mathematical fact. Your putting bold emphasis on the article ὁ does not change that fact. The only reason you absolutely insist on adding this word is because you simply want to skew the result away from the number 2960. You are squirming and rationalizing even worse than you did with the Bible Wheel (if that were possible.)
Anyways it doesn’t matter because we’ve already established the fact that the proper noun Son of Man = the proper noun Jesus x3. That in itself constitutes evidence of authorial intent, regardless of whatever article precedes the proper noun.
And if you still want to play the “coincidence” card, then I will invite you again to prove how the rhyming couplets in Shakespeare were intentional on the part of the author and are not simply another coincidence.
>Your primary assertion is that the Gospels were deliberately coded with numerology. Why then would they consistently include the definite article in both The Son of Man and John the Baptist since that ruins the pattern in both cases? Your theory is entirely inconsistent and has no basis in fact.
How does that “ruin the pattern”? It doesn’t change the fact that the proper noun “Son of Man” is equal to 888 times 3. It only ruins the pattern because you are looking for ways to ruin it.
I noticed that you capitalized the word The in the phrase “The Son of Man” above. Surely that was a typo? You’re not trying to subtly insinuate that the article is somehow inseparable from the proper noun, are you? That’s the same kind of deceptive twisting and squirming that you did with your Bible Wheel bullshit. Shameful of you.
Anyways, the answer to the “article mystery” is very simple. Articles are not significant to the gematria. The articles are added for grammatical reasons to make the text flow naturally and not sound awkward or stilted – but they do not count towards the numeric total. Only the proper nouns are counted.
Now you can see how all these conditions are satisfied:
888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of Man
888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
Note that of does count toward the total because it is a preposition, not an article.
I accept your apology.
I am sorry that I have to expose your ignorance of basic Greek yet again. Thanks for accepting my apology in advance!
The word “of” is not a separate word in the Greek. It is implied by the grammatical case of “tou anthropou.” The word “tou” is the genitive masculine singular form of the definite article “o.” The word “anthropou” is the genitive masculine singular common form of the noun “anthropos” (man). The word “of” would be included in the English translation whether or not the definite article tou is there.
You included the definite article “tou” in huis tou anthropou because it fit the pattern you like.
You excluded the definite article “ho” in ho huis tou anthropou because it fit the pattern you like.
You excluded the definite article “ho” in Ioannes ho baptistes because it fit the pattern you like.
And so, by picking and choosing and inconsistently including or excluding articles, you were able to find three freaking little coincidences that are supposed to prove your sweeping claim that the the NT writers deliberately designed it using numerology. Three freaking coincidence that you had to force to fit your pattern! And worse, the numbers you chose totally contradict what the NT writers actually wrote! They consistently included the definite articles in both THE Son of Man and John THE Baptist. Why would they do that if they had designed it according to your numbers? That’s makes no sense at all. Your claim is simply insane. It’s the product of nothing but ignorance and cognitive bias. There’s not a scholar on the planet that would accept your ludicrous, ignorant bullshit.
>Why would they do that?
Because isopsephy is real and Greek authors did use it, whether you like it or not. It is a feature of Greek literature. It is not something I made up. The idea that all these proper nouns could be linked by coincidence is ludicrous. Educate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopsephy
Man, are you DENSE! I never said you made it up. Everyone knows that isopsephy is real. That’s not news. But the fact that some writers used it does not prove your case, which is absurd because the name Jesus was already established hundreds of years before the time of Christ. The NT writers had no choice concerning its value. So you entire theory crashes on that one point alone. And besides, you have only presented three cherry picked coincidences as “evidence.”
Look at how you are raving, as if your claims were established facts. They are not. There is some very minor evidence of the use of gematria in the NT, about three examples that can be pretty well established. That’s it. You have no justification for making such wild assertions as if they were established facts. It makes you look like an ignorant, arrogant, fool.
I am still waiting to hear your answer to my contention that the rhyming couplets in Shakespeare are coincidental.
You most definitely did choose it. You chose it to fit with what you call “the only possibility.” You are the one who chose that “possibility” too.
The coincidences you cherry picked need no explanation. They are nothing but three numbers you forced to fit your pattern! And you don’t even understand basic Greek! Yet you think you can proclaim with certainty that some first century numerologists designed patterns that they NEVER followed in their own writings? Your assertions are simply insane.
I already gave an answer. It is obvious. What is your point?
Obviously it’s news to you, because you can’t recognize it even when it is right in front of your face. The New Testament is the ne plus ultra of gematria literature.
Even if the articles are “inconsistent”, the mere fact that the proper nouns JESUS, CHRIST, SON OF MAN, and JOHN BAPTIST are all linked by the same number is more than enough evidence for any rational mind to conclude that the author was employing gematria.
You do not seem to be in possession of a rational mind.
Please explain what you mean when you say that Type=888 and Antitype=666.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology_(theology)
Bullshit. I studied it for over a decade and know it a thousand time better than you.
Bullshit. You had six different numbers to choose by arbitrarily including/excluding the articles. You chose the two out of those six that happened to fit the pattern you liked. And you are being radically inconsistent again, because you said “Articles are not significant to the gematria” when in fact the article is CRITICAL for your value of “Son of Man.” If you exclude the article “tou” (which you ignorantly denied was an article) then the value is 2190!
Please explain what YOU mean when you say that Type=888 and Antitype=666. I already know what the wiki says about typology.
Ok, I am going to be you now:
Me: I will invite you again to prove how the rhyming couplets in Shakespeare were intentional on the part of the author and are not simply another coincidence.
You: I already gave an answer. It is obvious. What is your point?
Me: It seems obvious because you are under the spell of a delusion. In fact, the rhymes can be explained by nothing more than mere coincidence. Shakespeare wrote thousands of verses – sheer probability dictates that at least a few of them would rhyme.
You: Yeah, but… that’s ridiculous. We both know that Shakespeare was a poet and that the rhymes were written intentionally for dramatic effect.
Me: No, you’re delusional. You’re seeing patterns that aren’t there.
You: That’s insane. You can’t be serious.
Me: http://cdn.fansided.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/229/files/2014/07/Famous-characters-Troll-face-Troll-face-poker-45046.png
That’s a false caricature of our conversation. The fact that you could mangle things that badly means it would be a waste of time correcting you. So let’s cut to the chase: What’s your point? Or don’t you have one?
Same formula? OK, how about Peter = 755. How is that “mathematically related by the same formula”?
I was reviewing the lunatic ravings of Dan Gleason on his site http://www.jesus8880.com, and he said this (link):
Ha! He had to play the ultimate manipulation game to force fit his numbers. It is so typical of the deluded minds of almost all numerologists. The number doesn’t fit the pattern you like? That’s OK! You can subtract 1 to make it fit! We have a “rule” for that!
You studied the surface text for over a decade. You studied “parables, so that you may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding.” You did not heed Matthew’s advice that “with the measure you measure it will be measured out to you.” (metro metreite metrethesetai, i.e. measure, measure, measure!). The New Testament can only be properly studied with the square and with the compass.
Whatever you say Jack. You’ve demonstrated your great knowledge of Greek articles like “tou” and how they “are not significant to the gematria” except when they are critical to the value of “Son of Man” which accounts for one third of the coincidences you have cited as “obvious proof” of your theory. You have not answered this point.
You don’t know what I studied, you arrogant ass.
>Ha! He had to play the ultimate manipulation game to force fit his numbers. It is so typical of the deluded minds of almost all numerologists. The number doesn’t fit the pattern you like? That’s OK! You can subtract 1 to make it fit! We have a “rule” for that!
The Greek authors did not have calculators like we do. They did not measure down to the precision of 0.96 units. Gematria is all about geometry. The Greeks drew diagrams, and if the diagrams are visually tangent, then they are considered equal. The margin of error of less than one unit is entirely reasonable for the purpose of studying ancient literature.
>Same formula? OK – Peter = 755. How is that “mathematically related by the same formula”?
http://jesus8880.com/chapters/gematria/images/simon-o-petros-1925-preview.gif
I’m getting the impression that you are a disciple of Dan Gleason. You said you use his method. Do you agree with everything he has on his site? Do you use any methods other than his? If so, what?
Oh that’s glorious! Glorious I tell you! Dan Gleason bases his calculation on the title Simeon Ho Petros! He uses the freaking article in the proper noun! What glorious bullshit. That’s Simon THE Peter! Brilliant!
Your gematria is totally inconsistent and blatantly absurd. Include the article in Peter’s name to make the numbers fit. Exclude it from John the Baptist (even though Scripture never does) to make the numbers fit. What a glorious load of steaming bullshit.
Thanks man! You got any other examples of the brilliant gematria you believe in so fervently?
Jesus = 888 = 74 x 12 (888 x 10 = 8880)
Christ = 1480 = 74 x 20 (1480 x 6 = 8880)
John Baptist = 2220 = 74 x 30 (2220 x 4 = 8880)
Son of Man = 2960 = 74 x 40 (2960 x 3 = 8880)
Ok, now we have correlated the character names with not one, but TWO factors, namely 888 and 74. How long will you continue to deny the truth?
Straw? That straw sunk all your claims. You have not answered my point. I have proven that you are totally inconsistent and irrational. That’s why you refuse to even answer the plain fact that you inconsistently include and exclude articles to force the numbers to fit your patterns.
You are devoted to delusion, even when you can see it with your own eyes. Stunning … and scary.
Oh, so now you want to prove you are ignorant of basic math too? OK – fine by me. As every school kid knows, there is something called the Greatest Common Factor. The GCF of those four cherry picked and inconsistently manipulated numbers you cherish so deeply is 148. That’s it. There is not “another factor.” The number 888 is not even a common factor. Your ignorance is as deep as the ocean, and that’s why you have so easily deceived and deluded yourself with total bullshit.
You know exactly what I mean by factor you lying snake.
An excellent reasoned response that deals with the facts I presented. Exactly what I’ve come to expect from you.
>Straw? That straw sunk all your claims. You have not answered my point. I have proven that you are totally inconsistent and irrational. That’s why you refuse to even answer the plain fact that you inconsistently include and exclude articles to force the numbers to fit your patterns.
Excuse me, is there a law that says ALL GREEK ARTICLES MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR IN THE GEMATRIA? No, there is not. The author can choose whatever he wants.
The process of exegesis is to find out what the author’s INTENT was, not to decide whether every little letter is in it’s right place according Richard.
See, I’m not a nutcase like you who is gullible enough to think the Bible is the work of God. I do not expect perfection because I know the Bible was written by humans, who are not perfect.
Neither am I so full of pride as you to think that I have all the answers. I am content to study the text as what it is – a work of literature – and to make sense of what the author was trying to communicate through that text.
Like I said before, the mere fact that the proper nouns JESUS, CHRIST, SON OF MAN, and JOHN BAPTIST are all linked by the same number – combined with the fact that gematria is utterly commonplace in Greek literature, and that there are numerous references to gematria by early Christian authors – all that is more than enough evidence for any rational mind to conclude that the author was employing gematria.
You however do not seem to be in possession of a rational mind. I pity you.
Dude, YOU are the one who bases all his calculations on inconsistently including and excluding articles to force the numbers to fit. If you simply accepted the text as written, you would have The Son of Man = 3030 and John the Baptist = 2290.
So YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT depends on the presence/absence of the word “the.” And yes, I can assure you, I can see how ridiculous that is.
And what did the authors choose? They CONSISTENTLY used the definite article in both The Son of Man and John the Baptist. Your rejection of what they wrote, even as you assert that they intended the mangles phrases you use, is yet another indication that you are radically irrational.
Your repeated assertion that I am not rational is just another symptom of your deep delusion. And note: When I say you are irrational, I give evidence. You have never presented any evidence of anything irrational in what I’ve said.
Your comment is irrational. The writers of the NT had no choice when it came to the words Jesus, Christ, and the Son of man. Those words were already established long before the were born.
And besides that, the fact that you can find some coincidences proves nothing. You have many numbers to choose from. You could have used 3030, 2190, 2290, etc., depending on how you chose to include or exclude articles. You have not ever presented any reason anyone should think that it is anything but a mere coincidence. It is a necessary mathematical fact that many words will have the same numerical values, by chance alone. For example, some folks get deluded by English gematria because there are some striking coincidences like Jesus = 74 = Messiah = Gospel. They ignorantly think that “couldn’t happen by chance.” What then when I show them that Lucifer and Muhammad have the same value? They make up irrational rationalizations.
Bottom line: There is absolutely no reason to think that the few coincidences you cherry picked through inconsistent manipulation of the articles are anything but random chance. If you want to claim otherwise, you will need to provide a mathematical analysis that proves your case. I won’t hold my breath.
> If you simply accepted the text as written, you would have The Son of Man = 3030 and John the Baptist = 2290.
Right. If I was totally ignorant of gematria, as you are, that is what I would do. But I know better, because I am interested in a proper exegesis, to discover the author’s true intention. The intention of the author appears to any rational mind that he selected the character names very carefully so that their numeric values would harmonize. If you read any 1st – 2nd century literature, like the Epistle of Barnabas, or the Sybylline Oracles, or the Life of Alexander, you would know all about that. You would also know that numbers were sacred to the ancient Greeks, they worshipped the tetractys, and they believed the whole cosmos was created through number; then maybe you would understand the context of these things and you could make of sense of it.
If their intention was as you say, why didn’t they write it that way?
On the contrary, I showed you didn’t have a clue what you were talking about. You said that 74 was “another” factor, besides 888 which is not a common fact of the four names at all! This is typical of numerologists. They rarely have a grasp of what they are talking about.
Bullshit! It appears that way only to minds so deluded that they can’t even see that they themselves have manipulated and cherry picked the numbers to fit the pattern they were looking for. Any rational person could see your error in a heartbeat.
> If their intention was as you say, why didn’t they write it that way?
Mystery religions don’t put their doctrine out in plain sight! Are you really that stupid? A man had to be initiated into a Gnostic cult, and then he must learn math and geometry and reading and writing, before he is given the secret keys to the mysteries.
The Greek Word mysterion meaning “a mystery” is defined as “a hidden secret thing, a riddle, a religious secret, confided only to the initiated and not to ordinary people, a mystic or hidden sense, a metaphor, an image or form seen in a vision or a dream.” The word appears once each in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, four times in Revelation.
That’s a wonderful “rationalization generator” you got there Jack. But that’s not what it was intended for. It’s called your “brain” and you are supposed to use it to discover truth and reject error, not to make up rationalizations to defend your delusions.
In the above verses, the “parable” refers to what I have called the surface text, and the “mystery” refers to the gematria riddles encoded within that text.
On one level, these verses depict Jesus talking with his disciples. On another level, these verses are a direct challenge from the author to the reader challenging him to solve the riddles.
There is absolutely no reason to think that any of the rhyming couplets in the works of Shakespeare are anything but random chance. If you want to claim otherwise, you will need to provide a mathematical analysis that proves your case. I won’t hold my breath.
Oh my. You really don’t understand.
It’s very easy to provide the mathematical analysis. Consider a sonnet that consists of a 1000 letters. What are the chances that those letters, if arranged randomly, would form a sonnet with rhyming couplets? The answer is essentially zero. So we know that the sonnets were designed.
Now lets apply the same logic to your numerology. Suppose we assign RANDOM numerical values to the letters. What are the chances that we would find coincidences like those you have found? The answer is about 100%.
QED.
You are so far off-topic it’s laughable.
I am talking about a book that someone wrote. Show me some English words that have the same value, I’ll say “wow, that’s an interesting coincidence.” But show me an English book that contains all those words together, then I’ll say “Yeah, the author was obviously using gematria.”
Bottom line: you don’t have to believe in gematria to study it. The fact is that gematria is attested in literature, and whether you like it or not, the NT authors used it heavily. Sorry to break the news to you.
The KJV contains the words Jesus, Gospel, Messiah, and Lucifer. And they all sum to 74.
So are you going to be true to your word, and say “the author was obviously using gematria”?
>It’s very easy to provide the mathematical analysis. Consider a sonnet that consists of a 1000 letters. What are the chances that those letters, if arranged randomly, would form a sonnet with rhyming couplets? The answer is essentially zero. So we know that the sonnets were designed.
>Now lets apply the same logic to your numerology. Suppose we assign RANDOM numerical values to the letters. What are the chances that we would find coincidences like those you have found? The answer is about 100%.
Sorry, I don’t see any math or logic here, just a bunch of unsubstantiated statements. Please show your work where you got the numbers zero and 100% because I call bullshit on that
What author? The KJV is a translation, not an original work. The idea of authorial intent does not even apply. Can you please show some good faith and stop trying to be deceptive?
That’s not even a valid comparison. Obviously arranging letters randomly is going to result in gibberish. The correct analogy would be to take random lines of iambic pentameter and see how many rhyming couplets are produced by the combination of those lines.
Only an ignorant man could call bullshit on such obvious calculations. The number of ways to arrange 1000 letters is
1000! = 4 x 10^2567
That’s 4 times 10 raised to the 2567th power. The number of particles in the universe is only about 10^80, so that number is trillions of trillions of trillions of times larger than that.
The number of coherent English sentences that can be formed from a thousand letters is exceedingly tiny compared to that number (you can do the math this time), so the probability is, as I said, essentially zero.
Now consider assigning numbers following the same pattern as Greek isopsephy, except randomly changing the association. There will be more words than numbers available, so the Pidgeon Hole Principle implies that many words will have the same numerical values, and you will find coincidences like the ones you found.
Such coincidences are necessarily found in any language when you assign numbers to the letter. All anagrams necessarily have the same numeric value.
This is all totally obvious. The fact I have to explain it to you shows, yet again, that you have no concept of the meaning of probability and so you have no understanding why your numerology is blatant bullshit.
But that’s OK – if you still don’t understand, I’ll fill in more details with more examples. The English gematria should have been enough for you to see that any random assignment of numbers will produce coincidences. But you don’t want to see … and so I doubt any explanation will really help.
>Now lets apply the same logic to your numerology. Suppose we assign RANDOM numerical values to the letters. What are the chances that we would find coincidences like those you have found? The answer is about 100%.
Okay, let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s take the digits of pi, which are random, and you count through each digit and let me know when you find the digit strings 888 and 666 and 2960 and 2220. I’ll give you a hint: you’ll have to go through tens of thousands of digits before you find even ONE of these digit strings.
The translators had plenty of freedom to choose the words they used. For example, the copied Lucifer from the Vulgate even though it was not a valid translation of the Hebrew. And they had a LOT of freedom to choose how to spell the names, like Elias vs. Elijah, etc. So your argument is total bullshit, yet again.
And your perverse and putrid attitude is making me think I’m wasting my time. For you to falsely suggest that I am being deceptive proves nothing but the utter depravity and profound ignorance of your sick mind.
>The translators had plenty of freedom to choose the words they used. For example, the copied Lucifer from the Vulgate even though it was not a valid translation of the Hebrew. And they had a LOT of freedom to choose how to spell the names, like Elias vs. Elijah, etc. So your argument is total bullshit, yet again.
Well, if you’re claiming that they chose those words intentionally, then sure I’ll agree, it was chosen intentionally. Case closed.
That has nothing to do with the kind of randomness we are talking about with the number/letter associations. You know that any random “gematria-like” association will always produce many random hits, like Jesus = Messiah, etc. That’s why there is no reason to think that the three measly coincidences that you cherry picked by manipulating the articles have any meaning at all.
You had said:
And then you said:
Does this mean that you actually believe that “the author was obviously using gematria” in the KJV?
>That’s why there is no reason to think that the three measly coincidences that you cherry picked by manipulating the articles have any meaning at all.
Yeah, no reason, except for the numerous contemporary textual sources that make direct reference to gematria in sacred literature… Again, Sybylline Oracles, Life of Alexander, Epistle of Barnabas… Do the research. It’s a historical fact. You’re objectively wrong.
I know those facts, but as I already explained more than once, those facts do not justify your assertion that the NT writers were doing the same thing. My point stands. That’s why there is no reason to think that the three measly coincidences that you cherry picked by manipulating the articles have any meaning at all. It is exactly what we would expect from random chance.
You seem to have forgotten Simon THE Peter. The fact that you have to inconsistently manipulate the articles in ways that are directly contrary to what the supposed numerologists actually wrote shows the absurdity of your claims.
Well, it’s getting late. I need to sleep.
How about we try to have a conversation tomorrow without any insults? Let’s just discuss the logic and facts.
All the best,
Richard
You can argue with me all you want, but you can’t argue with textual evidence:
If early Christians did not use gematria, then wtf could Barnabas possibly be talking about here?
I think I understand now. You acknowledge that NT authors knew and used gematria… but they got it WRONG! If they were as smart as YOU, they would have known to put the articles in the “right” place! If only they had listened to Richard, if only they had arranged the words according to YOUR way, they could have made an amazing pattern! But they missed by the target by a mere 70 units because they couldn’t get that darn article in the right place! Oh no! They were so close!
I think you have a desperate need to feel that you are personally correct and have all the answers, and that is really sad.
That’s not “textual evidence.” That’s an interpretation made up by whoever wrote Barnabus, many hundreds of years after the text of the Bible was written.
You have repeated this same error many times. The fact that some people wrote about gematria does not prove your point. Simple as that.
The only reason you think that is because I have presented logic and facts you cannot answer. If I were saying things you wanted to here, you’d think I was some kind of genius.
Of course it is textual evidence – are you claiming it’s a forgery? It proves that 1st-century Christians were making interpretations, of the Scriptures, based on gematria, and writing them down, in books!
You literally cannot put 2 and 2 together can you?
Textual evidence that 888 is intended to refer to Jesus:
Example of a 1st-century isopsephy riddle which has never been solved:
As you can see, far from being a delusion or a fantasy, this is a matter of serious study and scholarship. I accept your apology and caution you not to be so reckless in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopsephy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria
http://www.studylight.org/language-studies/difficult-sayings/index.cgi?a=509 (Epistle of Barnabas)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sib/ (The Sybylline Oracles)
Mat 16:13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
Mat 16:14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
Mat 16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
Mat 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Mat 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
God is not a Book, nor a Book is God! Neither He (more correctly They-as is always plural in the Hebrew original texts) is -are -symbols. ANY PROOF OR CONFORMATION IS INDIVIDUAL AND PERSONAL. Truths are Holy and are revealed to those that are qualified as to not insult them. It is a blade that cuts both sides.
Joh 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
Joh 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Joh 6:66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
It is not “textual evidence” FROM THE BIBLE supporting your assertion because it does not suggest that anyone was DESIGNING words in the texts they were writing, but rather were cherry picking coincidences to make up arbitrary patterns, just like you.
That does not support your case and it does not show that anyone designed the NT with the intent that Jesus = 888. All that quote shows is that some people made up stories using random numbers they happened to find in the Bible.
That example is nothing like the numerology you are talking about. There was an explicit riddle given. The only passage in the Bible like that is Rev 13:18. Your comments do not justify your ludicrous assertion that some idiots designed a tiny set of coincidences using radically inconsistent and incoherent logic.
You just don’t get it. Of course the patterns are arbitrary. Of course the authors were cherry picking. That’s not the point. The point is that whoever wrote Barnabas was a 1st century Christian who was initited in the study of gematria as it applies to the scriptures.
If the author of Barnabas knew it and used it, then it is entirely reasonable to assume that other early Christians including the authors of the New Testament also knew it and used it.
You really cannot discern your right hand from your left, can you?
It’s certainly possible, considering that Agrippa published his Three Books of Occult Philosophy containing a gematria table for the Latin alphabet in 1532.
But let me explain why the case for the New Testament is much stronger.
Ageômetrètos mèdeis eisitô was the famous phrase that tradition says was carved on the door of Plato’s Academy in Athens. “Let no one who is ignorant of geometry enter here.” But the meaning of geometry back then was a bit different than we think of it now. At that time, it was regarded as a sacred, mystical key to the kosmos, known only to scholars and learned men.
What was the zeitgeist in 1st century Greece?
alphabetic numeral system,
Pythagorean cults,
mystery schools,
Gnostic sects,
Messianic prophecies,
eschatological revelations….
Gematria fits perfectly into this system. Indeed, it is attested in numerous documents from the period. Leonidas of Alexandria created isopsephy poems, where the first hexameter and pentameter equal the next two verses in numerical value. Instances of isopsephy found were in graffiti at Pompeii, dating from around 79 AD. One reads Φιλω ης αριθμος ϕμε, “I love her whose number is 545.”
And of course, we find examples of isopsephy at sacred sites and temples, such as the inscription at the Temple of Artemis at Sparta Orthia. It is a votive stele for a boy who won a competition in singing. The words in each line add up to ΒΨΛ, that is 2730.
How is isopsephy different from gematria?
So isopsephy is just a simple addition of digit strings. The Greeks already had an alphabetic numeral system, so this was natural anyway. The important thing to understand though is the etymology. Isopsephy literally means counting with pebbles, so there are obvious implications for certain numbers, which are called figurate numbers: 10 is a triangle, 16 is a perfect square, 37 is a hexagram, etc.
What then is gematria? Gematria is the full power of isopsephy unleashed through geometry. A compass and square allows us to visualize the numbers through geometry. An example is the Pythagorean theorem: it is a diagram comprised of one triangle and three perfect squares.
What specific method is used
As I explained previously, the Greeks did not have calculators, only the abacus. Another consideration is that calculations with circles involve pi, and since pi is a transcendental number, the result will never be exact. Furthermore, the Greeks did not know the value of pi as precisely as we do today. Therefore we allow for small deviations on the order of 1 unit or less. The criteria for what constitutes a correct gematria diagram is fairly straightforward:
1. Only certain pairs of figurate numbers can form interlocking patterns. For example, 37-as-hexagram can only interlock with 19-as-hexagon. So right away you can see with your eyes if any number is out of place.
2. Non-figurate numbers are drawn as circles. All the circles in the diagram must be visually tangent to each other. As I explained previously, the Greeks did not have the ability to make precise measurements, that is why we consider visual tangency to be sufficient.
3. What we generally find is patterns based on simple shapes and common geometric symbols like the Tree of Life, the Flower of Life, and the Star of David.
Now what about the articles!?
Of course the names Jesus, Simon, John, etc. existed and were in use prior to the books being written, so the names could not have been invented on the spot. The author would need to use preexisting names, calculate their isopsephy values, and choose a set of names with some numerical relationship. You yourself said this should be an easy task given sheer probability. He could even use nicknames like “the Stone” or titles like “Christ” if he needed to add more units to the name! And of course, he had the option whether to include or leave off the article ho, in case he needed to add or take away 70 units.
So now our author has his mystical cast of characters, and it’s time to write the story. Now when he made up the character names, he may have taken all sorts of liberties as I mentioned with nicknames and titles and articles, but when sets down to actually write the story, he will write it in a way that sounds natural and grammatical. Furthermore, Greek has different endings for cases like genitive and accusative, so any one occurance of a name in the surface text will not always be the exact same combination of letters, but the name is implied nevertheless. Besides proper nouns we also see keywords like faith, life, truth, the way, the net, fishes, etc. represented geometrically according to their gematria value.
But how do we prove authorial intention?
It is obvious from the writings of early Christians that they were acquainted with this art. Irenaeus claims that the practice of gematria was used by some sects for divination and sorcery, and that it was only taught to the innermost initiates. But is there anything in the text itself that can prove authorial intention? Yes, three things:
1. Some parts of the story simply cannot be explained without recourse to gematria. Who is the beloved disciple? Who is 666? Some plot details seem to make no sense, like the 153 fish in John’s gospel – why even bother enumerating them? Clearly John is hinting at something more than just “fish.” And then you have the outright boasts and direct challenges, like Mark’s “measure, measure, measure” or “see what you hear” or “the mystery is given unto you [the 12 apostles], but not to them on the outside [the reader].” All these things are intended as clues for the astute scholar.
2. The content of a gematria diagram is always a visual image of the corresponding verse. The Sea of Galilee is always large hexagon. The Mount of Olives is always a large equilateral triangle. Fishes (ichthyes) are always represented by vesica piscis. The imagery always matches the verse.
The smoking gun
3. There is a built-in error-correcting code in every gematria diagram: namely, that the gematria value of the entire verse must be equal to the perimeter of the entire diagram. THIS CONCLUSIVELY ESTABLISHES THAT THE DIAGRAMS WERE INTENTIONALLY EMBEDDED IN THE TEXT BY THE AUTHOR(S).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopsephy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria
http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq009.htm#call2 (Plato’s Academy)
http://www.studylight.org/language-studies/difficult-sayings/index.cgi?a=509 (Epistle of Barnabas)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sib/ (The Sybylline Oracles)
If I told you that Shin-Shin-Kaf is a cryptographic reference to “Babylon,” would you say I’m delusional?
You are aware that merely saying “there is no evidence [that I know of]” does not actually disprove the existence of something?
This is false. I’ve cited numerous examples of explicit riddles in the New Testament. The most obvious of which are the unnammed disciple, and the miraculous catch of 153 fish, and there are also many others which I have already cited.
Sorry, but you are wrong.
Sorry, but you are wrong. The “unnamed disciple” is not an EXPLICIT riddle. At best, it may be an implied riddle, but that’s not certain, and even if it were a riddle, there is no reason to think it is a gematria riddle. So you are wrong in every way imaginable.
The mention of 153 may be a hint of gematria, but not necessarily a “riddle.” It certainly is not an EXPLICIT riddle like what we have in Rev 13:18. So again, you are wrong.
And you have not shown any other EXPLICIT riddles. That’s strike three.
The real riddle is how could say and believe things that are so obviously false and easy to debunk.
Which, by the way, is what I’m doing right now with Daniel Gleason’s ludicrous assertions. It’s really fun. It’s going to make a fine article to add to my “debunking” collection.
And on that note: Please answer this question (I wrote Dan and haven’t heard back yet). On his home page, he makes this assertion:
Can you give me a scholastic citation that proves his assertion, or is he just talking out his ass again?
Dude, YOU are the one who bases all his calculations on inconsistently including and excluding articles to force the numbers to fit. If you simply accepted the text as written, you would have The Son of Man = 3030 and John the Baptist = 2290.
So YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT is predicated on the presence/absence of the word “the.” And yes, I can assure you, I can see how ridiculous that is.
You have not answered this point. You called your own method “ridiculous.”
Ok, maybe gematria is too advanced for you. Let’s take a step back.
Here is the evidence I presented for isopsephy:
And here is the evidence I gave to prove that this is a legitimate topic of serious scholarship and to defend myself from your slanderous allegations that I am a “numerologist”:
Now let’s look at the proper nouns in the New Testament one more time, and this time we will go letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson, and we will also look at ALL the articles:
As you can see, the articles are almost wholly irrelevant. There is no rule that says all the articles must be accounted for in the gematria. That is a rule that you invented in a pathetic and desperate attempt to skew the results of the computations. The idea that the original authors were somehow ignorant of these isopsephies, despite the abundant evidence that all their contemporaries knew and practiced isopsephy – all the way down to the graffiti artist in Pompey – is ludicrous, and could only come from a deluded mind such as yours. Any rational mind can see that 888 is isopsephy, just like 666 is an isopsephy, just like all the other isopsephies which I have already quoted here. Your argument is basically that, while all their contemporaries were writing isopsephies intentionally, the NT authors somehow did the exact same thing – by coincidence! That is just insane.
Also, I would like the address the definite article ho one more time. The only reason you are fixating on this one meaningless letter is because you want to SKEW the results away from a numbers that are multiples of 888 and 74. You keep suggesting the numbers 3030 and 2290 BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE ONLY NUMBERS YOU CAN COME UP WITH THAT ARE NOT MULTIPLES OF 888 AND 74. It’s a very transparent tactic and quite frankly, it’s pathetic.
It’s quite obvious that you are still very deep into your delusion and you are enjoying it very much.
Why don’t you try this: do a Google search for “ΥΙΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ”, without the article in front. Then try “ΙΩΑΝΝΗΣ ΒΑΠΤΙΣΤΗΣ”, without the article in the middle. Did you still get some hits? Yes? Wow, I guess that means article isn’t actually required to identify the character! (Except in your desperate quest to skew the results of the computations.) Case closed.
I believe this is a reference to the incipit of the gnostic Gospel of Thomas: “These are the hidden words which the living Jesus spoke, and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down. And he said, He who discovers the meaning of these sayings shall not taste of the death.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas
You know what, I think you’re right. It does ruin the pattern, and I should just admit it.
Here is ΥΙΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ and ΙΩΑΝΝΗΣ ΒΑΠΤΙΣΤΗΣ:
http://jesus8880.com/chapters/gematria/images/son-of-man-2960-public.gif
http://jesus8880.com/chapters/gematria/images/john-baptist-2220-preview.gif
And here is O ΥΙΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ and ΙΩΑΝΝΗΣ O ΒΑΠΤΙΣΤΗΣ:
http://i.imgur.com/J8ZaUW7.gif
http://i.imgur.com/QaEQfU4.gif
Oh no, that pattern is totally RUINED! Woe is me!
You obviously do not know the first thing about how gematria works.
That’s exactly what I expected. Dan Gleason is talking out his ass and making up bullshit that has no basis in fact. In other words, he’s not simply deluded, he’s a liar too. And you are his bitch. How nice.
Wow, the more you write the stupider you get! I would not have thought that possible. I have never said that the articles were needed to identify the characters. That would be absurd. My point is that YOU need to add or remove the articles to force the numbers to fit your ludicrous little patterns. I have repeated this one simple fact dozens of times in this thread and you have done everything in your power to ignore and/or explain away the fundamental flaw in your method. Your gematria is total bullshit. All you are doing is manipulating numbers to force them to fit in some circles. It proves absolutely nothing, except the depth of absurdity common to the human condition.
You missed the point (quite deliberately, it would appear). It doesn’t matter if you can find examples of John Baptist outside the Bible. Your assertion is that the Gospel writers designed the name “John Baptist” to have the value of 2220 to fit your silly little pattern. If that’s what they intended, why then did they never write it that way? You say “Because they were trying to keep their secret a secret by never actually writing the exact words that would match their secret!” So your theory is based on an assumed riddle wrapped in an enigma obscured by the addition of words that are supposed to be ignored except when they are essential for the pattern that was never specified in the first place. In other words, your claims are stark, raving mad.
The evidence speaks for itself:
You wanna do your “debunking” thing with Dan’s site? Go ahead. You’ve already decided in your mind that Dan is wrong, so it should be easy for you to “find” all the “proof” you need to support your “debunking.” Decide first, prove later – that must be your motto, eh Richard?
If Dan is the pot, then you sir are the kettle.
C’mon, Dick, can’t you put 2 and 2 together?
1)
2)
The idea that the original authors were somehow ignorant of these isopsephies, despite the abundant evidence that all their contemporaries knew and practiced isopsephy – all the way down to the graffiti artist in Pompey – is ludicrous. Your argument is basically that, while all their contemporaries were writing isopsephies intentionally, the NT authors somehow did the exact same thing – by coincidence!
That is stark, raving mad.
Woah! Someone has a foul mouth. (And, apparently, very strong emotional feelings about this topic. You should consider that your judgment on this issue is compromised given the strong personal feelings that you have expressed in your comments.)
Also, what would your dirty disgusting CUNT of a wife think if she knew you were using such abusive language on your website?
OK Jackass, let’s think about this a minute. There is a difference between your comments and mine. I had presented evidence that your guru Dan Gleason made up total bullshit and published it on the home page of his site. You responded by trying to cover his ass with your lips (words). So though my language may have been a little too rich for your temperament, it conveyed truth.
Your words, on the other hand, were an adolescent attempt to get my goat by insulting my wife. Your words represented no truth relating to our discussion. They were nothing but meaningless vomit. The only truth in them is that they accurately represent the content of your heart and mind.
By the way, my “dirty disgusting cunt of a wife” and I are are having a hearty belly laugh about your ludicrous bullshit.
Great! All you need to do now is show me where the NT writers “created isopsephy poems, where the first hexameter and pentameter equal the next two verses in numerical value.”
I’ve explained your error many times, and you just keep repeating it. The fact that some people played with gematria does not prove the ludicrous ravings of Dan Gleason.
Those identities are not nearly as impressive as you think they are. First, they form a tiny, tiny, tiny, subset of the data. Where are all the other names, words, and titles that don’t fit the pattern? Where is Messiah, The Messiah, Alpha Omega, Word, The Word, The Son of God, Son of God, Daystar, Root of David, etc., etc., etc.? If you listed out all the possibilities, including all the variations based on including/excluding articles, the list would be a mile long. And from that mile long list, you select a subset of two names that happen to have common factors with Jesus and Christ? That’s pure selection bias, cherry picking, meaningless bullshit.
You assert “Your argument is basically that, while all their contemporaries were writing isopsephies intentionally, the NT authors somehow did the exact same thing – by coincidence!” That’s not true. I am not saying they did anything at all! You have not presented any evidence that the NT writers were “practicing isopsephy” with the names and numbers you listed. The circles drawn by Dan Gleason are ludicrous beyond description. They have nothing to do with “drawing” pictures with a compass and straightedge. All they are is the result of calculations using modern calculators, modern trigonometry, and the modern value of pi.
Yes, let’s look closely at the data. But first, let me remind you of the words that your lord dog and guru wrote to justify his invention of the ludicrous title Simon THE Peter (link):
His words are crap. Peter is a name, not a title, and his full name Simon Peter is NEVER written as Simon THE Peter. It’s bad enough that he made up such ludicrous bullshit in the first place, but then he goes one better, and totally contradicts his own words by removing the article from John THE Baptist even though “The Baptist” is the actual title of John and that’s how the NT writers consistently wrote it! So Dan is totally freaking drooling mad. Utterly insane.
Now that we finished that little bit of housecleaning, let’s review the numbers:
74*12 = 888*10/10 = 888 = Jesus
958 = The Jesus
74*20 = 888*10/6 = 1480 = (the) Christ
1550 = The Christ
74*30 = 888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
2290 = John the Baptist
2290 = The John Baptist
2360 = The John the Baptist
74*32 = 888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
2438 = Jesus the Christ
2438 = The Jesus Christ
2508 = The Jesus the Christ
2190 = Son of man (no tou)
74*40 = 888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of the Man
2260 = The Son of Man (no tou)
3030 = The Son of Man
Look at that. The misses outnumber the hits 11 to 5! That’s a ratio of more than two to one. And that’s just for the tiny subset of the hundreds of names and titles that Dan could have chosen as “proof” of his ludicrous absurdities. By his own logic, he should have used the article with both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ, since both “The Baptist” and “The Christ” are titles. It’s obvious he would have used those numbers if they fit the pattern he was looking for.
His work is filled with radical inconsistencies like this. He picks and chooses his numbers according to one rule – do they fit the pattern he is looking for? That’s the definition of cherry picking and confirmation bias, which are the root of most delusions like his.
Contrary to your assertion that “the articles are almost wholly irrelevant” we see that the articles are absolutely CRITICAL to the creation of the patterns Dan is looking for. The fact that you can’t see (or admit) something as simple, obvious, and fundamental as this reveals the profound depth of your delusion.
Sorry but I have to dismiss your research as flawed due to the extreme prejudice, bias, and strong emotional feelings of being personally correct that you have repeatedly shown in your previous comments.
You are not an objective observer as evidenced by your strong emotional responses regarding this topic, therefore I cannot give credence to any of your supposed findings.
You already decided a long time ago that Dan was wrong, and now you are looking for “proof” to support that decision. It’s the same method you used with the Bible Wheel. You fail, miserably.
Sorry, but that’s a textbook example of an ad hominem fallacy. My emotions, whether strong, weak, or indifferent, have absolutely nothing to do with the validity of my criticisms. The only rational justification to reject the facts I have presented is to show that they are false. You have not done that, so your rejection is irrational.
Again, that is an ad hominem fallacy. My “credibility” has nothing to do with anything. The only relevant point is the credibility of the facts that I have presented. If you want to reject them, you must give reasons why they are not valid. You have not done anything like that.
It is true that I was quickly able to see, and demonstrate, the objective absurdity of Dan’s claims. Your assertion that I have failed is completely irrational, because you have not refuted a word I have written.
This is why I say, never argue with someone who calls himself a “debunker.” Because they will drag you down their level and then beat you with experience. Enjoy your fantasy world, Dick 🙂
If my world were a fantasy, you could debunk it as easily as I have yours.
You resort to empty ad hominem fallacies because you can’t refute a word I have written.
Enough said. Your claim that the NT authors did not use isopsephy in composing their Gospels is contradicted by all the historical, textual, and archaeological evidence.
You are a crackpot, Dick. Enjoy living in your fantasy world 🙂
I never said that the NT authors never used isopsephy. On the contrary, I have repeatedly acknowledged that fact that Rev 13:18 is almost certainly an example of it. The fact that you keep repeating the same facts that I have already acknowledged shows that you are exceedingly stupid.
The fact that some people played with gematria and that there is one explicit example of it in the NT does not prove any of the ludicrous bullshit claimed by Dan Gleason. That’s my point and you have not written a word to refute it.
>If my world were a fantasy, you could debunk it as easily as I have yours.
There is NOTHING to debunk because you can’t prove or disprove ANYTHING. Your argument boils down to “it seems likely to be a coincedence.” Your argument is not falsifiable, it’s just an assertion. In other words, it’s not scientific! YOU ARE A CRACKPOT!
>I never said that the NT authors never used isopsephy. On the contrary, I have repeatedly acknowledged that fact that Rev 13:18 is almost certainly an example of it.
So you get to decide which verses are isopsephies, and which ones are not? How nice for you!
Yyou obviously abandoned all objectively when you admitted that 666 is an isopsephy, but denied that 888 is an isopsephy – despite the fact that Irenaeus explicitly says that 888 is an isopsephy!
You are rationalization is showing in a very desperate and pathetic way.
So you get to decide which verses are isopsephies, and which ones are not? How nice for you!
You obviously abandoned all objectivity when you admitted that 666 is an isopsephy, but denied that 888 is an isopsephy – despite the fact that Irenaeus explicitly says that 888 is an isopsephy!
Your rationalization is showing in a very desperate and pathetic way.
On the contrary, it is an objective fact that 666 is stated in the plain text of scripture, whereas the number 888 is never mentioned. The isopsephy of Iranaeus came after the fact. He was not an author of the NT. Your point fails.
Sorry Dick, but your claim that:
“666 is an intentional isopsephy for Nero Caesar, but the fact that 888 is an isopsephy for Jesus is an unintentional coincidence”
Is simply absurd. It’s incredible to think that anyone could possibly believe that. You are INSANE.
If it was intended like 666, why was it never mentioned like 666?
The only reason we know that 666 was intended is because it is in the surface text. That is not true of 888.
Actually, I could understand how someone might be skeptical, if they knew absolutely nothing about the history of isopsephy in Greek literature.
But when I presented numerous examples of contemporary authors using isopsephy, even down to graffiti artists – at that point you should have realized your mistake and conceded the point that 888 as an isopsephy for “Jesus” is entirely reasonable.
Instead, you started rationalizing and trying to skew the isopsephy results by adding and taking away letters. That was your downfall.
As I said before, the idea that 666 is an intentional isopsephy for Nero Caesar – but 888 as an isopsephy for Jesus is an unintentional coincidence – is absurd.
Anyone is possession of a rational mind can see that your claim is simply ludicrous and totally unbelievable.
Your comment seems terribly confused. You seem to be equivocating on the word “intentional.” No one had any choice about the fact that Caesar Nero(n) sums to 666/616. The only role any “intent” had was when the author of Revelation chose to use that number as a cipher for the enemy of Israel. Therefore, when you say that it was an “intentional isopsephy for Nero Caesar” you must be speaking of the choice to use the value of his name in that text. The author had no choice about what the actual number would be (except, of course, he could have chosen a different title like “King Nero” or whatever).
Likewise, no first century practitioner of isopsephy had any choice about the fact that Jesus sums to 888. That fact was determined by the history of the Greek language and the pre-established numerical values of the letters.
Bottom line: There is no reason to think that either of the names was “intentionally designed.” The use of 666/616 was intentional, but the value itself was just a random coincidence. The same goes for 888. The early Christians and Gnostics discovered that the name just happened to sum to 888 and thought that was pretty cool because the number is pretty and the name Jesus was already in use as the name of the “Savior” of Christianity. There was no place any “intent” could play in the fact that the name itself sums to 888.
I get the impression that you believe all the names of the Greek NT were “invented” by first century Jewish numerologists. Is that your position?
It would be good if you could comment on this, and clarify what you mean when you say that it is “INSANE” to think that the numerical values of common Greek words are a mere coincidence. Are you saying that the entire Greek language was designed by numerologists prior to the 3rd century BC?
This seems to be the root of your confusion. I have never said that the early Christians did not use the number 888 as the value of the name Jesus. That would be absurd. What I said is that there is no evidence that they chose the name Jesus because of its numerical value, or that they drew any circles with a circumference of 8880 as Dan Gleason asserts.
Why do I have to explain such things? How is it possible that you could be so confused?
Your comment is terribly confused. What do you think you mean when you say that “888 is an isopsephy”? The numerical value of any arbitrary word in the Greek language “is an isopsephy.” I think this is why you are so frustrated. Confused language is a symptom of a confused mind.
Your assertion that I “denied it was an isopsephy” is both false and absurd. I have never denied that the numerical value of the name Jesus is 888. And I have never denied that this value was known to the early Christians. Your comments are filled with confusions and false assertions like this.
Your assertion is total bullshit. None of your examples from Irenaeus and Marcus even suggest, let alone prove, that the authors of the NT were encoding their writings with isopsephy. Irenaeus, Marcus, and othes like them merely cherry picked numbers from the NT long after it had been written and had been accepted as a sacred text. You have not given any evidence of any kind that the authors of the NT chose the name Jesus because of its numerical value.
There is almost no evidence of any deliberate isopsephy in the NT. The only explicit “riddle” is Rev 13:18. It is possible that Matthew designed his genealogy on the fact that David = 14 in Hebrew gematria. The only other hints I know of are John’s 153 fish and possibly some of the numerology in Revelation such as the 144,000 and other multiples of 12, but those are probably not isopsephy but rather a simple use of the number 12 as a symbol based on the 12 tribes of Israel. You have claimed that you gave many examples of “explicit riddles” but that is false. You have not. I challenge you to live up to your word. Provide some other examples of a text from the Bible that can be proven to have been deliberately designed using isopsephy.
If your claims were true, then you should be able to cite a legitimate peer-reviewed source that supports them. But you can’t do that, because you claims are total bullshit. You have no evidence of any kind that the authors of the NT intentionally designed “the names of all the main characters” using isopsephy. You are, therefore, the “crank” in this conversation. You make sweeping over the top assertions that have no foundation in fact.
YOU NEVER RESPONDED TO THIS POST
This is the third time I’ve asked this question.
=================================
If it was intended like 666, why was it never mentioned like 666?
The only reason we know that 666 was intended is because it is in the surface text. That is not true of 888.
YOU NEVER RESPONDED TO THE EVIDENCE IN THIS POST.
You chose, rather, to dodge with a textbook example of an ad hominem fallacy by asserting that you could ignore the EVIDENCE because you don’t like my attitude. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t allow such bullshit to just slide by on my blog.
You need to answer these facts that I presented.
===============================================================
Yes, let’s look closely at the data. But first, let me remind you of the words that your lord dog and guru wrote to justify his invention of the ludicrous title Simon THE Peter (link):
His words are crap. Peter is a name, not a title, and his full name Simon Peter is NEVER written as Simon THE Peter. It’s bad enough that he made up such ludicrous bullshit in the first place, but then he goes one better, and totally contradicts his own words by removing the article from John THE Baptist even though “The Baptist” is the actual title of John and that’s how the NT writers consistently wrote it! So Dan is totally freaking drooling mad. Utterly insane.
Now that we finished that little bit of housecleaning, let’s review the numbers:
74*12 = 888*10/10 = 888 = Jesus
958 = The Jesus
74*20 = 888*10/6 = 1480 = (the) Christ
1550 = The Christ
74*30 = 888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
2290 = John the Baptist
2290 = The John Baptist
2360 = The John the Baptist
74*32 = 888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
2438 = Jesus the Christ
2438 = The Jesus Christ
2508 = The Jesus the Christ
2190 = Son of man (no tou)
74*40 = 888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of the Man
2260 = The Son of Man (no tou)
3030 = The Son of Man
Look at that. The misses outnumber the hits 11 to 5! That’s a ratio of more than two to one. And that’s just for the tiny subset of the hundreds of names and titles that Dan could have chosen as “proof” of his ludicrous absurdities. By his own logic, he should have used the article with both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ, since both “The Baptist” and “The Christ” are titles. It’s obvious he would have used those numbers if they fit the pattern he was looking for.
His work is filled with radical inconsistencies like this. He picks and chooses his numbers according to one rule – do they fit the pattern he is looking for? That’s the definition of cherry picking and confirmation bias, which are the root of most delusions like his.
Contrary to your assertion that “the articles are almost wholly irrelevant” we see that the articles are absolutely CRITICAL to the creation of the patterns Dan is looking for. The fact that you can’t see (or admit) something as simple, obvious, and fundamental as this reveals the profound depth of your delusion.
Ok, Dick, ready for the bad news?
An independent researcher has developed a software program to analyze instances of isopsephy in the Greek Textus Receptus. In his analysis, he concludes:
So, Dick, will you finally admit your error?
Or will you continue in your pathetic “debunking” attempts by claiming that Irenaeus, and the author of Barnabas, and Dan Gleason, and me – and now this researcher as well – are all suffering from the same “delusion”?
At this point, I honestly could care less. The comments on this page constitute an overwhelming mountain of evidence, and whether you admit your mistake or persist in YOUR delusion is of no interest to me. This conversation is over. 🙂
Link to source code:
http://github.com/markomanninen/isopsephy
Link to author’s analysis:
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/markomanninen/isopsephy/blob/master/Isopsephy%20character%20data%20tables.ipynb#Multiple-word-phrase
Your comment makes no sense. I never said that Irenaeus suffered any kind of delusion. You are now behaving the way all ignorant trolls behave when they can’t support their bullshit with facts. You have totally ignored all the evidence I have presented. When I first presented it, you said it wasn’t “credible” because you don’t like me. So I explained that your excuse was logically fallacious and an obvious dodge, and presented the same evidence again. And what did you do? You ignored it again, proving that you are a mindless troll who can do nothing but spew lots of drooling words. You’ve proven absolutely that you are an ignorant, deluded, troll. There is something seriously wrong with your brain.
Of course you have no “interest” in dealing with all the evidence I have presented. I have proven you wrong, and you know you don’t have the brains to answer.
This is just another example of the profound depth of your delusion. You ignored all the evidence I presented, even when I presented it again. And then you leave a numerological turd before you leave, as if that were proof of anything but your delusion.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the “conversation is over” because it never began. You came here as a deluded fool, spouted ludicrous bullshit, and are leaving in the same condition as you came.
What error? I never denied that 888/1480 = 3/5. What are you babbling about?
I wish I could say I am surprised that you would quote such a blatantly deluded fool. He’s suggesting a link between the value of “Lord Jesus Christ” and the dimensions of the earth and moon in freaking ENGLISH MILES! How does that prove your assertion that the Gospels were coded by first century numerologists? Did they travel to the future to get the dimensions of the earth and moon in modern ENGLISH MILES and use those numbers to design the Greek title “Lord Jesus Christ”?
Your delusion is as deep as the ocean.
Isopsephy is a Greek literary technique. The name Jesus is an isopsephy. You are wrong because you deny this fact.
Your comment is absurd. I have never denied that isopsephy is a Greek literary technique, and I have never denied that 888 is the numerical value of the name Jesus using Greek isopsephy.
I’ve never written anything that would justify your ludicrous assertions.
There is something seriously wrong with your brain. I’ve never seen such a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity.
Richard,
Thank you for an hour of entertainment in your “discussion” with Jack. I think you’ve probably spent enough time arguing with an insane person. I don’t think he has the mental capacity to either recognize or understand his delusions.
Also, does the argument even make any difference? Even if the writers of the NT did choose names using numerology, would that make any difference to the veracity or meaningfulness of the text? I haven’t traveled down the rabbit-hole into whatever subtextual meaning is claimed by Jack and his guru, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just find a whole lot more number salad. (I think I just coined a phrase.)
Pi is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. But it may make Jack’s head explode.
This is tacit admission that you believe it is reasonable that Jesus as an isopsephy for 888 is NOT a coincidence, as Richard insists.
It is important to establish authorial intention. If isopsephy was common enough in 1st century Greece to be written on walls in graffiti, then it is entirely reasonable to assume that the gospel authors were familiar with it and used it intentionally.
I think you are confusing the belief in numerology with the study of it. You don’t believe in numerology, neither do I, but the point is that isopsephia was used in Greek literature, like it or not.
Let’s just get this straight, DIck. You affirm that Jesus as 888 is an isopsephy. But you deny that the authors intended it. Even though isopsephy was so utterly commonplace in ancient Greece that it could be found in graffiti on walls. That is your argument, is it not?
Just to be totally clear, you acknowledge that Jesus = 888 = 74*12 by isopsephy. But you deny that this number is in any way significant except that it happens to be the sum of the letters in the Greek name Jesus.
You also acknowledge that the three Greek words Yios tou anthropou = 10*888/3 = 74*40 by the same method, but you deny that this was intended in any way by the authors.
You also acknowledge that the two Greek words Johannes Baptistes = 10*888/4 = 74*30 by the same method, but you deny that this was intended in any way by the authors.
You also acknowledge that the Greek words Christos = 10*888/6 = 74*20 by the same method, but you deny that this was intended in any way by the authors.
You acknowledge that other contemporary used isopsephy intentionally, but you deny that the NT authors used isopsephy intentionally in the names listed above.
In other words, you basically make up your own reality.
Oh my. There is no bottom to the abyss of your mind. The NT writers NEVER wrote “Yios tou anthropou” without the article. If they intended any value, it obviously would have been the value of the words they wrote.
Likewise, they NEVER wrote Johannes Baptistes. If they intended any value, it would have been the value of the words they wrote, which were always Johannes Ho Baptistes = 2290.
Your logic is radically inconsistent and irrational. You manipulate the numbers by arbitrarily including/excluding articles and then cherry picking a tiny subset that fit the pattern you are looking for while IGNORING the majority of related words that DO NOT FIT your silly little pattern, and then declare without any evidence that the NT authors “intended” the values that you cherry picked! That’s simply insane.
You have not presented one shred of evidence that any of the values of Jesus, Christ, Son of Man, or John the Baptist were intentionally designed by anyone. All you do is assert that because you can manipulate the numbers to find a few coincidences, that implies that those coincidences were intended. That is absurd.
I have explained your error and you ignored what I wrote because you know if you answered honestly you would have to admit your error.
Answer me this: If the Gospel writers intended 888 to refer to Jesus, why did they never give any hints of their intent? Why is there no mention of 888 in the text? Why are there no numerological poems in the Bible using that number? You have not presented one shred of evidence that the NT authors even knew of the value of Jesus = 888. I’ve asked you this question twice and you have carefully avoided answering it because you know it reveals the abject absurdity of your assertions.
Bottom line: The numerical values of ALL THE WORDS in the Greek language were established long before the first century NT authors wrote anything. Therefore, they had no choice about the numbers. The name Jesus was already established as the Greek version of the name Joshua in the 3rd century BC when the Septuagint was translated. The value of the name Jesus could not have been their “intention” because it existed before they were born, unless by “intention” you mean they chose that preexisting name because of its numerical value. I addressed this confusion in a recent post and you ignored it, as usual. If anything is “intentional” it is your ignorance.
Your confusion knows no limit. The fact that some people intentionally used isopsephy does not imply that every writer of that time used it! What kind of moron are you? This is insane! The only reason you can continue in this confusion is because you refuse to have a disciplined discussion about it and refuse to answer my posts in which I explained your errors. YOU ARE CONFUSED ABOUT “INTENTION.” The fact that the word “JESUS” sums to 888 is OBVIOUSLY not the result of anyone’s intention, because that word originated in the 3rd century BC (or earlier) as a translation of the name Joshua in the Greek Old Testament. Therefore, you assertion that it was “intended” by the NT authors is insane, unless you mean that they chose the name “Jesus” because they happened to notice that it happened to have the value 888. I have explained this to you repeatedly and you keep repeating the same confusion. It’s all based on your confusion about the meaning of “intentional.” I explained it and you ignored my explanation, so I will post it again for the third time. You need to answer it this time.
YOU NEVER RESPONDED TO THE EVIDENCE IN THIS POST.
You chose, rather, to dodge with a textbook example of an ad hominem fallacy by asserting that you could ignore the EVIDENCE because you don’t like my attitude. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t allow such bullshit to just slide by on my blog.
You need to answer these facts that I presented.
===============================================================
Yes, let’s look closely at the data. But first, let me remind you of the words that your lord dog and guru wrote to justify his invention of the ludicrous title Simon THE Peter (link):
His words are crap. Peter is a name, not a title, and his full name Simon Peter is NEVER written as Simon THE Peter. It’s bad enough that he made up such ludicrous bullshit in the first place, but then he goes one better, and totally contradicts his own words by removing the article from John THE Baptist even though “The Baptist” is the actual title of John and that’s how the NT writers consistently wrote it! So Dan is totally freaking drooling mad. Utterly insane.
Now that we finished that little bit of housecleaning, let’s review the numbers:
74*12 = 888*10/10 = 888 = Jesus
958 = The Jesus
74*20 = 888*10/6 = 1480 = (the) Christ
1550 = The Christ
74*30 = 888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
2290 = John the Baptist
2290 = The John Baptist
2360 = The John the Baptist
74*32 = 888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
2438 = Jesus the Christ
2438 = The Jesus Christ
2508 = The Jesus the Christ
2190 = Son of man (no tou)
74*40 = 888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of the Man
2260 = The Son of Man (no tou)
3030 = The Son of Man
Look at that. The misses outnumber the hits 11 to 5! That’s a ratio of more than two to one. And that’s just for the tiny subset of the hundreds of names and titles that Dan could have chosen as “proof” of his ludicrous absurdities. By his own logic, he should have used the article with both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ, since both “The Baptist” and “The Christ” are titles. It’s obvious he would have used those numbers if they fit the pattern he was looking for.
His work is filled with radical inconsistencies like this. He picks and chooses his numbers according to one rule – do they fit the pattern he is looking for? That’s the definition of cherry picking and confirmation bias, which are the root of most delusions like his.
Contrary to your assertion that “the articles are almost wholly irrelevant” we see that the articles are absolutely CRITICAL to the creation of the patterns Dan is looking for. The fact that you can’t see (or admit) something as simple, obvious, and fundamental as this reveals the profound depth of your delusion.
I have presented an abundance of textual evidence of contemporary authors both Christian and non-Christian who demonstrate knowledge of, and make direct reference to, isopsephy. The Sybylline Oracles, circa 176 AD, makes an explicit reference to Jesus = 888 and an implied reference to Christ = 10*888/6 and therefore Jesus:Christ = 3:5. The idea that original author was unaware of these facts is simply INSANE.
Hey there Phillip,
A voice of sanity! Thank you!
Number salad – excellent variation on “word salad.”
I think you are correct. I have spent more than enough time talking with Jack. The problem is, I have a morbid fascination with how far people are wiling to go to maintain their delusions. Over on my forum, for example, I had a very long conversation with a guy who felt it necessary to charge all English dictionaries with using “bad grammar” in order to maintain his delusion.
As for the “meaningfulness” of the text – Jack (and his mentor Dan Gleason) deny that there is any historical meaning to the Gospels. They assert that they are nothing but “geometry riddles” that are solved by drawing a circle with a perimeter of 8880 units and then fitting other circles into the bigger circle to “explain the riddles.” It’s utter madness. You can read all about it on his site http://www.jesus8880.com
Thanks for the breath of fresh air!
Richard
Those examples are from writings that came after the NT was finished. My statement stands. You have not presented one shred of evidence that the NT authors even knew of the value of Jesus = 888.
(multiples of 74 in boldface)
Note that I am not disputing this. Any rational personal can see that the names were selected by the author on the basis that their isopsephy values are all multiples of 74, and therefore they are all multiples of the main character name Jesus which is 888 = 74*12. You would be INSANE to think otherwise.
I have never denied that isopsephia was used in Greek literature so that’s obviously NOT the point of contention. The point of contention is your assertion that the Gospel writers chose the names of Jesus, Simon THE Peter, John (not the) Baptist, and so forth to create riddles that could be solved by drawing circles with 8880 freaking units. Have you considered what it would take to draw those circles? If the circle was five feet in diameter, the units would be half a millimeter! Do you really think that first century numerologist were drawing five foot circles to an accuracy anything like half a millimeter? The whole concept is so absurd it hurts my brain to contemplate it. And that’s your thesis. The point of all your posts is that Dan Gleason’s circles are true. They are pathetically absurd beyond description.
It is entirely reasonable that a five or eight or even ten foot circle could be carved into a floor or some other flat board, like a draftsman uses, and then reusable circular “signs” like 888, 2960, etc. could be placed on top of the board.
You have never presented any evidence that the authors selected anything from that list.
And if they ever did select numbers from that list, then the most rational conclusion is that they would have chosen the numbers that correspond to the words they actually WROTE in the Gospels.
You have never presented any evidence that any NT author knew the value of Jesus = 888.
No, that is not reasonable at all. First, there is absolutely NO evidence of any such constructions. Second, it would be impossible to do any drawings with an accuracy down to half a millimeter on that scale with the primitive tools available. Third, the whole proposition is absurd anyway because the circles within the Circle of 8880 units give no information beyond what you get from simple arithmetic. E.g. 8880 = 10 x 888, so Gleason draws a vertical column of 10 circles “declared” to have a circumference of 888 in a circle “declared” to have a circumference of 8880. I say “declared” because there was no way for them to know how to draw a circle with those circumferences. All they could do is declare the little circle is “c” and the big circle is “10 x c.” It’s all meaningless mindless ignorant bullshit. The stupidity of it all is beyond words.
And worse, there is not one shred of evidence that any “early Christian” ever said a word about the length of the circumference of a circle relating to the value of the name Jesus. Thus, both you and Gleason are utterly delusional. Look at the utterly insane bullshit he wrote on his home page!
You know he’s talking out his ass. There is absolutely no evidence supporting his assertion. None. Nada. Zilch. Gleason is utterly delusional.
Of course they did. Isopsephia was practically the literary genre of the time, if you just look at all the sources I’ve cited. You could almost argue that an isopsephia scheme of some kind was a requirement for a sacred text to be considered holy. An example of this is the so-called Sarapis riddle in The Life of Alexander the Great.
It almost seems like you are using the conventional English rendering of these names to confuse the issue. Simon ho Petros is a nickname which means “Simon the Stone.”
Dude! Your brain is broken! The fact that some people used isopsephy does not mean everyone did. You have not presented a shred of evidence that the NT authors chose the name of Jesus because of its numerical value. You have not even presented any evidence that they knew of its value. And even if the NT authors did know of that value, you have not presented any evidence that they picked the values from the tiny list that you happen to prefer. How do you know which numbers they would have preferred? They didn’t leave any writings telling you that they like the numbers you like. So it’s all pure cognitive bias and delusion on your part.
Oh, so now you want to follow your ludicrous leader and make up total bullshit without any evidence?
The name “Simon Ho Petros” is never used anywhere in the NT. You just made up total bullshit and presented it as fact. You are one sick puppy.
I’m going to stop here. Have fun with your debunking efforts. 🙂
My final word will simply be your own evidence that you yourself presented. It speaks for itself:
(multiples of 74 in boldface)
* Actual value 1924. (99.95% accurate.)
One last thing. I’m not so sure that Neron Kaisar is the correct answer to the 666 riddle. It seems more likely that:
και ο αριθμος αυτου χξϛ = 1702 + 666 = 2368 = Ιησου Χριστου.
See ya, Dick.
και ο αριθμος αυτου χξϛ = 1702 + 666 = 2368 = Ιησου Χριστου.
“And the number of him is 666, even of Jesus Christ.”
When I did LSD I *became* god and judged all of humanity. I judged it favourably. Another time on mushrooms in became Jesus and earnestly introduced myself as him. Then again, another time I was on LSD a friend said “we’re in the Matrix” and I saw “the code” streaming over the walls. Later that same night someone said my Indian friend as the Buddha and when I looked at him he was covered in eyes.
But after a few hours the drugs wear off that’s supposed to be that.
Also, you’ve been featured on http://BO-NE.WS
Thank you for an interesting retrospective. It’s very illuminating to read about someone surfacing from those sorts of depths. I was wondering if you could answer a couple of questions, calling on your personal journey through magical thinking.
First, what were you trying to achieve via all the bible-code numerology stuff? That is to say, what did you hope to discover, and why did you think it would be important? What did you expect the reception to be like once you “proved” what you set out to prove? How did that change as time went on?
Second, what are your current beliefs? What do you consider your philosophical touchstones, and whom do you consider moral authorities? How have they – beliefs, philosophical touchstone, etc – evolved since ditching Christianity, and since stepping away from numerology?
Great questions Scott, but not easy to answer. The numbers felt like a way to “peek” into the mind of God. I really believed that they gave authentic insight into the Divine Mind, the thoughts that God used in the act of creation. They were mesmerizing because they were both exact and mystical. They were like a psychedelic drug that evoked a sense of seeing “behind the scenes” into the root of creation. I’m glad you asked this question, it inspires me to think about it more. Having no debunked myself, it should be very interesting to explore the psychology of what I used to believe.
And on that note: What do I now believe? I am not a theist, so by definition I am an atheist. But I don’t assert that there is no god of any kind since such knowledge is beyond me. Therefore, I am an agnostic atheist. I am currently quite conservative when it comes to any metaphysical speculations, like the existence of gods and ghosts and spirits and whatnot. I would call myself a naturalist. I do not believe in any “moral authorities” any more than I believe in “mathematical authorities.” The truth of neither morals nor mathematics is determined by authority but rather reason. I explain my moral theory in an article called The Logic of Love: A Natural Theory of Morality. It has nothing to do with any god, as you may have guessed.
Thanks for the excellent questions! They deserve longer answers, but its time for my Rose and I to go for our morning three mile hike.
Fascinating stuff. That shows the power of the drug, and why it has such a great potential as a mind tool. It also shows why it’s not such a great party drug. Set and setting, as they say. I always used it as a tool to explore the inner workings of my mind and hopeful gain insights to the deeper nature of reality. The problem, of course, is that LSD can deceive as easily as enlighten, since it is a kind of “amplifier” of the brain which in essence is a house of mirrors.
Wrong again, Dick:
ὁ δε Πέτρος εφη αυτω και ει παντες σκανδαλισθησονται αλλ ουκ εγω.
“And the Stone said to him, Even if all will fall away, yet not I.”
Mark 14:29
ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ Πέτρος εἶπεν Κύριε, εἰ σὺ εἶ, κέλευσόν με ἐλθεῖν πρὸς σὲ ἐπὶ τὰ ὕδατα.
“And the Stone answered him saying, Lord if it is you, command me to come to you upon the waters.”
Matthew 14:28
Wrong again Jackass. That’s not an example of Simon ho Petros.
Furthermore, if you want to use the value of Ho Petros, then you should also use the value of “Ho Iesous” which occurs hundreds of times in the NT. But you don’t do that because your numerology is radically inconsistent and hence irrational.
I could your own methods to “debunk” and claim that Shin-Shin-Kaf is just a meaningless string of letters that signifies nothing. But since that is not true, and Shin-Shin-Kaf is actually proven to be a cryptogram in the Bible, that means your method of “debunking” is flawed and non-scientific. Your so-called method is little more than throwing around a bunch of debunker jargon like “coincidence” and “confirmation bias”, etc.
Does the name ho Petros in the above verses refer to anyone other than Simon? No? Ok, then that is an example of Simon ho Petros. Case closed.
No you could not. And that’s totally off topic. You are obviously trying to dodge the many proofs I have given of your many errors. You have not refuted a word I have written. I have proven that your assertions are radically inconsistent, incoherent, and irrational.
The only case that is closed is the fact that you cannot support you assertions with any facts, and that you are willing to write rank bullshit in your vain effort to justify your errors. You have not presented any example of anyone writing “Simon Ho Petros” in the Bible.
I don’t have to. You don’t make up the rules, Dick. You don’t get to dictate what constitutes a “valid” isopsephy.
All the evidence points to the fact that the authors chose their character names intentionally on the basis of isopsephy, namely, that all the names are multiples of 74.
Your assertion that this is somehow a coincidence is absurd, and your attempt to skew the results by adding or taking away words is pathetic.
>>Also, does the argument even make any difference? Even if the writers of the NT did choose names using numerology, would that make any difference
>Hey there Phillip, A voice of sanity! Thank you!
Uhh no. As you can see, despite his snide remarks, Philip is actually agreeing with me that it is reasonable to assume that the authors chose the names based on isopsephy.
He’s doing the classic debunker dance, which goes like this: first deny everything, then when confronted with counterexamples, make a reluctant, tacit admission followed by moving the goalposts: (“even IF he’s right about that, there’s still blah blah blah…”)
That’s why I say, never argue with someone who claims to be a “debunker”: because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. 🙂
I never said the isopsephy was not valid. I said that you have not presented any evidence that the NT authors even knew the value of Jesus = 888, let alone that they chose that name for their savior character based on that number. Your ignorance is as deep as the ocean.
You have not presented any evidence that the NT authors even knew the value of Jesus = 888, let alone that they chose that name for their savior character based on that number.
And your reference to “all the names” that are multiples of 74 if ludicrous. That’s a tiny, tiny, tiny cherry picked subset of all the possible numbers that could be derived from the names and titles of Christ. Other than Jesus and Christ, Gleason presented only two mangled versions of names that do not even correspond to anything the NT authors actually wrote. What about all the other names and titles of Christ that don’t fit his pattern? What about the Savior, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God? What about the Lamb of God, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life? What about the New Adam, the Second Adam, the Last Adam? Hundreds of values could be generated by calculating every variation based on including and excluding the articles. His table is a tiny insignificant subset of the set of all possibilities, and even then, he had to manipulate the numbers by removing articles to get the numbers he was looking for. Your assertions are ludicrous beyond description.
Josh is right. You have a strong emotional need to feel like you are personally correct, which is why you make all sorts of bizarre claims and then lash out at anyone who disagrees.
Wow. Is there no bottom to the abyss of your mind? YOU are the one who creates patterns by adding or taking away words, and inventing titles that do not exist anywhere in the NT to force your pathetic little number game to “work.” By you own admission, your method is “ridiculous.” Here is what you wrote:
YOU are the one who bases all his calculations on inconsistently including and excluding articles to force the numbers to fit. If you simply accepted the text as written, you would have The Son of Man = 3030 and John the Baptist = 2290.
So YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT depends on the presence/absence of the word “the.” And yes, I can assure you, I can see how ridiculous that is.
You have declared your own method to be “ridiculous.”
More ad hominem, as if that justifies your bullshit and your refusal to respond to the evidence I presented. Wow.
Try refuting the evidence I have presented. I dare you. I’ve presented it three times and you have never dealt with it. Here it is, yet again:
===============================================================
YOU NEVER RESPONDED TO THE EVIDENCE IN THIS POST.
You chose, rather, to dodge with a textbook example of an ad hominem fallacy by asserting that you could ignore the EVIDENCE because you don’t like my attitude. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t allow such bullshit to just slide by on my blog.
You need to answer these facts that I presented.
===============================================================
Yes, let’s look closely at the data. But first, let me remind you of the words that your lord dog and guru wrote to justify his invention of the ludicrous title Simon THE Peter (link):
His words are crap. Peter is a name, not a title, and his full name Simon Peter is NEVER written as Simon THE Peter. It’s bad enough that he made up such ludicrous bullshit in the first place, but then he goes one better, and totally contradicts his own words by removing the article from John THE Baptist even though “The Baptist” is the actual title of John and that’s how the NT writers consistently wrote it! So Dan is totally freaking drooling mad. Utterly insane.
Now that we finished that little bit of housecleaning, let’s review the numbers:
74*12 = 888*10/10 = 888 = Jesus
958 = The Jesus
74*20 = 888*10/6 = 1480 = (the) Christ
1550 = The Christ
74*30 = 888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
2290 = John the Baptist
2290 = The John Baptist
2360 = The John the Baptist
74*32 = 888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
2438 = Jesus the Christ
2438 = The Jesus Christ
2508 = The Jesus the Christ
2190 = Son of man (no tou)
74*40 = 888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of the Man
2260 = The Son of Man (no tou)
3030 = The Son of Man
Look at that. The misses outnumber the hits 11 to 5! That’s a ratio of more than two to one. And that’s just for the tiny subset of the hundreds of names and titles that Dan could have chosen as “proof” of his ludicrous absurdities. By his own logic, he should have used the article with both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ, since both “The Baptist” and “The Christ” are titles. It’s obvious he would have used those numbers if they fit the pattern he was looking for.
His work is filled with radical inconsistencies like this. He picks and chooses his numbers according to one rule – do they fit the pattern he is looking for? That’s the definition of cherry picking and confirmation bias, which are the root of most delusions like his.
Contrary to your assertion that “the articles are almost wholly irrelevant” we see that the articles are absolutely CRITICAL to the creation of the patterns Dan is looking for. The fact that you can’t see (or admit) something as simple, obvious, and fundamental as this reveals the profound depth of your delusion.
All those Greek terms are multiples of 74. In Simple English Gematria (A = 1, B = 2, … Z = 26)
Jesus = 74
Messiah = 74
cross = 74
gospel = 74
Further evidence? Or further proof that you can find patterns in anything?
Excellent example of the fact that such patterns can be found in anything. This should be particularly obvious given that Lucifer and Muhammad also sum to 74!
I presented that information to Jack in this post and asked if he thought it was evidence that the translators of the KJV designed those words, and he said “It’s certainly possible, considering that Agrippa published his Three Books of Occult Philosophy containing a gematria table for the Latin alphabet in 1532.” I get the impression he’s not really into that whole “skeptical” or “critical” style of thinking.
I’m REALLY GLAD you said that, because I was just about to invite you to take my Debunker Challenge!
I would like you to use gematria to find any integer which is a common multiple of the names of some of the main characters in Shakespeare’s King Lear.
In other words, you will need to devise a set of formulas like the ones which I posted above for the names of Jesus and the other NT characters.
I only care about the proper nouns – so you can choose between “Lear”, “King Lear”, “Lear the King”, “Fool”, “the Fool”, etc. You’re also allowed a margin of error of ±1 units.
I think 3-4 character names would be sufficient to prove the point – but since you believe that “such patterns can be found in anything,” then you should have no difficulty finding it!
Here is a table of gematria values for the Latin alphabet to get you started:
http://www.masoncode.com/Latin%20Gematria.htm
I can’t wait for you to finally prove me wrong!
Good morning, kind Jack,
Have you presented any evidence that even suggests, let alone proves, that the authors of the NT knew that the value of Jesus sums to 888? If not, then how can you say that they were using isopsephy based on that number in their writings?
I see no reason we cannot arrive at a clear understanding if you just answer some simple questions and follow a basic sequence of logic.
All the best,
Richard
The fact that the name Peter is taken from a noun denoting a stone does not mean that it is not a name, and does not imply it was meant as a “title.” Can you cite even one independent scholarly source that says it is a “title” as opposed to a name? I can list endless independent scholarly resources that support my assertion that Peter is the name given to Simon. This means that your accusation that I “lied” is itself a demonstrable lie. You need to admit this fact or show that I am wrong. If you refuse, I will not allow you to post anymore because I have no reason to allow blatant liars to mar my blog.
And of course this whole topic is irrelevant, because the real point is that Gleason made up the ludicrous “title” of Simon ho Peter (Simon the Peter) which never occurs anywhere in Scripture. His assertion that the NT authors “intended” the value of Simon ho Peter is absurd because they never wrote it that way. And how does Gleason justify such an absurd assertion? Because he can fit some circles within a circle! He has no actual evidence.
Just to remind you Dan Gleason is well aware of the Simon Peter (1855) without “ho” and uses it in his figures as well: http://jesus8880.com/chapters/gematria/four-fishermen-2216-2222.htm
Now I find value 1855 even more interesting. Peter was said to be the holder of the keys (gr. kleis, there are 7 different types of keys mentioned on NT) which isopsephy value is 265. 7*265 is 1855 and in this form Simon Peter is used for example in John 21, (in)famous chapter of 153 fishes.
Seventh verse of John 21 contains 153 letters and has isopsephy value 17312 if I remember correctly from Textus Receptus. Anyway, nearly the decimal expansion of the square root 3 (~1,7321 or ~1.7320 by 265/153). I’m even more convinced that John 21:1-14 was the geometric/mathematical riddle around the proportion of the Vesica Pisces, than 666 was about Nero. Number of the beast could be read and calculated with a ratio (P) 6 1/6, which is 37/6, for example: 144*P=888. Mirror of 888 is 888, very same theme Revelation is all about.
Did they ever draw circles and used math on the emerging first century religious society we call christianity? At least Romans and Jews were fond of geometry, see my Flower of Life artifacts essay: http://floweroflifemystery.wordpress.com/
Religious movement was a struggle toward the spiritual truth as well as science is said to be, but far too material yet very emotional today. Geometry and math already explained cosmos, but they also saw chaos in their figures. We call them irrational and transcendental now, they made their best to understand chaos by mythical monsters.
I also think, like I suppose Jack is trying to say, that from all theistic and atheistic views gnostic and neo-pythagorean influence and development of the religious ideas in the first century were fundamental and explains best some doctrines of the Bible. May it be called New Age doctrine of their age, syncretism between several religious ideas. But in saying that, NT contains only some period of the development. For example isopsephical devices were used at the end of the century and 200 AD even more mature way. But soon at that time christian doctrine was getting crystallized, fights between heretics begun and development in hermetic sense stopped. I recommend two books in this field: Jesus Christ, Sun of God: Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism & The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetical Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World by Kieren Barry. Both containing huge reference lists for serious investigators. One should also read the research of the topic by Joel Kalvesmaki: http://kalvesmaki.com/Arithmetic/index.htm – excellent source!
“Bless us, divine number, thou who generated gods and men! O holy, holy Tetractys, thou that containest the root and source of the eternally flowing creation! For the divine number begins with the profound, pure unity until it comes to the holy four; then it begets the mother of all, the all-comprising, all-bounding, the first-born, the never-swerving, the never-tiring holy ten, the keyholder of all” -Pythagoras
Marko Mannien!
Hello! I tried contacting you on Twitter. I am really interested in your isopsephy project on GitHub. I also have a GitHub projects which uses JavaScript to draw shapes, like the Flower of Life:
http://jsfiddle.net/5ak8P/
http://github.com/jackvsworld/compass.js
I would love to work on a project with you! Contact me! My GitHub username is @jackvsworld.
I think it would be easier if you would just take the Debunker Challege which I posted yesterday. That way, when you fail – which you inevitably will – then we will have a strong indication that the names of characters in the NT are intentionally related mathematically through isopsephy.
After that, if you still want to cry “coincidence”, then you are welcome to it. But first we need to disprove your condescending statement that “these patterns can be found in anything.”
Looking forward to your analysis of King Lear!
(BTW: Your refusal to take the challenge will be considered an implicit admission that you are wrong and that your statement “such patterns can be found in anything” is false and that you are liar.)
Jack, you need to respond to this post. Your continued habit of spewing out unfounded accusations of me being a “liar” will not be tolerated. I do not want to ban you, but if you refuse to support your accusations with evidence you will leave me no choice.
===============================================
The fact that the name Peter is taken from a noun denoting a stone does not mean that it is not a name, and does not imply it was meant as a “title.” Can you cite even one independent scholarly source that says it is a “title” as opposed to a name? I can list endless independent scholarly resources that support my assertion that Peter is the name given to Simon. This means that your accusation that I “lied” is itself a demonstrable lie. You need to admit this fact or show that I am wrong. If you refuse, I will not allow you to post anymore because I have no reason to allow blatant liars to mar my blog.
And of course this whole topic is irrelevant, because the real point is that Gleason made up the ludicrous “title” of Simon ho Peter (Simon the Peter) which never occurs anywhere in Scripture. His assertion that the NT authors “intended” the value of Simon ho Peter is absurd because they never wrote it that way. And how does Gleason justify such an absurd assertion? Because he can fit some circles within a circle! He has no actual evidence.
Ok, I admit it. Congratulations. You’ve proven that you can win arguments by threatening to ban people. Good for you.
Ok Dick, this is what’s called an implicit admission that you know that your statement “such patterns can be found in anything” is false.
If it’s not, simply take the Debunker Challenge and prove me wrong. If your statement that “such patterns can be found in anything” is really true, then it should be easy for you to find similar patterns in other works of literature, such as King Lear.
I’m even allowing you to “cherry pick” by adding or excluding words! You can use “Lear”, “King Lear”, “Lear the King”, “Kent”, “Earl of Kent”, “the Earl of Kent”, etc. The choices are endless! If what you say is really true – that “such patterns can be found in anything” – then it should be very easy for you to find a pattern similar to this one (reproduced here for clarity):
74*12 = 888*10/10 = 888 = Jesus
74*20 = 888*10/6 = 1480 = (the) Christ
74*26 ≈ 1925 = Simon the Stone
74*30 = 888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
74*32 = 888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
74*40 = 888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of Man
I would like you to use gematria to find any integer which is a common multiple of the names of some of the main characters in Shakespeare’s King Lear. In other words, you will need to devise a set of formulas like the ones which I posted above for the names of Jesus and the other NT characters. Since you believe that “such patterns can be found in anything” then you should have no difficulty finding one.
Oh, I am quite sure that you would sooner ban me than take the Debunker Challenge. Because you know that you will fail – which would cast doubt on all your previous comments and posts – and you want to spare yourself that humiliation.
At this point, any semblance of objectivity that may have had is now gone. This no longer has anything to do with objective exegesis: it’s about you insisting that your personal beliefs concerning this subject have to be correct, regardless of the evidence.
You have made an assertion that “such patterns can be found in anything”, but you refuse to prove that assertion by demonstrating any such patterns. And now you threaten to silence anyone who refuses to agree with your viewpoint! You are being completely irrational.
Jack,
That is another lie. I never threatened to ban you because you disagreed. The only reason I threatened to ban you was because you have repeatedly spewed out false accusations against me, calling me a liar.
You admitted one lie. Now you need to admit the lie you just told.
Jack,
You also need to stop calling me “Dick” in every post. You know you are doing that as an insult. It indicates a profound inability (or unwillingness) to conduct a rational discourse. I have no reason to put up with such shit. If you would like the conversation to continue, you will need to get a grip on yourself.
Now before you accuse me of doing what you do – I admit that, and regret it. Please accept my apology. Such behavior is unbecoming for both of us. So it must stop now.
Thanks.
That is a lie Jack. The only thing I proved was that you lied, and you know it. I did not “win any argument by threatening to ban you.” I simply forced you to admit the truth. The fact that I had to force you to admit the truth suggests that you would not have done it otherwise. What does that imply about you and your character?
Ok, this is a fine point, but fair enough: I don’t think you are intentionally lying or trying to deceive anyone.
If I say “what you said is not true,” then by implication, that means I am claiming that your statement is false.
But to be clear: No, I am not claiming that you have intentionally made false statements or tried to deceive people. I am just not convinced that your statements are supported by facts.
Ok, now, can we please get back to the actual point of contention, which is your statement that “such patterns can be found in anything”? Are you going to accept my challenge, or not?
Fine, agreed.
What is the truth? We know that the names Petros and Boanerges were given to the apostles by Jesus. There are three possible conclusions:
1. Petros is a personal name, but Boanerges is a nickname. This is inconsistent and
doesn’t seem plausible to me.
2. Petros is a personal name, and Boanerges is also a personal name. This is consistent, but it doesn’t make any sense because we know that Boanerges is not a personal name (it means “Sons of Thunder” according to the text.)
3. Petros and Boanerges are both nicknames. This is both consistent and plausible: “Simon the Stone” and “James and John, the Sons of Thunder.” Those sound like nicknames to me.
Number 3 seems the most plausible to me, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume you are right.
Actually what I’m doing is saying, “Okay, Richard, for the sake of argument, I will accept your claim, because I want to get back to the actual point of contention, which is your claim that such patterns can be found in anything.”
So, can we get back to that crucial point now? I don’t want to go off on another tangent. Just do the gematria for Lear, prove me wrong, and let’s get this over with.
I really appreciate the change in tone. Thanks!
Unfortunately, I’m at work and won’t have time for much discussion until this evening.
Jack,
In preparation for my answer to your challenge, I need you to explain what you think I meant when I said “such patterns can be found in anything.” To what did I intend the word “such” to refer?
Well, I think the crux of the argument is whether the names of the main characters in the Gospels are examples of intentional use of isopsephy by the author. One more time:
74*12 = 888*10/10 = 888 = Jesus
74*20 = 888*10/6 = 1480 = (the) Christ
74*26 ≈ 1925 = Simon the Stone
74*30 = 888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
74*32 = 888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
74*40 = 888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of Man
For the sake of brevity and to avoid reposting this material again and again, I will henceforth refer to the above table of correspondences as “the 74 pattern.”
Now, you have raised some objections concerning the inclusion or exclusion of certain articles, and also the fact that some of the names in “the 74 pattern” are not explicitly spelled out, word for word, in the text.
For these reasons, I am allowing you to “cherry pick” by adding or excluding words, for example “Lear”, “King Lear”, “Lear the King”, “Kent”, “Earl of Kent”, “the Earl of Kent”, etc. And you are also allowed
a margin of error of ±1 unit.
So just to recap, the challenge is: To devise a formula which mathematically relates the names of some of the main characters in Shakespeare’s King Lear. In other words, the goal is to find a set of isopsephies similar to “the 74 pattern”, which demonstrates that every character name is a multiple of just one number.
You can use any method of gematria. It could be as simple as A=1, B=2, C=3… or you could use the traditional gematria values for the Latin alphabet. The only requirement is that the method must be consistent. (In other words, you can’t use one set of letter/numbers to calculate “Lear” and then a switch to a different set of letter/numbers to calculate “Cordelia”.)
Just to be totally clear, like I said I think the crux of the argument is whether “the 74 pattern” is a product of the author’s intentional design. One of the main reasons I believe this is because isopsephy was so common in Ancient Greece.
So, if you can find a similar set of isopsephies for a totally different book that was written in a time and place when isopsephy was not common (i.e. Shakespearean England), then I would be forced to admit that I was wrong and that it is reasonable to assume that the isopsephies in the New Testament are simply coincidental.
Just to be absolutely clear: I am assuming that “such” refers to isopsephy – specifically the occurrence of multiple isopsephies in the same text whose numeric values have a common multiple.
(E.g., in “the 74 pattern” the isopsephies would be the Greek names of the character, the text would be the NT, and the common multiple would be the number 74.)
One final note: “cheating” by designing an gematria scheme specifically to accomodate the character names is not allowed. For example, if someone used an alphabetic numeral system where L=800, E=1, A=80, R=7 and K=200, E=1, N=19, and T=2, so that Lear=888=8*111 and Kent=222=2*111 – that would be cheating because the person obviously designed the gematria values to “fit” the names in advance.
To avoid this problem, it would be best to stick with a known set of values, like A=1, B=2, C=3… or Agrippa’s 16th century gematria table for the Latin alphabet, or just split the alphabet in three rows and use units, decades and hundreds.
That’s an excellent example of his fundamental error. He is totally inconsistent. He arbitrarily adds and removes the articles to force the numbers to fit the patterns he likes. That’s a textbook example of cherry picking and confirmation bias. No serious thinker would accept such obviously cooked numbers as evidence of anything, except how people delude themselves, of course.
That’s a nice coincidence. If you want to think it is more than a coincidence, you will need to explain how you discern between chance and design. For every “hit” there are ten thousands misses, so your collection of cherry picked hits is quite meaningless. Such hits are necessarily found in any sufficiently large set of words, like what we find in the Bible.
Yes, that is correct. And in the NA27 it has 155 letters and its value is 17321. Do you have any reason to think the TR is better than the NA27?
Looks like nothing but cherry picked coincidences to me. There is no consistency in any of it. If it were really “coded” then it should account for all the data, not just random cherry picked fragments. For example, if I knew the code used by the Germans in WWII, I could account for every letter in the message when it was decoded. You can’t do that because the Bible was not coded. All the “patterns” you find are exactly what we would expect by random chance.
If you disagree, please explain what objective principles you use to discern between chance and design.
I appreciate that you took time to comment, but I believe that your numerology is fundamentally delusional.
All the best,
Richard
Your forgot the most important identity. It is from the one text that is explicitly stated as a riddle:
Revelation 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
AND HIS NUMBER IS 666 = 2368 = JESUS CHRIST
Are you going to put that in your list?
And if we use your logic, we also must believe that everything you say is a grand deception, for we also have this verse:
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Which yields this identity:
JESUS OF NAZARETH = 13 x 13 x 13 = THE ONE CALLED THE DEVIL AND SATAN
Do you still doubt? The numerologists went to great lengths to prove that their purpose was to deceive you and the whole world with their invention of Jesus Christ and the New Testament. Consider these two verses:
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is and which was and which is to come the Almighty.
We have the identity:
HE WHO DECEIVES THE WHOLE WORLD = 2320 = HE WHO WAS, AND IS, AND IS TO COME
And they confirmed their intention yet again:
ALPHA OMEGA = 1332 = 2 x 666!
If there is any truth to your words, we know that Jesus is Satan, and that his purpose is to deceive the whole world.
And that’s the glory of numerology.
Wow, Richard, I have to admit I am impressed. These are some very interesting isopsephies.
Interestingly, Dan Gleason makes the same argument in his exegesis of Revelation!
Based on his gematria analysis, he concludes that the author of Revelation must have been a Jew or an early Christian, who did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. He probably viewed this new “cult of Jesus Christ” as a threat to traditional Jewish religion. He may have considered Jesus to be a prophet, but he did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah or Christ.
That could explain why the author uses isopsephy to equate “Jesus Christ” with kai ho arithmos auto 666 in Rev 13:18.
This could also explain some of the strange verses in that book. For example, Rev 1:5 is usually translated as “Jesus Christ … the firstborn of the dead” – but it could also be translated as “the original son of Hell.”
Also, the very first verse of Revelation is usually translated “a revelation from Jesus Christ” or something similar – but it could also mean “an exposure of Jesus Christ.”
Here is how Dan Gleason explains it on his other website, Revelation2368.com:
http://revelation2368.com/song-of-moses.htm
http://revelation2368.com/why-written.htm
This is a perfect example of Dan Gleason’s claim that “the name of the Beast is encoded on almost every page of Revelation” and that “Jesus Christ, the Beast, the red Dragon, and the False Prophet were all one and the same person.”
Here is how Dan explains it on his website:
It’s definitely a controversial theory – but numbers don’t lie.
One more thing to note – Jesus is only mentioned by name a handful of times in Revelation.
The main protagonist in Revelation is the Lamb – and most Christians identify the Lamb with Jesus – but it is interesting to note that the Lamb is never actually identified with Jesus anywhere in the text. Also, the descriptions of heaven in Revelation are elaborate and the author describes elders, beasts, thrones, etc. all in great detail. But Jesus himself is completely absent from heaven according to the book of Revelation. I cannot think of a single verse in Revelation where Jesus is described as being in heaven with God (correct me if I’m wrong!)
OK – let me get this straight. When the numbers contradict your theory, you invent a new theory that says competing numerologists wrote Revelation to contradict the “truths” that other numerologists encoded in the Gospels? With a theory as flexible as that, what could anyone do to prove it true or false? Your story is exactly what I would expect from a person totally lost in a delusion based on cherry picking, confirmation bias, and most stunningly, rationalization of facts that don’t fit your theory. Can you think of any reason anyone should think otherwise?
All people are subject to confirmation bias. The primary purpose of the scientific method and peer review is to eliminate it. Simply stated, your theory would never pass peer review. Any clear thinker would immediately recognize it as the product of obvious cognitive errors. It is entirely inconsistent with itself. It begins and ends with inconsistencies.
You are exaggerating a bit there. First of all, there is no reason to think that the author of Revelation also wrote the New Testament. So no, the whole thing is not a grand deception.
The most likely explanation is that in the first century AD – while Christianity was still in its infancy – there were many different Gospels and many different sects of Christianity which had different beliefs. (This is a fact which has been proven by textual analysis.) The author of Revelation was probably a member of a more conservative sect who was advocating a return to more traditional Jewish values.
Believe me Richard, I had some major cognitive dissonance when I first found out about all these things. But no, I do not ignore evidence just because it makes me feel uncomfortable.
I consider myself a follower of Jesus, and needless to say I was shocked to read some of these things. But after a lot of objective analysis and critical thinking, I had to conclude that the author must have used knowledge of isopsephia to write his book, and therefore the correspondences between “Jesus Christ” and 666 must be intentional. Numbers simply don’t lie.
I still consider myself a follower of Jesus, and I still have my faith, but my understanding of the Bible is a little more nuanced now. I believe that most myths are rooted in fact. My belief is that Jesus was a real man from Judea who travelled and preached a powerful message. But after his death various myths were superimposed onto his life story and he became Jesus Christ, a kind of larger-than-life God-like figure.
That doesn’t make sense, because Jewish numerologists think of the number 666 as holy, and closely associated with Yahweh. Here are some examples:
Isaiah 42:5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
God the LORD, he that created the heavens = 666
Psa 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
Yahweh is a sun = 666
I found that one in some Jewish art.
2 Chronicles 35:3 And said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto the LORD, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel did build; it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now the LORD your God, and his people Israel,
the holy ark = 666
I could go on.
Please explain why a Jewish numerologist would use a number so closely related to their God as a symbol of his enemy.
Given that the numbers found throughout the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures totally contradict themselves, the best explanation is that they are totally random. You have yet to show any evidence of any design other than a few examples in which the writers cherry picked numbers and used them for their own purposes, such as 666 in Revelation (which now you admit is NOT an example of isopsephy used by the Gospel writers, but rather by their numerological enemies)!
What contradiction? What new theory? My theory is that the authors of the NT used isopsephy as a literary technique in their writings. I don’t care if the authors disagreed or contradicted one another – that is totally irrelevant. I am simply studying works of literature. I am not interested in theology and I see no need to try to reconcile authors’ opposing viewpoints. The church can deal with that mess.
Now I’m totally confused. If Jesus was a real person, then how can you say that his followers picked his name because of its numerology? Also, Gleason doesn’t believe he was real, does he? I thought he said the stories were all made up just for the purpose of telling stories based on numerology.
Your comment makes no sense. The NT was not written by a single person. The point is that Revelation was included in the NT. If your words are true, then the Bible is entirely untrustworthy, since it contains a book that implies Jesus is Satan.
It is a pity you suppressed the cognitive dissonance. It is your WARNING SYSTEM! It is what protects you from delusion. It is your only path to freedom. Your own brain was screaming at you, telling you that you are lost in a delusion. And you chose to rationalize it away.
If you ignore or suppress cognitive dissonance with rationalizations, you will literally disintegrate your mind. Cognitive dissonance is to the mind what pain is to the body. If you ignore physical pain, you will die. Same goes for mental pain caused by seeing that you have been believing bullshit. I’ve been studying this for years. That’s how long it took me to free myself from my own delusions. I know how hard it is.
The numbers don’t lie because they don’t say anything at all. You are the one using numbers to support your INTERPRETATION. You claim that they have “meaning” and when you find exactly the opposite meaning in the same numbers, you invent an “explanation” (rationalization) so you can continue to believe your theory that the numbers were designed by the authors who totally disagreed with each other (one group saying Jesus is the Messiah, the other saying that he is Satan). It’s pure madness. There is no logic or consistency to it. It begins with a tiny set of cherry picked numbers that were forced to fit the pattern by arbitrarily including and excluding articles, and it went down hill from there.
Revelation is not a Gospel. Revelation is a different book with different characters written by a different author. I realize that I may have used the words “NT authors” and “Gospel authors” interchangeably – my mistake – but can we try to stay on track and just focus on “the 72 pattern” for now? I’m still waiting for your response to my challenge. After we get that straightened out, then we can talk all about the Book of Revelation.
Maybe we can talk about Old Testament gematria another time? That is a totally different subject which isn’t really relevant to the topic at hand.
Ok, I’m starting to get the feeling that you are intentionally trying to steer the conversation away from the Debunker Challenge which I presented. I have been patiently waiting for your response.
Like I said, I don’t care if different authors disagreed or contradicted one another – that is totally irrelevant, and actually it is to be expected. I am not interested in theology or trying to reconcile opposing religious viewpoints.
So we should expect to find similar “random” isopsephies in King Lear, correct?
That’s right, and as yet you have presented no evidence that they even knew the value of Jesus was 888, let alone that they designed anything using that number. I’ve brought this up about half a dozen times, and you have never answered.
And now you are saying that Jesus was a real person, which means that the numerologists could not have chosen his name or its value since it was given him by his parents. Therefore, it could not be the product of their “intent” which totally contradicts your primary thesis.
The more you write, the more inconsistencies you reveal.
If that is true, why can’t you just cherry pick some random isopsephies from Shakespeare and prove me wrong? If your theory is true, why can’t you prove it?
You consistently appealed to Revelation 13:18 as your primary evidence that the GOSPEL writers used isopsephy. Now you say it was a “mistake”?
I said that using the words “NT authors” and “Gospel authors” interchangeably is a mistake. Paul is an NT author, but not a Gospel author. John the Divine is the author of Revelation, but (likely) not a Gospel author.
The truth of my statement has nothing to do with King Lear. My statement is demonstrably true. Your numerology begins with a tiny set of cherry picked numbers that were forced to fit the pattern by arbitrarily including and excluding articles. Do you deny that fact?
Why then did you appeal to Revelation as proof that the Gospel writers used isopsephy? Revelation was not written by them.
And worse, you have never presented any evidence that any NT writer even knew that Jesus = 888, let alone that they designed anything using that fact.
And worse yet, you have now said that Jesus was a real person, which contradicts your claim that the numerologists chose his name because of its numerical value.
Richard,
Do you actually have any intention of answering my challenge?
I’m guessing that either:
1. You already tried it and failed, but you don’t want to admit it so you’re trying to steer the conversation in another direction.
Or:
2. You are so absorbed in your own feeling of being personally correct, that you don’t even need to answer my challenge, because you are always right no matter what.
I hope you’re better than that, Richard. Prove me wrong?
Ok, so just to be clear: You are refusing to answer my challenge – but you are claiming that you still won the argument anyway?
I have proven you wrong by presenting facts directly relating to your claims. You have not responded to much of that evidence and many questions that I asked LONG before you invented your phoney “challenge” that is nothing but an obvious dodge and diversion.
If you want me to answer your challenge, then you must first answer the many points I repeatedly raised which you have repeatedly ignored.
I already have, and you already answered. I showed you patterns using English Gematria in the KJV. You didn’t accept it as evidence that such patterns could be found anywhere. On the contrary, you simply said those patterns were probably intentionally put in there! This proves that your just trying to waste my time sending me off on a wild goose chase. It wouldn’t matter what patterns I found in King Lear and you KNOW it damn well. You have proven quite conclusively that will never let any evidence, no matter how logical and irrefutable, change your mind.
You are a LIAR, Richard McGough.
I have cited numerous contemporary sources containing actual textual evidence: The Epistle of Barnabas, The Sybylline Oracles, The Life of Alexander, The True Doctrine by Celsus, etc.
You have not presented any evidence whatsoever – no authors, no books, no references or quotations of any kind. You have not proven anything.
Why? BECAUSE FOR YOU RICHARD, ONCE YOU MAKE UP YOUR MIND YOU DON’T NEED EVIDENCE OR PROOF. YOU YOURSELF ARE THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY.
If that was true, then you could answer my challenge. Since you failed to answer, you lose.
Your “King Lear challenge” has nothing to do with your claims about the NT, and you know it. I already explained that it is an obvious dodge, and that it wouldn’t matter what “patterns” I might find, since you would just explain them away like you did when I showed you patterns of English gematria in the KJV.
And you have ignored many of the questions I asked before you made up your silly little challenge.
But since you refuse to be rational, here are some numbers for you to explain away. There are more hits than what you presented as your “proof” –
25 x 17 = 425 = the king lear
25 x 11 = 275 = Kent
25 x 32 = 800 = Gloucester
25 x 21 = 525 = lord of Kent
25 x 42 = 1050 = lord of Gloucester
25 x 64 = 1600 = noble Burgundy
25 x 10 ≈ 251 = Goneril
25 x 10 ≈ 251 = Apollo
25 x 54 ≈ 1349 = GONERIL, EDMUND, OSWALD
25 x 43 = 1075 = Kent + Gloucester
I just did that in a few minutes using my English gematria program I wrote here:
http://biblewheel.com/GR/EnglishGematria.htm
There you go again. I probably should ban you for lying about me again, but I find you a very useful idiot. You demonstrate to the world that numerology is for ignorant arrogant morons.
I never said you did not present any evidence that OTHER writers used gematria. I said that you have never presented any evidence that the GOSPEL WRITERS even KNEW, let alone USED the value of Jesus = 888. I have repeated this dozens of times, and you are just too stubbornly stupid to get it. You know I am right. You KNOW you have never presented any evidence that the NT writers knew that value, let alone used it. You know this is what I said, and yet you chose to pervert all truth and LIE about me. What is wrong with you?
This is your last chance. If you want to continue posting on my blog, you will retract your lie and apologize.
ok i finally caught you, you slippery little worm. it took about 100 comments but you finally produced one actual piece of evidence which is not just your personal opinion dressed up in debunker jargon.
Actually I have presented a lot of circumstantial evidence. Based on the fact that their contemporaries wrote about Jesus = 888, it is entirely reasonable to assume that the original authors also knew about that.
WOAH…. Hold on there. There might not be any surviving evidence that we currently know of – but that is a LONG WAY AWAY from proving anything about how the Gospels were written.
That is the fundamental problem with arguing from a “debunker” point of view. It’s impossible to prove or disprove anything. The best you can ever do is say “it is unlikely” or “it can be explained by coincidence.” That is a long way off from actual PROOF.
This does satisfy all the conditions of the challenge so I have to concede that you are right about that.
However one feature which is missing – and I know this isn’t part of the challenge – but the N = X*Y/Z formula is what makes this pattern extra special:
One common multiple might be a coincidence, but TWO common multiples has to be done intentionally.
Wow. I’m stunned. You actually admitted the truth. I didn’t expect that.
I deleted the three posts you wrote calling me “LIAR LIAR LIAR” and a “dirty lying piece of shit” and all that. You were one sick puppy. You seem to be getting better, now that the root of your delusion has been proven false. I don’t really mind that I had to clean up your vomit. It was worth putting up with all your lies and bullshit to see you actually get a grip on reality.
All the best,
Richard
Wrong again Jack. There are not “two common multiples.” The numbers X and Y are factors of the 8880. I can do exactly the same kind of thing with the random pattern I found in King Lear. I can even use the number 8880 that Gleason used!
25 x 17 = 8880 * 2356200 / 49230720 = 425 = the king lear
25 x 11 = 8880 * 2356200 / 76083840 = 275 = Kent
25 x 32 = 8880 * 2356200 / 26153820 = 800 = Gloucester
25 x 21 = 8880 * 2356200 / 39853440 = 525 = lord of Kent
25 x 42 = 8880 * 2356200 / 19926720 = 1050 = lord of Gloucester
25 x 64 = 8880 * 2356200 / 13076910 = 1600 = noble Burgundy
25 x 10 = 8880 * 2356200 / 83692224 ≈ 251 = Goneril
25 x 10 = 8880 * 2356200 / 83692224 ≈ 251 = Apollo
25 x 54 = 8880 * 2356200 / 15498560 ≈ 1349 = Goneril, Edmund, Oswald
This shows, yet again, that you can find patterns like this in anything. Gleason’s crap is just that – mindless, ignorant crap. The only thing that is “not a coincidence” is the fact that numerologists are almost universally IGNORANT of the most basic elements of mathematics. And yet they imagine themselves discovering great “hidden truths.” If that were the case, if there really were any truth to numerology, the people trained in mathematics would have taken it to the stars many years ago. It is the playground of fools. The really sad thing is that it inflates the fool’s ego, magnifying his foolishness and corrupting his basic humanity so that he spews out lies and slander against anyone who dares present the truth.
It’s great to see you recovering from your delusion. I like to think I helped.
All the best,
Richard
I see no error here, just use of words and numbers in different cases in a very specific context. Why should one write a thing similarly every time and stick on one format, isn’t that a bit artificial limit made here? Alteration of the text by ordering of the words on a sentence, using synonyms and antonyms and such were and still are common literary devices, as we find in Revelation for example. Greek grammar gives a nice freedom doing so and that’s why isopsephy works there beautifully. I count using titles and nicknames for disciples because of same reason, giving variety of values that can be used to fit sets on a grand picture.
You may count isopsephy value right or wrong, but that’s just a technical procedure anyone can confirm and correct if needed. If one relays his whole theory based on some number, sequence or larger scale algo, then you should be careful being right on calculation. But other case it’s just combining things. There is nothing wrong on that, when you keep on a reasonable sandbox. If you jump over several centuries, over totally different scriptures and languages using math not applicable to their time, then I see an error there. I don’t believe in any supernatural influence. Isopsephy just fitted to the time and habits of the new era religious movements.
In perspective of isopsephy it is fundamental to know all (or as large set as possible) combinations you can do with words, prefixes, attributes, particles and such. For example in Revelation we see totally exploded amount of uses of kai (and, also) word, which makes it possible to create complex sentences fitting to some value. Some of the strange grammar used on Rev could be explained by this fitting technique.
I wouldn’t call anything inconsistent until someone has really tried to make comprehensive presentation of his theory. Dan hasn’t yet published his research in a single readable volume meant for serious tests, so I cannot say, if his theory is consistent or not. Based on his website samples it is just a matter of the point you want to take. In fact it’s yet to be seen a systematic interpretation of the christian and gnostic writings in neopythagorean way.
Of course knowing what was the intention of the writers, that’s another story, but one should get principles right first.
That’s true. A lot of “hits” can be found from any texts. When ELS came popular it didn’t take much time when believers from many religions started to find codes hidden under their sacred texts. And soon we found that even Huckleberry Finn contained some. I have made some searches for the Shakespeare Sonnets and interesting numbers came from it surely. Now that’s something you need to deal with. I rather keep studying texts that are more likely to have isopsephic patterns by original authors intention, stick on a restricted framework. Also the critics should take this on account.
When text is something you could expect to have underlying meaning hidden behind literal text? A lot of religious texts becomes under the radar, maybe some poetry. But there are genres you just need to forget. When change and design can be distinguished from the text, maybe with by statistical methods? A big question, but probably none of the manuscripts were ever written using isopsephy method in that wide sense. Rather isopsephy was used only for certain names, paragraphs and ideas in best case. Niko the Architect created poems containing 5 figure values in the first and second century and he was told to be one of the best of his time. On the other side are common people who just knew the value of their beloved. There is an increasing evidence common early christians though isopsephy in daily lives, investigations for example on the Agora of ancient Smyrna are going on.
I don’t see statistical method working very well for these reasons. Humanistic methods like hermeneutics and exegesis work because they help to see the context in wider view, thus giving some boundaries for the isopsephical interpretation. Unfortunately we are left for speculation when we jump on that train, but on the other case, if you require statistical evidence and scripture wide consistence of using isopsephy on every sentence throughout the book(s), you choose an impossible opposition by default and not much conversation is possible between travelers going opposite directions. Moreover if you require throughout consistency, you set yourself outside of the interpretative environment. I don’t see biblical texts being consistent at all, not when compared to each other, often not even when compared to itself. They were human writers, editors, copyists, mixture of dozens of traditions, fragmentation, deliberate modification and so on. Asking for kind of consistency is like asking, if they wrote scriptures either with computers or were dictated by God.
There are few options and I have made a lot of comparison with different greek versions. While it is too long topic to discuss differences, original manuscripts and papyruses and their alternatives for the sentence, outcome is that few versions of the verse are open to the choice, and it is up to your choice. I would choose the one that fits better to my interpretation of the chapter and correlates with the bigger picture. From TR and NA both variations are ok with me, but I could reconstruct the verse even better, when combining different variations my own way. But that is a red cloth for theists and atheists so I won’t go there now.
One thing where you could use isopsephy method (if indeed it can be verified to be used extensively) is to confirm how sentences were written originally. Think of writers and copyists of the ancient times. What kind of methods would they use to confirm if sentence is written right from the memory? Checking count of the letters and words and value of the words and sentences is pretty straightforward and useful. Using sacred number sets is also in coherence with the philosophy. Isopsephy as an additional associative memory device is very powerful.
There are dozens of more coincidences on the Gospel of John that I could lift up neatly forming the net of ideas cast on the sea. Opsarion (found from J21) as a “small” fish is in the acceptable value range of sqrt3 namely 1731. Bread and fishes were often together because 153 is a diameter of the 481 circular bread (gr. artoi). The Magdalene and Mary the Magdalene both genuinely referred to the very same 153.
But in reality, I can only refer to the previous comments of mine. I don’t expect to find all data coded, some incidents are just results of the preinstalled parameters writers genuinely chose, some are unintentional and accidental, some are just coincident and random as you would say. Isopsephy wasn’t so developed at the times of writing NT, plus it would have required computerized power to perform such a task. I rather think a possibility of using certain isopsephical principles and ideas that were used every while and then. Christians just had to prove their God Jesus is at least, or better more divine, perfect and harmonic choice of gods in their society. And that they could do only by correlating him to the previously known religions, sun gods, myths, rulers and philosophers of their time. Thus the value of Jesus, Jesus Christ and Lord Jesus Christ should contain, explain and rule all previous inventions, including egyptian, babylonian, jewish and greek number mysticism. Other way around was to anathema opponents who were using such techniques.
Overall, I see your critical approach very limited, Richard. First you disallow using different versions of the words plus different constructions of the phrases, then you disallow using exact phrases found from the target text. Then you disallow using exact verses from a certain version of the text. Then you require all data being coded. Finally you disallow using whole scripture as an object of the study by stating that they never told on a scripture that they use isopsephy on thinking, so they never knew that value of Jesus was 888 (or 668). These are just artificial limitations made and not really reasonable, when we study Gospels and Revelation in any modern method. G&R are regarded as Textus Receptus, received texts that gives us a novel story, not scientific documents containing all meta data, tests and reasonables behind the curtain. There are thousands of things not told and still used on these books. If they didn’t tell what kind of ink, pen and paper they used for writing, in your logic it means they never used these tools for writing. As an converted atheist you still expect isopsephy being used and reserved until our days perfectly and undeniable like from the hands of God.
I have principles that must fit so that change is distinguished from the design as clearly as possible. I will list only general ones, not going to the textual details, which I also have principles. One is narrowing the playground as stated before. Second is coherence with the time and space. Third is tracing the history of the method. Fourth is tracing continuation of the method. Fifth is the harmony of the picture. Sixth is intuition. Seventh is silence.
Have fun,
Marko
Hello Richard,
Here’s a question for you:
When do you consider you were less self-righteous? When you were a Christian, or after you stopped being one?
regards
Fiona
Hi Fiona. It looks like you found a flaw in my character. I’ve never been very good at judging who is or is not self-righteous. Obviously, I could learn a thing or two from you. How did you become such an expert? I’m guessing you must be a Christian. I’ve never seen a bigger collection of self-righteous fools who go out of their way to accuse others of being self-righteous even as they fail to add an ounce of value to the world.
Without any limiting principles, there is no “code” nor meaning. Your “codes” are nothing but cherry picked coincidences. Your “method” allows you to make up whatever you want to fit whatever random words/numbers you find. There’s no way to discern between meaningless coincidences and design. That’s the problem.
Works? What are you talking about? It doesn’t “work” for anything except allowing you to create an illusion of design. The “variety of values” simply gives you more numbers to cherry pick from.
Right – you can find random patterns because you have more numbers to choose from. Have you never asked yourself how you know if the patterns you find were intentionally designed or merely the product of random chance?
Read my article again. I showed that he is radically inconsistent with his inclusion of articles, his choice of using the diameter vs. the circumference, and so forth. And his whole concept is nothing but force fitting numbers by finding near multiples. I do not see any meaning of any kind in his work. It’s all folly.
I don’t think you understand the meaning of “cherry picking.” You answered my criticism by offering more cherries. That’s not how you answer this criticism. Cherry picking is a fallacy because you are presenting a tiny subset of the data as if it were representative of the whole. It is not. You just picked out a few coincidences that you could fit into your narrative. There is no evidence of any intention designed in any of it.
And not one of those “principles” tells you how to discern between chance and design.
If you want to pursue an extended discussion on this topic, I would invite you to my forum where you could start your own thread, post illustrations, and so forth. It’s much better software for extended discussion.
http://www.biblewheel.com/forum
Richard
PS: You can use the < blockquote > tags to quote text from other posts. It helps a lot.
From the Gospels I interpreted the story of Peter being the revealer of the rock because of his denial of Jesus when he said he wouldn’t deny Jesus.
The story of Peters denial in my interpretation is a rehash of Adam and Eves transgression against Gods physical property (a tree that is his).
While Peter lied to Jesus (his transgression against the Kingdom) Adam and Eve did not lie, but rather transgressed against Gods personal property (their transgression against the Kingdom), the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Jesus coming to the shore looking for the disciples after his resurrection is analogous to God walking through the Garden looking for Adam and Eve. All of them “got dressed” when THE TRUTH came looking for them.
Now the rock.
Jesus said that all houses built on sand (transgressions of the Kingdom) will come tumbling down but all houses built on the rock (not transgressing the Kingdom) withstand and live.
The story of Peter is the other half of the Kingdom and the church has yet to be built.
Surely the Holy Spirit did not kill Ananias and Saphira because the Holy Spirit demands compassion and not a sacrifice. Peters shadow never healed anyone and fear never made someone righteous.
Before our words we have two choices and before our deeds we have two more. We can choose to either tell the truth or to lie and we can choose to either respect other people and their property or not to respect other people and their property. Truth and Agreement (he whose it is) is the Kingdom and it’s how most of us want to be treated (eternal law of righteousness).
The truth in reality makes me smile because I know its true. Not believe, but know.
Right. That’s the point.
1.53 sounds like a reasonable margin of error for a 1st century author who only knew a rough approximation of the value of pi. Furthermore, no calculation involving pi will ever be exact, because pi is a transcendental number. I think you are being a bit deceptive here.
I have cited several verses where ho Petros (“the Stone”) is used to refer to Simon Peter. (Mark 14:29, Matt 14:28, etc.) Now it seems like you are trying to “sneak in” an additional requirement, that the entire name “Simon Peter” must be spelled out word for word, even though there are many verses in the Bible where it is not. Again, this seems somewhat deceptive.
Um, “correct” according to who? You? You haven’t cited even one single source – no authors, no books, no references or quotations of any kind. Why should anyone believe your claim that these values are more “correct” than Dan Gleason’s?
Yes, but you are insisting on a set of unreasonably narrow, hand-picked “limiting principles” to get the result you want. (Which, ironically, is very similar to what you accuse Dan Gleason of doing!)
Neither have you presented any evidence to disprove that claim. As I noted earlier, you have not cited even one source to support your debunking claims. None. Nada. Zilch. It’s just your opinion dressed up as fact. On the other hand, Dan’s website has multiple citations from primary sources from the 1st and 2nd centuries.
One half of a millimeter would be invisible to the naked eye, even if the diagram was drawn by an expert draftsman. I honestly don’t see the point you are trying to make here.
There is really no need to have such a condescending attitude.
Furthermore, the idea that me, and Dan Gleason, and the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, and the author of the Sybylline Oracles were all suffering from the same delusion, is a little hard to swallow. If you actually look at the primary sources, there is no doubt that 1st and 2nd century Christians used isopsephy and gematria to interpret Scripture. So it’s quite reasonable to speculate that the original authors may have used it also. (Barnabas 9:8, Oraclua Sybyllina 1:398-402)
Notice the difference between the two tables above:
Dan’s table uses simple round numbers that could easily be calculated with an abacus (10, 6, 4, 3).
On the other hand, you had to count up to several million (2356200, 49230720, etc.) before you found a match.
That is the main reason why I believe that Dan’s formula was intentionally designed by an author, while yours is a mere coincidence.
Marko is exactly right. You are essentially claiming that lack of a positive proof constitutes a negative proof, which is a logical fallacy.
In fact, there is evidence that Christians drew such pictures:
That is a contemporary source containing a first-hand, eyewitness account of the exact thing that Gleason is describing. So your statement that “there is no evidence that any early Christians drew such pictures” is simply not true.
Your comments are full of confusion MarkoM. I do not “disallow using different versions of the words plus different constructions of the phrases.” You can do what you want. But if you cherry pick a tiny subset from a very large set of possibilities, you have no basis for your claim that the original writers cherry picked the same small set of words and numbers. It’s easy to calculate the probabilities that two people would cherry pick the same random numbers, and it is very near zero. You have no evidence that the Gospel writers even knew, let alone used, the values you cherry picked. So your claims are empty. That’s my point.
I have no idea what you think you are talking about. I have never “disallowed” using any particular version of the text of the Bible.
I don’t “require” all the data to be coded. I just pointed out that merely cherry picking random bits and pieces that happen to fit a pattern you like is not proof of anything.
I can’t believe I have to explain this again. I’ve explained it at least three times to Jack. We have good reason to think the author of Revelation used gematria because he posed the riddle based on 666. We have no evidence that any Gospels writers even knew, let alone used, the value of Jesus = 888. I do not “disallow using the whole scripture.” My point is that numerologists like you have absolutely no basis in logic or fact for your claims.
You have not shown anything unreasonable about my analysis. Your analysis, on the other hand, it fundamentally irrational because it is based on nothing but cherry picking random patterns that could be found in any text. You have no means to discern between random chance and design, so all your claims are meaningless.
That’s a false analogy. The “ink, pen, and paper” have nothing to do with your claims. You have not presented any evidence supporting your assertions so there is no reason anyone should believe them. And worse, they are fundamentally irrational because they are fundamentally inconsistent. You arbitrarily include/exclude articles to force the numbers to fit the patterns you like. You have no evidence that the authors had those numbers in mind. And worse, you use names like John Baptist and Simon THE Peter that the authors never wrote. This means that you are finding “patterns” in words that the authors never wrote! So you are just making up bullshit. Nothing could be more obvious.
I’m not a converted atheist. Everyone is born an atheist. I’m a deconverted theist.
And no, I do not expect gematria to be “used and reserved until our days perfectly and undeniable like from the hands of God.” That’s a total strawman caricature of my position. I simply expect some EVIDENCE supporting your position, and you have presented NONE. And worse, you have presented blatant absurdities in place of evidence. So my conclusion is fully justified. Daniel Gleason and his followers are seriously deluded.
But for all that, I’m glad you are persisting, since you are providing much grist for my mill.
All the best,
Richard
That is not true. There is no evidence that they were assigning the circumference of the circles to the values derived from isopsephy and then fitting them inside each other as Gleason suggests. The mere fact that mystics drew circles is as common as dirt. It does not support his specific claims in any way at all.
Marko’s comment is not merely wrong, it is absurd. “Ink, pen, and paper” is a false analogy because those things have nothing to do with the values of the words, whereas the specific spellings have everything to do with the values. I have brought this up probably half a dozen times and you still don’t get it. You assert that the Gospel writers INTENDED the values of phrases that they NEVER WROTE and they DID NOT INTEND the values that they did write! Your assertions are simply insane. You are cherry picking to force fit patterns that the actual writers never wrote. They never even wrote anything that would indicate they even knew of the value 888. Yet you persist in your insane insistence that a tiny set of random coincidences could not have happened unless they were intended. So I proved you wrong, and showed you that we could find the same kind of random patterns in King Lear. You then had a brief moment of sanity, and admitted that I was right. But that didn’t last long, and you asserted the utter absurdity that the “two common multiples” implied they MUST have been intended. So I showed that I could invent the same kind of pattern, even using the same number 8880, and you tried to weasel out of that by saying that my numbers were too big … blah blah blah. You make up excuses for anything that exposes your delusion, which is as deep as the ocean.
The really pathetic thing is that my example with King Lear was totally unnecessary and doesn’t even prove anything. Since the results were random, it very well could have happened that there was no pattern. Would that have proven Gleason’s patter correct? Of course not! It would have proven nothing. And the fact that I could find a pattern in King Lear – does that prove that they are random? Nope. Maybe someone did code King Lear. That’s why your Debunker Challenge was so freaking idiotic. It doesn’t even address the question! The question is HOW DO YOU DISCERN BETWEEN CHANCE AND DESIGN. Obviously, you have no answer. I’ve asked many times and you merely assert idiotic bullshit like “those coincidences could not have happened by chance.” It’s easy to prove you are wrong. Here is the proper method:
1) You claim that a significant number of names and titles are all coded according to the same formula.
2) So I presented a small list of a few dozen names and titles of Christ like Alpha Omega, Son of God, Lamb of God, Second Adam, Daystar, Son of David, etc., etc., etc. and show that the TINY TINY TINY subset that you cherry picked was statistically insignificant and shows no sign of any design.
3) And you responded by …. crickets
You simply have no concept of what would or would not constitute evidence of design.
It is not an “additional requirement.” Your assertion is that the Gospel writers INTENDED a phrase that they NEVER wrote! If they never wrote it, how do you know what they intended? You don’t. You are just cherry picking pits and pieces from a huge set of words and numbers to fit a pattern you like. You have presented no reason anyone should believe any of it. And the really crazy thing is that you have not presented any evidence that the Gospel writers even knew, let alone used, the value of Jesus = 888.
Correct according to what the GOSPEL WRITERS INTENDED as evidenced by the fact that those are the words they CONSISTENTLY WROTE! They never omitted the article before “Baptist” in John the Baptist or from before “Son of Man” (uios tou anthropou). This means that they never wrote the words as required to force fit Gleason’s ludicrous little pattern.
You and Gleason assert that they INTENDED us to understand their code by using words that they NEVER WROTE. If you can’t see why that’s absurd, I don’t see how an explanation could help.
Dan’s table uses simple round numbers that could easily be calculated with an abacus (10, 6, 4, 3).
On the other hand, you had to count up to several million (2356200, 49230720, etc.) before you found a match.
That is the main reason why I believe that Dan’s formula was intentionally designed by an author, while yours is a mere coincidence.
That is NOT the reason you gave for your first few hundred posts on this site. Why did you suddenly make up a new reason? Because I proved your previous reason was total bullshit! Man … delusions die hard.
Your answer is a textbook example of special pleading. If Gleason’s numbers were large, and mine small, you could reverse your rationalization and say that his big numbers were less likely to be by chance because they are so big. You could make up whatever excuse needed to maintain your delusion.
The fact is, my table is based on small numbers like Gleason’s:
25 x 17 = 425 = the king lear
25 x 11 = 275 = Kent
25 x 32 = 800 = Gloucester
25 x 21 = 525 = lord of Kent
25 x 42 = 1050 = lord of Gloucester
25 x 64 = 1600 = noble Burgundy
25 x 10 ≈ 251 = Goneril
25 x 10 ≈ 251 = Apollo
25 x 54 ≈ 1349 = GONERIL, EDMUND, OSWALD
25 x 43 = 1075 = Kent + Gloucester
I multiplied by some common factors to show you that even a TOTALLY RANDOM table derived from King Lear could be made to conform to Gleason’s magic number 8880. You totally failed to understand my point and chose rather to invent yet another bullshit excuse to believe in your delusion. Wow.
As I said, you have NO CONCEPT of how to discern between chance and design. Your “Debunker Challenge” was total bullshit. It could not “prove” anything one way or the other because it has NOTHING to do with your claim concerning the Bible. The fact that I got lucky and found a pattern like Gleason’s in King Lear does not prove that Gleason’s was not designed. And if I had not found a pattern in King Lear, that would not prove that Gleason’s pattern was design. I explained this to you a million times, but you thought I was just trying to avoid the challenge. So I checked it out and was happy I could create Gleasonesque bullshit, and was surprised when you seemed to wake up from your delusion. But that didn’t last long, did it? Nope. Now you have made up a new “reason” to believe bullshit. Wow.
Your fundamental error is that you simply DECLARE, without any reason or justification of any kind, that the tiny little cherry picked subset of manipulated numbers “could not happen by chance.” You assert that this is “obvious” even though you have no evidence of any kind. That is the essence of your delusion.
Now let me explain what you need to do to discern between chance and design. By definition, the “chance” of something happening is given by the ratio of the total number of possibilities divided by the number of ways that thing could happen. For example, suppose you rolled two die. What are the chances you could get a pair of sixes? There are six possibilities for the first die, and six for the second, so there is a total of 36 possibilities. But only one of those corresponds to a pair of sixes, so the chance is one in 36.
Now what is the chance of rolling a three? You could get a three by (1,2) or (2,1). That’s two ways, so the chance is 1 in 18. How about a seven? You could get a seven by rolling (1,6), (2,5), (3,4), (4,3), (5,2), or (6,1) which is six possibilities, so you have a 6 in 36 chance, or 1 in 6.
That’s basic statistics. If you EVER want to claim that something could not happen by chance or is “more likely” to have been designed, then you MUST use statistics to prove your point. Case in point: You assert that all the major names and titles of the Gospel characters all fit the pattern. That’s total bullshit. You totally ignored the vast majority of names and titles of Christ. If you listed them all out, along with all the possible values obtained by including/omitting the articles, you would get a list a mile long, and you would see that your assertion of “design” is totally bogus. It’s really very simple. The tiny cherry picked subset of manipulated numbers shows no design of any kind.
The fact that Dan’s pattern matches on simple whole numbers which could be counted on an abacus – while had to count up to several million (2356200, 49230720, etc.) before you found a match – is a strong indicator that Dan’s pattern was designed intentionally by the author. That and the fact that isopsephy was so utterly commonplace in ancient Greece that you would have to be insane not to recognize it.
How do YOU discern between chance and design?
How do you establish authorial intent? What criteria do you use to determine that Leonidas of Alexandria’s isopsephies were intentional, but the isopsephies in the New Testament are coincidences?
It’s seems like you are admitting that isopsephy is a Greek literary technique… but you are denying that it is possible to determine whether or not a given isopsephy was intended by the author?
You can use statistics to “debunk” literally ANYTHING! I could “prove” that 666 = Nero Caesar is a coincidence that is likely to have arisen by chance. I could “prove” that the numerical values of Leonidas of Alexandria’s isopsephy poems are coincidental.
There is no end to the debunking. You can “prove” that the whole world is a delusion if you want.
You have not shown that any Gospel writer even knew, let alone used, the value of Jesus = 888.
Your assertion that they “intended” the value of Jesus = 888 makes no sense because they had no choice in the matter. If Jesus was a real person, as you say, then his name was given by his parents, not some numerologists who came many decades later.
Your assertion that they intended the values of John Baptist and Son of Man makes no sense because they never wrote those name/titles that way. You are asserting that they INTENDED us to use words they NEVER wrote, and INTENDED that we NOT use the words they DID write. It’s simply nuts. You are just making up stuff to force it to fit your pattern.
And most significant. you chose John Baptist and Son of Man because you could force them to fit your pattern. You ignored everything that doesn’t fit, like Son of God, Son of David, Lamb of God, Savior, The Savior, Messiah, The Messiah, etc., etc., etc. THAT is what proves you are cherry picking random coincidences that give no hint of design. You ignored the vast majority of the data.
How do you establish intent? NOT BY IGNORING WHAT THEY WROTE! Duh.
I have never failed to recognize it in any of the legitimate examples you have given. The problem is that you have not presented any evidence that the Gospel writers even knew, let alone used, the value Jesus = 888. You have totally failed to present any evidence to establish your case. You have done nothing but assert that a tiny set of cherry picked manipulated numbers is “proof” of your imaginary “authorial intent.” Your assertions are simply absurd.
It’s not that hard. It’s pretty obvious that the writer of Rev 13:16 probably was using it, and the Sibbyline oracle too. There’s a hint of it in the structure of Matthew’s genealogy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the 153 fish in John 21 is an example. That’s about it. I have asked if you have any other examples from the Bible and you said you did, but I don’t recall that you shared them.
In all the above examples, the absence of 888 is striking. You insist that it was intentionally designed by the Gospel writers, but you cannot present any evidence to support your assertion. I’ve been telling you this for HUNDREDS of posts, and you just ignore what I write. You have no evidence. Why don’t you just admit it?
There’s no denying that isopsephy was utterly commonplace in ancient Greece. You simply have not given a compelling reason to think that the isopsephies in the New Testament are coincidental. There is as much evidence for the NT isopsephies as there is for Leonidas of Alexandria’s poems. You have not given any compelling reason why we should accept the one and deny the other.
Your fundamental assertion is that the tiny set of cherry picked coincidences “could not happen by chance.” That is your primary assertion. It is NOTHING but an assertion about STATISTICS. Now you admit that you are utterly ignorant of the most basic aspect of your entire theory? Why am I not surprised?
And no, you could not prove those things. I’d be surprised if you could prove that 1 + 2 = 3.
What isopsephies? You have not showed any isopsephies involving the vast majority of names and titles of Christ. You just cherry picked a tiny tiny tiny meaningless set. And you had to manipulate even those to force them to fit your pattern! You have no idea what you are talking about.
Here’s the key: Tell me what are the MATHEMATICAL CHANCES that the tiny set you focus on happened by chance? If you can’t give me the calculation, your claims are empty and meaningless.
What are you babbling about? You have not presented any evidence of any kind! Why do you say such bullshit Andrew J. Barton?
How in the world could you possibly know that? How can you be sure there aren’t others? Are you omniscient? Since you haven’t cited any sources whatsoever, you’re basically saying, “I, Richard, am the sole authority who decides what is or is not an isopsephy.”
Ok, let’s try this again:
You affirm that Leonidas of Alexandria’s poems are intentional isopsephies.
You deny that “the 74 pattern” is an intentional isopsephy.
So what criteria do you use to determine that Leonidas of Alexandria’s isopsephies were intentional, but the isopsephies in the New Testament are coincidences?
I went by the EVIDENCE. The same EVIDENCE that any source worth citing would have used.
It does not require “omniscience” to conclude that the Sibylline oracle was using isopsephy. It’s obvious to anyone who can read, because it is in the plane text. The author obviously knew of the value. Duh.
That is the exact opposite of your claims. The NT writers never used the value 888 in any way in the surface text, and there is nothing about any of the names and numbers of the characters (as written by the Gospel writers) other than Jesus Christ that even fit the pattern. So you have utterly failed to produce any evidence of any kind for your theory. Sorry, but that’s just the truth.
And besides all that, you said you would admit I was right about it being all random chance if I could find a similar pattern in King Lear, which I did. Why are you going back on your word?
There is no “74 pattern” in the words that the Gospel writers actually wrote. You had to mangle their words by including/excluding articles to force them to fit your imaginary pattern. Nobody has to do anything like that to find the patterns in Leonidas epigrams. He wrote complete texts with complete numerical coherence. You have given no examples of anything like that in the Bible. Intelligent people can discern the difference between an intelligently designed text and the rank bullshit Gleason made up. You have to ignore the words the writers actually wrote to force them to fit your pattern. It’s blatant bullshit.
Ok, Richard, have your way. There is no 74 pattern. Moving on…
So you affirm that Leonidas of Alexandria’s poems are intentional isopsephies.
But you deny that any of the mathematical relationships of the character names in the New Testament (Jesus, Christ, Son of Man, etc.) are intentional isopsephies.
So what criteria do you use to determine that Leonidas of Alexandria’s isopsephies were intentional, but the mathematical relationships of the character names in the New Testament are coincidences?
Leonidas of Alexandria created isopsephs, epigrams with equinumeral distichs, where the first hexameter and pentameter equal the next two verses in numerical value. Duh. There is nothing like that in the Bible and you know it. Why are you asking such idiotic questions? You write as if you don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
Is that your way of saying “I don’t have a logical answer”?
You said: “Please explain what objective principles you use to discern between chance and design.” You can’t even answer your own question!
Your pattern is dissimilar because you had to count up to several million before you got your first match.
Bullshit! I have answered you a dozen times, but you are just too stubbornly stupid to admit it, let alone discuss it.
Not true. My pattern was based on small numbers just like Gleasons. I used the multipliers just to show that I could use exactly the same number he used (8880) even from a TOTALLY RANDOM set.
Your ignorance is as deep as the ocean. I am stunned that you persist in such a blatant delusion even after it has been debunked every way from Sunday.
That was not part of your original criterion.
One of the most obvious signs of delusion is when people change the rules when they lose just so they can keep their delusion.
I already explained, your ludicrous “Debunker Challenge” was total bullshit that didn’t prove anything anyway because it didn’t have anything to do with your specific claims. Your claims are false for all the reasons I’ve explained. But you refuse to see because you are ignorant of basic math, statistics, Greek, and for some strange reason, you like to imagine that some first century numerologists were inventing the Gospels to encode stories about the ratios of circles?!?!?
The NT character names are isopsephies. You already admitted that so don’t try to backtrack. You said, “Of course they’re isopsephies – but they are coincidental, because if the author had really intended them he would have written it MY WAY.”
You make up your own personal rules to “disqualify” them (e.g. “Son of Man” MUST be preceded by the article otherwise it’s WRONG) but that doesn’t actually prove anything
>>You said: “Please explain what objective principles you use to discern between chance and design.” You can’t even answer your own question!
>Bullshit! I have answered you a dozen times, but you are just too stubbornly stupid to admit it, let alone discuss it.
No, you haven’t. You just said the words “duh” and “obvious” a bunch of times. You still have not cited even one single source or reference of any kind, so until you do I have to assume that this is just your personal opinion dressed up as “fact” and you have no real proof.
>>Your pattern is dissimilar because you had to count up to several million before you got your first match.
>That was not part of your original criterion.
Ok, fine. You won a challenge which, by your own admission, proves absolutely nothing. +1 point
Oh shit man! You CAN NOT be as stupid as you are pretending to be. Every word in the Greek language is an “isopsephy” because isopsephy gives a value to every word. That implies absolutely NOTHING about any specific text being intentionally coded according to isopsephy. What is wrong with your brain? You cannot be this stupid. I must conclude you are a troll pulling my chain. Fine. I’ll play along and continue to demonstrate the utter folly of numerology. It’s my cross to bear I guess since I have contributed so much to the delusion by all the work I did.
Now that we agree that saying something is an “isopsephy” means absolutely NOTHING, we can ask “Is there any evidence of intentional design of words in the NT according to isopsephy? The answer is NO. There is no evidence of any “design.” The only evidence we have is that the author may have used the values of some words in the surface text, such as Rev 13:18 and Matthew’s genealogy, and John’s 153 fish. That’s about it. You have presented NO evidence of any kind that the names of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, or Son of Man were “chosen” because of their numerical values.
I did not make up any “personal rules” for rejecting your version of “son of man.” If the authors intended to use it without the article, why did they never write it that way? I have asked you this a million times, and you never answer. You are as thick as a freaking brick sunk in the middle of the Atlantic ocean of idiocy. What is wrong with your brain? I’ve been repeating the same explanations for over a week and you continue to repeat the same errors.
“The name has to be spelled out word for word EXACTLY as it is written in the Textus Receptus, otherwise it’s WRONG.”
That is your own personal rule which you made up
The mere fact that you’ve gone on this long without citing any contemporary sources, or even any sources at all – not even one – is proof that you are just making up your own rules as you go along.
But you presented it as if it would prove that you were right. So YOU must still believe it proves that your entire argument is bullshit, and that’s good enough for me.
This is what’s so utterly insane about your delusion Andrew J. Barton. I have explained your errors in extreme detail, but you ignore everything I write and repeat the same errors as if you never read a word I wrote. You are not responding to the logic and fact I present. You just keep repeating the same moronic bullshit about the “statistical unlikelihood” of a tiny cherry picked subset of manipulated numbers as “proof” of authorial intent! That’s simply insane dude. Why do you keep repeating the same error? You have produced no evidence that your tiny set of cherry picked numbers was anything but random chance. And then I proved I could find the same kind of pattern in King Lear, and you briefly seemed to realize your folly, until you changed your rules and made up yet another excuse to dive head first into a mountain of steaming bullshit. What’s going on? You love the smell of bullshit up your nose? I just don’t get it? Why do you hate truth and reality?
Sorry, I just can’t take you seriously. A serious researcher would have cited at least one verifiable source by now. (I have cited about 5 or 6.)
Bullshit! I don’t need to “cite contemporary sources” to prove that 1 + 2 = 3. I have appealed to YOUR KNOWLEDGE and you have proven that you simply have none. You asked utterly idiotic questions, like how could I tell that an author who put the isopsephy in the PLAIN TEXT was intending isopsephy??? BECAUSE THEY FREAKING SAID SO! Man. You are dense.
Wow. More empty bullshit from Andrew J. Barton. The points I prove stand on logic and facts. You have not refuted a word I have written. For all your “citations” not one of them actually supported your assertions about the Gospel writers intentionally designing anything using the value of Jesus = 888. NOT ONE THING! You have totally failed to support your case. You have never cited a single source that proves the Gospel writers even knew, let alone used, the value of Jesus = 888. Your assertions are pure unadulterated bullshit. And yet you persist for in your pathetic bullshit. Amazing to behold.
>>The mere fact that you’ve gone on this long without citing any contemporary sources, or even any sources at all – not even one – is proof that you are just making up your own rules as you go along.
>Bullshit! I don’t need to “cite contemporary sources”
No, sorry, you are not special, your claims need to be backed up by factual evidence.
(I have cited 4 or 5 contemporary sources.)
Since you’ve gone this long without citing any sources, I’m going to assume you don’t have any evidence, and therefore this is just a long rant about your personal opinions.
You have a right to your opinion, but that’s all it is… just your opinion
Dude, as far as I can tell, you can’t take yourself seriously. You can’t take the ten tons of bullshit that is sitting on your head serious. You are seriously unable to understand anything.
There you go again, presenting your idiocy for all the world to see. I have presented nothing but evidence. Not all evidence is “citation of contemporary sources.” That’s what you have been doing, and the pathetic thing is that it does nothing to support your case! What kind of moron are you? How is it possible that you could write such bullshit? There are no “contemporary sources” that would prove your assertions are bullshit, because your bullshit was invented in the 20th century!
Shit man, grow a brain already. Quit pretending to be such an idiot. No one could be as stupid as you are pretending to be and still be able to type.
Every claim I have made is backed up by evidence. If you disagree, then quote something I’ve written and show it wrong. I dare ya.
Wow. You really are a brain dead idiot. You have made up bullshit in the 21st century, and are insisting that I quote some “contemporary sources” from the first century to prove you wrong? What a freaking psycho! You made up BULLSHIT. I proved it. You have not refuted a word I have written. You are a total psycho Andrew J. Barton. And tomorrow you can Google yourself and find that you will forever be famous for spewing bullshit on this blog.
Yes, you cited 4 or 5 contemporary sources that said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to supprot your assertion that the Gospel writers designed their writings using the value of 888.
Wow. I’ve hit the motherload of braindead bullshit in you, Andrew J. Barton.
hahahahahhaahhahahhahahaha
good one, dick
that’s a great argument
have fun with that
bye now
Ah, the full perversity of the demented mind comes forth. In your perverted little brain, you think that SENTENCE FRAGMENTS taken out of context are all that is needed to prove you are right. You poor pathetic little freak. I’ve had enough with you. I will present the full statistical analysis that reveals the full folly of your delusion tomorrow.
“Son of Man” MUST be preceded by the article otherwise the isopsephy is WRONG”
“The name has to be spelled out word for word EXACTLY as it is written in the Textus Receptus, otherwise the isopsephy is WRONG.”
That is your own personal rule which you made up.
Actually, those are all complete sentences. Learn basic grammar, Dick.
Ha! You can’t even quote me accurately. I never said that.
What I did say is that the Gospel writers never wrote “huios tou anthropou” without the article “ho” and that it was simply ludicrous, insane, and idiotic for you to assert that they had INTENDED something they never actually wrote, and had NOT INTENDED what they actually wrote. I’ve only repeated this five million times, and you have yet to respond with anything like intelligence. Man. you are one of the most stubbornly stupid persons I have ever met (and that’s saying something, after decades of debates on the internet).
Oh I see you meant this:
Regardless of context, that’s something you really should never say if you want to be taken seriously
Ah, it all makes a lot more sense now. You are a professional troll. How nice.
Never actually wrote? If they wrote “ho huios tou anthropou” then ipso facto that means they did write “huios tou anthropou”
What you are doing is making the constraints artificially narrow to try to “disqualify” what is obviously an isopsephy
Lol, as if anyone actually reads this pathetic blog
There you go again! Making up a false quote that reveals the pathetic depth to which you will dive to avoid the most elementary truths. I never said anything about the Textus Receptus. My point has been that the Gospel writers, as witnessed by all the textual traditions I have at my disposal (the NA27, TR, Stephanus, Majority Text, you name it) NEVER NEVER NEVER wrote John the Baptist without the Ho preceding Baptist. And even if there were an odd case here or there, their INTENT would be clear from what they CONSISTENTLY wrote. But you reject what they actually wrote in favor of your ludicrous mangled cherry picked numerology. Nothing could be more absurd.
The facts I presented are not “my own personal rules” that I “made up.” They are logical principles that anyone with half a brain would understand. Yoru “rules” on the other hand are radically irrational and inconsistent. You add/delete articles without any regard for what the actual authors actually wrote, all so you can force fit your ludicrous cherry picked little set of meaningless numbers. Tomorrow I will write a full analysis that reveals the utter absurdity of your entire thesis. It’s not necessary for 99% of all intelligent humans, since they can see the inconsistency of your silly little game, but I’m going to take it the extra percent to 100% to atone for the bullshit that I helped propagate when I was a Bible believing numerologist. It’s the least I can do.
You read it.
Excellent – that helps everyone understand your major malfunction. You CONSISTENTLY take sentence fragments out of context and then misrepresent what they mean.
Yes, and it also means that they wrote “i” = 10 and “a” = 1 and “n” = 50 and so every one of those numbers was “intended” because they wrote words that included them? Brilliant! You have just proven that the great numerologists intended to encode their writings using every number that can be written. They intended to code their writings on the number 23 and 24 and 25 and 26 and 77 and 79 and 99 and 101 and 434, and 292 and 3223 and 5454 and 858 …
You’re a freaking genius.
By your logic, every Greek document from the first century was “intended” to be coded with isopsephy.
By your logic, it’s impossible to know whether ANY document was intended to be coded with isopsephy. You may not realize it, but you are basically arguing that isopsephy DOES NOT EXIST because you are saying that it is IMPOSSIBLE to distinguish the real thing from coincidence.
You have backed yourself into a corner, and now there are only two possibilities:
1. You make up the rules concerning whether an isopsephy is “valid” or not. (E.g., You decide which words must be counted or not, and you decide whether the result is “valid” according to your personal rules.)
2. Isopsephy effectively DOES NOT EXIST because there are no rules and it is IMPOSSIBLE to distinguish the real thing from coincidence.
BULLSHIT! You freaking moron! I have explained, over and over and over again, that it is easy to determine if an author was intentionally using isopsephy. And how do we do that? We read what they wrote! If they used it in the PLAIN TEXT then we have EVIDENCE and good REASON to believe they did it intentionally. Duh. How many times do I need to repeat it? What could be more obvious? How can you be such a freaking idiot?
I have never said it does not exist. Your poor pathetic moron! I have repeatedly said it exists! What is wrong with your brain?
I have explained how to discern between design and chance. You have ignored me apparently because basic logic, math, and statistics are way over your head.
I have never said it is “impossible to distinguish the real thing from coincidence.” That’s three times in a row you have falsely quoted me. This is apparently the root of your confusion. You are not even able to accurately quote my words, let alone understand them.
“Huios tou anthropou” does occur in the plain text. Now you are contradicting yourself.
1. If they used it in the PLAIN TEXT then we have EVIDENCE and good REASON to believe they did it intentionally.
2. “Huios tou anthropou” does occur in the plain text.
3. Therefore by your own reasoning we have EVIDENCE and good REASON to believe that “Huios tou anthropou” is an intentional isopsephy.
That’s not my corner. You have not presented any rules that could distinguish between random chance and design. So as long as you are making assertions about patterns without defining the rules that define the patterns, you are not actually saying anything at all. You are just babbling like a drooling fool.
If you want to define the “rules” of your “isopsephy” please do so. Then I will be able to tell you if they make any sense or not. As it stands, you have defined nothing. You merely assert that the Gospel writers “intended” a tiny set of mangled words they never wrote. And you wonder why I think you’re nuts?
It never appears without the article. So if they intended the value without the article, why did they ALWAYS included the article?
The same goes for John the Baptist. They never wrote it without the article before Baptist. If they intended the value without the article, why did they always included it?
I’ve asked you this question two million times and you have never answered.
Dick, you have officially been DEBUNKED. This conversation is over.
And that’s not a joke folks! Andrew J. Barton actually wrote that. He really is that stupid!
Uh … that’s right Andrew. Now you can call your caregiver and have them take you back to your cell. Tell them Dr. Richard said it would be good if you had a double dose of your medication tonight.
It never occurs in the plain text without the article, which means that they intended the article, and if they did not intend the article they would not have used it every time they wrote the damn words.
Oh my … I see now that either you are institutionalized, or should be.
It doesn’t matter. It might be to make the text sound more natural and grammatical, who knows? It’s irrelevant and makes absolutely no difference. You have already proven yourself wrong:
Dick, you have officially been DEBUNKED. This conversation is over.
Oh how nice, another rule that you made up 2000 years after the fact. Good job, Dick.
You assert that it doesn’t matter what they actually wrote, so long as you can mangle what they wrote and force it to fit a moronic little pattern.
Yeah, you won. Congratulations. You convinced me that there really are people as stupid as you in the world.
This is just another variation on your rule that “it must be spelled exactly the way I say otherwise it doesn’t count.” Which you made up out of thin air. If you want to be taken seriously, cite a source, dick.
1. “If they used it in the PLAIN TEXT then we have EVIDENCE and good REASON to believe they did it intentionally.” (Your own words)
2. “Huios tou anthropou” does occur in the plain text.
3. Therefore by your own reasoning we have EVIDENCE and good REASON to believe that “Huios tou anthropou” is an intentional isopsephy.
You need to stop with the “dick” talk. It’s one thing to deal with an ignorant jackass, but I have no reason to put up with an arrogant rude and pathetically stupid jackass. Get a grip on yourself. (No, not down there, it was a metaphor!).
Apparently you are under the delusion that any numerical coincidence was “designed.” Unfortunately, you have never presented any evidence supporting your assertion, and you have never noticed that it is UTTERLY IDIOTIC since such coincidences can always be found in any random text, as I demonstrated with King Lear.
So if you want to continue with your delusion, you should start by stating why anyone should think that tiny set of cherry picked manhandled numbers is supposed to indicate any “intentional” design.
Sorry Andrew, you are wrong again. They did NOT use “huios tou anthropou” without the article in the plain text, so by my logic to which you appeal, there is no evidence they ever intended it without the article.
You are a sad, pathetic little man.
Your increasing use of profanity and personal insults suggests that you are emotionally invested in this subject, and that has obviously clouded your judgment.
Maybe you should calm down and take an objective look at the evidence presented on Dan’s site. Maybe you could even present some evidence to support your argument! Because so far you haven’t presented even one shred of evidence to support anything you have said.
This is called Moving the Goalposts. You are trying to rephrase #1 to add an additional requirement. Nice try. You are very deceptive.
My use of those descriptive terms increased in direct proportion with the idiocy of your comments. It is simply impossible that you could be as stupid as you pretend to be. So I called it as I see it. For some mysterious reason, you have chosen to post bullshit on my blog. But that’s OK – it doesn’t really upset me. I’m just stunned that you could care so littel about yourself, Andrew J. Barton, that you would be willing to disgrace yourself this way.
I am perfectly calm and have totally debunked his rank bullsht. He is completely deluded, and somehow you fell into his delusion. It’s not that hard to see and understand.
I have proven every word I wrote. Your assertion is a perfect example of why I say that you are a pathetic sick little freak. I MET YOUR IDIOTIC DEBUNKING CHALLENGE and you remain deluded! I have proven everything I have stated, and you ignore the proof and repeat your ignorant bullshit.
You must be a troll. That’s all I can figure. But I don’t know what could motivate you to waste your time spewing blatantly absurd bullshit.
In any case, your assertion is a BLATANT LIE that is plain for all to see. I met your ludicrous “Debunking Challenge” and you now assert that I have never supported any of my assertions with facts. You are sick pathetic liar, and I think you are tying to convince me to cut you loose. I think that’s probably a good idea. You are starting to smear your vomit on my wall again.
But I don’t like to ban anyone, even freaks like you, because I’m always hoping that I can help you wake up from your delusion. And it almost happened too, until you delusion took over again and you forgot I met your silly little challenge, and you invented new excuses to allow yourself to remain deluded. So I guess I must be getting close to done. But there’s something in me that always hopes freaks like you will wake up … but when it comes to this, where all you can do is prove that you are an utterly pathetic lying freak utterly void of any rationality, there’s not much more I can do .. and so I start to fall into your zone of lunatic bullshit because I’ve put myself out there so far trying to reach you. But you would not. So I will probably have to ban you, since you are beyond any hope of rationality.
No it is not. It is called saying what I mean and meaning what I say. Your suggestion that they INTENDED the Son of man without the article is directly contradicted by the fact that they included the article every time they wrote it. The only reason you want to IGNORE what they ACTUALLY WROTE is because what they actually wrote doesn’t fit your moronic little pattern.
Dude! Wake up! You are spewing bullshit everywhere you write.
Sorry Dick, you can try to confuse the issue all you want – but the fact is, you already debunked yourself with 3 little steps:
You have been DEBUNKED by your own words. Sorry, but there is no way for you to weasel out of this. You are just going to have to accept it.
This is what it comes down to for me. I just cannot believe that this is a coincidence:
I just cannot get there. It must be intentional on the part of the author. It’s too neat to be a coincidence.
Outside of the historical context, I could say maybe it’s a coincidence. But with so many examples of isopsephy and references to isopsephy in the writings of contemporary authors and early Christian authors – it just doesn’t seem plausible.
I don’t believe that the Sybylline Oracles was the first Christian work to make the identification of Jesus with 888. The original authors must have been aware of this fact.
It has recently been proved that the author of Mark used an advanced literary device called chiasm in his gospel. Such a person must have been educated in other contemporary literary devices such as isopsephy.
If a contemporary graffiti artist knew the number of his lover’s name, I find it extremely hard to believe that the author of Mark did not know the number of the main characters in his gospel.
It just doesn’t pass the smell test.
That’s evidently your problem, because here you say it is not possible to discern them, but repeatedly you claim number incidences are random. If you believe it is not possible to discern them, then it is not possible to know if they are coincidences or not. There you need to elaborate your position.
I think there is a way, but it is a hard work and one needs to accept the nature of the narrative. It is a possibility, not meant for truth. This is where most of the discussions goes into forest.
Thanks for invitation to the forum, Richard. I need to think of using my time. Formation of the theory takes a lot of time, years at least. I picked up few facts (not coincidences) and they are just tiny bit of data, what do you expect on a blog post of forum? I also presented many of the principles of my research but to be honest, it would take maybe 1000 pages to present the whole theory with all references, facts, illustrations and everything to support my narrative. If I would come to the forum, I’d have some rules for the thread anyway. Thread should be fair, no insult against anyone, strictly on topic and moderation rights for me.
Take care,
-Marko
Jack, your words are gibberish. When I said “If they used it in the PLAIN TEXT” to what did the pronoun “it” refer? It referred to the EXPLICIT USE OF NUMBERS in the plain text! That’s how we could know that Rev 13:18 and the Sibylline Oracles were using isopsephy. It’s because they explicitly wrote about the numbers. There is nothing like that in your claims about 888 in the Gospels so your quote of my words does not apply. You have presented no evidence that the Gospel writers even knew, let alone used, the value Jesus = 888.
Your confusion on this point is inexcusable. And then you dare say that I am the one “trying to confuse the issue”? Holy Shit! That’s all you have done from the beginning. Your words are blatant braindead bullshit.
Man, do all numerologists have a problem with context and accurate quotes? I did not simply say “There’s no way to discern” as an absolute. My comment was in a specific context. Here is what I wrote:
You need some PRINCIPLES to guide your study. That’s the problem with Jack and Dan’s numerology. They have no principles. They arbitrarily include/exclude articles and then cherry pick numbers that they can fit into a pattern. There is absolutely no evidence that the Gospel writers intended anything like what they claim. They just make up rank bullshit and declare it is what they intended.
The really crazy thing is that Jack said that the articles are not relevant and do not “count” toward the gematria at all! Here is what he wrote:
I can not imagine a more ludicrous assertion. All the numbers that he says were “intended” depend critically upon the inclusion or exclusion of the articles. For example, Gleason invented the absurd title Simon THE Peter to force the numbers to fit his pattern. It would not work if the article was not included.
And then Jack displayed his gross ignorance again when he said that the “tou” in “huios tou anthropou” was NOT an article.
And he hounded me with his ludicrous little “Debunker Challenge” and said he would admit that Gleason’s patterns happened by chance if I could find similar patterns in King Lear. I explained that his “test” was meaningless and he ignored what I wrote and falsely charged me with being afraid to take the challenge, so I finally took it and met all his demands. He admitted it, and then quickly denied his own words and made up a fresh excuse to continue in his delusion. Such is typical in the mind of the numerologist. It is a pathetic mental disease.
And on and on it goes. His assertions have been nothing but one load of bullshit atop another. He has no pride. No dignity. No intelligence. The only thing he seems to have is persistence which in any other case would be a virtue. But here it only adds to his folly.
No problem there! Jack just can’t control himself. He started calling me a liar and a snake when I presented evidence of his errors. And then he started calling me “dick” with every post. If you are not a pathetic lying loser like him, our conversations will be the paragon of virtue and intelligence. It takes a lot to drag me down to his level.
And that is the core of your delusion. You are completely ignorant of what we should expect to happen by chance. That is a TINY set of manipulated numbers CHERRY PICKED from a HUGE SET that doesn’t fit any pattern at all. Such patterns will necessarily appear in any sufficiently large set of numbers. I’ve explained this to you a million times, but you just ignore what I write.
It is totally obvious to me that it is a mere coincidence. I was able to find the same kind of thing in King Lear in just a few minutes!
25 x 17 = 425 = the king lear
25 x 11 = 275 = Kent
25 x 32 = 800 = Gloucester
25 x 21 = 525 = lord of Kent
25 x 42 = 1050 = lord of Gloucester
25 x 64 = 1600 = noble Burgundy
25 x 10 ≈ 251 = Goneril
25 x 10 ≈ 251 = Apollo
25 x 54 ≈ 1349 = GONERIL, EDMUND, OSWALD
25 x 43 = 1075 = Kent + Gloucester
Those are all small numbers, just like the tiny little cherry picked set Gleason gave you. And there are more hits in King Lear than in Gleason’s set! And you admitted that I satisfied all the conditions of your challenge, and that you must admit that I am right about that.
But then you just couldn’t accept reality, so you invented a new excuse to convince yourself that Gleason’s pattern just couldn’t be “chance.” You said that “the N = X*Y/Z formula is what makes this pattern extra special.” That’s total bullshit. First, it doesn’t even work for the value of 2368 = Jesus Christ! That means it fails for 20% of the numbers in your tiny little list! This is how you delude yourself. You are literally BLIND to any evidence that contradicts what you want to believe.
Now look at that tiny set of numbers. Why is that formula possible? Because he PICKED the numbers that fit the pattern he was looking for. Why didn’t he include Lord Jesus? Lord Jesus Christ? Messiah? The Messiah? Savior? The Savior? Lamb of God? The Lamb of God? Son of God? The Son of God? Son of David? The Son of David? Lord and Savior? Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Why didn’t he choose any of those HUNDREDS of possibilities? BECAUSE THEY DID NOT FIT HIS PATTERN! Gleason created the pattern himself by cherry picking.
There is no evidence of any design. You have not presented any evidence that the Gospel writers even knew, let alone used, the value 888 in anything.
Jack,
The only way you could possibly think that your tiny list had any significance is if you willfully closed your eyes and blinded yourself to the evidence I have shown you. Every time I show you the evidence, you complain that I am trying to “confuse” the issue by showing you all the possibilities. That’s just nuts man. Wake up! You claim that the reason you believe is BECAUSE you cannot imagine how it could be just a “coincidence” that happened by chance. The only way to evaluate the probability is to look at all the possibilities. Thus, the only way your belief could be rational is if you had done the calculations and looked at all the possibilities. But you have refused absolutely to do the one thing that would justify your assertions!
I explained this to you with two dice. We know there is a one in 36 chance of double sixes because there are 36 ways the two dice could fall, but only one way the could both have six showing.
And so I tried to help you see the truth by showing you this expanded table of the values that Gleason had to choose from:
74*12 = 888*10/10 = 888 = Jesus
958 = The Jesus
74*20 = 888*10/6 = 1480 = (the) Christ
1550 = The Christ
74*30 = 888*10/4 = 2220 = John (the) Baptist
2290 = John the Baptist
2290 = The John Baptist
2360 = The John the Baptist
74*32 = 888*10/6 + 888 = 2368 = Jesus (the) Christ
2438 = Jesus the Christ
2438 = The Jesus Christ
2508 = The Jesus the Christ
2190 = Son of man (no tou)
74*40 = 888*10/3 = 2960 = (the) Son of the Man
2260 = The Son of Man (no tou)
3030 = The Son of Man
Now I could continue the list for miles, showing all the other values he ignored, like
3168 = Lord Jesus Christ
1688 = Lord Jesus
1758 = The Lord Jesus
2280 = Lord Christ
2350 = The Lord Christ
1408 = Savior
1478 = The Savior
3048 = The Savior of the World
2978 = Savior of the World
2208 = Savior of the World (no tou)
2278 = The Savior of the World (no tou)
2004 = The Son of God
1934 = Son of God
1164 = Son of God (no tou)
1234 = The Son of God (no tou)
1685 = The Lamb of God
1615 = Lamb of God
845 = Lamb of God (no tou)
915 = The Lamb of God (no tou)
361 = Lamb
373 = Word
443 = The Word
1697 = The Word of God
927 = The Word of God (no tou)
857 = Word of God (no tou)
1099 = Son of David
1169 = The Son of David
2579 = Christ, Son of David
2649 = The Christ, Son of David
969 = Chief Shepherd
1039 = The Chief Shepherd
etc., etc., etc.
At what point will you admit the truth? There is no sign of any design. Gleason merely cherry picked a TINY set of numbers from a HUGE set of possibilities.
If I presented you with the list of all possible values of all possible titles of Christ used in the New Testament, do you think you could discern any pattern? Of course not. There is no pattern other than what you create yourself by cherry picking a tiny set of numbers.
Outside of the historical context, I could say maybe it’s a coincidence. But with so many examples of isopsephy and references to isopsephy in the writings of contemporary authors and early Christian authors – it just doesn’t seem plausible.
If a contemporary graffiti artist knew the number of his lover’s name, I find it extremely hard to believe that the author of Mark did not know the number of the main characters in his gospel.
You keep repeating the same error. Your “sense” of “plausibility” is a complete illusion. You have presented no evidence that the Gospel writers “intended” anything concerning the numerical values of the names of the story they wrote. The fact that a graffiti artist understood the silly little game of isopsephy implies nothing about the Gospel writers, except that they probably would have avoided such a silly diversion practiced by scribblers of jokes on walls. They were serious about their writing – why would they want to deface it with such folly? Even if they did know the numerical value of Jesus = 888, they left no clues anywhere that they actually used it in any of their writings. The tiny little cherry picked set of manipulated numbers it totally meaningless. This is obvious to anyone who understand basic statistics, just like the calculation of the probability of throwing snakeeyes is one in 36. It’s trivial. You are simply ignorant of the basic math.
Jack,
Look at this list. Do you see any sign of any design in it?
And remember, this is a very short list that could be greatly extended if we reviewed all possible names and titles of NT characters. Your impression of the “implausibility” of Gleason’s tiny cherry picked set is nothing but an illusion.
888 = Jesus
958 = The Jesus
1550 = The Christ
2368 = Jesus Christ
2438 = Jesus the Christ
2438 = The Jesus Christ
2508 = The Jesus the Christ
2190 = Son of man (no tou)
1480 = Christ
2260 = The Son of Man (no tou)
3030 = The Son of Man
3168 = Lord Jesus Christ
1688 = Lord Jesus
1758 = The Lord Jesus
2280 = Lord Christ
2350 = The Lord Christ
1408 = Savior
1478 = The Savior
2960 = (the) Son of the Man
3048 = The Savior of the World
2978 = Savior of the World
2208 = Savior of the World (no tou)
2278 = The Savior of the World (no tou)
2004 = The Son of God
1934 = Son of God
1164 = Son of God (no tou)
1234 = The Son of God (no tou)
1685 = The Lamb of God
1615 = Lamb of God
845 = Lamb of God (no tou)
915 = The Lamb of God (no tou)
361 = Lamb
373 = Word
2220 = John Baptist
2290 = John the Baptist
2290 = The John Baptist
2360 = The John the Baptist
443 = The Word
1697 = The Word of God
927 = The Word of God (no tou)
857 = Word of God (no tou)
1099 = Son of David
1169 = The Son of David
2579 = Christ, Son of David
2649 = The Christ, Son of David
969 = Chief Shepherd
1039 = The Chief Shepherd
Jack,
Your comment makes no sense. The name and value of Jesus = 888 were established at least a couple hundred years before the author of Mark wrote the Gospel. The name was used by Jews as the Greek form of Joshua in the Septuagint long before Jesus was born. Therefore, the name and value have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Mark knew how to count. They have nothing to do with Mark at all because they were determined before he was born. I’ve explained this many times and you have never responded.
And there is another problem with your assertion. If Jesus was a real historical figure with a name given at birth, then the author of Mark had no choice about that either. At best, he could have found that the name Jesus just happened to have the value 888 by mere coincidence and then could have made up stories like those we see in the Sibbyline Oracles, though there is no evidence he did that. The author of Mark never once made any use of the number 888 in his text, either implicitly or explicitly, so there is no evidence that he even knew the value.
A few thoughts I’d like some perspective on:
1) Hypothetically, if one were indeed to intentionally choose names that showed these mathematical correlations, wouldn’t it be difficult enough an undertaking whereby in succeeding, even while having the article “the” as optional, he would still step back and consider it a success? Would better perfection through self imposing stricter rules into the process be so easily attained to suggest the author would have to be sloppy lazy to not have tried harder? I don’t see why this is a big deal. If it was intentional, wouldn’t this naturally fall under the author’s discretion?
2)Isn’t analyzing the statistics regarding the number of “hits” and “misses” in the search process completely irrelevant? Isn’t that kinda looking at it backwards? I mean, if one were to intentionally put these things into process, why would it matter how many failed possibilities existed after the successful line-ups were made? My logic isn’t grasping that at the moment, feel free to help me out. On the other hand, regarding the double integer usage in the King Lear exchange, a handful of neat low 2 digit numbers (including 3 round numbers), is clearly not apples to apples with a handful of numbers in the millions.
I do agree that the particular instances off added/excluded articles seems odd. John Baptist? Does that fly in Greek in a way it doesn’t jive in English? And Peter the Pebble or what was it? Maybe I’m fishing for a lesson in Greek, but so if those letters used to make that 8880 never appeared in that form in the scripture, do they at least hold grammatical water as a unit?
3) The theological trip up that keeps coming up… Since no negative integers are being involved in these calculations, if SOME NAME FOR GOD=x=SOME NAME FOR THE DEVIL, why is that such a problem? Wouldn’t showing them to be an equal integer actually be the closest thing possible to showing them as opposites, such as SNFG = -SNFS? Is there some other numerical correlation law that would have been implemented if indicating polar opposites, or enemies, such as the plain text purports, was the intent? Help me out please if there is a good web page for questions like that, or somewhere in this one where it’s better asked.
It’s a “big deal” because you can find random patterns in any arbitrary set of words so you need a way to discern between meaningless coincidences and deliberate design. There is absolutely no evidence that anyone chose the names in the New Testament because of there numerical values.
You will find meaningless random “hits” in any arbitrary set of words, so a few hits proves nothing and the entire claim of design fails for lack of evidence. It’s an utterly meaningless game of cherry picking a tiny set of hits out of a vast ocean of random numbers.
There are two big problems with his arbitrar use of articles. First, he claims that the authors of the New Testament did there calculations with the articles when in fact they never actually used them in what they wrote. Second, they are used completely inconsistently to force the numbers to fit a preconceived pattern.
The problem is that there is no consistency in the patterns. It’s all just random numerological gibberish. There is no evidence of any design at all.
RAM, my apologies, don’t answer to that. I was working for a while up on a follow up, and lost a lot of progress from a plug-in error. What I wrote was gibberish and you don’t deserve to have your time wasted. Sincerely. I may still try to get around to real thoughts about it when I have the time again.
Hey there Jason,
No worries. Stuff like that happens all the time. It’s one of the drawbacks of this style of forum – you can’t edit your comments. Would you like me to delete that last one?
Richard, if there is no evidence of design, then the Bible couldn’t be holy. The LORD is a designer. Take a look at the design of the universe and the human being for compelling evidence that He is a master Designer.
Your error Richard is that you don’t search deeply enough. Your error is that you are critical of the God of the Bible, instead of desiring to trust and obey what He teaches.
In order to grow to love the God of the Bible who is sinless we need to acknowledge that He is the Teacher of teachers. You ought to welcome Him to teach you this, for He alone can lift your low level of confidence in Him.
Hey there Reine,
Your logic is fallacious. The “holiness” of a book does not depend upon “evidence of design.”
Likewise, the “design of the universe” is not “compelling evidence.” On the contrary, that assertion is quite absurd because it implies that God “intelligently designed” diseases like AIDS, smallpox, polio, etc., etc., etc. You comments, and lack of response to my criticism of them, strongly suggest that you have never really thought about your faith at all.
I’m sorry, but your comment is quite absurd. I desired to believe the Bible for over a decade, and I have searched much deeper than most believers, and certainly much deeper than you (judging by the lack of logic in your assertions). The fact that the Bible is demonstrably fallacious and fundamentally untrustworthy is not my fault. Your belief that it is trustworthy is a demonstrable delusion. You have no answers to the facts I present and typically just ignore the truth so you can continue in your delusion like all other religious cult members (Scientologists, Mormons, Heaven’s Gate, etc.). You seem to despise the truth, which is a natural consequence of religion which corrupts the mind of believers by telling them that “faith” (i.e. ignorance and lies) is the highest virtue.
It is folly to “acknowledge” a falsehood as a truth. You have no evidence for your assertions. I can’t see any difference between your beliefs and those of a Scientologist who believes the ravings of L. Ron Hubbard about the galactic overlord Xenu who flew thetans (souls) to earth 75 million years ago in a spaceship that looked exactly like a DC-8. You have no evidence for your assertions. How are they any different than those of the Muslims and Hindus? I’ve asked you this question many times, and you have never attempted an answer, except the absurd circular assertion that the “difference” is that you are right and they are wrong! Mere assertion is not a “compelling” reason to believe.
I have very good reasons for having “low confidence” in God. Can anyone actually TRUST God to do anything for anyone in this life? Of course not. God has proven himself absolutely untrustworthy. Parents who trust God for the health of their children end up with dead children and manslaughter convictions. If God were half as trustworthy as the average dentist there would be no debate about his existence. There is no truth more obvious than the fact that God is absolutely untrustworthy. See my article:
Is God Trustworthy? The Root of Religious Delusion
My position is based on truth, logic, and demonstrable facts. Your position is pure fantasy and delusion.
Same sort of gematria in Buddhist texts in Pâli and Sanskrit. – Note that NT theogloian J. Smit Sibinga long ago pointed out that Matthew counted the number of words and syllables.
More in Prof. Michael Lockwood´s book “Buddhism´s Relation to Christianity”, Chennai 2010.
Celsus mentions the Christian circles! – Eusebius mentions that some early Christians studied Euclid etc.
My paper “Jesus geometricus” in the Adyar Library Bulletin 74-75 (2010-2011), pp. 179-210.
Best wishes
Christian Lindtner
http://www.jesusisbuddha.com
Hi Christian,
Thanks for the info. I’ll check it out. But one thing to remember, the fact that Christians may have drawn some circles does not lend any credibility to the theory that they were designing the radius of those circles to match the numerical values of names as Dan Gleason asserts. I think the evidence conclusively refutes that idea. Are you suggesting otherwise? If so, it would be very interesting to hear your argument.
All the best,
Richard
Hello Richard,
Yes, I do find that Buddhism (Theravâdo, the earliest form) started out from the 141.4.. radius. Their ultimate symbol is, as known, the Dharma-cakram (Sanskrit), the Pâli form being Dhamma-cakkam. The noun cakram/cakkam means a wheel, i.e. a circle in material form, and thus not as accurate as the abstract circle.- The Christians copied this. I speak of NT Christianity as a copy of Buddhism (“Jesus is Buddha”).
For now just a small example:
The number of Buddho Bhagavâ is 889. There are eight “correct” views etc. The Pâli for “correct” is sammâ, which also means “straight”. The number of sammâ is 200+1+40+40+2 = 283, the diamater of the Buddho Bhagavâ circle/ cakkam/cakram. – The Greek kuklos and the San. cakram are somehow historically related. – Buddhist texts refer to a disciple who was able to count the number of leaves on a tree at a glance. How so? Because he had studied Greek astronomy (horâ-sâstram) in a previous birth.-
The number or words and syllables have been carefully calculated in this early Buddhist text on the Dhammacakkam. The same then goes for the NT, which, as said, is a sort of Buddhist propaganda. – Much more about Buddhist and Christian circles/wheels in my German book: Geheimnisse um Jesus Christus. – Also in the two books published by Prof. Michael Lockwood, etc., and in my recent book: Relation of Bodhicittam.
My cliam is, in brief, that Buddhism and Christianity have common Pythagorean sources.
That Theravâdo counted words and syllables according to the Ionian mode of calculation (psêphos) was first pointed out to scholars in my lectures in Saint Petersburg in 2014.-
May I, Richard, end up with a small puzzle for the kind consideration of you and your guests? –
The number of the eight virtues, beginning with the correct view etc. add up to exactly 6110.
How does that relate to the first eight words of Matthew 1.1?
Sat sapienti!
All the best from sunny Denmark
Christian Lindtner
http://www.jesusisbuddha.com
Right, Richard, we have to be sure that the patterns are “out there” – as when we see a pattern on an ancient oriental carpet.
If a given textual unit consists of, say, 4 x 100 words, and the corresponding number of syllables is, say 4 x 222 – we can feel sure.
If,, at the same time, the main person in that very same text is Iêsous = 888 ( 4 x 222), we can rest safely on our carpet.
Likewise, in my book, I point out that Luke 10,38 consits of exactly 46 syllables. And so does the Buddhist text in Sanskrit of which Luke is a translation. (Geheimnisse…p. 111).
The pattern, therefore, is “out there”. WE did not make it up.
Right?
Best
Christian Lindtner
Why should anyone believe that?
it would seem that the purpose of gematria it would seem to me is a deliberate ploy by the later scribes to obstruct and confuse the meaning of written words. it is further apparent to any bible historian that the book has been edited, rewritten and deliberately changed to reflect later understandings and circumstances. in citing 888 for example i have read one author who ascribes this to the description of god as given to Moses on the mountain when the ten commandments were given to humanity (well not for the first time as they directly related to Egyptian beliefs and the self examination ritual of the Pharoah). the description then given is ‘I am what i am’ Hebrew gematria, 3,4,5. that author not being satisfied reversed 3,4,5 and totaled the two lines. i.e. 888. now for arguments sake why was that necessary? 3,4,5, being the right angle triangle and an obvious reference to the big ‘G’ of Masonry which Moses and other adepts would be conversant with. it would seem that the value of Mercury, the planet then was 888 and of course the connection is now proved to another belief system, namely the Druids and probably others. Mercury being the ‘Father’. it leaves me in little doubt that the task of the scribes was accomplished.
I literally read this entire conversation. My head hurts. But it is fascinating, this human need to find pattern in everything. We are biologically wired to do so, and I think that creates a sense (or false sense, depending on your perspective) of the divine.
Reminds me of the line in ecclesiastes : God has put eternity on the heart of man, but he cannot comprehend it.
I nevertheless find it intriguing that Jesus:Christ: Jesuschrist =3:5:8 and thus is the numeration of the Hebrew word Messiach.
Dev
Most people find numerical coincidences like that “intriguing” only if they confirm something they already believe.
For example, lots of numerologists are greatly impressed by English gematria that links “Jesus” = 74 to words like “messiah” and “gospel” and “cross”. But it’s also the value of “Lucifer” and “Muhammad” so the system is obviously incoherent and meaningless. It’s based on known cognitive errors like selection bias (cherry picking), confirmation bias, and rationalization.
Is it not the case that the early Hebrew and Greek alphabets used letters as numbers? This is what I read. So it would seem reasonable that numbers and words would have been entwined prior to a separate number system arising. When I was doing Qabalah you had to write all the associations out. Had a powerful effect. Dev
Ps of course the intention here is not to “prove” anything to aspects of the rational mind, the scribes and the pharisees, rather to further personal insight
Yes, those alphabets were used as both letters and number-signs. And mystics have been playing with them for centuries. But that doesn’t mean there is any legitimate logic to the connections between numbers and words. The connections certainly appear random. Numerologists must cherry pick what they like and ignore the rest which contradicts what they like, as when Christians highlight the fact that “Jesus” and “Messiah” both have the value 74 (which supposedly “confirms” their belief that Jesus is Messiah), but ignore the fact that Lucifer and Muhammad also share that value.
Hi Richard,
Well, I’d certainly agree that in terms of “proving” anything, along the lines that we traditionally understand as something being “proven,” so these number patterns do seem pretty random.
Nevertheless, if I try to imagine myself two thousand years ago, being a Hebrew or Greek speaker, I think the whole way I would have understood numbers and words would have them a great deal more intertwined.
In addition, Lucifer is essentially a Messianic concept, as I understand things. Hallelujah is oft related to mean, “Hell lights the way to God,” Halle/Lux/Lee/Yah. Mohammed I don’t know so much about. But, I don’t see anything in your two examples to undermine the notion of there being numerical associations here. Rather I’d say they reinforce it!
Dev
With great curiousity, and after reading this thread. I am back to square one, and of a more simple minded thought, (and broader education).
The intrigue, if the Bible was Devine, or just random, Literature, had captivated my attention.
Having my own chasm of faith cut like a 2 edged sword, I have been on a 3 year journey, into the mystery. But not first, after having imploded my life, to follow the clues.
Follow along with me, to the end of my path..
John 3:16 ” For God so loved the world He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.
I thought to myself, earth and it’s wonders are magnificent, but this world of man sucks. Nobody wants to get along with each other, we pollute our earth, we kill, hurt, mame and exploit. Control. Why does God love this World so much?
And, I went back to the beginning, as far back in time as we have current knowledge. I should have stopped at The 10 commandments. They are reasonable enough rules for humanity to follow.
I then asked myself, Why would a God, who so loved this world, let his only begotten son die such a horrible death, feeling all alone. Father, why have you forsaken me?
Redeemed by blood, to save us, does not make sense to me. Supposedly, I am of a blood type that cannot be cloned, anyway.
So I then further asked myself, if God so loved this beautiful World, what is destination heaven, even like?
” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
12 It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west.
14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. 16 The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia [or 1,400 miles!] in length, and as wide and high as it is long [1,400 miles wide and tall!].
17 The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits [that is 200 feet!] thick.
18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst [these last two stones are unknown or only exist in heaven today].
21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.
22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.
25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.
26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
And then I thought. Without Sun, nor Moon, there are no tree’s, no water, no life. Just spirit. And It seemed like too shiny and cold a city place. And I’ve always loved the warmth of the sun and nature anyway.
So then, something I recently read popped into my mind. ” Good thought is the only thought possible that can have no negative consequences”.
And so now, back to my original aim, which is to simply live to aspire to that simple, yet elegant, thought. My ego, no longer concerned where I may go. I suspect, I’ll leave it behind in the dust anyway. Any way, isn’t it written in the stars, and the cycles of creation?
I do believe, for certainty, the core of Jesus teaching, and the thread of the Golden Rule, in all religions. Do not unto your neighbor, as you would not have done unto you, or someone, you truly love.
Namaste’
Another 1925 circumference and 1224 diameter dilemma.
Can’t we salvage this? I so love the story with related geometric cosmology.
The Greek gematria value of Simon Peter is 1925. If a circle of 1925 circumference is drawn to represent Peter, then it can be filled with six similar circles representing the others. Each circle touches the center and the perimeter. Then a circle is drawn around all seven circles. Its diameter is 1224, which is the gematria value of “fishes” and “the net”.
http://www.greatdreams.com/numbers/jerry/153.htm
It seems many forms may be constructed enhancing the storyline and all the parallels in Greek history of 153 and fish stories are telling.
Of course, it is not proof but mighty fishy!..lol
a) Similar fish stories in John and Greek history
b) 153 fish caught in John and 265/153 in Greek history
c) The internal unique relationship between 153 fish and 1224 diameter of 2 circles, the height of vesica and meaning of words.
The net=1224
fishes= 1224
The fishers coat= 1060; height of vesica
1060/612 = 1.7320 = √3
Seems just as good as any other explanation.
———————————————————
Now a lot of commentators have pondered over the meaning of the 153 fish. Some suggestions to be found in study bibles and other commentaries are:
The numbering of the fish proves that John was an eyewitness
There were 153 species of fish in the sea (since shown to be wrong)
One refers to Shem’s race, three refers to Ham’s race, and five refers to Japheth’s race (Noah’s sons)
153 is the number of people Jesus ministers to in the Gospel of John
Jesus lived for 12,240 days which equals 80 x 153; and
Jesus ministered for 918 days which equals 6 x 153.
https://philologos.org/bpr/files/misc_studies/ms025.htm
I also read this entire conversation. I think both sides did make interesting claims. It is a shame how some of it devolved horribly especially by self-proclaimed followers of Jesus, and the reference to RAM’s wife as a C*NT.
I have some input for some future readers to consider.
Firstly, it is important to consider your own personal paradigm when it comes to chance versus design. I have found some Christian do not believe in randomness and believe God is in control of the ‘randomness’ and thus it remains design even though we cannot see it from our vantage point. Whereas atheists will believe in chance. So I find a fundamental paradigmatic clash. Therefore, it is a doomed argument from the start. I think RAM’s King Lear example sealed the argument in an objective scientific sense.
Secondly, from a Christian mystic/Kabbalah perspective, is gematria necessary in order to prove an objective truth. Why can it not be used by the personal practitioner in order to “connect the dots” for themselves. That is personal (subjective) revelation. What is the cost of this? Deluding themselves more? These are not rhetorical questions.
Take care all
Dude, I have two words for you: “Antikythera mechanism.” We don’t really know what they “knew” circa 50 AD, a lot of the good stuff was passed around in mystery schools and secret societies. None of the diameters and such needed to be spot on, just close enough for gnosticment work.