Satinover says, "It is also significant that the researchers tried to find
the same phenomenon by using the Samaritan Pentateuch, which varies
slightly from the traditional Jewish Textus Receptus. But the phenomenon
was utterly lacking in letter-level variants of the Pentateuch, such as the
Samaritan Pentateuch. Nor could it be found in other texts, sacred or
otherwise. One of the reviewers had them try the same test on Tolstoy's
"War and Peace"...but the phenomenon did not appear in "War and Peace"
I'm not going to quote from the Witzum, Rips & Rosenberg paper because I
haven't read their section on methodology yet, and you really have to read
that to understand what they say. However, at first glance it seems to say
about what Satinover said, only much more carefully written.
I think the key lies in the following from Allen's post:
They found that a small change in the choice of
>> appellations for the famous rabbis can lead to War and Peace performing
just
>> as well as Genesis.
There is considerable freedom to decide how you're going to go about such
tests, and when one test doesn't provide interesting results, you can try
something else.
WRR Merely conclude that the ELS results on the Torah don't look like
chance to them -- a respectable academic conclusion which others can and
should challenge. Some of the authors who have written popular books on
the subject haven't been so modest.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
Staff Research Engineer
Electrical and Controls Integration MC 480-106-390
GM R&D Center
30500 Mound Road
Warren, MI
hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com / whamilto@mich.com (home)