From: Vernon Jenkins (vernon.jenkins@virgin.net)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 13:35:19 EST
To enlarge a little on what Iain has written concerning the numbers 888
(Jesus) and 1480 (Christ), we have the following:
(1) These are derived from the Greek nominative forms of name and title -
found in both Septuagint (c300 BC) and NT - the name "Jesus" being conferred
on the child (as yet unborn) by divine command (Lk.1:31); and the title
"Christ" by divine revelation (eg Mt.16:16, 17).
(2) Symbolically, the numbers unite name with title since their hcf is 296,
or 8x37. Further, their reduced ratio is 3:5 - precisely that of the sides
of the mercy seat (Ex.25:17) - one of the titles used of Jesus (1Jn.2:2).
Note also that "Son of Man" is 2960, or 10x296.
(3) The sum of the numbers 888 and 1480 is 2368, or 64x37 - ie the number of
unit cubes in a 4x4x4 cubical stack multiplied by the number of these units
actually visible (in whole or in part) in a typical view.
Vernon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Iain Strachan" <iain.strachan@eudoramail.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>; <bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 11:28 PM
Subject: Re: numbers from Re: personal revelations
>
> On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 16:29:04
> bivalve wrote:
> >>It was Grattann-Guinness who first told me that the New Testament
gematria were rigged so that many key phrases yielded multiples of the
number 37<
> >
> >Based on the popular significance of 3, I would expect 111 (as a triplet
of a significant number) rather than 37 to be the important number. Does 37
actually turn up much without 111?
> >
>
> I'm not aware that multiples of 111 are more common among multiples of 37
than expected. "Iesous" in the greek is 888, but Christos is 1480. "Son of
Man" is 2960. The fact that "Jesus" was 888 was very well-known throughout
history; there is a mass "Sub Tuum Presidium" by the renaissance composer
Obrecht that contains 888 beats because 888 was considered to be the
mystical number of Jesus.
>
> The numbers 111 and 123 are both traditionally associated with the Trinity
(for obvious reasons). According to Grattann-Guinness, Beethoven
deliberately chose the Opus number 123 for his greatest religious work the
"Missa Solemnis" because of its relevance to the Trinity. The reason for
believing it was deliberate is that Beethoven chose all his own opus
numbers, and at the time left out the number 122, which was due to be the
next opus, and only composed Op 122 at a later date.
>
> Probably part of the reason for the traditional interest in 37 as a
"recreational number" is that 999 is a multiple of 37 & hence it crops up
when patterned numbers are written down in base 10. Hence the repeating
cycle in the decimal expansion of 1/7 ( 142857 ) is a multiple of 37
(142+857 = 999 ).
>
>
> >>Even names like "Jesus", "Christ", and "Son of Man" would have been
deliberately chosen to yield multiples of 37. (I've checked; they do).<
> >
> >As all of these appear in the OT (the first two being Greek
translations), they clearly were not made up by the NT writers. The NT
writers may have chosen (deliberately or unwittingly through providence)
numerically significant names and phrases, but this in no way supports the
claim that they were just making it up.
>
> I agree with you here. Furthermore "Yeshua" does not make a multiple of
37; so it seems they didn't have much choice there. The one definite
accusation G-G made of making up was after I showed him the patterns in Gen
1:1 from Vernon's web site. (Genesis 1:1 evaluates to 37x73). At the time
G-G was not aware of the OT incidences of 37, only the NT. His response was
"So... they were at it in the Old Testament as well". When I ventured that
the person whose web-site I got it off had suggested it was evidence that
God inspired the bible, G-G responded "No. It is the strongest possible
evidence that humans and _not_ God wrote the bible."
>
> I responded that this thing (making the letters add up and make intricate
patterns) was actually extremely hard to do. I had come across some
deliberate attempts documented in the book "Bach and the riddle of the
number alphabet", (Ruth Tatlow), which shows that it was a common game to do
this kind of thing in the 17th Century. One example was a poem simply
called "2300" where every line was supposed to add up to 2300, the number
from the book of Daniel. What was obvious from these "poetical paragrams"
was that:
>
> (1) Frequently they used non-conventional spelling to make the numbers
add up.
>
> (2) Frequently the numbers didn't add up right because the author got the
arithmetic wrong.
>
> (3) The subject matter of such poems was invariably absolute drivel and
worthless as literature.
>
> I contrasted this with the fact that Gen 1:1 is a perfectly natural
sentence in Hebrew, and extremely relevant and clear about what it says.
However Grattann-Guinness didn't respond on this point - as far as he was
concerned, humans must have deliberately done it.
>
> Anyway, thanks for your interest,
> Iain.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Need a new email address that people can remember
> Check out the new EudoraMail at
> http://www.eudoramail.com
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