biblewheel.com

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here so the first thing I would like to do is thank Richard for hosting this forum and for the sterling work he has done in presenting his research on the Bible Wheel and providing the gematria database - I have utilised these resources intermittently over the years while carrying out my own reseach, and finally got round to ordering the book there. I was very pleased to see the websites back online. I believe that the significance of Richard's work has yet to be fully appreciated or understood and I wish to give him every encouragement in his endeavours, and pray that God will bless him and inspire him in everything that he does.

With that said I would like to note what I think is a beautifull parallel to the Bible Wheel found in an important text of the Bible itself. We find it in Exodus 25:10 where instructions are given for the construction of the mysterious Ark of the Covenant, the sacred chest which housed the Ten Commandments and resided in the Holy of Holies inside the Tabernacle:

"And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof."

Whilst it was embellished with ornament and the pair of cherubim, the ark was essentially a rectangular box measuring 2.5x1.5x1.5 cubits, therefore the length, breadth and height sum to 5.5 cubits and so the outer perimeter of the box is four times this or 22 cubits. Inside this box was placed the Ten Commandments; the pinnacle or consummation of the Law of Moses. Measurements have great significance in the Bible, one only needs to think of Ezekiel and St. John encountering angels with measuring rods in their visions, and being instructed to measure the dimensions of the temple.

The Bible Wheel consists of an outer ring of 22 segments containing the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which houses the 66 books of the Bible as three cycles of books. The sevenfold division of the books - which Richard has compared with the Menorah or seven branch candlestick which stood outside the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle - creates a cross and therefore a fourfold division of the structure. This appears to me to provide a striking parallel with both the Ark of the Covenant which housed the Ten Commandments and the Menorah which illuminated the interior of the Tabernacle for the priests. One cannot escape the relation here to the 22/7 ratio for pi which is attributed to the Greek mathematician Archimedes.

Eventually the portable Tabernacle was replaced with the more permanent Temple of Solomon. Essentially it can be represented as a rectangular box measuring 60x20x30 cubits, so the outer perimeter is 4 x 110 or 440 cubits. Meanwhile the four space diagonals of this box measure 4 x 70 = 280 cubits, and 440 and 280 cubits just happen to match the base and height of the Great Pyramid of Giza - a monument long claimed to embody the 22/7 pi ratio and "square the circle" via the ratio of the base peirmeter to twice its height, or 1760 to 560 cubits.

Some food for thought perhaps.
Nick

Martin Luther made an interesting analogy between the Tabernacle and the human being as this summary from Google AI reveals:

Martin Luther utilized the Old Testament Tabernacle as a tripartite (three-part) analogy for the human being—consisting of spirit, soul, and body—to explain his anthropological view of a Christian as being simultaneously righteous and a sinner.

This analogy, derived from his interpretation of 1 Thessalonians 5:23, divides the human person into three distinct, interconnected areas that mirror the structure of Moses' tabernacle:

The Spirit (Sanctum Sanctorum / Holy of Holies): This is the highest and noblest part of the human, functioning as the innermost sanctuary where God dwells. It is described as being in darkness because faith operates without seeing, feeling, or comprehending. It is the home of faith and the Word of God.

The Soul (Sanctum / Holy Place): Represented by the Holy Place, the soul is where the lampstand with seven lamps stood. In the analogy, this symbolizes human reason, understanding, and discrimination. It acts as an interface between the inner life and the outer world.

The Body (Atrium / Outer Court): The body is the outer court, which is visible to everyone. It is where the Christian lives and acts, revealing their faith through works.

According to Andrew L. Hoy the Tabernacle in the wilderness should be circular instead of a shoebox shape, which would resemble the Biblewheel pattern:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVzgLt ... VcSbCxz_Xw

I hadn't heard of Andrew Hoy's Tabernacle theory, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. I haven't read his book obviously but from reading through his website and watching some of the YouTube videos for and against the theory it appears that Andrew has found an interesting allusion to the pi ratio in the dimensions of the curtains for the Tabernacle, however I think he has went too far in asserting that the Tabernacle and surrounding courtyard were circular in structure tbh. This contradicts the actual Bible text which clearly implies rectangular structures. It also overlooks the fact that deliberately incorporating the circular pi ratio into right-angled architecture seems to have been common practice in the ancient world, at least in Egypt which the Israelites were intimately familiar with due to their captivity there. For example the great rectangular wall that enclosed the Step Pyramid of Saqqara was found to have a perimeter of 3140 or 1000 x pi cubits by Jean-Phillipe Lauer who excavated the site. Meanwhile John Legon found that a hypothetical rectangle enclosing the three main pyramids of Giza has sides of 1417.5 x 1732 cubits, so close to 1000 x sqrt 2 and sqrt 3 respectively, and summing these sqrts gives 3.146 which is an approximation of pi. Therefore the perimeter of the great Giza rectangle is approximately 2000 x pi cubits. Then of course there is the Great Pyramid itself which is well known to incorporate the pi ratio in its dimensions, as does a circuit of the walls of the King's Chamber. The footprint of the chamber is a double square measuring 10 x 20 cubits, so the same geometry as the Tabernacle Courtyard and the Holy Place inside the Tabernacle.

While Hoy has certainly made a signficant contribution to the discussion concerning what the ancients knew about pi, I would have to take issue with his claim to have "discovered the most accurate approximation of PI (at 3.14, within 0.05% accuracy) known to the ancient world." This debate has been going on for a very long time now, it really took off back in 1859 when John Taylor proposed that the pi ratio was incorporated into the Great Pyramid. Flinders Petrie then carried out the definite survery of the monument in the early 1880's which affirmed Taylor's theory.