By the Numbers
Some time after I had read the Bible through for the second time, I began to look for ways to ‘prove’ the Book. This was partly the predictable result of talking with my children and trying to answer their questions. And partly the result of my irritation at hearing so many irrational statements and outright lies about what the Bible actually says. Fortunately, I grew up in a faith-free home, with two certifiable parents who never read the Book and had no respect for God. My siblings and I were taught to value books, not The Book. So we turned to books, mostly fiction, to find a place to hide from the violence and lunacy in our home. Some time in the late 50s, I read a science fiction story whose plot centered on the problem of communicating with extra-terrestrials. I can’t remember the title, the author, or any other details now. Just this: the author’s thesis was that any life form capable of space travel must, necessarily, be familiar enough with physics, chemistry, metallurgy, etc., to recognize the table of chemical elements. This is the physical root of physical reality. The basis of life is the basis of communication.
I decided to apply that thesis to my question of proving the Bible. “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not know me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Isaiah 45:5-7 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1-3 These statements are either true or false. They are two of many in the King James Bible that plainly claim that the God Who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the Creator of the space-time continuum. Like it or lump it! How to prove this: true or false?
The cause is greater than the effect. (One of the laws of physics, I think.) The Word has to be more orderly than the things that were formed by the Word. And the signs of that order will show in the Word. The consistent order that translates without change into every language is the numbering system. Yes, it’s there. Book, chapter and verse. So I chose as my starting hypothesis, this question: Is the numbering system of the King James Bible an information encoding system?
There are corollary questions that are inherent in that question. But that question is the one I was trying to prove/disprove.
The proof requirements are stringent. I was asking: 1. do the concepts that are ‘filed’ under certain numbers match the characteristics of the elements that have those same numbers? (For instance, does hydrogen match “In the beginning”?) 2. if so, is the match indisputable? Is the characteristic of that element true of only that element? And if those two requirements are met, then the proof is only one out of two. It either matches or it doesn’t match. The Law of Probabilities then starts multiplying the proofs. Once I had found the proofs on 5 elements/concepts, the mathematical proof was not five, but one (1) out of 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2, which is thirty-two (32). By 1993, I had accumulated enough notes to chart the proof on twenty-three elements/concepts. At that time, my life was thrown into total upheaval by domestic violence. But during the following years, while I trudged through multiple relocations and upheavals, I always knew that I had my chart. I had twenty-three demonstrated matches. That’s two to the twenty-third power (this keyboard is not mathematically proficient); two with twenty-three zeroes after it. 200000000000000000000000. I have no word for that.
It’s 2010 now and my chart has disappeared. In one of those relocations, it disappeared. Now that I’m starting over, charting the proofs again, it appears that there are many more than twenty three matches. The answer to my hypothetical question is bigger than I expected. Wherever Kurt Goedel is, I hope he’s smiling over my use of his theorem. I’m planning to post these elements/concepts, by the numbers. Researching the elements has been good for my aging brain; I hope everyone who reads here will stretch a little, too. I’m in awe at this Book. Please join me.
