The Bible Code
The Prophet
In his newly published book, _The Bible Code_, author Michael Drosnin
reveals astounding predictions of, among other things, the Holocaust,
the assasination of Rabin, and a yet to be cataclysmic earthquake in
Los Angeles (well that's a no brainer -Ed). The quake is predicted in
the year 2010 but by then Drosnin will have already pocketed his profit.
An Israeli mathematician, Eliyahu Rips, challenges the validity of the
predicting the future by codes embeded in text but supposedly agrees
that there is a poorly understood code buried in the Hebrew Scriptures.
He also states the Bible has predicted future events. In fact it was
Rips who found the code by running a computer analysis on the sequence
of 304,805 letters after removing the spacing between words.
Drosnin seems to equivocate in that he says absolute certainties are not
coded but possibilities are as though they were meant to be warnings. He
also states that codes cannot be found in other literature, such as Moby
Dick, yet I have heard claims of these types of predictions being found
in the Koran.
The author goes on to say that discovery of these codes awaited the advent
of the computer (duh -Ed) hence they were meant for our age which implies
to me that he believes the hoofbeats of the approaching Apocalypse draw
nigh. Yet he also claims to be a non religious Jew who does not believe
in God. What gives?
I suppose a complex predictive code could theoretically be buried in a
long text - kind of like a fractal but using letters. And I suppose such
a code could be the signature of a higher entity. But maybe humans tend
to find codes where non exist. And if one did exist, how would we really
know that the discoverer was not a crackpot?
This isn't the first Bible code I've heard of but it is the most complex.
Are these codes compatible, I wonder, or do they compete in a mutually
exclusive way? And how do they analyze text for such codes? Can any
of this work be taken seriously?
The Prophet
Leon
> This isn't the first Bible code I've heard of but it is the most complex.
> Are these codes compatible, I wonder, or do they compete in a mutually
> exclusive way? And how do they analyze text for such codes? Can any
> of this work be taken seriously?
>
> The Prophet
>
Check out http://www.cybermail.net/~codes/
for some texts on codes in the Torah.
gl...@glass.cv.lexington.ibm.com
>Are these codes compatible, I wonder, or do they compete in a mutually
>exclusive way? And how do they analyze text for such codes? Can any
>of this work be taken seriously?
>
>The Prophet
The burying of messages in otherwise innoouous plain text is
a well known cryptographic technique, although it's usually
regarded as insecure since anyone who knows the algorithm
can break it. The advantage of it is that if someone
doesn't suspect the message is present, they may overlook
it. Of course, one of the other many disadvantages is that
it's usually difficult to embed any significant amount of
information in something that looks like plain text (e.g.,
the information density is relatively low). Additionally,
transcription errors can easily garble the message.
For a good review of all types of cryptography, consult
Bruce Schneier's book "Applied Cryptography" (Hard-cover
ISBN 0-471-12845-7, Paper ISBN 0-471-11709-9, John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., 1996).
One interesting fact is that normal English text contains
about one bit of information per character. Thus, there is
plenty of redundancy which could be exploited, given the
appropriate algorithm. Of course, other languages may
deviate from this.
Dave
P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I do not speak for them.
Yaakov Menken
PRESS RELEASE
Jerusalem
June 4, 1997
Hidden Bible Codes Researchers Condemn Michael Drosnin
"Any attempts to predict the future based on hidden Torah codes are
worthless" (World-Renowned Professor of Mathematics Eliyahu Rips)
(Jerusalem, June 4, 1997) The Israeli research team which uncovered
the scientific basis for the hidden codes in the Book of Genesis
categorically rejected attempts to predict the future based on these
codes. They warned against being taken in by the sensational claims
in Michael Drosnin controversial book, Bible Codes.
All attempts to extract messages from Torah Codes or to make
predictions based on them are futile and of no value, said the
world-renowned Hebrew University Professor of Mathematics, Eliyahu
Rips at a press conference in Jerusalem today. The only conclusion
that can be drawn from the scientific research regarding the Torah
Codes is that they exist and that they are not a mere coincidence.
Professor Rips set out with colleague physicist Doron Witztum to
research seemingly unique patterns encoded in the Book of Genesis.
Scanning the text by computer using a scientific method called
Equidistant Letter Sequences (ELS), Witztum and Rips proved that by
skipping an equal number of letters in the Hebrew text of Genesis,
significant clusters of related codes existed that were not due to
chance. They showed that hidden in the text is very detailed
information about many historical events such as the Holocaust, the
French revolution and the Oslo accords.
Following a rigorous six-year peer review process, the codes research
results were published in the scholarly journal Statistical Science.
More recently, the results were duplicated and expanded by Harold
Gans, former US Defense Department senior cryptologist.
Codes don't reveal any secret messages or prophecies about whom to
marry or who will win the NBA championship, said Witztum was the first
one to investigate the possibility of divining the future through
these codes. Following logical and empirical tests, I found
incontrovertible evidence proving its impossible to predict the future
with the hidden codes.
Drosnin claim that he predicted the horrible assassination of the late
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has captured the public imagination.
Drosnin showed Rips what Drosnin considered the hidden prophecy.
Unfortunately, Drosnin like many others at the time guessed something
terrible might happen, said Rips. But, it is scientifically impossible
to make any predictions with codes.
Yaakov Menken
Statement from Harold Gans, Mathematician, N.S.A.
I have reviewed the book "The Bible Code" by Michael Drosnin.
1.The book states that codes were found in the book of Genesis by
Doron Witztum and Eliyahu Rips. An experiment was performed using
scientific protocols specified by independent reviewers. The results
of the experiment provided extremely strong statistical evidence for
the existence of the encoding of great Jewish sages' names and dates
of birth and death in the Hebrew text of the book of Genesis. This is
all true.
2. The book states that I undertook an independent evaluation of the
Witztum - Rips experiment. I duplicated their experiment and provided
corroboration of their results. This is correct.
3. The book states that I also performed a new experiment, using the
same methodology of Witztum and Rips, in which I found that the sages'
names were also encoded in Genesis with their respective cities of
birth and death. The statistical results obtained were even stronger
than that obtained for the first experiment. This is all true.
4. The book also indicates that in spite of concerted efforts by many,
no fatal mathematical flaw has been uncovered in the Witztum - Rips
experiment. This too, is correct.
5. The book states that the codes in the Torah can be used to predict
future events. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no scientific or
mathematical basis for such a statement, and the reasoning used to
come to such a conclusion in the book is logically flawed. While it is
true that some historical events have been shown to be encoded in the
Book of Genesis in certain configurations, it is absolutely not true
that every similar configuration of "encoded" words necessarily
represents a potential historical event. In fact, quite the opposite
is true: most such configurations will be quite random and are
expected to occur in any text of sufficient length. Mr. Drosnin states
that his "prediction" of the assasination of Prime Minister Rabin is
"proof" that the "Bible Code" can be used to predict the future. A
single success, regardless of how spectacular, or even several such
"successful" predictions proves absolutely nothing unless the
predictions are made and evaluated under carefully controlled
conditions. Any respectable scientist knows that "anecdotal" evidence
never proves anything.
6. A plethora of books have appeared over the last several months,
concerning the codes. Unless the work is reviewed by qualified
scientists or mathematicians, the reader accepts such a book at his
own risk.
7. After exhaustive analysis, I have reached the conclusion that the
only information that can be derived from the codes discovered in
Genesis is that they exist, and the probability that they are mere
coincidence is vanishingly small.
Harold Gans,
June 3, 1997
Yaakov Menken
Statement by Doron Witztum
A. People often ask why, over the last 12 years, I have spent so much
time in the field of hidden codes in the Torah, instead of my original
field of interest-modern physics and general relativity. The discovery
we have made concerning hidden patterns in the Torah is ultimately
much more far-reaching and significant. The repercussions of our
discovery touch on the very nature of human existence. It can be
looked at as the same feeling Robinson Crusoe had when he first
discovered the tracks in the sand, that he wasn't alone on the island.
We have called this press conference as the researchers who did the
original research on the topic of hidden codes. We will be focusing on
three issues:
1) How, using standard scientific and statistical tools, we found that
details of ancient and modern history are encoded in the original
Hebrew text of the Torah. 2) To discuss the many books and works that
have been published related to this field that have no scientific
basis, and are therefore meaningless 3) As the researchers, we will
explain why it is impossible to use codes to predict the future.
B. A brief overview of the development of codes research
1. According to mystical sources in Jewish tradition, the Torah can be
read and understood on many levels, including the level of a "hidden
text." It is composed of words spelled out by skipping equal numbers
of letters through the original Hebrew text. We call this phenomenon
ELS- Equidistant Letter Sequences. The problem with measuring the
significance of what we find is that ELSs will certainly appear in any
text, and any word may appear many times at many skip distances.
2. Twelve years ago, I developed a method to see if this hidden text
could be scientifically and objectively validated. The idea is as
follows: It is a natural property of any text that words that are
conceptually related are likely to appear in the same area of the
text. Therefore we decided to see if the ELSs of related words also
tend to appear in the same area of the text of the Torah. In order for
the convergence of two ELSs to be considered successful, we developed
two criteria. a) A close proximity of two ELSs b) That the ELSs that
appear are ELSs with a relatively short skip distances between the
letters, compared to other ELSs of that word.
*For example: hammer and anvil. Figure 1
3. Professor Eliyahu Rips developed the mathematical system for
measuring the statistical significance of the results. Yoav Rosenberg
took Eliyahu's ideas and developed an appropriate computer program to
carry out these experiments.
4. In 1986, an extensive experiment was conducted which checked the
overall tendency of convergence of a large list of pairs of words:
names of famous personalities and their dates of birth and death. The
experiment succeeded. A paper describing the results was sent to a
scientific publication, and this became the beginning point of a
rigorous six year process of review and analysis until it was finally
published. Several referees checked the work and asked for further
testing. One of these involved re-running the experiment with a
completely fresh set of data, and also checking other control texts.
This was done and the research passed all tests with very highly
significant results. The article was finally published by Statistical
Science in 1994.
5. Harold Gans, formerly a senior cryptologic mathematician at the
U.S. Department of Defense, conducted an independent experiment to
test the phenomenon that we discovered, using a different set of data.
His experiment also succeeded with highly significant results. He sent
his paper for publication to a scientific journal. Their response was
"This phenomenon has already been scientifically established, so your
work is just another example of the phenomenon."
6. We have conducted seven other experiments that are available as
pre-prints.
7. At present, I am completing a book that gives a true view of this
fantastic phenomenon, and that will describe not only the ten
experiments I mentioned, but also many other successfull experiments
which reveal a vast spectrum of subjects, ancient and modern.
C. Our comments on the book of Michael Drosnin, and other similar
books that have been published 1. On the one hand, we are happy to see
publicity for the phenomenon of Torah codes 2. On the other hand,
there is a danger that the entire credibility of codes research will
be destroyed. Mr. Drosnin's work employs no scientific methodology. No
distinction is made between statistically valid codes, and accidental
appearances, which can be found in any book. For example, Drosnin's
"code" of the comet Shoemaker Levy crashing into Jupiter is
statistically meaningless. Such a code can be found by accident in 1
out of any 3 books checked!
2. What is the danger of research done with no scientific parameters?
For example, we know that the field of health involves systematic
rigorous testing of new medicines. If someone freely distributes a
medicine that has undergone no scientific testing, there are two areas
of damage: 1) The credibility of useful and helpful medicines will be
severely compromised. 2) People may end up using useless medicines in
place of helpful ones.
In codes research, we are dealing with a similar situation: 1) The
credibility of serious codes research will be compromised by amateurs
whose "discoveries" are scientifically meaningless 2) People will
exploit the Torah to present all kinds of counterfeit proofs, by
finding "hidden messages", that bolster their ideology.
We have a very important and valuable phenomenon that has been
discovered. It's a scientific discovery that can really help us get a
better understanding of the nature of our existence. Rather than have
it watered down with people's personal exploitation or
misunderstanding, we should be investing more in serious research and
understanding of the phenomenon.
In summary, one who wishes to show legitimate examples of Torah codes
should at least follow two basic rules: A. Use mathematical tools that
can provide a level of statistical measurement between the minimal
occurrences of ELSs. B. Use an objectively chosen list of words to
look for:
I will now show an example of what I mean by an objective list. This
example has never been shown before publicly:
Figure 2
The process is to take one central word, find it's minimal occurrence
in the text, and then construct a tableau based on it. In this case,
our topic is the death camp Auschwitz. We take an objectively chosen
list of related words. In this case, we are looking for the names of
the subcamps that comprised the Auschwitz complex. We make a tableau
based on the words "of Auschwitz". With our tableau set, the computer
will systematically look throughout the text for a minimal occurrence
of each of the sub-camps. Any one of these words can appear anywhere
in the text of Genesis. We find something very unexpected- that they
consistently appear in the area of the words "of Auschwitz."
D. The Future: Mr. Drosnin's book is based on a false claim. It is
impossible to use Torah codes to predict the future.
I myself as the original researcher of the phenomenon of Torah codes,
investigated thoroughly the question of predicting the future. I
reached the conclusion that it is impossible. I saw this through
experimentation and also as a simple point of logic. There are several
reasons why it's impossible. I will give the most basic reason. In
general, we always have difficulty understanding a text where we don't
have any syntax or punctuation. In the plain Hebrew text of the Torah,
without punctuation, I could easily read the ten commandments as
telling me to steal and murder. There's a verse that describes Moses
being commandment to bring incense. I could easily read it as a
commandment to use drugs. All we have is a few isolated encoded words
of a hidden text. Maybe we're missing some very critical words. It's
literally impossible to learn a coherent story out of the
juxtaposition of a few words that may be somehow related.
Additionally, just like there is a code that Rabin will be
assassinated, I also found a code saying that Churchill will be
assassinated!
Figure 3 "Churchill will be assassinated"
Even regarding past events, there are ELSs of words that appear near
each other that have no relation to each other. It is therefore
unwise, and one could say irresponsible, to make "predictions" based
on ELSs of words appearing near each other.
In summary, we see that predicting the future is impossible. We see
that by publicizing books and works of examples of codes that have no
scientific basis, it ruins the integrity of serious research. And
finally, we see that the scientific phenomenon of Torah codes is a
real one, and is one that deserves serious attention.
Doron Witztum
Jerusalem
June 4, 1997
Libertarius
In <5n99cc$dd...@sunshine.atl.com> pro...@solomons.temple.com (The
===>Of course. It is a serious manifestation of human ingenuity
and ability to hack away series of Hebrew letters of the
alphabet until something pops.
It is easier with space-free Hebrew script, because it lacks
any vowels, so it can be sliced many different ways and a
WRDCNMNLTSFTHNGS (word can mean lots of things).
Libertarius
Joe Myers
att...@ix.netcom.com(Libertarius) wrote:
>===>Of course. It is a serious manifestation of human ingenuity
> and ability to hack away series of Hebrew letters of the
> alphabet until something pops.
> It is easier with space-free Hebrew script, because it lacks
> any vowels, so it can be sliced many different ways and a
> WRDCNMNLTSFTHNGS (word can mean lots of things).
And it reminds me of the "Number Man" who used to call up Larry King's
overnight show with numerological explanations for all sorts of
just-happened news events. Usually they were on the order of "Waco
has four letters, and the type of truck Tim McVeigh drove to the
federal building in OKC was a 'Ford,' __ALSO__ FOUR LETTERS!!!!"
I've heard discussions about the Biblical code on Christian radio
programs . . . .they all claim that no other piece of literature
reveals the kind of information of the code of the Torrah. They
ignore all the supposed correlations found in Shakespeare, the
Gettysburg Address, and (for all I know) this post.
It's a scam. Trust me.
M. Scott or D. Everard
You'll have to do better than that! Just because you say it's a scam
doesn't make it one. Why should I trust you?
Let's see your scientific work on the subject. THEN, maybe I'll trust you.
Meanwhile... I think I'll continue to follow this fascinating story.
Regards,
M. Scott Everard
da...@taic.net
In soc.culture.jewish Yaakov Menken <men...@torah.org> wrote:
: All attempts to extract messages from Torah Codes or to make
: predictions based on them are futile and of no value, said the
: world-renowned Hebrew University Professor of Mathematics, Eliyahu
: Rips at a press conference in Jerusalem today. The only conclusion
: that can be drawn from the scientific research regarding the Torah
: Codes is that they exist and that they are not a mere coincidence.
The only proposition more difficult to swallow than the one put
forth by Drosnin, that there is significant information encoded concerning
past and future events, is the proposition that even though they are
there, and significant, one cannot look at the prior to an event taking
place and draw useful information from them.
Either information is there above a statistically relevant
criteria, or it is not. If it is, then scanning in advance should yield
relevant information. If it is not, then it won't. But you cannot say that
you cannot see and use it earlier.
The Rabin murderer's name was found afterwards. But it could have
been seen beforehand. Now, it's probably also true that there are a few
other names other than Amir encoded next to Rabin.
So this is my point, as an example: If there are so many, that it
is statistically irrelevant to point to one ahead of time, then there is
no meaning to the code. In such a case it is wrong to conclude relevancy
by finding the name Amir after the fact. If, on the other hand, there are
not that many, then dredging up the few should be useful.
Either it's one thing, or it's not. Not both ways.
da...@taic.net
In soc.culture.jewish Yaakov Menken <men...@torah.org> wrote:
: In codes research, we are dealing with a similar situation: 1) The
: credibility of serious codes research will be compromised by amateurs
: whose "discoveries" are scientifically meaningless 2) People will
: exploit the Torah to present all kinds of counterfeit proofs, by
: finding "hidden messages", that bolster their ideology.
: We have a very important and valuable phenomenon that has been
: discovered. It's a scientific discovery that can really help us get a
: better understanding of the nature of our existence. Rather than have
: it watered down with people's personal exploitation or
: misunderstanding, we should be investing more in serious research and
: understanding of the phenomenon.
Here is my proposition: The ability of a text to have predictive
value goes hand-in-hand with statistical relevancy. If I cannot look at a
text *before* an event, and find statistically meaningful and relevant
information with predictive value, then there can be no statistically
relevant "investigation" of such text after the fact to find hidden
meanings. Not with any degree of intellectual honesty.
For any given searched term, any search in text near that term
must have equal information and meaning both before and after the event.
If I search for "Yitzchak Rabin" and see "Assassin who will assassinate",
but I do not spot anything else relevant before the assassination, I
should *not* be able to look at the text after the event has happened, and
find "Amir" in there, equidistant or not.
On the other hand, if I see Rabin, and I see Assassin, and I then
say to myself : "Self, let's see if the name of the person is here". And
then I look. If I then find, say, 200 different Hebrew names, and conclude
that there are so many present that there's nothing useful (i.e. your
statement about "cannot predict") then THE EXACT SAME FORCE OF STATISTICS
prevents me from going and looking after Rabin is killed, and finding the
name "Amir" and saying "Hey, look, something relevant, but I couldn't
figure it out before". No way. If I can't figure it out before as
something statistically relevant, then I should not be able to honestly
"find" it afterwards.
If there's no predictive value, there is no statistically
meaningful "afer-the-fact" related information.
: I myself as the original researcher of the phenomenon of Torah codes,
: investigated thoroughly the question of predicting the future. I
: reached the conclusion that it is impossible. I saw this through
: experimentation and also as a simple point of logic. There are several
: reasons why it's impossible. I will give the most basic reason. In
: general, we always have difficulty understanding a text where we don't
: have any syntax or punctuation. In the plain Hebrew text of the Torah,
: without punctuation, I could easily read the ten commandments as
: telling me to steal and murder. There's a verse that describes Moses
: being commandment to bring incense. I could easily read it as a
: commandment to use drugs. All we have is a few isolated encoded words
: of a hidden text. Maybe we're missing some very critical words. It's
: literally impossible to learn a coherent story out of the
: juxtaposition of a few words that may be somehow related.
And if you are right, then that is *PRECISELY* why there would be
no meaningful code present. If you need events that have happened to
happen in order to construct (and the way you've just put it, the word
"construct" is the right word) a "relevant" text.
Think about this, and please respond meaningfully.
da...@taic.net
: 1.The book states that codes were found in the book of Genesis by
: Doron Witztum and Eliyahu Rips. An experiment was performed using
: scientific protocols specified by independent reviewers. The results
: of the experiment provided extremely strong statistical evidence for
: the existence of the encoding of great Jewish sages' names and dates
: of birth and death in the Hebrew text of the book of Genesis. This is
: all true.
: 3. The book states that I also performed a new experiment, using the
: same methodology of Witztum and Rips, in which I found that the sages'
: names were also encoded in Genesis with their respective cities of
: birth and death. The statistical results obtained were even stronger
: than that obtained for the first experiment. This is all true.
: 5. The book states that the codes in the Torah can be used to predict
: future events. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no scientific or
: mathematical basis for such a statement, and the reasoning used to
: come to such a conclusion in the book is logically flawed.
On the contrary. I suggest that there is a very close relationship
between finding statistically relevant information and being able to
predict the future.
Say the father of number 20 on the list of sages had had a
computer and searched for his son's name. And found the name, and the
city. What is your basis for saying that this is not significant? Or #21?
Or #22? Or #23?
David E. Goldman
Yashar Koach! The concept of predi...@taic.net wrote:
>
> In soc.culture.jewish Yaakov Menken <men...@torah.org> wrote:
>
> : credibility of serious codes research will be compromised by amateurs
> : whose "discoveries" are scientifically meaningless 2) People will
> : exploit the Torah to present all kinds of counterfeit proofs, by
> : finding "hidden messages", that bolster their ideology.
>
> : We have a very important and valuable phenomenon that has been
> : discovered. It's a scientific discovery that can really help us get a
> : better understanding of the nature of our existence. Rather than have
> : it watered down with people's personal exploitation or
> : misunderstanding, we should be investing more in serious research and
> : understanding of the phenomenon.
>
> value goes hand-in-hand with statistical relevancy. If I cannot look at a
> text *before* an event, and find statistically meaningful and relevant
> information with predictive value, then there can be no statistically
> relevant "investigation" of such text after the fact to find hidden
> meanings. Not with any degree of intellectual honesty.
>
> For any given searched term, any search in text near that term
> must have equal information and meaning both before and after the event.
> If I search for "Yitzchak Rabin" and see "Assassin who will assassinate",
> but I do not spot anything else relevant before the assassination, I
> should *not* be able to look at the text after the event has happened, and
> find "Amir" in there, equidistant or not.
>
> On the other hand, if I see Rabin, and I see Assassin, and I then
> say to myself : "Self, let's see if the name of the person is here". And
> then I look. If I then find, say, 200 different Hebrew names, and conclude
> that there are so many present that there's nothing useful (i.e. your
> statement about "cannot predict") then THE EXACT SAME FORCE OF STATISTICS
> prevents me from going and looking after Rabin is killed, and finding the
> name "Amir" and saying "Hey, look, something relevant, but I couldn't
> figure it out before". No way. If I can't figure it out before as
> something statistically relevant, then I should not be able to honestly
> "find" it afterwards.
>
> If there's no predictive value, there is no statistically
> meaningful "afer-the-fact" related information.
>
> : investigated thoroughly the question of predicting the future. I
> : reached the conclusion that it is impossible. I saw this through
> : experimentation and also as a simple point of logic. There are several
> : reasons why it's impossible. I will give the most basic reason. In
> : general, we always have difficulty understanding a text where we don't
> : have any syntax or punctuation. In the plain Hebrew text of the Torah,
> : without punctuation, I could easily read the ten commandments as
> : telling me to steal and murder. There's a verse that describes Moses
> : being commandment to bring incense. I could easily read it as a
> : commandment to use drugs. All we have is a few isolated encoded words
> : of a hidden text. Maybe we're missing some very critical words. It's
> : literally impossible to learn a coherent story out of the
> : juxtaposition of a few words that may be somehow related.
>
> no meaningful code present. If you need events that have happened to
> happen in order to construct (and the way you've just put it, the word
> "construct" is the right word) a "relevant" text.
>
got famous because of Rabin. But interpreting codes can lead to a
myriad different opinions. The Torah contains everything.. But the
objective scientifically-based discoveries of past events are much more
meaningful than these predictions. After all, maybe the murderer who
shall murder -- Yitzchak Rabin -- could be interpreted as saying he was
both headed for murder and was a murderer as part of the Zionist cabal
turning Judaism on its head. Hence interpretive predictions are a waste
of time...
Yaakov Menken
On 8 Jun 1997 03:44:33 GMT, da...@taic.net wrote:
> Here is my proposition: The ability of a text to have predictive
>value goes hand-in-hand with statistical relevancy. If I cannot look at a
>text *before* an event, and find statistically meaningful and relevant
>information with predictive value, then there can be no statistically
>relevant "investigation" of such text after the fact to find hidden
>meanings. Not with any degree of intellectual honesty.
No, you have entirely missed the point, I'm afraid. Let's say I find
"datataic" encoded near the word "Moshiach" (Messiah), and the date
9Sivan5757. Now, does that mean you are the Messiah, and will be
revealed in about 6 days? Does it mean that you will open Moshiach's
Bar and Grill in 6 days? Or is it not talking about you at all??
Answer: we don't know, and we can't know, and the words have no
predictive value. Please read those releases I posted more carefully,
and you will see this explained in detail. As Doron Witztum wrote, he
found something he _could_ have presented as a code predicting
Churchill's assassination!
But after the fact, it is certainly appropriate to go back and do
research as was done by Rips, Witztum and Rosenberg. What they
discovered was a pattern whose likelihood of chance appearance was
vanishingly small. This wasn't presented through hokus-pocus
blind-my-eyes presentations of codes without statistical value, but
through serious research presented in the statistics community. This
sort of research certainly does not depend upon the ability to predict
the future.
YM
mig
On 7 Jun 1997 22:09:40 GMT, eve...@infi.net (M. Scott or D. Everard)
wrote:
>You'll have to do better than that! Just because you say it's a scam
>doesn't make it one. Why should I trust you?
>Let's see your scientific work on the subject. THEN, maybe I'll trust you.
>Meanwhile... I think I'll continue to follow this fascinating story.
>Regards,
>M. Scott Everard
If you do a search on the CNN transcripts page you'll probably dig up
the story on the Hebrew version of this ancient routine I saw this
week. (At least the Hebrew variation can claim some history due to
age-old arguments about the spacing (lack thereof) in the original
texts.)
A mathematician pointed out that with a document as long and varied as
the Torah, for example, the chances of coming up with a given 8-word
sentence, especially without having to observe grammar rules ("Leader
killed mad man from same tribe." etc.) was a rather unimpressive 1 in
3. Basically, if you took the entire run of Batman comics and started
punching up sequences with computers looking for words you could do
the same thing.
Even sillier, the man who "discovered" the Rabin assassination
prediction said that "all possibilities are contained, but only some
of them will occur." Give me my trusty Magic Eight-Ball anytime.
("Future cloudy, try again.")
To further illustrate the point, if you take the second letter from
the fifth word in every sentence in my post, you'll find a secret
message.
saludos, mig "It's magic! Now give me some money."
-----
"It is a sure sign that a culture has reached a dead
end when it is no longer intrigued by its myths."
Greil Marcus
-----
Michael Greengard
mig@satlink[dot]com
da...@taic.net
: sort of research certainly does not depend upon the ability to predict
: the future.
I will modify my statements to a certain degree.
I will now admit that there *is* a certain category of information
which can demonstrate that there is something relevant there, even though
one cannot, beforehand, use it predictively. For example, the example you
gave.
Before I lived, the phrase "datatiac" would be totally meaningless
gibberish, if one did a search for the phrase "posteraboutbiblecodes".
Even if it cut right through that phrase, it would be deemed random noise.
Only after the fact, after I posted, would this be something significant.
I agree.
However, there are still a whole lot of categories of information
which seem "really really relevant" after the fact, but if they are not
spottable before the fact, are meaningless. Like the "Amir" situation. For
even though one finds the name "Amir" next to the Rabin assassination
phrases, if one also finds 200 other Hebrew names, then this find is
nothing. Not useful before or after. However, for example, if one finds
the phrase "Sus cachol" next to the Rabin Assassination phrasings, even
though this phrase is totally meaningless and useless to someone seeing it
(if he had a computer) 200 years ago, if it turns out that the assassin of
Rabin fired while traveling in a blue Chevrolet, then this is an example
of something highly significant and relevant after the fact, even though
useless and irrelevant before the fact (no predictive value).
Yaakov Menken
On 8 Jun 1997 17:27:58 GMT, da...@taic.net wrote:
> However, there are still a whole lot of categories of information
>which seem "really really relevant" after the fact, but if they are not
>spottable before the fact, are meaningless. Like the "Amir" situation. For
>even though one finds the name "Amir" next to the Rabin assassination
>phrases, if one also finds 200 other Hebrew names, then this find is
>nothing. Not useful before or after. However, for example, if one finds
>the phrase "Sus cachol" next to the Rabin Assassination phrasings, even
>though this phrase is totally meaningless and useless to someone seeing it
>(if he had a computer) 200 years ago, if it turns out that the assassin of
>Rabin fired while traveling in a blue Chevrolet, then this is an example
>of something highly significant and relevant after the fact, even though
>useless and irrelevant before the fact (no predictive value).
Now here, I think you'll find yourself in complete agreement with the
statisticians whose words I posted. _None_ of them believe that
references to Amir or murderer around Rabin have any demonstrable
relevance.
The actual stastical study, otoh, carefully laid out a hypothesis in
advance, and tested against a null hypothesis, and came up with
(honestly) phenomenal results. These _were_ demonstrated to be
statistically relevant, even though the whole business remains without
predictive value for the future.
YM
BlackJack
In article <5ncm74$atf$1...@nw001.infi.net>, eve...@infi.net says...
> In article <5nce8p$h...@nntp02.primenet.com>, boo...@primenet.com (Joe Myers) says:
> >
> >att...@ix.netcom.com(Libertarius) wrote:
> >>===>Of course. It is a serious manifestation of human ingenuity
> >> and ability to hack away series of Hebrew letters of the
> >> alphabet until something pops.
> >
> >> It is easier with space-free Hebrew script, because it lacks
> >> any vowels, so it can be sliced many different ways and a
> >> WRDCNMNLTSFTHNGS (word can mean lots of things).
> >
> >And it reminds me of the "Number Man" who used to call up Larry King's
> >overnight show with numerological explanations for all sorts of
> >just-happened news events. Usually they were on the order of "Waco
> >has four letters, and the type of truck Tim McVeigh drove to the
> >federal building in OKC was a 'Ford,' __ALSO__ FOUR LETTERS!!!!"
> >
> >I've heard discussions about the Biblical code on Christian radio
> >programs . . . .they all claim that no other piece of literature
> >reveals the kind of information of the code of the Torrah. They
> >ignore all the supposed correlations found in Shakespeare, the
> >Gettysburg Address, and (for all I know) this post.
> >
> >It's a scam. Trust me.
> >
>
> doesn't make it one. Why should I trust you?
> Let's see your scientific work on the subject. THEN, maybe I'll trust you.
> Meanwhile... I think I'll continue to follow this fascinating story.
> Regards,
> M. Scott Everard
>
The article in Newsweek about the book illustrated that, if you try hard
enough, you can find apparently meaningful phrases using the skip-code
technique in almost any body of text. For example, they describe how a
mathematician in Australia did a skip code search on the Law of the Sea
treaty and found the phrases "hear the law of the sea" and "safe UN ocean
convention to enclose tuna". He also found 59 words related to Chanukah
in the Hebrew translation of "War and Peace", the odds against which were
calculated to be more than a quadrillion to one (that's
1,000,000,000,000,000 to 1). Are we therefore supposed to infer that the
writers of the Law of the Sea treaty and Tolstoy both were divinely
inspired to code messages in their works? Hardly. It's the same
phenomenon that causes people to see images of Jesus in their living
room's wood paneling or in the condensation on the side of a building:
the human brain's hardwired instinct to look for meaningful patterns even
in random data, and the wishful thinking of the people doing the looking.
BlackJack
David Ullrich
da...@taic.net wrote:
> [...]
Or to put it another way,consider the following text:
: In codes research, we are dealing with a similar situation: 1) The
: credibility of serious codes research will be compromised by amateurs
: whose "discoveries" are scientifically meaningless 2) People will
: exploit the Torah to present all kinds of counterfeit proofs, by
: finding "hidden messages", that bolster their ideology.
: We have a very important and valuable phenomenon that has been
: discovered. It's a scientific discovery that can really help us get a
: better understanding of the nature of our existence. Rather than have
: it watered down with people's personal exploitation or
: misunderstanding, we should be investing more in serious research and
: understanding of the phenomenon.
I find the code "bll" here, uniformly spaced. Choose a vowel and insert
it where appropriate.
(To be explicit, characters number 116, 116+65, and 116+65+65
spell "bll". Here of course since it's contemporary text I'm including
the spaces between words, and I'm using CRLF as a line terminator in
counting the characters, because that's the way Bill Gates does it.
I guess the vowel I had in mind was "i". I'm not afraid to make
predictions: I predict on the basis of the message I find encoded
here that Bill Gates is going to take over the world some time in
the next 65 + 65 + 65 days. We'll see.)
--
David Ullrich
?his ?s ?avid ?llrich's ?ig ?ile
(Someone undeleted it for me...)
mei...@erols.com
>I have reviewed the book "The Bible Code" by Michael Drosnin.
snipped all but Genesis.
>1.The book states that codes were found in the book of Genesis by
>of birth and death in the Hebrew text of the book of Genesis. This is
>names were also encoded in Genesis with their respective cities of
>Book of Genesis in certain configurations, it is absolutely not true
>Genesis is that they exist, and the probability that they are mere
They have been doing this for a decade now. Why is only Genesis
tested, when the same tests could be run again on the whole Torah with
so little effort?.
I miss many posts so please e-mail
if you want me to see your answer.
B'tsedek tishpot amitecho
You shall judge your neighbor
favorably. Lev 19:15
Chris Grace
Joe Myers (boo...@primenet.com) wrote:
: I've heard discussions about the Biblical code on Christian radio
: programs . . . .they all claim that no other piece of literature
: reveals the kind of information of the code of the Torrah. They
: ignore all the supposed correlations found in Shakespeare, the
: Gettysburg Address, and (for all I know) this post.
There are a number of books that claim there are codes in the Dead Sea
Scrolls, but they are not the sort of codes you are writing about. The
authors claim that there is a large amount of *jargon* in the dead sea
scrolls, so that when read by the uninitiated they seem to mean one thing,
but a different meaning is revealed to the initiates. Thus it is claimed
that references to 'Galilee','Jerusalem', etc do not relate to the actual
places of those names, but rather to specific locations in the Essene's
settlement, so when the scrolls say 'Jesus went down to Galilee' they
really mean 'Jesus walked to the left hand corner of the compound, next to
the karzi'. I believe this way of interpreting the scrolls is called
'Peshers' but I've lost significant quantities of brain cells lately so
might be wrong. However, both the books I have read claim that the
existence of this jargon encryption system is well known to scholars of
early Jewish religious literature.
--
Chris 'fufas' Grace Somewhere south of the equator and north of antarctica
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Mon, 9 Jun 1997 03:04:24 GMT
ch...@transdata.co.nz (Chris Grace) posted:
>There are a number of books that claim there are codes in the Dead Sea
>Scrolls, but they are not the sort of codes you are writing about. The
>authors claim that there is a large amount of *jargon* in the dead sea
>scrolls, so that when read by the uninitiated they seem to mean one thing,
>but a different meaning is revealed to the initiates. Thus it is claimed
>that references to 'Galilee','Jerusalem', etc do not relate to the actual
>places of those names, but rather to specific locations in the Essene's
>settlement, so when the scrolls say 'Jesus went down to Galilee' they
>really mean 'Jesus walked to the left hand corner of the compound, next to
>the karzi'. I believe this way of interpreting the scrolls is called
>'Peshers' but I've lost significant quantities of brain cells lately so
>might be wrong. However, both the books I have read claim that the
>existence of this jargon encryption system is well known to scholars of
>early Jewish religious literature.
>--
As I recall, there are NO references to Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Auton
Is there any way to get the program used to extract the codes?
Adam Auton
ai...@dial.pipex.com
JohnAcadInt
da...@taic.net wrote:
> In soc.culture.jewish Yaakov Menken <men...@torah.org> wrote:
> : Statement from Harold Gans, Mathematician, N.S.A.
<snip>
> : 5. The book states that the codes in the Torah can be used to predict
> : future events. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no scientific or
> : mathematical basis for such a statement, and the reasoning used to
> : come to such a conclusion in the book is logically flawed.
> On the contrary. I suggest that there is a very close relationship
> between finding statistically relevant information and being able to
> predict the future.
So, which horse is going to win at Kempton Park in the 3.15 tomorrow?
Tell me and I'll cut you in!
> Say the father of number 20 on the list of sages had had a
> computer and searched for his son's name. And found the name, and the
> city. What is your basis for saying that this is not significant? Or #21?
> Or #22? Or #23?
There is no way of demonstrating to the credulous or the true believer
that this or that correlation is not significant. As Russell put it,
"Every shopgirl complains that it rains on her day off." [Well, he was a
Victorian. Ed.] When rainmakers fail to make rain, we sack them at the
next election. But if you appoint enough rainmakers of the right calibre
and insight and with the requisite training, you will in the end make rain.
It all depends on having a sound selection process, doesn't it?
An odd consequence of our dependence on data is that our gathering of it
and the conclusions we base upon it are inevitably parochial and dependent
on our place in time. It is quite possible that the puzzle we inhabit has a
solution beyond our imagining; yet, down here, we are still stuck with
innumerable investment decisions. All we can do is do our best, and we
cannot "unsphere the stars with oaths".
For years, a friend followed the number mysticism of the kabalah.
Everything had an inner or hidden meaning, yet when they threw him
off his property, he at once got hold of a really mean lawyer, who
threw them off it and then threw him back onto it! The "real" world!
Yrs evr,
JohnM
& The Trollenberg Terror
Simcha Streltsov
BlackJack (no_...@nowhere.com) wrote:
: In article <5ncm74$atf$1...@nw001.infi.net>, eve...@infi.net says...
: The article in Newsweek about the book illustrated that, if you try hard
: enough, you can find apparently meaningful phrases using the skip-code
: technique in almost any body of text. For example, they describe how a
: mathematician in Australia did a skip code search on the Law of the Sea
: treaty and found the phrases "hear the law of the sea" and "safe UN ocean
the question of validity of the patterns you find in the data is
hotly debated not only in Torah-codes, but also in a more general contest.
obviously, if you have a model with parameters and some training data,
if your model is powerful enough (i.e. lets you build complex
geometrical figures, not just, say, planes) - the more parameters
you have, the better you can "fit" the model to the limited data
you have.
theoretically, if you know how the power of your model increases
with the increase of parameter space - you can find a trade-off
between good fit and the size of your model. Unfortunately,
for most complex models [ such as, say, neural network classifiers,
pattern searches], nobody knows how to estimate this "model power".
[ for the positive results see book by V Vapnik, 1995, or any other
book that explains "V-C dimension" - a theoreitical measure of
such power, or seqrch web for ATT Labs "Support Vector machines"
classifiers].
in practice, using testing sets is a very accepted idea -
thus, one should try proposed codes on many, not just War and Peace,
code - and see qualities of the same class of predictions.
I dont see why it can not be done - I would even say, such
research is required from the authors of the original research -
and not left for others to "disproof"
Simcha Streltsov, _Former_ Adar Rabbi of S.C.Soviet
-------------------------
please, only Kosher lePesach homentashen
all others will be returned unopened.
p.s. This sig expired, but nobody have sent me real
homentashen anyway
Mike Pelletier
In article <5nce8p$h...@nntp02.primenet.com>,
Joe Myers <boo...@primenet.com> wrote:
>I've heard discussions about the Biblical code on Christian radio
>programs . . . .they all claim that no other piece of literature
>reveals the kind of information of the code of the Torrah. They
>ignore all the supposed correlations found in Shakespeare, the
>Gettysburg Address, and (for all I know) this post.
>
Could you point us to references on the kinds of correlations found
in Shakespeare and the Gettysburg address? It sounds like an
interesting read. Thanks!
-Mike Pelletier.
JoAnne Schmitz
On Sun, 08 Jun 1997 10:08:21 GMT, m...@satlink.comSBLOCK (mig) wrote:
>A mathematician pointed out that with a document as long and varied as
>the Torah, for example, the chances of coming up with a given 8-word
>sentence, especially without having to observe grammar rules ("Leader
>killed mad man from same tribe." etc.) was a rather unimpressive 1 in
>3. Basically, if you took the entire run of Batman comics and started
>punching up sequences with computers looking for words you could do
>the same thing.
It seems that there are two things that are being argued. One is the
predictive quality of this technique, which is seriously doubtful.
The other is the "encoding of great Jewish sages' names and dates
of birth and death in the Hebrew text of the book of Genesis" foretold
in find-a-word fashion in the Bible Code.
I remember seeing a television show (yeah, I know, leaky brain won't
tell me exactly which one but somewhere in the last year, probably on
Discovery or the Learning Channel) about the Torah and Torah scrolls,
which are copied meticulously character by character. It was claimed
that the dimensions are considered very important and that grids like
those in the Bible Code book result. Indeed, the scrolls they showed
were rectangularly aligned and seem to have forsaken word spacing
entirely.
So, imagine that you are a studious and gematria-minded Jew whose son
will be groomed for great things. He is born on a particular day of a
particular month that you already know is in your Bible Code, and a
name also appears in that same section of the grid. Would you dare
_not_ to name him that name?
Now, date of death, I don't know how you'd fit that in there. How
many of those were there, I wonder? If you include lots of potential
"match" dates -- birth date, death date, marriage, becoming a rabbi,
discovering or writing or saying or teaching something for the first
time -- then you're going to find a coincidence much more easily.
And how many great Jewish sages names do not appear in the Bible Code?
Does that make them non-sages?
JoAnne "coincidence means you're not paying attention to the other
half of what's happening" Schmitz
Yaakov Menken
On Mon, 09 Jun 1997 18:49:41 GMT, mei...@erols.com wrote:
>At good Jewish bookstores they sell a codes program. It was either 65
>or 165 dollars. I didn't read the box and wonder how much it would
>do.
Although it's "cute," all it does is find codes. It doesn't do the
exhaustive search and comparison with the same codes at permuted skip
distances necessary to do a statistical analysis and determine if what
you are seeing is anything different than what you might find in
Yediot Acharonot (a Hebrew-language newspaper). I don't think the
program is public-domain. The algorithms are, but you need a good C
programmer and statistician to go run the experiment.
YM
Libertarius
In <339af917...@news.idt.net> men...@torah.org (Yaakov Menken)
writes:
How do youknow that the supposed "code" refers to RABIN and not
RUBEN or something else? How do you no that "AMIR" is not MIRA
or MARY or EMIR or AMORY or something else?
Since there are no vowels in the Hebrew text, what is your
probability of coming up with a two, three, or four-consonant word?
LBRTRVS
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Mon, 09 Jun 1997 23:30:27 GMT
men...@torah.org (Yaakov Menken) posted:
>On Mon, 09 Jun 1997 18:49:41 GMT, mei...@erols.com wrote:
>>At good Jewish bookstores they sell a codes program. It was either 65
>>or 165 dollars. I didn't read the box and wonder how much it would
>>do.
>Although it's "cute," all it does is find codes. It doesn't do the
>exhaustive search and comparison with the same codes at permuted skip
Thanks. Somehow I figured that it would be a toy. P & M
>distances necessary to do a statistical analysis and determine if what
>you are seeing is anything different than what you might find in
>Yediot Acharonot (a Hebrew-language newspaper). I don't think the
>program is public-domain. The algorithms are, but you need a good C
>programmer and statistician to go run the experiment.
>YM
Brendan McKay
> They have been doing this for a decade now. Why is only Genesis
> tested, when the same tests could be run again on the whole Torah with
> so little effort?.
This is a very good question. Even very recently
the answer was that they had been too busy with Genesis
to try it.
The experiment from Statistical Science gives a negative
result on each of the other four books of the Torah.
On the Torah as a whole it gives a 2/1000 result but
investigation shows that to be entirely due to the
effect of Genesis.
Brendan.
efor...@adtech.net
In article <339C1D...@dial.pipex.com>,
Many Jewish religious stores carry the computer search programs (which
come with either the Torah or Bible texts). I use Torah Code for the Mac,
which I believe costs $69.00
Eric Forster
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Robert Billing
> As I recall, there are NO references to Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Since, IIRC, they were written about 100 years before JC was born,
this is not surprising, in the same way that it is not surprising that
Babbage did not write Java.
--
I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal
lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/
"If ladies wish to change compartments during the journey, the staff
must enable them to do so." LNER rule book, rule 161, 1933 edition.
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Tue, 10 Jun 97 10:19:02 GMT Robert Billing
<uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> posted:
>In article <5ngbgh$o...@winter.erols.com> mei...@erols.com writes:
>> As I recall, there are NO references to Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
> Since, IIRC, they were written about 100 years before JC was born,
>this is not surprising, in the same way that it is not surprising that
>Babbage did not write Java.
I know you weren't intending to make me look silly. I only posted
what I did in answer to another who implied otherwise.
She wrote: "so when the [dead sea] scrolls say 'Jesus went down to
Galilee' they really mean 'Jesus walked to the...'" Somewhere she got
the idea that this statement was in the DSScrolls. I appreciate your
confirming that Jesus of Nazereth is not mentioned there.
P & M
Biana
> Is there any way to get the program used to extract the codes?
>
> Adam Auton
> ai...@dial.pipex.com
From what I heard last, there are none publicly available. But if you
have the Bible in your computer, you can just write a program to extract
every 1st, 2nd, 3rd..........nth character
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
In article <339c59e8....@news2.qis.net>, jsch...@qis.net.deleteme! (JoAnne Schmitz) writes:
> On Sun, 08 Jun 1997 10:08:21 GMT, m...@satlink.comSBLOCK (mig) wrote:
>
>>A mathematician pointed out that with a document as long and varied as
>>the Torah, for example, the chances of coming up with a given 8-word
>>sentence, especially without having to observe grammar rules ("Leader
>>killed mad man from same tribe." etc.) was a rather unimpressive 1 in
>>3. Basically, if you took the entire run of Batman comics and started
>>punching up sequences with computers looking for words you could do
>>the same thing.
>
> It seems that there are two things that are being argued. One is the
> predictive quality of this technique, which is seriously doubtful.
> The other is the "encoding of great Jewish sages' names and dates
> of birth and death in the Hebrew text of the book of Genesis" foretold
> in find-a-word fashion in the Bible Code.
It just occurred to me that perhaps the reason for the discrepancy
between predictive value on the one hand and the information stored
in it on the other, could be similar to Schrodinger's Cat. Just a
wild guess.
Josh
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Wed, 11 Jun 1997 06:07:57 GMT
ch...@transdata.co.nz (Chris Grace) posted:
>mei...@erols.com wrote:
>: In soc.culture.jewish on Tue, 10 Jun 97 10:19:02 GMT Robert Billing
>: <uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> posted:
>: >In article <5ngbgh$o...@winter.erols.com> mei...@erols.com writes:
>: >> As I recall, there are NO references to Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
>: > Since, IIRC, they were written about 100 years before JC was born,
>: >this is not surprising, in the same way that it is not surprising that
>: >Babbage did not write Java.
>: I know you weren't intending to make me look silly. I only posted
>: what I did in answer to another who implied otherwise.
>: She wrote: "so when the [dead sea] scrolls say 'Jesus went down to
> ^^^ not
Sorry Chris. My only good friend named Chris is a woman.
>: Galilee' they really mean 'Jesus walked to the...'" Somewhere she got
>: the idea that this statement was in the DSScrolls. I appreciate your
>: confirming that Jesus of Nazereth is not mentioned there.
>Actually I was using a (very bad) example, which I did not express very
>well, and you have managed to nitpick on that score and miss the main
>point of my post, which was:
>Many ancient Jewish documents include a jargon-like code which allows them
>to convey a different message to the non-initiated than to the initiated.
>Is that better?
Yes, much. I don't know anything about what you say here, but the
thing I wrote about was not a nit from my point of view.
No harm done. Everything is cool now, I hope.
>If I had read the headers to the posting I responded to from
>alt.folklore.urban and realised the erudite company who were contributing
>to this thread, I would probably have kept my childish musings to myself
>in any event.
If you mix erudite musings and childish musings I think you get a salt
and water, or something like that, or maybe blue smoke. Whatever,
the water is warm, plunge in.
>Chris 'fufas' Grace Somewhere south of the equator and north of antarctica
New Zealand. Cool. I just read in the daily paper that the Maoris
are taking up tattooing again. E-mail me if this is worth noting.
Aron
The future would be predictable using the Torah if you knew what you were
looking for, and ofcourse, thats all about guesswork and typing in and
searching for anything relevant you can find
Eugene Rabinovich
Libertarius (att...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: How do youknow that the supposed "code" refers to RABIN and not
: RUBEN or something else? How do you no that "AMIR" is not MIRA
: or MARY or EMIR or AMORY or something else?
I am not defending Drosnin's book, but consonants are routinely used in
Hebrew to portray vowels. For example, Rabin is spelled
"resh-bet-yud-nun," while Ruben would be spelled "resh-vav-bet-nun." Also,
Amir would definitely be spelled differently than Mira or Mary or Amory,
but could be spelled the same as Emir.
: Since there are no vowels in the Hebrew text, what is
your
: probability of coming up with a two, three, or four-consonant word?
--
Eugene Rabinovich
y-rabi...@uchicago.edu
http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/yrabinov (Under Construction)
JoAnne Schmitz
>Libertarius (att...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: How do youknow that the supposed "code" refers to RABIN and not
>: RUBEN or something else? How do you no that "AMIR" is not MIRA
>: or MARY or EMIR or AMORY or something else?
>
>I am not defending Drosnin's book, but consonants are routinely used in
>Hebrew to portray vowels. For example, Rabin is spelled
>"resh-bet-yud-nun," while Ruben would be spelled "resh-vav-bet-nun." Also,
>Amir would definitely be spelled differently than Mira or Mary or Amory,
>but could be spelled the same as Emir.
Would someone kindly explain what aleph is? I thought it was a Hebrew
letter which is the equivalent of "A."
JoAnne "frankly confused" Schmitz
Micha S. Berger
On Mon, 16 Jun 1997 16:59:43 GMT, in newsgroup soc.culture.jewish, article <33a55484....@news2.qis.net>, JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net.deleteme!> wrote:
: Would someone kindly explain what aleph is? I thought it was a Hebrew
: letter which is the equivalent of "A."
It is supposed to be an "unvoiced glottal stop" (whatever that is), and is
silent in all modern accents that I know of. In the laws of gittin (writs
of divorce) when one writes a non-Hebrew name, one must insert a semi-vowel
or gutteral to represent the vowels. (Hebrew has vowel marks above or below
the letters, which represent only consanents.) Alef is used to represent
the vowels patach (a as in far) and kamatz (u as in fun, for Ashkenazic
pronounciation, a as in far in Sepharadic).
From there, Yiddish uses the aleph similarly.
Historically, aleph is akin to the Phoneician letter that later became
the Gree alpha (not the similarity of name), and via Latin, became the
letter "A".
--
Micha Berger 201 916-0287 Help free Ron Arad, held by Syria 3828 days!
mi...@aishdas.org (16-Oct-86 - 16-Jun-97)
For a mitzvah is a candle, and the Torah its light.
http://aishdas.org -- Orthodox Judaism: Torah, Avodah, Chessed
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Mon, 16 Jun 1997 16:59:43 GMT
jsch...@qis.net.deleteme! (JoAnne Schmitz) posted:
>On Sun, 15 Jun 1997 07:07:19 GMT, yrab...@midway.uchicago.edu (Eugene
>Rabinovich) wrote:
>>Libertarius (att...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>>
>>: How do youknow that the supposed "code" refers to RABIN and not
>>: RUBEN or something else? How do you no that "AMIR" is not MIRA
>>: or MARY or EMIR or AMORY or something else?
>>
>>I am not defending Drosnin's book, but consonants are routinely used in
>>Hebrew to portray vowels. For example, Rabin is spelled
>>"resh-bet-yud-nun," while Ruben would be spelled "resh-vav-bet-nun." Also,
>>Amir would definitely be spelled differently than Mira or Mary or Amory,
>>but could be spelled the same as Emir.
>Would someone kindly explain what aleph is? I thought it was a Hebrew
>letter which is the equivalent of "A."
Close. It's the first letter of the aleph-bet (alphabet) like A is but
it is pretty much silent in Hebrew. (In Yiddish it is pronounced
like a short a.) Back to Hebrew, since most vowels sounds are not
written as letters, any word that starts with a vowel sound would have
a silent letter as a first letter, aleph or ayin, which is also pretty
much silent. (glottal stops, guttural this and that not included).
Hope that was clear. <g>
>JoAnne "frankly confused" Schmitz
P&M
I miss many posts so please e-mail
if you want me to see your answer.
B'tsedek tishpot amitecho
You shall judge your neighbor
justly and favorably. Lev 19:15
Daniel A. Jimenez
(posted and e-mailed)
In article <33a55484....@news2.qis.net>,
JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net.deleteme!> wrote:
>On Sun, 15 Jun 1997 07:07:19 GMT, yrab...@midway.uchicago.edu (Eugene
>Rabinovich) wrote:
>>I am not defending Drosnin's book, but consonants are routinely used in
>>Hebrew to portray vowels. For example, Rabin is spelled
>>"resh-bet-yud-nun," while Ruben would be spelled "resh-vav-bet-nun." Also,
>>Amir would definitely be spelled differently than Mira or Mary or Amory,
>>but could be spelled the same as Emir.
>
>Would someone kindly explain what aleph is? I thought it was a Hebrew
>letter which is the equivalent of "A."
>
>JoAnne "frankly confused" Schmitz
Here's a list of Hebrew letters, their Latin spellings, and the sounds
(approximate) they make. The characters on the left hand side won't make
much sense unless you're using the extended ISO8859 font with Hebrew.
I forgot where I got this on the 'net, so I can't give a citation (sorry).
Note that the first few letters are in roughly the same order as in
English (and Greek), so in that sense, alef is equivalent to A, only it's
silent.
letter name sound
à alef silent
á bet B/V
â gimel G
ã dalet D
ä he H
å vav V
æ zayin Z
ç chet Ch
è tet T
é yod Y
ê kaf (ending) Kh
ë kaf K/Kh
ì lamed L
í mem (ending) M
î mem M
ï nun (ending) N
ð nun N
ñ samech S
ò ayin silent
ó feh (ending) F
ô peh P/F
õ tsadeh (ending) Ts
ö tsadeh Ts
÷ qof Q
ø resh R
ù shin Sh/S
ú tav T
The first word in the Torah, "bereshet" (In-the-beginning) is spelled
bet-resh-alef-shin-yod-tav"; it uses alef, but not as a vowel; it is silent.
Interestingly (not that I'm saying I believe or don't believe in Torah
codes :-), if you start with the tav in that word, skip 12 letters, you
get vav; skip another 12 letters, there's resh, skip another 12, and
there's he. That spells TRVH, or the Hebrew spelling for Torah. So some
people might say that the Torah is trying to say "In the beginning was
the Word..." the way the New Testament does in John 1:1. But then
some people like to be flamed silly in useless Usenet debates about
ancient crossword puzzles.
(The same thing happens in Exodus after the first tav; a coincidence?
You be the judge :-)
(Newsgroups trimmed to near-reasonable.)
--
Daniel Jimenez djim...@dryad.cs.utsa.edu
"I've so much music in my head" -- Maurice Ravel, shortly before his death.
" " -- John Cage
Matt Silberstein
In soc.culture.jewish, on thread _Re: The Bible Code -- Two, three,
and four-consonant words._, djim...@dryad.cs.utsa.edu (Daniel A.
Jimenez) wrote:
[snip]
>
>Interestingly (not that I'm saying I believe or don't believe in Torah
>codes :-), if you start with the tav in that word, skip 12 letters, you
>get vav; skip another 12 letters, there's resh, skip another 12, and
>there's he. That spells TRVH, or the Hebrew spelling for Torah. So some
>people might say that the Torah is trying to say "In the beginning was
>the Word..." the way the New Testament does in John 1:1. But then
>some people like to be flamed silly in useless Usenet debates about
>ancient crossword puzzles.
>
Not only that, but the torah is also predicting the 12 tribes. And
pointing out that the year has 12 months. And the 12 also represents
the 12 years before a bar-mitzvah.
>(The same thing happens in Exodus after the first tav; a coincidence?
>You be the judge :-)
Matt Silberstein
-------------------------------
Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, 'The Origins of a
World War', spoke in terms of 'secret treaties', drawn up between the
Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These
treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The
career of evil.
root
I just love it when such worthless tripe is promoted, while people pretend
to ignore the fact that Exodus 24 is a riddle about the wavelength of blue
light, in the METRIC system. Or that Genesis 1 gives the correct SEQUENCE
of evolution and states that the Earth is the third planet from the sun.
Michael D. Painter
root <ro...@tailor.aleim.net> wrote in article
<slrn5qh7r...@tailor.aleim.net>...
> I just love it when such worthless tripe is promoted, while people
pretend
> to ignore the fact that Exodus 24 is a riddle about the wavelength of
blue
> light, in the METRIC system. Or that Genesis 1 gives the correct
SEQUENCE
> of evolution and states that the Earth is the third planet from the sun.
Neither version of the exodus story of creation gives the correct sequence.
Genesis 1 contradicts Genesis 2 so even if one were right the other could
not be.
As to the third planet "statement" and the riddle you'll have to explain
that.
You will probably have to explain your meaning of the word statement also.
G & G
A friend of my recently told me that the bible code process was so
unscientific to be laughable. Apparently the author preselected some
words or phrases and then set the computer to work to set up these
grids searching for the word the author selected. I would guess that
given the power of a computer and the program's ability to alter the
grid parameters, nearly any word or phrase could be found. If that
is true, this is just another example of how incredibly gullible folk
are and why absolutely crazy stuff is blindly accepted as truth by
an unthinking mass of humanity.
Mike Pelletier
These aren't the only codes present. There are codes that are
not just random collections of characters that happen to spell words,
but that have numerical and contextual correlations in the text.
For example, there is a section in Deuteronomy that talks about
a person being a "wonder of the generation," and nearby is the
ELS "RaMBaM", the Hebrew nickname for Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonedes,
an prodigal 11th century scholar whose works are widely recognized
as masterpieces of Jewish study, some of which were completed
when he was in his 20s.
Also nearby is the phrase "MiShNaH TORaH", one of Rambam's works
that codified and categorized the 613 commandments, or "mitzvot"
inferred from the Torah. The letters of each word are separated
from each other by 7 (or is it 49, I don't quite recall, and I
can't find my notes) characters (significant in the sense that
the number seven is the holy, sanctified day of the Sabbath)
and the corresponding letters of each word are separated from
each other by 613 letters:
Mem - 613 - Tav
| |
7 7
| |
Shin - 613 - Vav
| |
7 7
| |
Nun - 613 - Resh
| |
7 7
| |
Hay - 613 - Hay
Just as in the actual Mishnah Torah, the Mishnah Torah in this
pattern of letters "contains" 613.
Now, is this empirically significant? Probably not. But it's
certainly an aesthetically pleasing little tidbit, and doesn't
fall under the auspices of your criticism.
-Mike Pelletier.
da...@taic.net
The only thing more ridiculous than some of the claims for the bible code,
is this message indicating the swallowing whole of "what a friend told
me", which is about 95% inaccurate and incomplete.
Ariel Brosh
JoAnne Schmitz (jsch...@qis.net.deleteme!) wrote:
: On Sun, 15 Jun 1997 07:07:19 GMT, yrab...@midway.uchicago.edu (Eugene
: Rabinovich) wrote:
:
: Would someone kindly explain what aleph is? I thought it was a Hebrew
: letter which is the equivalent of "A."
No.
There are no letters for vowels in Hebrew. Hebrew and other shemist
languages use diacritics for vowels, and this is often omitted.
Aleph has basically no consonant sound - it sounds just like the vowel it
carries. For example, if I want to write OR, I would write aleph-vav-reysh
while vav is the vowel carried by the Aleph. (Sometimes there are vowel
letters, not always. Vav can be either V, U or O)
Rabin is spelled: Reysh-Beth-Yod-Nun
Amir is spelled: Ayin (doesn't exist in European languages)-Mem-Yod-Reysh
Just a note to code searchers-
It is enough religion killed Rabin. You don't have to abuse his grave with
Gimmatries and code searches.
--
Ariel Brosh, WebMaster and Modular Programmer.
http://www.atheist.org.il
http://www.nuts.co.il
http://www.yam-adonay.org
Jonathan J. Baker
In <> G & G <gri...@gte.net> writes:
>A friend of my recently told me that the bible code process was so
>unscientific to be laughable. Apparently the author preselected some
>words or phrases and then set the computer to work to set up these
>grids searching for the word the author selected. I would guess that
This is not the method used by the original Torah-Codes people.
Certainly one can find any phrase one wants, and put any interpretation
one wants on it, with a simple letter-skip-search program; I've
done it myself, finding hints that Lewis Carroll was an American
Lubavitcher, in Through the Looking Glass.
What Rips/Witztum claim is that for a given set of rabbis whose
biographies in a certain biographical dictionary covered more than
3 columns (indicating a high level of fame), the minimum distance
between the skip-sequence of their names and the skip-sequence of
their death years is smaller than one would expect from random
combinations of letters. This indicates something more than
coincidence; it is left to others to say that the "something
more" is Divine authorship.
Drosnin seems to have just used the simple search methods to make
exaggerated claims - in other words, he abused the methods and
claimed the authority of the real methods for his distortions.
>given the power of a computer and the program's ability to alter the
>grid parameters, nearly any word or phrase could be found. If that
>is true, this is just another example of how incredibly gullible folk
>are and why absolutely crazy stuff is blindly accepted as truth by
>an unthinking mass of humanity.
Indeed. And Drosnin is "laughing all the way to the bank" about
these gullible humans.
Jonathan Baker
jjb...@panix.com
mei...@erols.com
>There are [usually] no letters for vowels in Hebrew. Hebrew and other shemist
>languages,
This line reminds me of a related point. Here the writer uses shemist
where most native English writers would write semitic, which is
bascially the same word, coming as it does from Shem.
In this case two words for one meaning. The converse, two meanings
for one word, can cause greater problems.
When Gideon a while back said "he is against the Torah", although his
English is very good, he makes enough mistakes so that one can tell it
is not his first language, and I suspect he used "against" in a much
weaker way than most native English speakers of those with more than 5
or 10 years here would do. Even maybe "he is" might more closely
mean, "he takes a position in disagreement with." as opposed to the
way I read it, as far stronger. Since even the weaker statement is
easy to disagree with, it was even easier for me to imagine he meant
something in the direction of "he opposes Torah as a whole".
We see how even native speakers of the same language don't always see
the same meaning in words. Maybe when we have these disagreements,
one or both could back up and make sure their words couldn't be taken
too strongly, before responding with anger and words 100 times as
strong.
I hope Gideon sees this. If I find his address I will send it to him.
I miss many posts so please e-mail
if you want me to see your answer.
B'tsedek tishpot amitecho
Lev 19:15 via Mishna Avos
You shall judge your neighbor
favorably.
mei...@erols.com
Jim Meritt
In article <5oe6k9$ga1$2...@news2.gte.net>, gri...@gte.net says...
;A friend of my recently told me that the bible code process was so
;unscientific to be laughable. Apparently the author preselected some
;words or phrases and then set the computer to work to set up these
;grids searching for the word the author selected. I would guess that
;grid parameters, nearly any word or phrase could be found.
What is the "success" ratio (or however it was measured) of incorrect
historical "predictions", and how did the value compare when run against
text prepared off the same semantic structure but pseudo-randomly?
--
James W. Meritt
The opinions expressed above are my own. The fact simply
are and belong to none.
Emmirsen Lakenpahlmer
>What is the "success" ratio (or however it was measured) of incorrect
>historical "predictions", and how did the value compare when run against
>text prepared off the same semantic structure but pseudo-randomly?
I started to buy the book today, but began thumbing through it. I saw
a bunch of technical stuff that made MEGO. I began looking for future
predictions, because -- as with that one guy whose name has slipped my
mind -- hindsight predictions are easy once you can fit the facts into
the hypothesis. I would like to see some predictions that would
happen in a year or two.
Eric Boyd
> What is the "success" ratio (or however it was measured) of incorrect
> historical "predictions", and how did the value compare when run against
> text prepared off the same semantic structure but pseudo-randomly?
> --
> James W. Meritt
Marilyn Schwartz, a syndicated collumnist based in Dallas, was inspired to
fool around with the letters on her ketchup bottle. She found the phrase
"Tim did it". I guess there's no doubt about the McVeigh verdict. Would
Heinz lie?
-seric
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on 23 Jun 1997 21:07:12 GMT mer...@wangfed.com
(Jim Meritt) posted:
>In article <5oe6k9$ga1$2...@news2.gte.net>, gri...@gte.net says...
>;A friend of my recently told me that the bible code process was so
>;unscientific to be laughable.
There is the code process used by Drosnin, that is referred to here.
There was earlier the code process used by Rips, Gans and one other
guy, and reviewed by Statistical Science, which involved only one or
two large codes. It is important to keep the two separate. Here the
poster is describing the Drosnin one.
> Apparently the author preselected some
>;words or phrases and then set the computer to work to set up these
>;grids searching for the word the author selected. I would guess that
>;given the power of a computer and the program's ability to alter the
>;grid parameters, nearly any word or phrase could be found.
>What is the "success" ratio (or however it was measured) of incorrect
>historical "predictions", and how did the value compare when run against
>text prepared off the same semantic structure but pseudo-randomly?
>--
>James W. Meritt
>The opinions expressed above are my own. The fact simply
>are and belong to none.
James Follett
Put the whole thing down to probability with a simple experiment:
Take a pack/deck of cards and think of any two card combinations
i.e. a two and king; a four and an ace. Deal the cards. Your two
cards will, in about 90 percent of cases, be together.
Now start playing the same tricks with a bible, and the sky's the
limit. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a prediction for the
return of Hitler. But if you want to find real nonsense in the bible,
just read it.
--
James Follett -- novelist
Helge Moulding
Please trim your "Newsgroups:" header when responding to this thread.
Note also that religious flame-bait is unwelcome in most newsgroups.
--
Helge "Thank you." Moulding
mailto:h...@slc.unisys.com Just another guy
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1401 with a weird name
jwl
if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
James Follett <ja...@marage.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<867256...@marage.demon.co.uk>...
Robert Billing
In article <867256...@marage.demon.co.uk>
ja...@marage.demon.co.uk "James Follett" writes:
> return of Hitler. But if you want to find real nonsense in the bible,
> just read it.
This suggests an interesting game. We all make a similar comment about
the scriptures of a different religion, and the last one who's not been
shot is the winner. :*)
--
I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal
lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/
"If ladies wish to change compartments during the journey, the staff
must enable them to do so." LNER rule book, rule 161, 1933 edition.
Jacob Love
In article <01bc81ee$2f009c60$e292...@rog.vip.best.com>,
jwl <j...@best.com> wrote:
> if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
>the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
>reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
>yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
There are several good reasons for this:
1) What they published is a set of mathematical curiosities which
may turn out to mean something, but may not.
2) On the critical question of prediction, they freely admit (as I
understand things) that they can make none. (Drosnin is a differe
story.) Therefore, until Drosnin appeared, most people had bettrent
things to do with their time. Brendan McKay (apologies if mispelled)
is attempting to so, but such rebuttals can take a great deal of
time to prepare, and even longer to make their way through the
system. In the meantime, there are plenty of folks who are sufficiently
expert in the general area who have produced objections aplenty to
the methodology and its conclusions.
3) Publication in a peer-reviewed journal does not make the science
or logic *right*, it just means that the argumentation fits the form
required by the editors and meets certain minimal standards. Many
papers are published and subsequently refuted--in many cases (and
I believe this is one of them) papers are published as an invitation
to refutation.
4) Even among the community most impressed by this elaborate number
game, there is much doubt as to its importance. As I posted several
years ante-Drosnin, all it will take is some whacko to claim that
the halakhah must be according to his analysis of the Torah
gematria to find every Rav (except perhaps someone over at Ais
Hatorah) denouncing the research. In other words, if it looks like
it might refute those dastardly supporters of multiple authorship
of the Torah, great. But if you try to use it as halakhic tool,
forget about it.
--
-----------------------
Jack F. Love
Opinions expressed are mine alone, unless you happen to agree
Charles Robinson
jwl (j...@best.com) wrote:
: if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
: the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
: reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
: yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
Maybe nobody can take it seriously long enough to support/publish such a
rebuttal? Y'know, it's great that these guys found it worth the time and
effort to come up with this "code" - but does that mean other people
should waste/spend (depends on your perspective) at least as much time
trying to disprove it? BTW, how long did these three gentlemen take to
come up with this "code"?
--
+-----------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Charles Robinson Mpls, Minnesota | "You can't have everything... |
| email: char...@visi.com | where would you put it?" |
| http://www.visi.com/~charlesr | |
+-----------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
Hugh Young
> if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
>the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
>reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
>yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
1. It'll take another four years
or
2. Nobody can be bothered
A local theologian said plenty of other dates could be found crossing with
the rabbis' names Rips et al. found.
Have large numbers of statisticians converted to Judaism as a result of
reading the paper?
Jews find rabbis' names and dates in Torah, Roman Catholics see apparitions
of the Virgin Mary. Why not the other way round?
--
Hugh Young, Pukerua Bay, Nuclear-free Aotearoa / NEW ZEALAND
Herman Rubin
In article <5ou8i1$gnn$1...@darla.visi.com>,
Charles Robinson <char...@visi.com> wrote:
>jwl (j...@best.com) wrote:
>: if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
>: the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
>: reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
>: yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
>Maybe nobody can take it seriously long enough to support/publish such a
>rebuttal? Y'know, it's great that these guys found it worth the time and
>effort to come up with this "code" - but does that mean other people
>should waste/spend (depends on your perspective) at least as much time
>trying to disprove it? BTW, how long did these three gentlemen take to
>come up with this "code"?
Knowing something about what they have done, I am still highly suspicious.
As far as I know, they have not made their entire algorithm public.
Furthermore, I doubt if any of the reviewers knew enough Hebrew or
Torah to make a critical rebuttal. On the information I have seen,
my Hebrew would not be strong enough, and I can see some problems
with the testing.
About all we can say is that those who reviewed it could not find
anything which they could tell was wrong. In general, a review of
a paper for a mathematics or statistics journal does not require
much time and effort; the reviewer is NOT obligated to ensure that
errors have not occurred, but just that none were detected.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Wayne Dyer
jwl wrote:
> if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
> the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
> reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
> yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
Because there's nothing wrong with the METHOD. It the interpretation of the
RESULTS that is suspect. If you're interested, there are lots of folks
currently working to prove that ANY text can be manipulated in a similar
fashion to produce astonishing "predictions" of past events.
--
Wayne Dyer :: dwd...@eskimo.com :: http://www.eskimo.com/~dwdyer/
Recontextualizing the male myth since 1963
Micha S. Berger
On 26 Jun 1997 13:49:29 -0500, in newsgroup soc.culture.jewish, article <5oudjp$1a...@b.stat.purdue.edu>, Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
: Knowing something about what they have done, I am still highly suspicious.
: As far as I know, they have not made their entire algorithm public.
The URL for a copy of the software and text they used was posted on this
or a related thread already. I'd be curious to see a skeptical statistician
give a more than out-of-hand dismissal. Let me know if you're going to
try.
-mi
--
Micha Berger 201 916-0287 Help free Ron Arad, held by Syria 3838 days!
mi...@aishdas.org (16-Oct-86 - 27-Jun-97)
For a mitzvah is a candle, and the Torah its light.
http://aishdas.org -- Orthodox Judaism: Torah, Avodah, Chessed
Huse, George V., Jr.
Tanstaafl@*geocities.com wrote:
>
> I still say that Heinlein was right.
>
> The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
> car with a computer called DORA.
Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
6002020206.
Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
--
Buzz Huse E-Mail: mailto:buzz...@flash.net
Euless, Texas, USA Homepage: http://www.flash.net/~buzzhuse/
"These opinions/comments are entirely my own and no one else's."
Keith Ramsay
I saw a talk about the statistical technique used to make a claim about
"Torah codes" (with a side-mention of the claim), and if I'm not
mistaken, the claim was the same one being discussed here. A reason to
doubt the result was offered.
There is theorem analogous to the central limit theorem pertaining to the
distribution of "permutation sums" of a matrix. Given an n by n matrix,
we may consider the n! ways of selecting n entries of the matrix, no two
lying in the same row or column. For each such selection, we consider the
sum of those entries. Under suitable circumstances, one can demonstrate
with the use of this theorem that one such sum is lower (say) than almost
all of the others, just as one could in suitable circumstances use the
central limit theorem to prove that a sum of independent random variables
was unusually low.
A list of a certain number of famous rabbis was collected by taking all
the rabbis having an entry of at least a certain length in a standard
reference. I think it might have been the Encyclopedia Judaica, and for
some reason I seem to remember it being 30-something rabbis in all.
For each rabbi, two strings in Hebrew were made. One contained the
rabbi's name, the other the date of his birth or death, and there may
have been more than that-- I'm afraid I don't remember the exact details
(which I suggest aren't so critical). I'll just call them their 1st and
2nd strings.
The position at which each string appears in the Torah as a sequence with
equal numbers of letters in between (appearing, say, as every 17th
character starting from a given point in the text), with the minimal
interval between characters, was found.
A matrix was formed in which each entry was a certain "proximity" measure
between the i-th rabbi's 1st string, and the j-th rabbi's 2nd string. The
claim is, then, that the sum of the "proximities" of each rabbi's 1st
string with his own 2nd string is unusually low. If one assumes that
there is no connection between the two, one would expect the sum of
"proximities" to be on the same order as the sum of "proximities" if one
were randomly to permute the rabbis' respective first strings. Applying
the theorem, one finds that the sum of the "proximities" is indeed
unusually low, among the possible such sums one could get by randomly
pairing locations of 1st strings and 2nd strings.
This methodology has much to say for it, in my opinion, aside from one
fairly serious problem. The "proximity" measure is purportedly rather
non-obvious. It's not something simple like the number of intervening
characters. The speaker didn't remember quite how it went. Moreover, his
claim was that if one repeated the test using various other such
"proximity" measures, the impressive statistical result doesn't show up.
His suggestion was that this "proximity" measure was devised after
various of the appearances of rabbis' names and other information had
been found in the Torah, and (wittingly or not) contrived to fit the
perceived relationships between them.
Keith Ramsay
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Ian or Katts
Huse, George V., Jr. wrote:
>
> Tanstaafl@*geocities.com wrote:
> >
> > I still say that Heinlein was right.
> >
> > The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
> > car with a computer called DORA.
>
> Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
> Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
> 6002020206.
>
> Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
Greek terms and their possible translations. For the number 666 it says:
5516 chi xi stigma {khee xee stig'-ma}
the 22nd, 14th and an obsolete letter (4742 as a cross) of the
Greek alphabet (intermediate between the 5th and 6th), used as
numbers;; number representation
AV-six hundred threescore and six 1; 1
1) six hundred and sixty six, the meaning of which is the basis
of much vain speculation
Okay, now 5516 is the Strong's reference number for this term. Chi xi
Stigma is the actual term. Those, as nearly as I understand, are letters
number 22, 14, and 5.5 of the greek alphabet. I have no idea what 4742
as a cross means because when I looked that number up, I only got Old
Testament (ie. Hebrew, not Greek) refernces 04742 is the word for corner
of bend. I have no clue how number representation works in Greek, the
two most obvious possibilities to my mind yield a number that has no
resemblence to 666. Simple addition yields 41.5, if I assume that it's
hundreds, tens, units, I get 2345.5, this one looks like a possibility
for something a person might attach meaning to as it is a series of
consecutive numbers. AV in the third portion of the quote is 1769 King
james Bible Authorised Version, they are telling us how it was
interpretted.
Katts
Robert Billing
In article <33B42D...@flash.net>
buzz...@flash.net "Huse, George V., Jr." writes:
> Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
> nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
Koine Greek, Rev 13:18. The Marshall literal translation reads
something like this (it's a little difficult to render in ASCII, so
I've taken a few liberties with the transliteration, and rendered the `
breathing sign as letter h, which is about right, so `ex comes out as
hex)
kai ho artithmos autou hexakosioi hexekonta hex
and the number of it [is] six hundred sixty six
The BFBS critical apparatus gives a few variant readings, allowing the
number to be 616 instead of 666.
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Sat, 28 Jun 97 08:16:58 GMT Robert Billing
<uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> posted:
>In article <33B42D...@flash.net>
> buzz...@flash.net "Huse, George V., Jr." writes:
>> Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
>> nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
> Koine Greek,
How many kinds of Greek were there, what were some names, and how did
they relate to each other. I understand there are several
pronunciations of Chinese but in written form they all look alike.
That is obviously not the situation here. Since the written language
must have followed the spoken language, how did this arise?
P&M
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Sat, 28 Jun 1997 17:56:16 -0700 Ian or Katts
<ia...@zed.com.au> posted:
>>
>> Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
>> Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
>> 6002020206.
I have never seen ancient numbers written like your second example.
>> Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
>> nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.The original scrolls were in Greek. Strong's Bible Concordance lists the
>Greek terms and their possible translations. For the number 666 it says:
> 5516 chi xi stigma {khee xee stig'-ma}
> the 22nd, 14th and an obsolete letter (4742 as a cross) of the
> Greek alphabet (intermediate between the 5th and 6th), used as
> numbers;; number representation
> AV-six hundred threescore and six 1; 1
> 1) six hundred and sixty six, the meaning of which is the basis
> of much vain speculation
>Okay, now 5516 is the Strong's reference number for this term. Chi xi
>Stigma is the actual term. Those, as nearly as I understand, are letters
>number 22, 14, and 5.5 of the greek alphabet. I have no idea what 4742
>as a cross means because when I looked that number up, I only got Old
>Testament (ie. Hebrew, not Greek) refernces 04742 is the word for corner
>of bend. I have no clue how number representation works in Greek, the
>two most obvious possibilities to my mind yield a number that has no
>resemblence to 666. Simple addition yields 41.5, if I assume that it's
>hundreds, tens, units, I get 2345.5, this one looks like a possibility
>for something a person might attach meaning to as it is a series of
>consecutive numbers. AV in the third portion of the quote is 1769 King
>james Bible Authorised Version, they are telling us how it was
>interpretted.
>Katts
Talk about the blind talking to the blind. *I* know nothing about
greek number representation, but I am still willing to give this a
shot.
I have never heard of stigma but when it was obsolete, it would not
have been used in writing (by definition), and when it was not
obsolete it would not have been assigned a value of 5.5 or anything
other than a whole, a natural number. Since it follows 5, it would
have been 6.
That bumps up the numbers of the other letters to 23 and 15
Now if Greek is anything like Hebrew, the first 9 numbers are 1 to 9
by 1's, the next 9 are 10 to 90 by 10's, and the rest are 100 to 400
by 100's, so the 15th letter would be 60. And the 23rd number would
be 400. This would yield 466. I am going to make a wild guess that
there was a valid reason that chi was the 25th letter or that they
incremented by 200's. Voila.
(this grouping seems to imply a base 9 number system, but this is
semantics. "Base" only relates to number systems that use columns to
indicate magnitude, Since there is no need for 0 as a place holder, I
am not sure what would call it but numbers normally grouped by 10's
are grouped by 9's)
So if this makes sense I would respectfully suggest that one not get
too upset until he sees a beast that resembles the ones described:
from the sea, ten horns, seven heads, etc
like a leopard with feet of a bear and mouth of a lion which could .
. talk
two horns like a lamb but speaking like a dragon.
I haven't seen any of these yet.
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on 28 Jun 97 21:30:57 GMT bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
posted:
>In article <5p0jni$p...@nnrp4.farm.idt.net>, Micha S. Berger <ais...@IDT.NET> writes:
>> On 26 Jun 1997 13:49:29 -0500, in newsgroup soc.culture.jewish, article <5oudjp$1a...@b.stat.purdue.edu>, Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>> : Knowing something about what they have done, I am still highly suspicious.
>> : As far as I know, they have not made their entire algorithm public.
>>
>> The URL for a copy of the software and text they used was posted on this
>> or a related thread already. I'd be curious to see a skeptical statistician
>> give a more than out-of-hand dismissal. Let me know if you're going to
>> try.
>>
>> -mi
I am sure that I am taking normal skepticism too seriously.
>I read the list of names of rabbis chosen by Rips & Witztum (lists A and B)
>and I wasn't impressed.
Were there any omitted whose date of death is known who were more
important that those included. Certainly not every rabbi in history
was included.
>The statistical significance was *overall* but
>NOT individually significant per name chosen.
I'm not sure what you mean, but each block is not significant yet
together one can build a house. Wasn't the individual value positive
in all cases. The notion of statistical insignificance is a relative
one, yes.
>They also used the day and
>month of death rather than the month and year of death of the rabbis
>chosen.
That is because the yahrtzeit date is what is universally remembered,
but the year is less important.
> I suggested to Brendan McKay to use a compendium of Jewish
>biography that received the approbation of leading Halachic scholars
>(e.g. Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l etc) and to check TANNAIM whose date of death
>was recorded.
You're not suggesting that any of they dates already used were wrong,
I am sure.
>Josh
P&M
>>
>> --
>> Micha Berger 201 916-0287 Help free Ron Arad, held by Syria 3838 days!
>> mi...@aishdas.org (16-Oct-86 - 27-Jun-97)
>> For a mitzvah is a candle, and the Torah its light.
>> http://aishdas.org -- Orthodox Judaism: Torah, Avodah, Chessed
bac...@vms.huji.ac.il
In article <5p0jni$p...@nnrp4.farm.idt.net>, Micha S. Berger <ais...@IDT.NET> writes:
> On 26 Jun 1997 13:49:29 -0500, in newsgroup soc.culture.jewish, article <5oudjp$1a...@b.stat.purdue.edu>, Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
> : Knowing something about what they have done, I am still highly suspicious.
> : As far as I know, they have not made their entire algorithm public.
>
> The URL for a copy of the software and text they used was posted on this
> or a related thread already. I'd be curious to see a skeptical statistician
> give a more than out-of-hand dismissal. Let me know if you're going to
> try.
>
> -mi
I read the list of names of rabbis chosen by Rips & Witztum (lists A and B)
and I wasn't impressed. The statistical significance was *overall* but
NOT individually significant per name chosen. They also used the day and
month of death rather than the month and year of death of the rabbis
chosen. I suggested to Brendan McKay to use a compendium of Jewish
biography that received the approbation of leading Halachic scholars
(e.g. Rav Moshe Feinstein z"l etc) and to check TANNAIM whose date of death
was recorded.
Josh
D. Peschel
>I have never heard of stigma but when it was obsolete, it would not
>have been used in writing (by definition), and when it was not
>obsolete it would not have been assigned a value of 5.5 or anything
>other than a whole, a natural number. Since it follows 5, it would
>have been 6.
That part sounds reasonable to me. I think calling it the five-and-a-halfth
letter is silly.
>That bumps up the numbers of the other letters to 23 and 15
>Now if Greek is anything like Hebrew, the first 9 numbers are 1 to 9
>by 1's, the next 9 are 10 to 90 by 10's, and the rest are 100 to 400
>by 100's, so the 15th letter would be 60. And the 23rd number would
>be 400. This would yield 466. I am going to make a wild guess that
>there was a valid reason that chi was the 25th letter or that they
>incremented by 200's. Voila.
There are 24 letters in the current Greek alphabet. Stigma is an obsolete
letter, as you know, and it turns out that there are three more obsolete
letters. They are:
_
digamma looks like a capital gamma on top of another |_
capital gamma |
koppa (qoppa?) looks like a circle with a vertical O
line protruding from the bottom -- a form of Q |
sampi looks like a lowercase pi tilted 45 degrees \
(I think -- not exactly sure) //\
So adding these in the right places (which I'm too lazy to look up now)
would make the number system more regular. With stigma, the total number
of letters comes to 28 (it bothers me that it's not 27, but oh well).
Greeks may have continued to use these letters as numbers even after the
language stopped using them.
>So if this makes sense I would respectfully suggest that one not get
>too upset until he sees a beast that resembles the ones described:
>
>from the sea, ten horns, seven heads, etc
>like a leopard with feet of a bear and mouth of a lion which could .
>. talk
>two horns like a lamb but speaking like a dragon.
>
>I haven't seen any of these yet.
See _The Number of the Beast_ by Robert Heinlein for an amusing slant
on this whole topic.
-- Derek
JohnAcadInt
Wayne Dyer wrote:
.>
.> jwl wrote:
.> > if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
.> > the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
.> > reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
.> > yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
.>
.> Because there's nothing wrong with the METHOD. It the interpretation of the
.> RESULTS that is suspect. If you're interested, there are lots of folks
.> currently working to prove that ANY text can be manipulated in a similar
.> fashion to produce astonishing "predictions" of past events.
I am still awaiting the predictions for the 2.30 at Kempton Park on June
22nd. 'Short-sighted' came in at 7-1. This stuff can't even do records,
apparently.
.> --
.> Wayne Dyer :: dwd...@eskimo.com :: http://www.eskimo.com/~dwdyer/
.> Recontextualizing the male myth since 1963
JohnM
& The Trolleberg Terror
Hugh Young
In <33B42D...@flash.net> "Huse, George V., Jr." <buzz...@flash.net>
wrote:
>Tanstaafl@*geocities.com wrote:
>>
>> I still say that Heinlein was right.
>>
>> The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
>> car with a computer called DORA.
>
>Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
>Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
>6002020206.
>
>Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
>nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
I posted this only a few months ago but...
There was a short article in New Scientist a few years ago arguing that the
number of the Beast was actually meant to be 6*6*6 or 216 (but the writer of
Revelation was innocent of mathematics and got it wrong). It was illustrated
with one of their neat one-column cartoons of the Beast picking up the phone
and saying "Sorry, wrong number".
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on 29 Jun 1997 09:02:41 GMT
dpes...@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) posted:
>In article <5p4jb2$j...@winter.erols.com>, <mei...@erols.com> wrote:
>>That bumps up the numbers of the other letters to 23 and 15
>>Now if Greek is anything like Hebrew, the first 9 numbers are 1 to 9
>>by 1's, the next 9 are 10 to 90 by 10's, and the rest are 100 to 400
>>by 100's, so the 15th letter would be 60. And the 23rd number would
>>be 400. This would yield 466. I am going to make a wild guess that
>>there was a valid reason that chi was the 25th letter or that they
>>incremented by 200's. Voila.
Your information is really interesting. I made a mistake above. The
23rd number would be 500 and no change in the increment would make it
come out right, so I'm really glad to hear that there were more
obsolete letters One more before 24 makes things come out right..
Even though I was right, I think it interesting how I had never heard
of obsolete Greek letters until the poster prior to me mentioned one
and yet I had no trouble ten minutes later basing my theory on there
being more than one.
>There are 24 letters in the current Greek alphabet. Stigma is an obsolete
>letter, as you know, and it turns out that there are three more obsolete
>letters. They are:
> _
> digamma looks like a capital gamma on top of another |_
> capital gamma |
> koppa (qoppa?) looks like a circle with a vertical O
> line protruding from the bottom -- a form of Q |
> sampi looks like a lowercase pi tilted 45 degrees \
> (I think -- not exactly sure) //\
I also got your e=mail which I much appreciate (sometimes I only get
the e-mail) and the interesting thing is that your representations of
the letters above looked fine with eudora light, but this is what I
got with free agent. You see the same problem in peoples elaborate
sigs and even in my effort to center the last line of my sig., Can't
have everything.
Tried inserting the text from Eudora and it got all screwed up
again!!!.
>So adding these in the right places (which I'm too lazy to look up now)
>would make the number system more regular. With stigma, the total number
>of letters comes to 28 (it bothers me that it's not 27, but oh well).
28 would be 1000?
>Greeks may have continued to use these letters as numbers even after the
>language stopped using them.
Makes sense.
>>So if this makes sense I would respectfully suggest that one not get
>>too upset until he sees a beast that resembles the ones described:
>>
>>from the sea, ten horns, seven heads, etc
>>like a leopard with feet of a bear and mouth of a lion which could .
>>. talk
>>two horns like a lamb but speaking like a dragon.
>>
>>I haven't seen any of these yet.
>See _The Number of the Beast_ by Robert Heinlein for an amusing slant
>on this whole topic.
>-- Derek
P&M
Ilias Kastanas
In article <002dkgy6...@young.wn.planet.gen.nz>,
Hugh Young <hu...@young.wn.planet.gen.nz> wrote:
>In <33B42D...@flash.net> "Huse, George V., Jr." <buzz...@flash.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Tanstaafl@*geocities.com wrote:
>>>
>>> I still say that Heinlein was right.
>>>
>>> The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
>>> car with a computer called DORA.
>>
>>Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
>>Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
>>6002020206.
Or maybe six hundred 60's and then a 6!?... Come on.
>>Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
>>nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
It was Greek. The numeration system uses the alphabet (24 letters)
and three special symbols, stigma, koppa and sampi. (Digamma, an obsolete
letter, was not used). Alpha to epsilon are 1,... 5, stigma is 6, zeta to
theta are 7, 8, 9. Then iota to pi are 10, 20... 80 and koppa is 90; rho
to omega are 100, 200 ... 800, and sampi is 900. Extensions: ",alpha"
is 1000, "beta'" is 1/2, etc. Archimedes, in KYKLOY METRHSIS, wrote
,stigma tau lambda stigma PROS ,beta iota zeta delta'
for the ratio 6336 / 2017 1/4 , a lower bound for what was later called pi.
I checked the Greek text of Revelations. When it comes to seven
seals, or twenty-four thrones, numbers are written out as words; the number
in question is given as chi ksi stigma. I don't see two ways of reading it.
>There was a short article in New Scientist a few years ago arguing that the
>number of the Beast was actually meant to be 6*6*6 or 216 (but the writer of
>Revelation was innocent of mathematics and got it wrong). It was illustrated
>with one of their neat one-column cartoons of the Beast picking up the phone
>and saying "Sorry, wrong number".
How about picking up a nonexistent phone and saying "The number you
have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your telephone 90 degrees and try
again".
Ilias
William Mayers
In <5p4jat$j...@winter.erols.com> mei...@erols.com writes:
>
>In soc.culture.jewish on Sat, 28 Jun 97 08:16:58 GMT Robert Billing
><uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> posted:
>
>>In article <33B42D...@flash.net>
>> buzz...@flash.net "Huse, George V., Jr." writes:
>
would be
>>> nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
>
>
>How many kinds of Greek were there, what were some names, and how did
>they relate to each other. I understand there are several
>pronunciations of Chinese but in written form they all look alike.
>That is obviously not the situation here. Since the written language
>must have followed the spoken language, how did this arise?
>
>P&M
>
of another. Can you say "Coptic"?
>
mike hurley
In article <5p58bh$6...@nntp4.u.washington.edu>, dpes...@u.washington.edu
(D. Peschel) wrote:
> . . .
> There are 24 letters in the current Greek alphabet. Stigma is an obsolete
> letter, as you know, and it turns out that there are three more obsolete
> letters. They are:
> _
> digamma looks like a capital gamma on top of another |_
> capital gamma |
>
> koppa (qoppa?) looks like a circle with a vertical O
> line protruding from the bottom -- a form of Q |
>
> sampi looks like a lowercase pi tilted 45 degrees \
> (I think -- not exactly sure) //\
>
> So adding these in the right places (which I'm too lazy to look up now)
> would make the number system more regular. With stigma, the total number
> of letters comes to 28 (it bothers me that it's not 27, but oh well).
>
> Greeks may have continued to use these letters as numbers even after the
> language stopped using them.
>
> -- Derek
According to A History of Mathematics by Carl B. Boyer, page 64: the 24
letters of the Greek alphabet were augmented by 3 archaic letters so
that the total number of symbols available for enumeration was 27 and
any number up to 999 could be represented as a three-letter string. The
first of these archaic letters had several names, including digamma, stigma
and vau. The first 9 letters represented 1 through 9, the next nine represented
10 through 900, and so on, as others have surmised. Stigma was letter 6,
(between eta and zeta), koppa was 18 (between pi and rho) and sampi was 27-th.
Chi, xi, and stigma represented 600, 60 and 6 respectively.
--
mike hurley
mg...@po.cwru.edu
James Adrian van Wyk
Hugh Young wrote:
>
> In <33B42D...@flash.net> "Huse, George V., Jr." <buzz...@flash.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Tanstaafl@*geocities.com wrote:
> >>
> >> I still say that Heinlein was right.
> >>
> >> The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
> >> car with a computer called DORA.
> >
> >Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
> >Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
> >6002020206.
> >
> >nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
>
Revelation was apparently written, in what was really a sort of first
century international business Greek, by a person, whose native language
was Palistinian Aramaic, near the end, of the first century, while in
exile, on an inhospitable island. No real wearly manuscripts exist.
> I posted this only a few months ago but...
> There was a short article in New Scientist a few years ago arguing that the
> number of the Beast was actually meant to be 6*6*6 or 216 (but the writer of
> Revelation was innocent of mathematics and got it wrong). It was illustrated
> with one of their neat one-column cartoons of the Beast picking up the phone
> and saying "Sorry, wrong number".
>
Tom
>>> The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
>>> car with a computer called DORA.
>>
>>Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
>>Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
>>6002020206.
>>
>>Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
>>nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
The original language of Revelation was koine (common) Greek of the
first century. There are numerous interlinear Greek/English versions
of the New Testament available. Check your library or a good
bookstore.
>I posted this only a few months ago but...
>There was a short article in New Scientist a few years ago arguing that the
>number of the Beast was actually meant to be 6*6*6 or 216 (but the writer of
>Revelation was innocent of mathematics and got it wrong). It was illustrated
>with one of their neat one-column cartoons of the Beast picking up the phone
>and saying "Sorry, wrong number".
>
According to "The Interlinear Greek/English New Testament" rendered
from the Nestle Greek text by Rev. A. Marshall, 1958 ed., the literal
translation from Revelation 13:18 is:
"Here - wisdom is.The [one] having reason let him count the number of
the beast; for [the] number of a man it is. And the number of it [is]
six hundreds [and] sixty-six."
I suspect the phrase "six hundred threescore and six" was a semantic
convention of the translators of the King James version in 1611. There
is nothing in any Greek text that I am aware of to suggest such
phrasing.
"The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure; to live it you had to explode."
---Bob Dylan
mei...@erols.com
> How about picking up a nonexistent phone and saying "The number you
>have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your telephone 90 degrees and try
>again".
Very good.
Actuall this whole thread raises an issue far more important than the
oil shortage, the energy shortage, or the fresh water shortage.
That is the number shortage. Ever since Arabs invented Arabic numbers
they have controlled production and have limited production to keep
prices high. Savings from this income paid for oil exploration in the
past century. But in the last 100 years number consumption has
skyrocketed. Starting with things as small as patent numbers on
machinery to children's aritmetic papers all the way through college
physics exams, accountants, banking, IRS forms, big government, etc.
The invention of the computer which could conceivably save paper, has
instead resulted in the use and some would argue the waste of billions
and trillions of numbers. This cost is not taken into consideration
by most users, including for example NASA, where the cost of numbers
for one space shuttle may exceed the cost of fuel. Instead NASA acts
as if you just open the tap and numbers flow out. Numbers do not grow
on trees.
Some agencies have taken measure to conserve numbers. Whereas auto
license plates used to be issued every year, now most states have
periods up to 5 years, and other emphasize vanity plates which use
more letters than numbers. Some corporations use your social
security number for an employee number to same money and the IRS uses
it as your taxpayer id. number. And of course neat-freaks emphasize
tidiness, hippies emphasize anti-materialism with no price tags, not
stock quotations, etc.
Gematria is regaining popularity in some Jewish circles because it
relies on Hebrew numbers, and clearly whoever started this thread sees
use of Greek numbers as a cost control measure, since the ancient
Greeks have let their commission right expires. Italian friends of
mine in NYC are seeking investors in a corporation producing and
selling Roman numerals and expect soon to sign a contract with Dell
for the first Roman numeral based computer. expected to sell for
DCLXXV dollars less than similar Arab based models..
All in all these steps are of limited value. The Arabs have every
right to charge as much as they want for numbers, especially so in a
capitalist free market system. They are in the position of a
professional athlete who has only so much time to make as much money
as possible before his skills weaken. Similarly, number resources
within Arab countries are dwindling. Even though it is honorable to
charge what they want, it is in the interest of number consuming
nations to organize, limit bidding and exorbitant prices, and limit
consumption if necessary to do so.
If we do not act now, our children or our children's children will
face extreme number shortages and will be forced instead to talk about
ideas.
mei...@erols.com
In soc.culture.jewish on Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:40:16 -0500
mg...@po.cwru.edu (mike hurley) posted:
Perfect. This whole thread fills in a lot of little holes.
And if if stigma was also called vau, it is worth pointing out that
the 6th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is vav and its value is 6 like
stigma.
The similarity of the first five letters of Hebrew and Greek is
obvious.
This extra letter makes zeta the seventh as is zayin in Hebrew. It
makes iota the tenth as is yod (as in "not one jot or tittle" yod and
lower case iota being the smallest letters), kof and kappa are 11,
lamed and lamda are 12, mem and mu 13, nun and nu 14, samech and xi
don't seem so similar but maybe one was inserted out of order to match
a letter the other alphabet didn't have so that ayin and omicron could
be16, peh and pi 17. Since rho follows pi but looks like a P could it
have a closer relationship to pi than just being the next letter, and
of course everything falls apart at the end where all the
miscellaneous sounds are kept. In fact in the Latin alphabet stopped
somewhere around U. V and W are related to U, and X Y and Z were
added to express foreign sounds (I guess Greek) which didn't exist in
Latin.
>(between eta and zeta), koppa was 18 (between pi and rho) and sampi was 27-th.
>Chi, xi, and stigma represented 600, 60 and 6 respectively.
>--
>mike hurley
>mg...@po.cwru.edu
P&M
Michael Press
> In <33B42D...@flash.net> "Huse, George V., Jr." <buzz...@flash.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Tanstaafl@*geocities.com wrote:
> >>
> >> I still say that Heinlein was right.
> >>
> >> The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
> >> car with a computer called DORA.
> >
> >Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
> >Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
> >6002020206.
> >
> >Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
> >nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
>
> I posted this only a few months ago but...
> There was a short article in New Scientist a few years ago arguing that the
> number of the Beast was actually meant to be 6*6*6 or 216 (but the writer of
> Revelation was innocent of mathematics and got it wrong). It was illustrated
> with one of their neat one-column cartoons of the Beast picking up the phone
> and saying "Sorry, wrong number".
>
I am hoping that it retains its traditional value, since
AFAIK, no numerologist has expoited the fact that the Euler
totient function of 666 is 6*6*6. {-:
--
Michael Press
pre...@apple.com
Greg Hartman
> >Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
> >nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
The original language of Revelation was Greek. The oddity of "six
hundred threescore and six" is due to us choking on the slightly archaic
English of the KJV. Every other translation I've ever seen (I have 31
English Bible translations) simply says 666.
The number probably refers back to King Solomon's extremely wasteful and
extravagant reign, when "silver was thought to be of little value" (1
Ki. 10:21). Solomon's personal tribute was 666 talents of gold (1 Ki.
10:14), or about 25 tons (!).
That passage in 1 Kings and the number of the Beast in Revelation are
the only two places in the Bible the number 666 is used. Solomon broke
all the rules for a king of Israel--he had lots of horses [i.e.,
military power], slaves, and money [see Deut. 17:16-17]--but the people
loved him because he was flashy and spectacular, and forgot what God had
commanded for the king. So 1 Kings 10 is not a chapter saying "look how
great Solomon was!"; it's a chapter saying "look how disgusting Solomon
was--and how uncritically everyone accepted him."
Because of all that, many scholars think the "number of the beast"
refers to a person uncritically accepting the world system active at the
time of Antichrist--not necessarily a tattoo or something.
So maybe some of us can stop panicking over ATM cards, Social Security,
and that giant computer in Belgium that doesn't exist.
--
Christian Humor!
http://christianhumor.miningco.com
"Do We Have To Give Up Our Brains For Jesus?"
http://www.aracnet.com/~ghartman/index.shtml
(Return address modified to block unsolicited commercial e-mail; remove
"nospam")
Greg Hartman
> >Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
> >nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
The original language of Revelation was Greek. The oddity of "six
hundred threescore and six" is due to us choking on the slightly archaic
English of the KJV. Every other translation I've ever seen (I have 31
English Bible translations) simply says 666.
The number probably refers back to King Solomon's extremely wasteful and
extravagant reign, when "silver was thought to be of little value" (1
Ki. 10:21). Solomon's personal tribute was 666 talents of gold (1 Ki.
10:14), or about 25 tons (!).
That passage in 1 Kings and the number of the Beast in Revelation are
the only two places in the Bible the number 666 is used. Solomon broke
all the rules for a king of Israel--he had lots of horses [i.e.,
military power], slaves, and money [see Deut. 17:16-17]--but the people
loved him because he was flashy and spectacular, and forgot what God had
commanded for the king. So 1 Kings 10 is not saying "look how great
Solomon was!"; it's saying "look how disgusting Solomon was--and how
uncritically everyone accepted him."
Because of all that, many scholars think the "number of the beast"
refers to a person uncritically accepting the world system active at the
time of Antichrist--not necessarily a tattoo or something.
So maybe some of us can stop panicking over ATM cards, the ZIP code in
Kansas, Social Security, and that giant computer in Belgium that doesn't
Ron Whittle
>Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
>Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
>6002020206.
>
>Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
>nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
One of the bibles that I own says the number could be translated as
626.
Robert Billing
In article <33B7A5...@aracnet.com.nospam>
ghar...@aracnet.com.nospam "Greg Hartman" writes:
> So maybe some of us can stop panicking over ATM cards, Social Security,
> and that giant computer in Belgium that doesn't exist.
When I read that I thought someone was questioning the reality of
Belgium, or offering to remove it...
Robert Billing
> I suspect the phrase "six hundred threescore and six" was a semantic
> convention of the translators of the King James version in 1611. There
> is nothing in any Greek text that I am aware of to suggest such
> phrasing.
You are correct. If you look at the original thread you will find that
I posted this last Saturday.
I must get around to finging an NIV/interlinear, although my brain is
probably as stuck on the KJV as it is on PDP-11 assembler. This is a
penalty of middle age.
Uncle Al Schwartz
Take a simple idea, add religion, get activated sludge (and a huge and
hugely expensive bureacuracy standing shotgun over the reliquiries).
--
Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
Uncl...@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
unc...@uvic.ca (to 30 July, cAsE-sensitive!)
http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
UNCLE AL'S GUIDE TO THE BEAST
(rec.org.mensa,uk.org.mensa,alt.bored,sci.chem,sci.physics conferred.)
666 - Number of the Beast
666A - Tenant of the Beast
664,668 - Neighbors of the Beast
66667-6666 - Zip Code+4 of the Beast (Topeka, KS)
Motel 666 - Lodging of the Beast
00666 - Beast, James Beast
666 Whitehall - Address of British Prime Minister Beast
666 Pennsylvania Ave - Address of husband of US Beast
vi vi vi - Editor of the Beast
6 - Acronym of the Beast
999 - The Australian Beast
666" - Baby Beast holding an apple
6o6 - Circumcision of the Beast
(38-22-35)666 - Beauty and the Beast
666666666666 - Stutter of the Beast
555 - Number of the Munchkin Beast
6*6^6~ - Number of the Professional Wrestling Beast
999 - Number of the dead Beast
sex-sex-sex - Number of the horny Beast
Wilde666 - The African savannah wildeBeast
NCC-666 - Starship of the Beast
NCC-666D - Starship of the Beast, The Next Generation
C666PO - Protocol droid of the Beast (fluent in over 6.66
million forms of damnation)
R666D666 - R666 unit of the Beast
666 666 - Stereo picture of the number of the Beast
666 999 - Number of the Beast with a two-fold axis
C666 - Fullerene of the Beast
111 - Empirical formula of the Beast
670 - Approximate number of the Beast
DCLXVI - Roman numeral of the Beast
666.0000 - Number of the High Precision Beast
0.666 - Number of the MilliBeast
1/666 - Reciprocal of the Beast
666i - Imaginary number of the Beast
-0.80901699 - Sin of the Beast
0.58778525 - Cos of the Beast
x^(666) - Power of the Beast
1-666 - One Less Beast
1010011010 - Binary of the Beast
29A - Hexadecimal of the Beast
1-900-666-0666 - Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! Only
$6.66/minute. Over 18 only please.
2x4x666 - Lumber of the Beast
333 - Eric the half-a-Beast
6 and whatever - Number of Hippie Beast
66F - Number of the Breast
Chanel No. 666 - Perfume of the Beast
666 F - Oven temperature of roast Beast
Heinz 666 - Relish of the Beast
666-UP - Soft drink of the Beast
666 pack - Beer of the Beast
Vick's Formula 666 - Cough syrup of the Beast
666k - Retirement plan of the Beast
666 - Daily Lotto "Pick 3" of the Beast
6-6-6 - Beast hits slots jackpot!
666 Binet - IQ of the Beast
666 Cattel - IQ of the British Beast
0.666 Welscher - IQ of the American Beast
666-666 - Eyesight of Beast
666EEE - Shoe size of Beast
Car 666 - Tootie and Muldoon of the Beast
666 Sunset Strip - TV show of the Beast
666 mg - Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
6.66% - 5 year CD interest rate at First Beast of Hell
National Bank, $666 minimum deposit.
666 Hz - Tuning fork of the Beast
666 MHz - Radio Beast
Channel 666 - Cable TV of the Beast
MIL-666 - US Quality Standard of the Beast
ISO-666 - European Quality Standard of the Beast
DIN 666 - Deutsche Industrie Norm fuer Biesten
DSM-666 (rev.) - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast
Windows 666 - Beast of the Beast
WfW 6.66 - Windows for Workbeasts
665.999948 - Intel Pentium calculator of the Beast
Lotus 6-6-6 - Spreadsheet of the Beast
Word 6.66 - Word Processor of the Beast
be...@666.com - Email of Beast
666.66.666.6 - IP number of the Beast
http://www.666.com - URL of the Beast
beast.uue - 7-bit Usenet Uu-encoded Beast
666P - TCP/IP protocol of the Beast
606 - Not Found Error of the Beast
rw-rw-rw- - UNIX file protection of the Beast
666.666 - Library of Congress number "Book of the Beast"
666 W - Power of the Beast
666 J - Energy of the Beast
666 VAC/DC - This Beast is bi
i66686 - Intel CPU of the Beast
680666 - Motorola CPU of the Beast
System 666 - Mac OS of the Beast
EMI666 - CD catalog number of Soundtrack of the Beast
Flight 666 - First class booked reservation of the Beast
Boeing 666 - Jet of the Beast
Phillips 666 - Gasoline of the Beast
Route 666 - Way of the Beast
Cummins 666 - Diesel Beast
R66/6 - Old BMW motorcycle of the Beast
666i - BMW of the Beast
666DL - Volvo of the Beast
Lexus 666 - Luxury sedan of the Beast
F 666 - Ferrari of the Beast (8 liter @ 12 cyls)
Mazda 666 - Economy car of the Beast
999 - Mate of the Beast
6, uh... what was the question? - Number of the Blonde Beast
Huse, George V., Jr.
Robert Billing wrote:
[Snip]
> I must get around to finging an NIV/interlinear, although my brain is
> probably as stuck on the KJV as it is on PDP-11 assembler. This is a
> penalty of middle age.
A SEVERE penalty of middle age.
--
Buzz Huse E-Mail: mailto:buzz...@flash.net
Euless, Texas, USA Homepage: http://www.flash.net/~buzzhuse/
"These opinions/comments are entirely my own and no one else's."
Gidon Cohen
Herman Rubin wrote:
>
> In article <5ou8i1$gnn$1...@darla.visi.com>,
> Charles Robinson <char...@visi.com> wrote:
> >jwl (j...@best.com) wrote:
> >: if you want to show the Bible Code as a false probability then tell me why
> >: the original paper by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg was
> >: reviewed for six years by mathematicians published in 1994 and nobody has
> >: yet published a serious mathematical rebuttal to their findings?
>
> >Maybe nobody can take it seriously long enough to support/publish such a
> >rebuttal? Y'know, it's great that these guys found it worth the time and
> >effort to come up with this "code" - but does that mean other people
> >should waste/spend (depends on your perspective) at least as much time
> >trying to disprove it? BTW, how long did these three gentlemen take to
> >come up with this "code"?
>
> Knowing something about what they have done, I am still highly suspicious.
> As far as I know, they have not made their entire algorithm public.
> Torah to make a critical rebuttal. On the information I have seen,
> my Hebrew would not be strong enough, and I can see some problems
> with the testing.
>
> About all we can say is that those who reviewed it could not find
> anything which they could tell was wrong. In general, a review of
> a paper for a mathematics or statistics journal does not require
> much time and effort; the reviewer is NOT obligated to ensure that
> errors have not occurred, but just that none were detected.
> --
> This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
> are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
> Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
> hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
The programs (including source code) are available from:
http://cs.anu.edu.au/people/bdm/ELS/
In this directory there are also programs and data pertaining to an
experiment done to further investigate the phenomenon. The report of that
experiment is available at:
http://www.math.gatech.edu/~jkatz/Religions/Numerics/report.html
The Summary of the experiment is as follows:
>>>>>>> ==== SUMMARY ====
We have performed two series of experiments similar to that
published by Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg. One matches the
appellations of famous rabbis against the names of the books
they wrote. The other matches their appellations against the
years of their birth or death.
In each case, the result was unambiguously negative.
No indication of any extraordinary phenomenon was found.
>>>>>>>>>
However, a number of problems with this experiment have been pointed out
by the senior author of the original Statistical Science article
(Eliyahu Rips). This is available at:
http://www.cybermail.net/~codes/tests.htm
The summary of this report is as follows:
>>>>>>>SUMMARY
1. Mistaken data has been detected for both parts of the experiment (on
years and on books), in surprising quantities. Therefore all the
results and conclusions given in this Report are invalid.
2. There is a fundamental flaw in their methodology: the authors of the
report fail to say clearly IN ADVANCE, what will be
considered a "successful" outcome (i.e. finding supporting evidence for
ELS claims) and what will be considered a "failure".
3. This lack of a specified basis for judgement of the outcome widely
opens the door to subjective interpretation of the results.
4. They claim the similarity of their experiments to that of [WRR]. In
reality only a small portion of their experiments are indeed
similar.
5. Having found a result 0.4% does not prevent them from concluding "The
result was unambiguously negative. No indication of any
extraordinary phenomenon was found." And this because they claim that
they performed a "large number of computations". However,
examination shows that only a small portion of the computations are
relevant, so 0.4% cannot be so easily discounted. Unfortunately,
all the results are meaningless, because the computations were made with
flawed data.
6. Contrary to their claims, the experiment with books involves
considerable complexities, and will be discussed separately.
>>>>>>>>>>
Gidon Cohen
Judson D. McClendon
Greg Hartman <ghar...@aracnet.com.nospam> wrote
[snip]
> Because of all that, many scholars think the "number of the beast"
> refers to a person uncritically accepting the world system active at the
> time of Antichrist--not necessarily a tattoo or something.
Most Bible scholars whom I respect understand the 666 this way ("for it is
the number of a man"). In Biblical number symbology, the number seven is
often used for completeness or perfection and is often used to refer to God
in some attribute. Both God (Father, Son, Spirit) and man (body, soul,
spirit) are triune beings (man is made in the 'image' of God). So one
might say that the 'number of God' might be 777 and the 'number of a man'
might be 666. As to whether the Antichrist will use a literal 666 for the
mark, perhaps only those on the earth then will know. I won't be here.
> So maybe some of us can stop panicking over ATM cards, Social Security,
> and that giant computer in Belgium that doesn't exist.
It is not because of the particular *value* of the 'number of the beast'
which should cause people to be suspicious. It is because at some point
the Antichrist (the beast) will force everyone to receive his mark on their
forehand or forehead. And Scripture seems to say that no one who accepts
the 'mark of the beast' can be saved. Read for yourself:
(Revelation 13:16-18)
He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to
receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one
---------------
may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or
------------------------------------------------------------------------
the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding
----------------------
calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His
number is 666.
(Revelation 20:4)
... Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their
witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast
or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on
--------------------------------------------------
their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ...
-----------
People aren't condemned before God because they put a mark on their skin or
make a poor political or financial decision. Sin is of the heart, not of
the outside:
(Mark 7:20-23)
And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from
within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil
things come from within and defile a man.”
Consider, why would the Antichrist require people to receive the mark in
the first place? Logically, it is because to receive the mark those people
will have to swear allegiance to the Antichrist. The Antichrist sets
himself up as god and requires that people worship him.
(Revelation 13:8)
All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been
written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world.
Obviously, to please someone demanding to be worshiped as god, one would
have to renounce the real God. And upon renouncing God and swearing
allegiance to the Antichrist, they would receive the "mark or the name of
the beast, or the number of his name". Some mark in the forehand or
forehead that signifies the person has sworn allegiance to the Antichrist.
It is almost certainly what the mark signifies, the renouncement of God and
swearing allegiance to the Antichrist, which excludes one from ever being
saved, not the mark itself.
--
Judson McClendon This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
Sun Valley Systems acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the
ju...@mindspring.com world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)
Tom Harrington
Uncle Al Schwartz (unc...@uvic.ca) wrote:
: Route 666 - Way of the Beast
Y'know, there really is a US Route 666, in Southwestern Colorado and
Southeastern Utah. I don't think I saw any beasts on it the last
time I was out that way, though.
--
Tom Harrington ------- t...@rmii.com ------- http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph
"Usenet moves at the speed of dark." -Kibo
-> Fractal Kit: http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph/fractalkit/fractal.html <-
Mike McCarty
In article <33B42D...@flash.net>,)Tanstaafl@*geocities.com wrote:
)>
)> I still say that Heinlein was right.
)>
)> The number of the beast is 6^6^6, and we can travel the universe in a
)> car with a computer called DORA.
)
)Maybe. The number of the Beast is "...six hundred threescore and six".
)Rev 13:18, King James Version Bible. Which could mean 666 or
)6002020206.
)
)Anybody know what the original language of Revelations was? It would be
)nice to see if there are other transalions pssible.
The language was Greek, Koine' Greek, specifically.
The name of the book is "Revelation". There is no "s" in it.
Mike
--
----
char *p="char *p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
I don't speak for DSC. <- They make me say that.
Michael D. Painter
Huse, George V., Jr. <buzz...@flash.net> wrote in article
<33B933...@flash.net>...
> Robert Billing wrote:
>
> [Snip]
>
> > I must get around to finging an NIV/interlinear, although my brain is
> > probably as stuck on the KJV as it is on PDP-11 assembler. This is a
> > penalty of middle age.
>
> A SEVERE penalty of middle age.
Kids. Try SPS on an IBM 1620.