Dominus Paradoxum

What do you think of this site? Does it contain any valid info, or is it junk? Because it sounds very interesting.

triplew00t

Interesting site. I vouch for it being junk though. Its another case of Bible codes and such. Of people who want to believe something looking everywhere they can to find evidence for it. Just because the site mentions numerology and greek language does not make it creditable. I personally find it to be nothing more than interesting hypothesying.

-Nero

Toto

This is not a junk Bible Code site. The writers of the Bible did practice gematria, and this is an explanation of how it worked.

But I haven't looked into this site enough to tell you how much it can explain.

Peter Kirby

The author is wrong when he makes some statements of fact, such as that "son of God" in Mark 1:1 was added after Nicaea and that the titles of the gospels weren't attached until the fourth century.

The central part of his argument concerns the 8880 value of the "raised Jesus." All these other names are alleged to be playing with the value of 8880 as factors of this number. But the author can't point to a single example in early Christian writings that have the phrase "the raised Jesus" with the value of 8880.

I only checked a couple of his additions. For "John the Baptist," the author uses ιωαννησ βαπτιστης while the Gospel of Mark 1:4 has ιωαννησ βαπτιζων instead. This suggests that the claimed numerological significance to "John the Baptist" was unknown to Mark.

I didn't look at volume two concerning Revelation because he might as well be right that the author of this apocalypse was playing with numbers; everyone knows the mark of the beast. There is also evidence for numerology elsewhere in early Christian texts, such as with the geneaologies of Matthew, the appendix to John, and the Epistle of Barnabas: "Learn therefore, children of love, concerning all things abundantly, that Abraham, who first appointed circumcision, looked forward in the spirit unto Jesus, when he circumcised having received the ordinances of three letters. For the scripture saith; And Abraham circumcised of his household eighteen males and three hundred. What then was the knowledge given unto him? Understand ye that He saith the eighteen first, and then after an interval three hundred. In the eighteen 'I' stands for ten, 'H' for eight. Here thou hast JESUS (IHSOYS). And because the cross in the 'T' was to have grace, He saith also three hundred. So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross." But the kind of number games that we see start with givens (the name of Jesus, the number 318) and try to draw connections from what is already laid out before us. This is the same kind of thing done by the author, only that the author implicitly invites us to ignore the artificial nature of the game and suppose that the numerology was the basis of the stories as an actual creative impulse when they were written.

When you see enough theorizing, you come to the conclusion that a theory, to be interesting, must also be convincing.

best,
Peter Kirby

triplew00t

One must understand that when I preach that something is junk, it is as such not ment that it lacks historicity, but that it simply is that: junk. It may be historically accurate. I will grant that. I am in no position to even take a stance on it. But as for value and truth as religion itself, I still maintain that it is useless.

-Nero

triplew00t

To clarify more, I think that the site maybe have accurate information on what some people believe or did. That is not my specialty. I'll leave that up to Kirby, as he is knowledgeable in that area. If this site is simply ment to educate on what others have thought, then all well and good. If the site is propagating the ideas themselves, then, I do still maintain, it is as false as any other religious articles.

I often forget, being new here, that I am preaching to mostly secularists to begin with, and have to catch myself, as I am used to arguing against these kinds of ideas, not as hisorically acurate, but as religiously true. Therefore, I do not directly contest that this could be true as history, that the authors may have used gematria, as Toto claims, but simply that I think the ideas they tried to express through it (or other ways) are utter bunk.

-Nero