From: Brendan McKay (bdm@cs.anu.edu.au)

Andrew Bromage wrote:

> Just so we get this absolutely clearm I'm going to repost Calvin Culver's
> counterexample.  I hope this will help clear up the problem.
  
>                  ONCE MORE ON "BIBLICAL NUMERICS"
 
> The same sort of phenomena that Panin "discovered" in the biblical texts can be
> found in any writing.  It really is just plain old probability.  For example,
> let's take the first two lines of the first verse of Edgar Allen Poe's "The
> Raven":
 
>    Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary

 
> First, assign numeric values to the letters of the English alphabet using the
> same principle Panin did for the Hebrew:
 
> A B C D E F G H I J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z 
> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
 
> Now, convert the letters into their numeric values, and total up each word:
 
> 1           2              3   4                     5
> O  n  c e   u    p o  n    a   m  i d n  i g h t     d r  e a r  y,
> 60 50 3 5   300 70 60 50   1   40 9 4 50 9 7 8 200   4 90 5 1 90 700
> 118         480            1   327                   890
 
> 6              7   8                     9            10       11 
> w   h i l  e   I   p  o  n  d e r  e d   w   e a k    a n  d   w   e a r  y 
> 500 8 9 30 5   9   70 60 50 4 5 90 5 4   500 5 1 20   1 50 4   500 1 5 90 700 
> 552            9   288                   526          55       1296
 
> And here are a few of the phenomena we find:
 
>  o  All words together have 49 letters (7x7)
>  o  The first 6 words have 28 letters (4x7)
>  o  The last 5 words have 21 letters (3x7)
>  o  The middle 5 words have 28 letters (4x7)
>  o  The 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th words have 21 letters (3x7)
>  o  The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th words have 28 letters (4x7)
>  o  The 1st, middle and last words have 14 letters (2x7)
>  o  The 1st 3 words plus last 3 words have 21 letters (3x7)
>  o  The 1st, 5th and 9th words have 14 letters (2x7)
>  o  The 3rd, 7th and 11th words have 7 letters (1x7)
>  o  The total of the 2nd, 5th, 8th and 11th words is 2954 (422x7)
>  o  Beginning with the 5th letter, every 7th letter totals 413 (59x7)

The list above does not even begin to exhaust the vast array of numerical
patterns present in these few words.  For example,

* The first and last words sum to 1414 (202x7),
*      of which the first letters contribute 560 (80x7).
* The consonants in words starting with a consonant sum to 3759 (537x7).
* The consonants in words ending with a consonant sum to 3395 (485x7),
*     1344 (192x7) from the odd length words, 2051 (293x7) even length.
* The consonants in words 2,4,6,8,10 sum to 1239 (177x7).
* There are 7 words ending with consonants.
* There are 21 (3x7) consonants in words of even length.
  Considering words 1,3,5,7,9,11:
*   There are 21 (3x7) letters  [noted above]
*   The even (2,4,6..) letters in each word total 966 (138x7).
*   The last letters of each word total 1435 (205x7).
*   The first and last letters of each word total 2499 (51x7x7).
  Considering the verb "pondered":
*   The first letter has value 70 (10x7).
*   The vowels have total value 70 (10x7).

And on and on.  It would be a routine exercise to find 100 more "features".
 
> There are a number of other objections to Panin's methodology as well, which
> time does not permit me to go into. 

This is incredible.  Your sentence has 3x7 words and a total value of 143x7x7!
The first word has value 44x7.  Words ending in vowels have value 230x7 and
those ending in consonants have value 708x7.  The three pronouns total 40x7.
The words which start with a vowel and end with a consonant total 3x7x7x7 (!!).

Considering just words 2,4,6,8,...,20: there are 6x7 letters of which the 
3x7 letters in odd position in the sentence total 53x7x7 and the 3x7 letters
in odd position in a word total 54x7x7.  The first letters of these words 
total 163x7, and the consonants total 408x7.

I could continue for pages, but the facts are pretty clear.  Numerical
patterns exists wherever you take the trouble to look for them.

After studying Panin's work for many years, I am 101% convinced that it is 
nonsense.  Some of it is even worse than nonsense, it is dishonest.  For 
example, one of Panin's more famous features relies on deliberate misspelling 
of a name.

One disproof of a rather humourous nature has been available for decades.
Panin was not the only writer who claimed that numerical patterns allowed
the authentication of scripture.  McCormack (The Heptadic Structure of
Scripture) was another.  Both Panin and McCormack published Greek texts
for Matthew 1-2 which exhibited remarkable patterns involving the number 7.
Trouble is, these two texts don't even have the same number of words :-).

Overview on numerical features in different scriptures
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