Newsgroup posting:
The believers in the "mathematical miracle of the Qur'an" claim that
these mind-boggling properties show the divine origin of the Qur'an.
They have challenged the rest of the world to find similar structures
in any other book in order to show that the Qur'an is not unique in this
and therefore this "proof" is not valid...
Meeting this challenge with a few examples should make responses like
the one below relevant to this news group.
(Believe it or not, my first miracle was rejected for irrelevance, and
this second one for possible copyright violation because of too much quoting
from somebody else. Is there some higher power behind it that doesn't
want the miracle in the Bible to be known?) To alleviate copy right problems:
This material is from Ivan Panin's works (as Brendan kindly pointed out to
me) and which I didn't know since the web site didn't attribute it to the
author. Panin has died over 50 years ago, so that copyright should not be a
problem with quoting him extensively.
I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THESE NUMEROLOGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS. They do not prove
anything. With this article I am NOT attacking the validity of the Qur'an.
I am using the same "invalid methods" of the Khalifa-disciples to show that
the Bible is a miracle and the Qur'an is NOT from God. Since the methods
can yield the opposite answer to the "results" Khalifa concluded from them,
that means the methods are invalid.
This article is not against the Qur'an but against the numerological methods.
I do not believe in the Qur'an (as most of you know), but the reasons for my
doubts about the Qur'an are of completely different nature and are solidly
based on content and not on esoteric numerological reasoning.
I gave the article the title "A miracle" (indefinite article) because in fact
there are tons of them. And it is not "the best I can come up with" [before
Shawki gets into ridiculing it -- and please show HOW it does NOT meet your
standards of validity as you for sure will not like to accept it] but it
replies to a specific request by Shawki made in:
| Subject: Quit Fooling, Brendan, Jochen, Lomax !
Nope. How do you like the following smoke screen?
In article <4meqm9$gsm@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>, shawki Hamdan
writes:
| Fortune has nothing to do with this Brendan. It is not the amount of
| samples you that you present that matters, but rather the quality of
| the samples.
Would you mind defining what you understand to be "quality". So that we
can present you with examples that meet your standards of "quality"? And
make sure beforehand, that not most of the "19-miracles" fall apart under
your own requirements of quality, too.
| Surely you can show that the number of books in the New Testament and
| their order were the result of intelligent design at least. :)
That is the one I am going to take you up on. ;) And not just the
New Testament, no, we are taking the whole Bible since all of it belongs
together. It is one great and miraculous revelation by God. And the
conclusion at the end is that the Qur'an is not from God, since it lacks
this feature. Stay tuned read through and be amazed.
I pulled this from a web site which I will tell you about later on.
My comments which I will insert at a few places are prefaced by
my initials "JK". Here it comes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translations and Bibles of Less than or More Than 66 Books
An impressive feature, and one that caused us great difficulty, is that by
the addition of the Apocryphal books, the phenomena that occur in the Bible
as a WHOLE is thwarted. Not one of the phenomena, (Number of Proper Names,
Number of Words in the Alphabet, ect. ) remains when these books are
considered, AND not one of these books contains ANY of the phenomena of any
ascertainable sort! It is our opinion that this clearly refutes any claim by
any religion, that these books are from God. It is our contention that the
fact that these books do not contain even ONE of the phenomena, is
sufficient evidence the they should not be considered scipture.
As for "revisions" made by the Mormon church or by Jehovah's Witnesses, we
can only state that these changes eliminate the phenomena, again a basis for
rejection of their claims of a "correct" version.
As we completed these investigations, we then focused our attention on the
writings alleged to be "additional" sciptures, such as the Book of Mormon,
Pearl of Great Price, Koran, Doctrine and Covenants of the Mormon Church and
Commandments of the Mormon Church, as well as writing from Moses David of
the Children of God, Mary Baker Eddy of Christian Science, and many, many
others.
In each and every case, the alleged "Sciptures" failed on every possible
Phenomena.
JK: Sounds familiar doesn't it? That is the basis for deleting the last two
verses of Sura 9, changing saad to seen in bastatan etc. The numerical
pattern that can be established with the one and not with the other shows
that this one is true.
We used the language that the claimed writings were in and looked for
phenomena that could be utilized by God within those languages. For English,
we felt that the phenomena of Number of letters or words in the alphabet,
consonants and vowels, number of proper names, ect. could be found if from
God. Any phenomena found was sporadic, not consistent, and therefore not of
God.
For us, and those who wish to accept such, we felt that this was sufficient
proof that these religions claiming guidance from God, were, at best, being
deceived by as good a counterfeit as man or Satan could devise.
In the claims of most non-Christian groups, one consistent statement is that
the 66 books of the Bible are either: (1) not correct or (2) not complete.
We feel that the issue of correctness is totally settled in our proofs and
results.
JK: They did lots of numerical miracles in some other articles. You will get
references later. I wish there were more on the net. I am not about to
buy all of Panin's books. I don't like spending much money for things I
don't believe in.
As far as the number of books being incorrect or incomplete, we look at the
following.
Computer Analysis of the Order and Number of Books in the Bible
The original sequence of the books of the Bible differ somewhat from the
sequence that is presently found in the English Bible. The original text had
the following order:
1. Genesis 12.Isa 23.Zep 34.Esth 45.James 56.Eph
2. Exodus 13.Jer 24.Hag 35.Dan 46.I Peter 57.Phil
3. Lev 14.Ezek 25.Zech 36.Ezra 47.II Peter 58.Col
4. Numbers 15.Hosea 26.Mal 37.Nehem 48.I John 59.I Thes
5. Deut 16.Joel 27.Psa 38.II Chr 49.II John 60.II Thes
6. Joshua 17.Amos 28.Prov 39.II Chr 50.III John 61.Hebrews
7. Judges 18.Obad 29.Job 40.Matt 51.Jude 62.I Tim
8. I Sam 19.Jonah 30.Song 41.Mark 52.Romans 63.II Tim
9. II Sam 20.Micah 31.Ruth 42.Luke 53.I Cor 64.Titus
10.I Kngs 21.Nah 32.Lam 43.John 54.II Cor 65.Philemon
11.II Kngs 22.Hab 33.Eccl 44.Acts 55.Galatians 66.Revelation
(Original means the Oldest or most original that were known in the world,
at this time.)
Some of the books assign themselves, either totally or in part to a
particular scribes name, while others are anonymous. The books which reveal
(in part or totally) the scribe's identity are:
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy ascribe themselves to Moses, and are
ascribed to Moses in other books of the Bible. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and
the 12 minor Prophets ascribe themselves to the scribes whose name the book
bears. Psalms is ascribed to David. Proverbs and the Song of Solomon ascribe
themselves to Solomon, Ecclesiastes ascribes itself only the "son of David"
which most believe to be Solomon. Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah ascribe
themselves to these respective scribes. James, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude bear
the name of their respective scribe. The Epistles of Paul ascribe
themselves, with the exception of Hebrews, to Paul. Revelation ascribes
itself to John.
The anonymous books, therefore are: Genesis, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel,
1 and 2 Kings, Job, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, Acts, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Hebrews.
Moses has 4, Solomon 3, Peter 2, Paul 13, and the other unidentified scribes
have one book each.
The number 66 is 6-11's (Feature 1). The anonymous books are 22 or 2 11's.
The non-anonymous books are 44 or 4-11's (Feature 2). Of these 44, 22 (or
2-11's) belong to writers of more then one book and 22 (again 2 11's) belong
to writers of only one book (Feature 3). The sum of the 66 numbers is 2,211
or 201-11's. We can divide this number in this manner: The 22 books of the
writers of more than one book have 946 (or 86-11's), while the other 44 have
1,265 (or 115-11's) (Feature 4).
Of these 66 books, 21 are Epistles. Their numbers are (James to Philemon) 45
to 65. The sum 2,211 for the 66 books can be divided between Epistles and
non-Epistles. The Epistles have 1,155 (or 105-11's) and the non-Epistles
have 1,056 (or 96-11's) (Feature 5).
Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel and Daniel are expressly quoted in the
New Testament. The number of their respective books are
2,3,4,5,12,13,15,16,27,35. The total sum of these book is 132 (or 12-11's)
(Feature 6).
The Numeric Values of the Bible Writer's names are:
Moses 345 Isaiah 401 Jeremiah 271
Hosea 381 Joel 47 Amos 176
Jonah 71 Micah 75 Nahum 104
Zephaniah 235 Zechariah 242 Malachi 101
Solomon 375 Daniel 95 Ezra 278
James 833 Haggai 21 Peter 755
Paul 781 John 781 John 1069
Ezekiel 156 Obadiah 91 Habbakuk 216
David 14 Nehemiah 113 Jude 685
The total sum of these is 7,931 which is 11 x 7 x 103. This can also be
expressed as 721-11's, while the sum of the factors 7, 11 and 103 is 121 or
11-11's. (Features 7 and 8)
There may be some that may claim that this could be by accidental or by
design. That the number of books in the Bible should be a multiple of 11
could possibly be accidental. However, since only every 11th number is a
multiple of 11, then the chance of accident is 1 in 11!
That this number can be divided between anonymous and non-anonymous books in
such a manner as to be multiples of 11 could also be an accident. However,
the Chance is one in 11 times 11 or one in 121!
That this number can be divided between the non-anonymous by 11's among the
authors of only one book and those of more than one book could also be
accidental. However, the chance for it being accident is one in 11 times 11
times 11 or one chance in 1,331.
If we carry out the progressions through the eight occurrences proven
above, we concede that each one could be accidental; However, the chance
for them all being so becomes ONE CHANCE IN 11 TO THE EIGHTH POWER or ONE
IN 214,358,881!!!!
Using a pencil and a lot more paper we find:
The sum of the numeric values of the 26 authors named as Biblical writers
which was shown above as being 7,931 is a multiple of seven (Feature 9) as
well as a multiple of eleven. Of this number, the 21 (3 x 7) writers of the
Old Testament have 3,808 or 544-7's and the New Testament writers have
(Feature 10) 4,123 or 589-7's. Of the 3,808 belonging to the Old Testament,
2,933 or 419-7's belong to the writers of the Law and the Prophets, from
Moses to Malachi, and 1,190 or 170-7's belong to the writers of the
hagiographa, from David to Nehemiah (Feature 11). Seven of the 21 Old
Testament writers (3-7's) are expressly named in the New Testament; These
are Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea and Joel. Their numeric
value is 1,554 or 222-7's (Features 12 & 13). The numeric value of Moses,
who heads the list, and John who closes it is 345 and 1069 which equal 1414
or 202-7's (Feature 14).
The Bible begins with the Hebrew word "beginning" and ends with the Greek word
"saint". The Hebrew word occurs in the following books: Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 1 Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea,
Amos, Micah, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Nehemiah and 2
Chronicles. The Greek word occurs in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, 1
Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, Romans, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ephesians,
Philemon and Revelation. These books total 42 or 6-7's. Take the number of
these books in order of their respective place and the sum is 1575 or
225-7's.
The possibility of these eight features of "Seven" and the eight features of
"Eleven" occurring together is one in 5,764,801 times 214,358,881 or one in
one thousand million millions! (Or one in 1.231 X 10 raised to the 15th
power.)
JK: Is this number astronomical enough a number to even convince those who
believe that the astronomical numbers from Qur'anic number manipulations
supposed to prove divine origin of the Qur'an in fact don't prove anything?
It would be impossible, therefore, to claim accident or conspiracy in the
phenomena indicated. The above clearly demonstrates the design of:
* 1. The number and order of the books as (originally) received.
* 2. The proportion between anonymous and non-anonymous books.
* 3 and 4. The proportion between books written by an author of a single
book and those written by authors of more than one book.
* 5. The proportion between Epistle and non-Epistle books.
* 6. The number of Old Testament writers quoted in the New Testament.
The Bible was written by some thirty different writers from many different
walks of life over a period of 1600 years between its first and last
writers. If we assume that it was exclusively written by HUMAN hands, we
cannot account for the mathematical phenomena demonstrated. If we assume
that a Superior Mathematical Mind (The Mathematical Author of Nature) has
planned these phenomena, then we are provided with an immediate and rational
explanation of these phenomena and others found in the Bible.
JK: And there is even one more stunning and confounding feature!!
God truly is the Sovereign Lord over all time and in all places.
Do you know what is the basis for the code for our modern ISBN numbers?
These numbers are based on the system of divisibility by 11 !!
Every ISBN (International Standard Book Number) consists of 10 "digits"
(or places) of which the first nine are normal digits from 0-9 and the
tenth one is the remainder when adding all of them up and dividing the
sum by 11 (X in the control digit means remainder "10" at this division).
So the 11 "controls" whether the number of the book is correct. When the
remainder doesn't come out to be the control digit, then there is a
mistake in the number.
Just as well as 11 controls every modern book number (by the will of God),
so is 11 the control number that God has given us to see which book(s) are
from God and which are not.
God in his eternal sovereign guiding of the whole universe has made sure
that 11 is the "form of book" control number while 7 is the miraculous
"content structure number". 7 is the number of perfection (God created the
world in 7 days and then declares it all "very good" which is just one
example of where the 7 signifies perfection or completion).
We will see lots more of the "7" structure. The names of the authors
(prophets / scribes) of the biblical books are both "form and content" since
their names are mentioned in the books themselves. So, they do have both
"11" features and "7" features.
And the Bible is by the above clearly divinely approved, while the Qur'an
is not. How do we see that?
The Qur'an has 114 Suras, 114 = 121 - 7 = 11 x 11 - 7, meaning that Qur'an
lacks (has NOT) the perfection of God. It misses the book control multiple
by the number of perfection. I would even say this warrants the conclusion
that the Qur'an is perfecly lacking everything that makes it "Word of God".
It misses the divine. On the other hand, 114 = 110 + 4 = 10 x 11 + 4, and
this shows that a lot of imperfect and purely human (maybe even ungodly)
content has been added. Four is the number of "the earth" or "creation" as
we can easily see since the Bible talks ever so often (symbolically) of
"the four corners of the earth", "the four directions of the wind" or the
"four creatures" mentioned in Revelation. "4" is about the "created" in
distinction to God's uncreated perfection. This proves that the Qur'an is
"created" or "made up" by mere creatures.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again my disclaimer: I personally believe that none of these number games
prove anything. Neither the divine inspiration of the Bible nor that of the
Qur'an. But, we can make equally impressive number manipulations on the Bible
as on the Qur'an [in fact, MORE so on the Bible since it is a much bigger data
base], which at the same time authenticate the Bible and expose the Qur'an as
false, -- while the Khalifa system supposedly shows the contrary. This shows
that these number games can be made to prove EVERYTHING we want them to, and
therefore do prove NOTHING at all.
Do you need more proof? I can give you as much as you want -- or better:
as much as you don't want to know about.
This was NOT disproving the Qur'an. This was NOT an attack on the Qur'an.
NO need to flame me or for emotional reactions, hate mail or anything
like it. This was ONLY an attack on the number mysticism and exposing it
as a fraud. Every seeker of truth should ponder it and draw the right
conclusions.
I do have other reasons why I do not believe in the Qur'an. But these
reasons have nothing to do with numbers.
With arithmetical greetings,
Jochen Katz
P.S. I did NOT check all the calculations. Don't flame me if it contains
errors. I found a few misprints and corrected them, but didn't check the
calculations.
Overview on numerical features in different scriptures
Answering Islam Home Page