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Originally posted by Bama Bunny:
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Originally posted by Bama Bunny:
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Originally posted by Bill Gray:
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Originally posted by Bama Bunny:
Vp you said it so well! You're soul is a sweet smelling flower to our Lord. Remember what Jesus said to St. Faustina, " Fear nothing I am with you"

Hi Bunny,

Can you give us a Scriptural reference for that quote?

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

Yeah I can, but I'm watching Titans & sea hawks right now.... so you're gonna have to wait

Bill,

You asked me if my quote came from the Bible.
The quote posted is exact from St. Faustina's Diary. In the Bible in different places we are told not to fear God is with us. The premise of don't fear God/Jesus is with you is from the Bible.

You didn't ask me Faustina was in the Bible, so if that's what you meant, then no, Faustina is not in the bible. She wrote a diary of her conversations with Jesus. Faustina was canonized a Saint. Her diary prompted the Divine Mercy movement and prayer.
The gist of the diary is that Jesus has so much mercy, it is inexhaustible, all we have to do is ask. We should pray for mercy, and remind ourselves of His mercy daily.

Hi Bunny,

Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that we are NOT discussing the Bible -- but, some other book authored by someone other than God.

She may be a saint -- but, then so are ALL Christian believers. Maybe we will see her in heaven one day.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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She may be a saint -- but, then so are ALL Christian believers.


To put yourself and other "regular folk" on the same level with Canonized Saints is just plain silly, in my opinon.
MARTYRS, Bill. People who suffered UNSPEAKABLE torture to defend our Lord- bearing Stigmata- mockery-abuse-unspeakable horrors-all to HELP us be better Christians today. And to keep the Word of God alive.
The performed miracles, intercede for us, and were killed defending "Our" Christianity.
I don't know about you, but I am *not* a complete and Holy person- yet. I prefer to think of us "normal folk" as works in progress. Certainly not on par with the Communion of Saints... Yes Jesus works through us, but not to the same extend as the Blessed and Holy Saints. No way.
Humility is the one trait that I have found to be spread among all the Saints. Humility and compassion that is never ending. We all fall short in this life...
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Originally posted by vplee123:
quote:
She may be a saint -- but, then so are ALL Christian believers.

To put yourself and other "regular folk" on the same level with Canonized Saints is just plain silly, in my opinon.

Hi VP,

First, there is no such thing as Canonized Saints.

Second, I do not call all Christian believers saints -- the Bible does!

Go to http://www.blueletterbible.org and search for the word "saint" and you will find many Scripture verses.

Search for "canonized saints" and you will not find one single verse.

Don't blame me. God authored the Bible; blame Him!

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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Originally posted by smokey1:
Goodjob VP, but I don't believe BG will ever grasp what you explained to him about Mary's role in the Catholic Church.

Hi Smokey,

I praise God that I have not been lured into following any unBiblical, man-made teachings. If God had wanted ANY mortal to be deified; He would have told us this in the Bible.

However, since He DID tell us in the Bible that Jesus Chris is the ONLY Mediator between God and man -- I will live by that.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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I find it strange how many people who claim to be followers of Christ don't take Him at His word. This verse says it all:

Revelation 22:18
[ A Warning ] For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book;
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
I take the Lord at His word, I don't take the 12000 interpretations and translations at their word.

Hi B50,

So, the God you worship is big enough to have inspired the forty Biblical writers -- but, He is NOT big enough to have inspired or controlled the copying and translations of His Written Word. Is that what you are telling us?

You must worship a pretty small, weak God. My God is BIG ENOUGH to have inspired the writers, the copyists, and the translators. Maybe you should try worshiping my God. He is awesome!

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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quote:
Originally posted by Sofa King:
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Gray:
I praise God that I have not been lured into following any unBiblical, man-made teachings.

Except the one that you continually preach ad nauseum: That the bible is the literal, infallible, inerrant word of God? There is nothing biblical about that whatsoever, Bill. In fact, it is demonstrably false.

Hi Sofa,

Not a problem! I will follow my God who is big enough to inspire writers, copiers, and translators of the Bible to make it inspired, inerrant, and literal. I am not afraid of following such a God.

And, you can follow your god or gods who are not big enough to author the Bible or to save you.

That way, we both are happy.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
Guess you'll have to wonder.

Hi B,

No, my Friend, I HAVE my salvation for I know the God I worship. You have your "free will" to worship whomever you want.

My task is not to make your worship God; only to tell you about Him. And, then, as Jesus tells us, "Whoever refuses to listen, shake the dust from your sandals and move on."

One thing about all of us on the Religion Forum -- not one single person can say he/she has not heard the Gospel.

Now, whether that person believes the Gospel is not up to me or other Christians -- but, only to that individual person.

All I can say to anyone is to choose well -- for eternity is a very long time.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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Those people who interpreted and translated the Bible over 2000 years all had free will as well.

If God wanted a perfect inerrant copy, He should have placed one on the table in front of the Council of Nicea.


The Council of Nicea
When Constantine defeated Emperor Licinius in 323 AD he ended the persecutions against the Christian church. Shortly afterwards Christians faced a trouble from within: the Arian controversy began and threatened to divide the church. The problem began in Alexandria, it started as a debate between the bishop Alexander and the presbyter (pastor, or priest) Arius. Arius proposed that if the Father begat the Son, the latter must have had a beginning, that there was a time when he was not, and that his substance was from nothing like the rest of creation. The Council of Nicea, a gathering similar to the one described in Acts 15:4-22, condemned the beliefs of Arius and wrote the first version of the now famous creed proclaiming that the Son was "one in being with the Father" by use of the Greek word "homoousius."
How Controversial was the Arian Controversy?
There were some three hundred bishops gathered at the Council of Nicea from all around the world. Eusebius lists many of them and their country of origin in his writings. It should be remembered that many of those present had, because of the recent persecutions, suffered and had faced threat of death for their faith. These were not wishy-washy men. It might also be remarked, that they were extremely sensitive to details of doctrine. As evidence of this, the second major concern of the Council of Nicea was to address the hotly debated question of what the proper day was to celebrate the resurrection.

The bishops of the Council stopped their ears on hearing the words of Arius and immediately rejected his teaching as distant and alien from the belief of the Church. They tore to pieces a letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia containing Arius' teaching, as well as an Arian confession of faith (see the appendix on the Council of Nicea in Baker Book House's, "Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History").

Originally seventeen of those bishops gathered at the council were unwilling to sign the Creed penned by the Council, and all but three of these were convinced to sign by the end. It is thus apparent that the Arians were a distinct minority among the bishops. Initially there was some resistance to the Nicene Creed, not because of what it said but because of how it said it. Many objected to the use of the word "homoousias" in an official document because it was not used in Scripture, despite their agreement with the meaning it conveyed.

The Council interrogated Arius using Scripture, only to find that he had a new way of interpreting every verse they brought before him. Finally, they used the argument that Arius' view had to be wrong because it was new. Athanasius says, "But concerning matters of faith, they [the bishops assembled at Nicea] did not write: 'It has been decided,' but 'Thus the Catholic Church believes.' And thereupon confessed how they believed. This they did to show that their judgement was not of more recent origin, but was in fact of Apostolic times..." (Volume 1, Faith of the Early Fathers, p338). In this regard also, Athanasius askes rhetorically, "... how many fathers [in other words, the writings of the early Christians] can you cite for your phrases?" (Ibid, p325)

It must be concluded, then, that the controversy was between a great majority who held the belief that the doctrine expressed by the Nicene Creed was ancient and Apostolic, and a minority who believed that Arius' new interpretation of the faith was correct .

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/aug...ch/sbrandt/nicea.htm
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
Those people who interpreted and translated the Bible over 2000 years all had free will as well.

If God wanted a perfect inerrant copy, He should have placed one on the table in front of the Council of Nicea.

Hi B,

Yes, those who copied, translated, and canonized the Bible -- all had "free will" -- just as those forty men who wrote the Bible under the inspired authorship of God had "free will."

But, at such times, God is still in control.

Why did God not lay His chosen translation on the table at Nicea?

Is that the ONLY way YOU will believe Him -- if He gives you specific signs and wonders? The Pharisees were the same -- and, that did not sit well with Jesus.

I wonder how YOUR "signs and wonders" conditions for believing God sits with Him.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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quote:
Is that the ONLY way YOU will believe Him -- if He gives you specific signs and wonders? The Pharisees were the same -- and, that did not sit well with Jesus.


I believe Him without the Bible being perfect, so no, I don't need signs or wonders. He has already given me those. You are the one with the problem. Others also realize the 'variations'.

http://www.anabaptists.org/history/howwegot.html

HOW THE BOOKS WERE TRANSMITTED

There are no original manuscripts of any of the Bible books known to be in existence today. Perhaps God's wisdom is evident in this, for if any of them did exist, some people might be tempted to worship them as idols.

Humanly speaking, the absence of any originals or even of the earliest copies is explainable on the ground of the perishableness of the materials and the Jewish custom not to tolerate any soiled or worn-out copies of their Scriptures. These were either burned or buried.

Since there were no printing presses in Bible times, the various books had to be reproduced by hand. They were written on baked clay tablets, on parchment (sheepskin), on paper made of the papyrus reed, and later on vellum (calfskin). The copying was done with extreme and conscientious care.

In spite of the extreme care exercised in copying the Bible books, minor errors inevitably crept in through the course of the centuries. Hence there arose what are known as variations in the manuscripts. A great many of these have been listed, but scholars are of the opinion that not a single variation vitally affects any basic Christian truth.

In order to determine as nearly as possible what the original text was, a vast amount of scholarship has been expended in the study of old manuscripts, early translations, quotations from and references to the Bible in other ancient writings.

As a result of able, extensive, and painstaking textual scholarship it may be confidently affirmed that we possess today the Bible books essentially as they came from the inspired writers.
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Gray:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by b50m:
Those people who interpreted and translated the Bible over 2000 years all had free will as well.

If God wanted a perfect inerrant copy, He should have placed one on the table in front of the Council of Nicea.

Hi B,

Yes, those who copied, translated, and canonized the Bible -- all had "free will" -- just as those forty men who wrote the Bible under the inspired authorship of God had "free will."

But, at such times, God is still in control.

Why did God not lay His chosen translation on the table at Nicea?

Is that the ONLY way YOU will believe Him -- if He gives you specific signs and wonders? The Pharisees were the same -- and, that did not sit well with Jesus.

I wonder how YOUR "signs and wonders" conditions for believing God sits with Him.

Bill-- where did the KJV come from?
quote:
Originally posted by Gifted Child:
quote:
Originally posted by Bill Gray:
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
Those people who interpreted and translated the Bible over 2000 years all had free will as well. If God wanted a perfect inerrant copy, He should have placed one on the table in front of the Council of Nicea.

Hi B,

Yes, those who copied, translated, and canonized the Bible -- all had "free will" -- just as those forty men who wrote the Bible under the inspired authorship of God had "free will." But, at such times, God is still in control.

Why did God not lay His chosen translation on the table at Nicea? Is that the ONLY way YOU will believe Him -- if He gives you specific signs and wonders? The Pharisees were the same -- and, that did not sit well with Jesus.

I wonder how YOUR "signs and wonders" conditions for believing God sits with Him.

Bill -- where did the KJV come from?

Hi Child,

That is a good question. The following information answers your question better than what I might say:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE - CREDIBLE & AUTHENTIC
http://www.allabouttruth.org/origin-of-the-bible.htm

Origin of the Bible - The Truth About Translations:

To many, the origin of the Bible can be summed up as follows: "A mere translation of a translation of an interpretation of an oral tradition" - and therefore, a book with no credibility or connection to the original texts.

Actually, the foregoing statement is a common misunderstanding of both Christians and non-Christians alike. Translations such as the King James Version are derived from existing copies of ancient manuscripts such as the Hebrew Masoretic Text (Old Testament) and the Greek Textus Receptus (New Testament), and are not translations of texts translated from other interpretations. The primary differences between today's Bible translations are merely related to how translators interpret a word or sentence from the original language of the text source (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).

Origin of the Bible - The Reliability of Ancient Manuscripts:

Another challenge against the origin of the Bible is the reliability of the manuscripts from which today's Bibles are translated.

Remarkably, there is widespread evidence for absolute reliability. There are more than 14,000 existing Old Testament manuscripts and fragments copied throughout the Middle East, Mediterranean, and European regions that agree dramatically with each other. In addition, these texts agree with the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which was translated from Hebrew to Greek some time during the 3rd century BC.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in Israel in the 1940's and 50's, also provide phenomenal evidence for the reliability of the ancient transmission of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) before the arrival of Jesus Christ.

The Hebrew scribes who copied the Jewish Scriptures dedicated their lives to preserving the accuracy of the holy books. These scribes went to phenomenal lengths to insure manuscript reliability. They were highly trained and meticulously observed, counting every letter, word and paragraph against master scrolls. A single error would require the immediate destruction of the entire text.

The manuscript evidence for the New Testament is also dramatic, with over 5,300 known copies and fragments in the original Greek, nearly 800 of which were copied before 1000 AD. Some manuscript texts date to the early second and third centuries, with the time between the original autographs and our earliest existing copies being a remarkably short 60 years.

Interestingly, this manuscript evidence far surpasses the manuscript reliability of other ancient writings that we trust as authentic every day

Origin of the Bible - The Power of Prophecy:

The origin of the Bible is God. It is a historical book that is backed by archeology, and a prophetic book that has lived up to all of its claims thus far. The Bible is God's letter to humanity collected into 66 books written by 40 divinely inspired writers over a period of over 1,600 years. The claim of divine inspiration may seem dramatic (or unrealistic to some), but a careful and honest study of the biblical scriptures will show them to be true. Powerfully, the Bible validates its divine authorship through fulfilled prophecies.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And, just a final note: The book of Isaiah found in the Qumran Caves in 1948 is complete -- and is virtually identical to the book of Isaiah found in our Bibles today. The Qumran version was copied somewhere between 200 BC to 100 AD; so, most likely predated the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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more than 14,000 existing Old Testament manuscripts

Not Old, New.

http://bible.org/article/how-accurate-bible

I. The Bibliographic Test
A. The Quantity of Manuscripts

In the case of the Old Testament, there are a small number of Hebrew manuscripts, because the Jewish scribes ceremonially buried imperfect and worn manuscripts. Many ancient manuscripts were also lost or destroyed during Israel's turbulent history. Also, the Old Testament text was standardized by the Masoretic Jews by the sixth century A.D., and all manuscripts that deviated from the Masoretic Text were evidently eliminated. But the existing Hebrew manuscripts are supplemented by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint (a third-century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament), the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Targums (ancient paraphrases of the Old Testament), as well as the Talmud (teachings and commentaries related to the Hebrew Scriptures).

The quantity of New Testament manuscripts is unparalleled in ancient literature. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, about 8,000 Latin manuscripts, and another 1,000 manuscripts in other languages (Syriac, Coptic, etc.). In addition to this extraordinary number, there are tens of thousands of citations of New Testament passages by the early church fathers. In contrast, the typical number of existing manuscript copies for any of the works of the Greek and Latin authors, such as Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, or Tacitus, ranges from one to 20.
Hi B,

Not sure if you were responding to Child or to me. But, the fact that we have over 24,000 Biblical manuscripts or portions of manuscripts -- far outnumber any other book in existence.

Yet, folks will never question a copy of Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Tacitus, or Shakespeare -- with a minuscule number of manuscripts -- but, will fight tooth and nail to disprove the Bible, which has such an abundance of manuscript sources.

Good point.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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quote:
Originally posted by CrustyMac:
When you put the Bible into the realm of philosophy, politics, and literature, as are those other authors, then there isn't anything to disprove really.

When you try to turn the Bible into a science text, or the literal inerrant word of God, then it gets problematic.

Hi Crusty,

Sorry, but once again you have totally missed the point. We were talking about the number of existing manuscripts -- not, the subject of the writing.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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quote:
Also, the Old Testament text was standardized by the Masoretic Jews by the sixth century A.D

So he Old Testament we have is the Jewish version from the sixth century.

Masoretic Text
By Ariel Scheib

The Torah texts that we read today are believed by some to be the same as those given to Moses and the people of Israel by God. It is believed by scholars that the word of God and history of the Jewish people was imprinted on the minds of the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Over the years as tradition was orally passed on and eventually written down, many disparities of the Torah emerged as countless scribes wrote numerous scrolls.

After being exiled from Israel, and as the Jewish Diaspora grew more widespread across the World, many Jews understood the importance of creating a single text of the Torah. This uniformity would enable the consistency of the Jewish faith outside the land of Israel. Specific scholars and scribes were chosen for this task, these men were called Masoretes. Masoretes derives its name from the word “masorah” meaning “tradition;” their ultimate goal was to uphold the traditions of the Jewish people. The Masoretes had to decipher the authentic word of God and eliminate the dissimilarities.

The Masoretes attempted to attain consistency through established rules of articulating the words and correcting spelling and reading. The Torah scroll was written, using only the consonants and no vowels or accents. Therefore, the Masoretes created a system of chanting symbols and vowel placement, so future generations would understand the proper pronunciation. The Masoretes made all spelling changes or changes to the text in the margins, because they refused to alter the original text. Finally, the Masoretes provided white spaces in between words to breakup the continuous text.

There were two schools of thought overt the rewriting of the Bible. There was the Eastern or Babylonian school and the other was a Western or Palestinian school. The Palestinian school had two branches of thought, the Ben Asher and the Ben Naphtali in Tiberias. In 930 C.E. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher produced the first complete Bible, called the Aleppo Codex, utilizing masoretic symbols and ordering. For several centuries, various Masoretes continued to influence the pronunciation and writing of the text. However, the first “official” Bible text that is still used today was the Great Rabbinic Bible, published in 1524-1525 by Daniel Bomberg (a Christian in Venice).
Hi all,

To shorten all of the discussion about the Bible; I will say that the Bible we have today is the EXACT Bible which God wants us to have today.

It is the one which He authored through inspiration of the forty writers; it is the one which He protected through centuries of copies and translations. It is His full revelation to mankind to guide us toward salvation and to guide us in our daily Christian walk.

What more could we ask?

Now, my God is big enough to do all this; how about yours?

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill

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quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
quote:
Also, the Old Testament text was standardized by the Masoretic Jews by the sixth century A.D

So he Old Testament we have is the Jewish version from the sixth century.

Masoretic Text
By Ariel Scheib

The Torah texts that we read today are believed by some to be the same as those given to Moses and the people of Israel by God. It is believed by scholars that the word of God and history of the Jewish people was imprinted on the minds of the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Over the years as tradition was orally passed on and eventually written down, many disparities of the Torah emerged as countless scribes wrote numerous scrolls.

There were two schools of thought overt the rewriting of the Bible. There was the Eastern or Babylonian school and the other was a Western or Palestinian school. The Palestinian school had two branches of thought, the Ben Asher and the Ben Naphtali in Tiberias. In 930 C.E. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher produced the first complete Bible, called the Aleppo Codex, utilizing masoretic symbols and ordering. For several centuries, various Masoretes continued to influence the pronunciation and writing of the text. However, the first “official” Bible text that is still used today was the Great Rabbinic Bible, published in 1524-1525 by Daniel Bomberg (a Christian in Venice).


b50m----- So, Do you believe there's anything to the "Coded Bible"?
From Chuck Missler;
The Hebrew Text of Genesis 38

One of the reasons that the sordid tale of Judah and Tamar has been included in the Scriptures is because this incident is included in the family tree of the Messiah.5 It is interesting that hidden within the text of Genesis 38, at 49-letter intervals, are the names of Boaz, Ruth, Obed, Jesse, and David-in chronological order ! [See figure] ; note that Hebrew goes from right to left, and the names are coded backwards.)

These names anticipate, five generations in advance, the next five generations climaxing in David, a total of ten generations. Here in the Torah we find the names of the principals of the Book of Ruth, and a delineation of their descendants leading up to the royal line. How did Moses know all this centuries before the fact? We know that Moses himself wrote the Torah: Jesus verified that very fact numerous times.6)

The presence of such features of the Biblical text is a profound demonstration of its supernatural origin. There is absolutely no way that these details could have been anticipated in advance except by Divine guidance and the control of the most subtle aspects of the recorded text-far outstripping any insights of the authors themselves. In addition to the astonishing specifics themselves, the discovery of these features underscores the confidence we may have in the precision of the text, and the overwhelming implications that it is a skillfully crafted integrated message-from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.

The unfortunate promotional sensationalism by some authors over the "Bible Codes" has caused many conservative scholars, as well as unbelieving skeptics, to disparage-and overlook-the many authentic treasures hidden underneath the Biblical text. Truly,

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the honor of kings to search them out.
Proverbs 25:2
quote:
I will follow my God who is big enough to inspire writers, copiers, and translators of the Bible to make it inspired, inerrant, and literal. I am not afraid of following such a God.



Well, I'm not either. But you are railing against non-biblical claims yet continually spew this demonstrably non-biblical claim.

You could see that if your galaxy-sized pride were not in the way.
quote:
b50m----- So, Do you believe there's anything to the "Coded Bible"?


I really don't. The original method used was to only be applied to the Hebrew text of the Torah.
It did show some interesting words or phrases sometimes.

However, the same method can be applied to any book and you will always find something. Like doing a word puzzle at random. The computer program can be run a 1000 times changing the intervals and you will find names of people and places, but I think it's all random chance.

Made for a heck of a movie though! Smiler
I don't think Gifted was referring to the movie. Although it might be good I have not seen it.

You can find a few words hidden in the Gone with the Wing novel and other books, but not on the level of what has been coded into the first five books of the Bible.

Beloved Numerologist
by Chuck Missler

Bible Codes

The numerical structure of the Bible has been studied closely, being the subject of numerous volumes in the past.1 But none are more provocative than the works of Dr. Ivan Panin.2

Ivan Panin was born in Russia on December 12, 1855. Having participated in plots against the Czar at an early age, he was exiled and, after spending some years studying in Germany, he came to the United States and entered Harvard University. After graduation in 1882, he converted from agnosticism to Christianity.

In 1890 he discovered some of the phenomenal mathematical designs underlying both the Greek text of the New Testament and the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.

He was to devote over 50 years of his life painstakingly exploring the numerical structure of the Scriptures, generating over 43,000 detailed, hand-penned pages of analysis (and exhausting his health in the process). He went on to be with the Lord in his 87th year, on October 30, 1942.

The Heptadic Structure

The recurrence of the number seven - or an exact multiple of seven - is found throughout the Bible and is widely recognized. The Sabbath on the seventh day; the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine in Egypt; the seven priests and seven trumpets marching around Jericho; the Sabbath Year of the land are well-known examples.

Also, Solomon's building the Temple for seven years, Naaman's washing in the river seven times, and the seven churches, seven lamp stands, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, seven stars, and so on in the Book of Revelation, all show the consistent use of the number seven.

But there turns out to be much more below the surface. Ivan Panin noted the amazing numerical properties of the Biblical texts - both the Greek of the New Testament and the Hebrew of the Old Testament. These are not only intriguing to discover, they also demonstrate an intricacy of design which testifies to a supernatural origin!

Vocabulary

One of the simplest - and most provocative - aspects of the Biblical text is the vocabulary used. The number of vocabulary words in a passage is normally different from the total number of words in a passage. Some words are repeated. It is easy, for example, to use a vocabulary of 500 words to write an essay of 4,000 words.

An Example

The first 17 verses of the Gospel of Matthew are a logical unit, or section, which deals with a single principal subject: the genealogy of Christ. It contains 72 Greek vocabulary words in these initial 17 verses. (The verse divisions are man's allocations for convenience, added in the 13th century.)

The number of words which are nouns is exactly 56, or 7 x 8.

The Greek word "the" occurs most frequently in the passage: exactly 56 times, or 7 x 8. Also, the number of different forms in which the article "the" occurs is exactly 7.

There are two main sections in the passage: verse 1-11, and 12-17. In the first main section, the number of Greek vocabulary words used is 49, or 7 x 7.

Why not 48, or 50?

Of these 49 words, the number of those beginning with a vowel is 28, or 7 x 4. The number of words beginning with a consonant is 21, or 7 x 3.

The total numbers of letters in these 49 words is 266, or 7 x 38 - exactly! The number of vowels among these 266 letters is 140, or 7 x 20. The number of consonants is 126, or 7 x 18 - exactly.

Of the 49 words, the number of words which occur more than once is 35, or 7 x 5. The number of words occurring only once is 14, or 7 x 2. The number of words which occur in only one form is exactly 42, or 7 x 6. The number of words appearing in more than one form is also 7.

The number of the 49 Greek vocabulary words which are nouns is 42, or 7 x 6. The number of words which are not nouns is 7. Of the nouns, 35 are proper names, or exactly 7 x 5. These 35 names are used 63 times, or 7 x 9. The number of male names is exactly 28, or 7 x 4. These male names occur 56 times or 7 x 8. The number which are not male names is 7.

Three women are mentioned - Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. The number of Greek letters in these three names is 14, 7 x 2.

The number of compound nouns is 7. The number of Greek letters in these 7 nouns is 49, or 7 x 7.

Only one city is named in this passage, Babylon, which in Greek contains exactly 7 letters.

And on it goes. To get an indication of just how unique these properties are, try the example in the inset.

Gemetria

There are even more features in the numerical structure of the words themselves. As you may know, both Hebrew and Greek uses the letters of the alphabet for numerical values. Therefore, any specific word - in either Hebrew or Greek - has a numerical value of its own by adding up the values of the letters in that particular word. The study of the numerical values of words is called gemetria.

The 72 vocabulary words add up to a gametrical value of 42,364, or 7 x 6,052. Exactly. If one Greek letter was changed, this would not happen.

The 72 words appear in 90 forms - some appear in more than one form. The numeric value of the 90 forms is 54,075, or 7 x 7,725. Exactly.

We will defer other examples of gametrical properties of the Biblical text for subsequent articles, but it becomes immediately obvious that hidden below the surface are aspects of design that cannot be accidental or just coincidence. Remember, the rabbis say that "coincidence" is not a kosher word!

Other Implications

There are words in the passage just described that occur nowhere else in the New Testament. They occur 42 times (7 x 6) and have 126 letters (7 x 18). How was this organized?

Even if Matthew contrived this characteristic into his Gospel, how could he have known that these specific words - whose sole characteristic is that they are found nowhere else in the New Testament - were not going to be used by the other writers? Unless we assume the absurd hypothesis that he had an agreement with them, he must have had the rest of the New Testament before him when he wrote his book. The Gospel of Matthew, then, must have been written last.

It so happens, however, that the Gospel of Mark exhibits the same phenomenon. It can be demonstrated that it would have had to be written "last." The same phenomenon is found in Luke. And in John, James, Peter, Jude and Paul. Each would have had to write after the other in order to contrive the vocabulary frequencies! You can demonstrate that each of the New Testament books had to have been "written last."

There is no human explanation for this incredible and precise structure. It has all been supernaturally designed. We simply gasp, sit back, and behold the skillful handiwork of the God who keeps His promises.

And we are indebted to the painstaking examinations and lifetime commitment of Dr. Ivan Panin for uncovering these amazing insights.

Isn't God - and His remarkable Word - fun?
Great stuff here. Things I have been studying about all my life.
How the Bible,as we know it came to be. The many errors in translations.
The question of why the "church" in Rome did not want the scriptures available to the lay men.
How the "power struggle" over the oldest know text cost many,their lives.
I have been kind of out of it for a few days, so I don't know how such an important subject is still under the topic of Mary?
With such a very important subject why hasn't Bill already started a new topic?
Could it be that an issue of this magnitude,could really never be solved by a forum in a small town paper? Thus would never evolve to one of those 'good question, let's follow up on my new post bla bla blo bla.
Do you mean this max,


http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News/Lat...ges/oldestbible.aspx

AHRC funding reunites the world’s oldest bible online 
 06 Jul 2009 
 
Funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council has succeeded in reuniting virtually more than 800 pages and fragments from the world’s oldest surviving Christian bible, Codex Sinaiticus.
A remarkable collaboration between scholars at institutions in the UK, Germany, Egypt, and Russia means for the first time people all around the world will be able to explore high resolution digital images of all the extant pages of the fourth-century book. Codex Sinaiticus. was written in Greek on parchment leaves by several scribes and had its text revised and corrected over the course of the following centuries.

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