From: Iain Strachan \(asa\) (iain.strachan.asa@ntlworld.com)
Date: Sun Mar 02 2003 - 09:50:13 EST
PASAlist wrote:
<interesting discussion on the variations in spelling in the Hebrew
language>:
>
> In conclusion, we can say that the 5 consonants in the nota accusativi in
Gen
> 1:1 were not there before approximately the time of David, the three yods
> used as vowel letters were not there before approximately the time of King
> Asa. and one cannot count on the spellings of any of the words as going
back
> any earlier than the time of Jeremiah if that. If, therefore, the
numerology
> based on the consonants in Gen 1:1 is due to divine inspiration, it was a
> writer or editor several hundred years after Moses (whom no one dates
earlier
> than c. 1300 BC) who was so inspired.
>
This is all very interesting, but surely this in itself effectively rules
out the idea that it could have been done by "man". Otherwise it means that
the introduction of the nota accusativi and the introduction of the yod for
the long "i" were done solely by a human to make Gen 1:1 add up to a pretty
total (and have the extraordinary internal structure that is analysed on
Vernon's web-site). I think it would be hard enough to make that structure
given a blank slate to write about; if one had instead to make it work by
twisting the spelling of a given text, it would appear to be next to
impossible. Additionally, there are all the other instances that have been
found in the OT, which would also be affected by such tinkering. One
notable instance of a sentence coming to 1369 (37 squared) is "But he was
pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities" (Is.
53:5a). Another is "And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters" (Gen 1:2b) , using the yod for the long "i" in Elohym. The first of
these examples has very little to do with the C/E debate, but it is very
clearly at the core of the Gospel, and central to what all Christians
believe. I think it's pretty reasonable to claim that all this doesn't come
about by tinkering with the spelling.
No one has as yet answered my point that the only scientific explanation
that has been postulated for the formation of order out of chaos is an
evolutionary process, and that in order for this to work, each change must
yield selective advantage. But spelling changes don't change the meaning,
and whether or not it adds up to a multiple of a significant number clearly
also doesn't add any selective advantage in the process of evolution of a
language.
There seems to be the assumption here that if the pattern wasn't there when
it was written down by the original author, then somehow God must have
botched it up, and then corrected His mistakes later on. But why does it
have to be there the first time? What if God foreknew how the language was
going to evolve, and arranged things so the patterns would be manifested
once the language had stabilised? As the web-site I referenced earlier
shows; in three separate Jewish traditions there are only a handful of
letter errors between them. The fact that a fourth one is different is
irrelevant. It surely means that the scribes in these three traditions
believed that something was there that needed preserving, that was dependent
on the spelling.
You say that it was a writer or editor several hundred years after Moses who
was so inspired. But presumably the writer or editor was just modernising
the spelling to what was accepted contemporary use, just as modern versions
of the KJV say "beginning" and "earth" instead of something like
"beginnynge" and "earthe". It seems you are left with two possibilities:
(1) Coincidence.
(2) A supernatural phenomenon (as claimed by Vernon).
Now you can't "prove" anything is a supernatural phenomenon. So you will
have to argue that it's coincidence if you don't like option (2). That's
what I thought it must be when Grattann-Guinness first told me the NT
gematria were riddled with 37's. I really didn't like the implications of
it being a real phenomenon. But reading Vernon's site, just from the
mathematical point of view, and leaving out all the other claims as to
whether it means that Gen 1 is literally true (and I don't think it proves
this anyway), I was pretty convinced (reluctantly so) that it was not a
coincidence; that this was a real phenomenon that I had been directed by a
convoluted route into researching.
Iain
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sun Mar 02 2003 - 09:50:51 EST