>I have not confirmed the calculations made in the presentation of this video, but the concept is fascinating.
If the mathematical calculations are right, then, one must wonder: is this coincidence or design?
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
If you enjoyed reading this post, subscribe to my posts here.
Tags: Bible, Mathematics, Pi, Creation
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I am Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminary. I was born in Brazil. I graduated from California Baptist College, Golden Gate Baptist Seminary, The Southern Baptist Seminary, and have done additional graduate work at the Graduate Theological Union. I have pastored churches in California, Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois. I have published more than 200 articles and book reviews in English, Spanish, and Russian. My academic works have been published in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, The Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, The Holman Bible Dictionary, Jewish Bible Quarterly, Perspective in Religious Studies, The Expository Times, Biblical Illustrator, Old Testament Abstracts, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, The Journal of Biblical Literature, and Biblical Archaeologist.
BUY THE BOOK AT 40% DISCOUNT. Click here.
Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament
>I'm skeptical of things like this, but I thought I would run the numbers and see what came out. No results yet, but here's a progress report.I don't do Hebrew, but I can handle the Greek. So I pulled my interlinear New Testament off the shelf and turned to John 1:1.First thing to check: are there any textual variations? None are listed. (According to George Ricker Berry, published by Zondervan, 1958.)I typed the Greek into a spreadsheet, one letter per cell in column A.Then I located the numeric values of the letters on the web, and put the appropriate value for each letter in column B.At this point I have two obstacles. The minor one is that I'm not sure if the 3rd word from the end of John 1:1 is 'Theos' or 'Theus'. The printing in my book isn't quite clear. I'll have to check another source.The big obstacle is that I don't understand the calculation. The video says "The number of letters times the product of the letters" divided by "The number of words times the product of the words".This calculation has four terms. I understand three of them. I think."The number of letters" probably means "the sum of the values of all letters in John 1:1". "The product of the letters" probably means "the product of the values of all letters in John 1:1"."The number of words" has me stumped. It could mean the value of the first word plus the value of the second word, etc. En(55) + arche(709) + en(58) and so on. This would be the same as "The number of letters". If it's the same, why is it described differently? (If anyone is wondering why 'en' has different values, the first 'en' has an epsilon and the second has an eta.)There are 17 words in John 1:1. Maybe that's the number? But that's so different from all the other terms that it doesn't seem right.The last term, "The product of words", would be the value of the first word times the value of the second word, etc. En(55) * arche(709) * en(58) and so on.I'll get back to this when I have an idea of how to proceed. Suggestions, anyone?
LikeLike
>Brian,Thank you for your effort. Like you, I am also a skeptical on things like this. The reason I posted it, it was because I found it interesting.I do not know enough math to solve the problem. Also, like you, I thought the directions were not very clear.If you find the solution, let me know. I appreciate your work.Claude Mariottini
LikeLike
>Hi,you shouldn't be skeptical over this one. The formula is right. I don't know where the Youtube's movie got the formula but it had been documented for years on Vernon Jenkins website.http://homepage.virgin.net/vernon.jenkins/First_Princs.htmThere are so much mathematical stuff related to Genesis 1:1 that one wonder if we will ever see the end of it. I guess Vernon webpage will keep you busy reading for a few nights. Yves
LikeLike
>After some Googling I found a website which gives a fuller explanation of how to do the calculation. It's the Vernon Jenkins website mentioned by Yves in the comment above.Mr. Jenkins and I arrived at the same raw numbers but my results and his are completely different. The calculations simply don't work out the way the video claims.
LikeLike
>Brian,Thank you for your comment. I take your word that the calculation does not work. I was skeptical about the numbers and remain so even after looking at Jenkins' calculation.Claude Mariottini
LikeLike
>Dr. Mariottini, why would you take the word from someone who says that the calculation doesn't work and ignore the word of someone who say it does? I did the calculation connecting Exodus 1:1 and PI and I got 3.141554 * 10E17 (the real value of pi being 3.14159…..). I have no raison to doubt Brian's sincerity but it is obvious to me that he is not counting correctly. He will never get the right answer with a comment like (The number of letters" probably means "the sum of the values of all letters '). Well 'the number of letters' doesn't mean that at all, the number of letters means nothing else than the number of letter in the verse. In the case of Gen 1:1the number of letters is 28, and the number of words is 7.As for you Dr Mariottini if you are so skeptical about those numbers why don't you try to resolve the formula by yourself? Following Vernon Jenkins's walk through to obtain the value of PI is relatively simple. I am convinced that once you have validated yourself that you can obtain PI from Gen 1:1 you will be more curious and more receptive about other Jenkins's discoveries. I am particularly amazed by what has been found about the breastplate that was wear by the highpriest. See http://www.whatabeginning.com/Breastplate/Oracle/P.htm Regards, Yves.
LikeLike