THE SIGNATURE OF AN IGNORAMUS
The Canadian preacher Grant Jeffrey beats professors of mathematics
By Mark Perakh
Posted on August 2, 2000
CONTENTS
Canadian Christian preacher Grant R. Jeffrey is the author of a number of popular books all devoted to one aim, to prove that the Bible reveals the absolute truth, is impeccably consistent and, beyond doubt, is indeed the word of God. His books, while each approaching his task from slightly different angles, have many common features and in many respects repeat similar or even identical arguments. Therefore, to judge the overall level of Jeffrey’s discourse and to form an opinion of the quality of his argumentation, it seems sufficient to choose only one of his books, reasonably representative of Jeffrey’s writing. The book titled “The Signature of God” (Frontier Research Publishers, Inc, 1996) seems to meet the above condition.
A reader who opens the book in question encounters several quotations from Jeffrey’s fellow admirers of the Bible as a divinely-inspired revelation, who are all immensely impressed and enchanted by Jeffrey’s creations. As one of them wrote in regard to some previously published book by Jeffrey, “It is absolutely the most intriguing eye-opening book on end-time events I’ve come across in a long, long time. It’s terrific!” The rest of the opinions about Jeffrey’s works equally extol the virtues of his books.
In this article we will discuss Jeffrey’s arguments in order to see whether or not they indeed so brilliantly prove his case.
The book in question contains an introduction, and fifteen chapters, of which chapters 2 through 14 present various sets of specific arguments allegedly proving that the 44 writers who, according to Jeffrey, wrote various parts of the Bible, were directly guided by God. My intention is to discuss many of these alleged proofs, but I’ll do it in an order differing from that chosen by Jeffrey. I’ll start with chapters 10 and 11, which I will discuss together, followed by chapter 12, because these three chapters most vividly demonstrate the actual intellectual level of Jeffrey’s discourse and the degree of his adherence to facts. After discussing the three listed chapters, I will discuss the rest of Jeffrey’s book.
A detailed discussion of every paragraph in Jeffrey’s book would require writing another book of about the same size. Fortunately, reviewing some representative examples of Jeffrey’s writing will suffice to form an opinion of its quality and reliability. Therefore I will discuss the book in question by reviewing only selected examples of Jeffrey’s discourse.
JEFFREY DISCUSSES THE BIBLE CODE
Chapter 10 in Jeffrey’s book is titled “The Mysterious Hebrew Codes.” In this chapter Jeffrey tells the readers about what he calls the “staggering phenomenon of hidden codes beneath the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.”
The existence of the alleged code in question was first claimed by a Slovakian, Rabbi M. D. Weissmandl more than fifty years ago. The alleged code consists of meaningful words which appear in the Hebrew original of the Pentateuch in the form of so-called ELS (which stands for “Equidistant Letter Sequences”). To understand the concept of ELS, look at the phrase “book is titled” in the first line of this section. First, following the practice of the proponents of the alleged code, remove the spaces between the words of that phrase, thereby converting it into an uninterrupted string of letters, which is “bookistitled” (if the phrase in question contained any punctuation marks, they would be removed as well). Now look at the first letter of this written sequence which is “b”, and notice that the fourth letter after “b” in that phrase is “i”. Count four more steps along the text, and notice that the fourth letter after “i” is “t”. The three letters, “b,” “i” and “t” are separated by equal distances along the text and they form a meaningful word “bit.” This is an example of an ELS with a skip of 4. Here is another example. In the beginning of this section, look at the word “readers.” Its last letter is “s”. Now move leftwards, i.e. against the direction of the text. The second letter to the left of “s” is “e”. Continue leftwards, and the second letter to the left of “e” is “a”. The three letters, “s”, “e” and “a” are separated by equal distances and form a meaningful word “sea" if read from right to left. This is another ELS with a negative skip of two (-2). It can be easily demonstrated (as it has been actually done many times) that a very large number of ELS appear in any texts in various languages, including Hebrew, English, Russian, etc.
There is nothing amazing or unexpected in the appearance of numerous ELS in any
sufficiently long text, be it the text of the Torah or a Manhattan phonebook.
Each language contains an enormous number of words and phrasal combinations and
a statistical estimate shows that many of them are expected to appear as ELS in
every texts by sheer chance.
Let us look at how Jeffrey presents the phenomenon of ELS in his book.
First, he tells the readers about Rabbi M. D. Weissmandl’s discovery of
the word Torah as an ELS in the first
five books of the Bible. Reading Jeffrey’s narrative reveals at once that he is not
a stickler in regard to the even well known facts. For example, on page 202
Jeffrey tells us that Weissmandl found word Torah
“encoded” as an ELS in the book of Genesis with a skip of 7.
Actually the skip of that ELS is 50 rather than 7.
(On page 206 Jeffrey provides the correct value of that skip).
Of course, that small error is not very significant in itself, but it
indicates that readers have to be aware of possible inaccuracies by Jeffrey.
As we read Jeffrey’s narrative further, we see more and more of inaccuracies
and direct distortions of facts, which are so abundant that it is hard to decide
which to discuss first.
On page 203 Jeffrey tells us about the paper by D. Witztum, E. Rips, and Y.
Rosenberg (WRR) that was printed in Statistical
Science journal in 1994. In that paper, its authors claimed that pairs of
ELS for words related by meaning are situated in the text of the book of Genesis
in an unusually close proximity, thus indicating that those ELS happen in the
text not due to random chance but rather to a deliberate design.
While WRR stopped short of claiming directly that the sets of ELS they
studied were placed there by God, such a conclusion was obviously implied.
Jeffrey did not spare words to highly praise the alleged discovery by WRR which
seemed to nicely fit his agenda of proving the divine origin of the Bible.
The journal that printed the paper by WRR is, as Jeffrey tells us, “one
of the most prominent mathematical and scientific journals in the world.”
While the journal in question is indeed a fine scientific publication,
its virtues could hardly be evaluated by Jeffrey who, as it can be seen from his
dealing with probabilities (see further in this section) betrays his profound
ignorance of anything redolent of science in general and of statistics in
particular. Jeffrey’s accolade
was not a result of his familiarity with the journal in question, since he is
not only ignorant of the material usually published in that journal, but cannot
understand even the very paper by WRR he likes so much. While praising the
journal, Jeffrey mentioned in passing the commentary the editors of that journal
supplied when printing the paper by WRR. If
properly interpreted, that commentary leaves no doubt that the editors did not
trust WRR’s data and published their paper as a challenge to readers who might
be willing to invest enough time and effort to unearth flaws in WRR’s paper.
Jeffrey continues, “Their (WRR”s) discoveries of complex Hebrew codes that
reveal supernatural and prophetic knowledge about the future is causing
tremendous consternation in the academic community because it challenges the
long-held belief of liberal scholars who generally reject verbal inspiration of
the Bible.” Two lines further
Jeffrey concludes this paragraph as follows: “Despite the fact that numerous
scholars and scientists have attempted to challenge the validity of this Torah
research, the evidence has not been refuted.”
Nothing is even remotely true in the above quotation. The immediate question is how does Jeffrey know about the
“tremendous consternation” in the scientific community?
His occupation is “tremendously” far from any scientific activity.
Has he conducted a survey of scientists’ views on WRR’s paper? Have any
number of prominent mathematician ever expressed their consternation?
In fact, no “tremendous consternation” was caused by WRR’s paper in
the scientific community which practically unanimously rejected WRR’s paper as
a result of a faulty statistical study. Indeed,
soon after Jeffrey’ book was published, more than fifty prominent experts in
mathematical statistics signed a letter posted on the Internet in which they
claimed to have personally studied the work by WRR and unequivocally concluded
that WRR’s results cannot be trusted. Reviewing
the signatures on that letter reveals that many of them belong to scientists who
are nowhere close to being what Jeffrey refers to as “liberal scholars”
since a substantial number of them claim to be faithfully religious.
No such document exists in which any group of mathematicians would
support WRR’s work.
It is far from true that the alleged evidence presented by WRR was not
refuted. On the contrary, in a
number of publications the work by WRR was subjected to a detailed critical
analysis and the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that WRR’s
so-called evidence is unsubstantiated (see,
for example, the material placed at the websites:
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim
or http://members.cox.net/mkarep/ ).
In his attempts to make his point Jeffrey is using various, sometimes subtle and
often not so subtle, manipulations of facts if this serves his goal.
Here are a few examples.
On pages 206-207 Jeffrey returns to the ELS for the word Torah allegedly encoded in the book of Genesis with a skip of 50.
He tells us that an identical ELS for the word Torah
was also found in the second book of the Pentateuch with the same skip, and that
a similar ELS but this time with a negative skip (-50) is found in the fourth
book and with a smaller negative skip (-49 rather than -50) in the book of
Deuteronomy, in the last two cases starting at a certain distance from the
books’ beginnings. Then Jeffrey
refers to unnamed mathematicians who allegedly calculated the probability of the
appearance of the mentioned ELS for the word Torah
by chance as less than one in three million.
What Jeffrey fails to tell is that the actual calculation of
probabilities for the appearance of an ELS for the word Torah in the Hebrew text of the Torah (i.e. of four equidistant
letters Tav, Vav, Resh, Hey) predicts that such ELS with various skips are
expected to appear thousands of times in a text which is over 300,000 letters
long. He also omits any discussion
of the asymmetry of the four ELS in question.
While in the first two books of the Torah the ELS spelling Torah
start with the first occurrence of the letter Tav
from the beginning of the corresponding book, in the fourth and fifth books the
ELS for Torah, with negative skips, start well inside the books’ texts, and
the one in Deuteronomy has a different skip from the other three ELS.
Jeffrey also fails to say that the ELS for the word Torah can easily be found in any Hebrew text of sufficient length.
This selective narrative by Jeffrey clearly testifies that he is far from being
objective but rather tends to emphasize whatever, in his view, supports his
agenda, and downplay or even completely omit anything that may testify against
his beliefs.
This described style of Jeffrey’s can be illustrated by numerous other
examples. On pages 208, 209, and 210 Jeffrey describes examples of ELS in the
text of the Bible spelling such words as Hitler, Sadat, and others.
He, again, maintains that “many academics rejected out of hand the
possibility that this phenomenon could be real.”
Of course, Jeffrey avoids mentioning any names of these alleged
academics, since it is much safer to argue against unnamed opponents.
He continues, “Despite many attempts, no one could refute the data.”
This assertion is very far from being true.
More than one scientist has convincingly refuted the assertion that the
examples of ELS quoted by Jeffrey are something surprising or unique.
Similar ELS can be found (and have been found) in abundance in many non-biblical texts. This simple
fact in itself shows either the complete lack of impartiality on Jeffrey’s
part (if he knows about those finds in non-biblical texts) or his profound
ignorance of the matter (if he is not familiar with the examples of ELS in
non-biblical texts).
On page 212 Jeffrey refers to professor D. Kazhdan who, as Jeffrey wants us to
believe, supports the results of WRR’s work.
This is not true. All that
Kazhdan has ever publicly said about the Bible code was in a letter he signed
jointly with two other mathematicians, indicating that WRR conducted “serious
research.” He never said
that he shared WRR’s views or that their data were proven. Subsequently Kazhdan asserted (in private messages) that he
never studied WRR’ work in detail and therefore has no opinion about the
validity of their claim. Moreover,
if Jeffrey chose to refer to Kazhdan, why did he not refer to those many
mathematicians who studied WRR’s work and rejected their results?
A few lines further on, Jeffrey bestows the title of “Professor” on Doron
Witztum who never received that title from any university (Witzum does hold a
master's degree in physics, but has not worked as a physicist for many years).
True to form, Jeffrey grants the title of Professor also to Harold Gans (page 217)
who never had such a title but who had formerly been a cryptologists for the USA
government and now is Director of Research at Aish HaTorah, the organization
that uses the alleged Bible code as the main tool in their effort to induce
irreligious or doubting Jews to return to observance.
In other words, Mr. Gans is a professional proponent of the codes who
makes his living by propagandizing the alleged codes. He hardly could be viewed
as an unbiased witness. By attributing to Gans a scientific rank that gentleman
never had, Jeffrey is using a thinly veiled attempt to prove that real
scientists of high repute support his exaltation with the alleged codes. In
reality, with only a very few exceptions, there are almost no serious scientists
supporting the alleged codes. (Besides Professor Rips who is one of the authors
of the WRR’s paper, only one other mathematician, Professor Michelson claimed
his belief in codes. Besides these
two mathematicians, Professor R. Haralick, who is a prominent expert in the
field of pattern recognition, adheres to the opinion that whereas WRR’s
statistical approach is not satisfactory, the dispute between the proponents and
opponents of the codes has not yet been resolved and further study is in order. On the other hand, practically every other mathematician who
has expressed any opinion on codes, has rejected WRR’s work as statistically
flawed). Of course, since Gans is a proponent of the codes, Jeffrey
characterizes him as a “brilliant scientist.”
In general, everybody who is in favor of codes, is, in Jeffrey’s view,
either a “world-class” statistician, or a “brilliant mathematician” and
Jeffrey does not hesitate to provide them with titles and degrees they never
had.
It is worth mentioning, that Jeffrey’s love for WRR is unrequited.
Rips and Witztum never refer to Jeffrey. They have said more than once
that there is nothing unusual or amazing in finding any number of individual ELS
in any texts. Their own work was conducted in a very different
manner. They applied a certain
apparatus of mathematical statistics to estimate the degree of closeness of
pairs of ELS for semantically related words
(it is that approach Kazhdan referred to as a serious research). Although there is an almost unanimous consensus among
scientists that the study by WRR was faulty and cannot be relied upon, these
authors at least went much further than simply pointing to various individual
ELS in the text of the Torah, and tried to conduct a statistical study of the
phenomenon. Since Jeffrey is
obviously not capable of understanding the mathematical apparatus in WRR’s
work, he had to resort to the primitive method of demonstrating various
individual ELS whose appearance has no statistical meaning and which can be
found in abundance in any text, as was demonstrated many times over (see, for
example, the articles at
http://members.cox.net/mkarep/
where there are also
many references to other relevant websites and publications).
On page 214 Jeffrey describes the paper by WRR. True to form, he distorts the
paper in question in many ways. For
example, he writes on page 214, “Incredibly, the computer program found every
single one of the thirty-four names of those famous rabbis embedded in the text
of Genesis paired at significantly close proximity with their actual date of
birth or their date of death. The odds against these particular names and dates
occurring by random chance were calculated by the mathematicians as only one
chance in 775 million.”
Everything is wrong in that statement. To
begin with, WRR has claimed the level of confidence for their data to be not one
in 775 million but only one in 62,000. As is the norm for his method, Jeffrey
substitutes the desired for the actual. He
fails to mention that WRR did not find in the book of Genesis ELS either the
names or the dates of birth/death for some of the “famous rabbis” listed in
the Encyclopedia of Great Men of Israel. Furthermore,
he fails to mention that out of 298 possible combinations of names and dates WRR
used only 163. He fails to mention
that replacing some of the names included by WRR in their list of famous rabbis
with some other rabbis’ names from the same database dramatically changes
WRR’s results. He fails to
mention that almost all the names and dates used by WRR can be found as ELS in
non-biblical texts as well, for example in the Hebrew translation of Tolstoy’s
novel War and Peace, and that the proximity of ELS for rabbis’ names to ELS
for the dates of their birth/death in War and Peace can be found to be as close
or even closer than in Genesis. He
fails to mention that in every test conducted by WRR there were always
some mismatched lists of rabbis in which the rabbis’ names happened to
be closer to their dates of birth/death than in the original (“correct”)
list. He fails to mention that in every test by WRR, the ELS for the names of
some rabbis were located closer to the ELS for the dates of births/death of
other rabbis than to their own dates of birth/death. Overall, Jeffrey’s report
on WRR’s work, which he obviously did not comprehend, distorts that paper to
the extent of making that paper unrecognizable. The conclusion is inevitable:
either Jeffrey does not know what he is writing about, or he consciously
distorts the facts to fit his agenda. While
Jeffrey is apparently not above conscious distortions of facts when it suits
him, the main reason for his lack of impartiality seems to be his ignorance
which makes him see what he wants to see rather than objectively evaluate the
evidence.
All over the chapter in question, Jeffrey repeats time and time again his
assertion that (unnamed) scientists who approached WRR’s data with skepticism,
were first baffled by the WRR’s results and were then compelled to admit that
those results are irrefutable. For
example, here is one such statement from page 212 of Jeffrey’s book:
“Despite the fact that all of the reviewers held previous beliefs against the
inspiration of the Scriptures, the overwhelming evidence and the integrity of
the data forced the editors to approve the study’s scientific accuracy…”
Everything is wrong in that statement.
First, Jeffrey has no knowledge of the religious beliefs of “all of the
reviewers” because even the names of those reviewers except for Professor P.
Diaconis, are not in the public domain and none of them, including Diaconis, has
ever expressed publicly his/her attitude toward the Scriptures.
Second, the editors never said that they were convinced of the
“overwhelming evidence and integrity of data” but rather indicated that the
results of WRR were baffling and invited readers to look for the faults in
WRR’s statistical procedure (which was ultimately done by several
mathematicians).
Here is one more, rather vivid example of how Jeffrey presents the desired as if
it is the actual. On page 208 we
read: “Another fascinating feature of this phenomenon was found, in Genesis 2,
which deals with the Garden of Eden. Scientists found twenty-five different
Hebrew names of trees encoded within the text of this one chapter.
The laws of probability indicate that the odds against this occurring are
one hundred thousand to one.” Apparently
believing that no human, even Moses himself, could so skillfully encode the
names of 25 trees as ELS in a relatively short text, Jeffrey publicly challenged
anybody to compile a text of a comparable length in English containing ELS for
the names of any 25 trees. Convinced of the invincibility of his position,
Jeffrey offered to pay one thousand dollars to anybody who would meet the
challenge. In a few weeks, Mr.
Gidon Cohen of York, England, presented an English text of some 300 words in
which the names of 29 trees occurred as ELS.
Later, Mr.Cohen compiled a text in which a whole popular poem was
“encoded” as a set of ELS. This
“encoded” poem can be seen on B. McKay’s website
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm )
So much for Jeffrey’s persistent statements that only God himself was capable
of creating the alleged code comprising multiple ELS.
To impress his readers, Jeffrey often provides alleged probabilities of the occurrence of this or that ELS, giving extremely small numbers such as one in so many millions, or even one in tens or hundreds of millions, etc, and in one case even one in fifty quadrillions (page 206). He refers to (usually unnamed) scientists who allegedly calculated these enormous odds. These numbers one more time reveal Jeffrey’s profound ignorance of probabilities as well as his impudence illustrated by his persistent use of those meaningless numbers. (A detailed discussion of the proper calculation of probability can be seen in a paper at http://members.cox.net/perakm/probabilities.htm ). An overwhelming evidence showing that any alleged code in the Bible cited by Jeffrey can be found also in non-biblical Hebrew texts, such as a book titled Ziunim Ze Lo Hakol by a contemporary Israeli writer Dan Ben Amotz, or in the textbook on geography of Israel, or in the Hebrew translation of L. Tolstoy’s War and Peace, can be viewed at
http://members.cox.net/mkarep/
, or at http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim
or at
http://wopr.com/biblecodes/TheCase.htm
. This simple fact shows that all those “amazing”
discoveries of various sets of ELS in the Bible cited by Jeffrey are meaningless
and happen there by sheer chance.
MY NAME AND HIS NAME IS YESHUA, OR IS IT?
However untrustworthy is chapter 10 in Jeffrey’s book, it pales in comparison
with the display of ignorance and distortions we see in chapter 11 titled The
Name of Jesus Encoded in the Old Testament with the subtitle “Yeshua is My
Name.” In this chapter Jeffrey refers to “research”
conducted by one Yacov Rambsel. The
latter is a messianic pastor who has spent years searching, without using a
computer, for such ELS in the Bible which “encode” information about Jesus
as the Messiah. It is well known
that the Old Testament never mentions the name of Jesus of Nazareth (whose name,
of course, is mentioned abundantly in the New Testament).
It is also known that Yeshua is an abbreviated name whose full Hebrew
version is Yehoshua. There is
plenty of material in the Old Testament about Yehoshua Bin-Nun, but not a word
about Yehoshua nicknamed Yeshua, born in the city of Bethlehem, who spent his
early years in the hometown of his parents Joseph and Mary, Nazareth, and died
on a cross at the age of about 33 on the Golgotha hill near Jerusalem.
Rambsel and Jeffrey maintain that the name of Jesus was “encoded” in the Old Testament as ELS with various skips, together with other words forming phrases such as Yeshua Shmi (“My name is Jesus”), Yeshua More (“Jesus Teacher”), Yeshua Yakhol (“Jesus can”, or “Jesus is able”), Dam Yeshua (“Blood of Jesus”) and the like. For example, on page 223 Jeffrey wrote: “…God has hidden at equally spaced intervals in the Hebrew text the incredible message that ‘Yeshua is My Name.’ ” This is one of the most astonishing and tremendous biblical discoveries in the last two thousand years.”
Of course, even if the existence of a code deliberately placed in the Bible were proven, for anyone who is not obsessed with the desire to find the name of Jesus of Nazareth in the Old Testament, the natural question would be: “How can we determine which Yeshua is meant by such a ‘code?’ What is so amazing about somebody just saying that his name is Yeshua? However, this question is moot because actually the very existence of an alleged Yeshua code deliberately placed in the Old Testament can easily be refuted.
Before discussing arguments against the Yeshua code, let us look at some examples of such a code offered by Jeffrey. On the very last (unnumbered) page of Jeffrey’s book he presented six examples under the heading “Yeshua Coded in the Old Testament Prophecies.” Apparently these six examples were provided to Jeffrey by Rambsel. We are not discussing here Rambsel’s writings, but we can briefly state that the good pastor has displayed in his books such a deep ignorance of certain subjects he has tried to handle (for example, calculation of probabilities) that quotations from Rambsel may only render any publication the butt of jokes. The amusing point is that none of the six examples printed at the end of Jeffrey’s book spells the word Yeshua but rather meaningless combinations like Yashaua, Yasvei and the like. The detailed discussion of the six examples in question can be found at http://members.cox.net/mkarep . Reviewing the examples in question reveals a simple fact: Jeffrey is ignorant of Hebrew as well as of many other subjects he pretends to have knowledge of.
Of course, Jeffrey’s ignorance of Hebrew does not mean the absence of the ELS spelling words Yeshua Shmi, Dam Yeshua and the like, in the text of the Old Testament. On the contrary, these words are very likely to be found quite often as ELS in any Hebrew text of sufficient length including the text of the Old Testament. Therefore locating all those alleged “codes” as ELS containing the four letters Yud, Shin, Vav, and Ayin in the Old Testament did not constitute any discovery, was not amazing in the least and could not serve as proof of any beliefs or views. If Rambsel and Jeffrey were scientists in the pursuit of truth rather than religious zealots prone to interpret anything they could lay their hands on as confirmations of their preconceived views, they would have tested many others, non-biblical texts to see if analogous ELS can be located in those texts as well. They never did. If they did, they would easily find an endless number of ELS spelling Yeshua Shmi, Dam Yeshua, Yeshua Yakhol etc, in any non-biblical texts thus depriving the occurrences of such ELS of any special meaning. Many examples to that effect can be viewed at http://members.cox.net/mkarep/ where the pertinent ELS are shown, found in the book of a contemporary Israeli writer and in the textbook of geography of Israel.
As mentioned before, the main proponents of the “codes,” Rips and Witztum, as well as their supporters, dismiss Rambsel’s and Jeffrey’s books as nonsense. In particular, rabbi D.Mechanic, who is one of the most ardent supporters of the “codes” in general and of Rips and Witztum in particular, has shown many examples of ELS in the Old Testament spelling such phrases as Yeshua Shakran (Jesus crook), Yeshua Navi Sheker (Jesus false prophet) and the like. There are similar examples provided by Dr. J. Price, who is a Bible expert and a Christian pastor. Dr. Price, who is a believing Christian, concluded that the alleged “codes” do not exist. Jeffrey, whose religious beliefs are, of course, his personal matter, should have followed the example of his fellow co-religionist and to admit that all his fascination with the “codes” was just a result of his insufficient familiarity with the subject.
Chapter 12 in Jeffrey’s book is titled “The Mathematical Signature of God in the Words of Scripture.” In this chapter Jeffrey tells the readers, with his usual abundance of such epithets as “fascinating,” “incredible,” and "staggering," about the multiple occurrences of number “seven” in the text of the Bible, allegedly forming an intricate pattern which, if we believe Jeffrey, could exist only due to God’s deliberate design. Let us quote Jeffrey (page 230): “This character of God is consistent with the revealed phenomenon of staggering complexity involving mathematical pattern within the text of the Scriptures.”
Let us omit the question of Jeffrey’s uncanny ability to judge God’s
character, and discuss instead his particular statements regarding the
mathematical pattern allegedly woven into the text of the Scriptures by God.
In his description of the pattern involving number “seven,” Jeffrey refers to one Ivan Panin whom Jeffrey characterizes as a “fascinating and famous mathematician” (page 230). In fact, Ivan Panin hardly can be referred to as a mathematician since he had no mathematical education, never published any mathematical papers and his dubious claim to fame is based only on his work concerning the occurrences of number “seven” in the Bible.
Let us again quote from Jeffrey (page 231): “Panin completed an astonishing study during the course of fifty years that revealed the most amazing mathematical pattern beneath the surface layer of the text of the Bible.”
Jeffrey proceeds to explain the way numbers are written in Hebrew. That language has no separate characters for numerals, which are represented by letters of the alphabet. Here are the numerical values of the letters in question: alef=1, bet=2, gimel=3, dalet=4, hey=5, vav=6, zayin=7, khet=8, tet=9, yud=10, kaf=20, lamed=30, mem=40, nun=50, samekh=60, ayin=70, pey= 80, tzade=90, qoph=100, resh=200, shin=300, tav=400. To express any number, combinations of the above letters are used. For example, one hundred and thirty-three can be written as one hundred + thirty + three, that is Qoph-Lamed-Gimel, or it can be written as ninety+forty+three (Tzade-Mem-Gimel) , or as sixty+forty+two+one (Samekh-Mem-Bet-Aleph). Of course, not all possible combinations are commonly used, as there are some traditional ways to write numbers. For example, thirty-five is usually written as thirty+five (Lamed-Hey) rather than twenty+ten+five.
Then Jeffrey suggests to imagine that a similar system is applied to the English alphabet. If this were the case, the numerals would be represented as follows: a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4, e=5, f=6, g=7, h=8, i=9, j=10, k=20, l=30, m=40, n=50, o=60, p=70, q=80, r=90, s=100, t=200, u=300, v=400, w=500, x=600, y=700, and z=800. Then, for example, one hundred and thirty-three could be represented as either SLC, or as RMC, or, say, as QNBA, and the like.
Having explained the rule for representing the numerals in Hebrew, Jeffrey turns to what he calls “A Listing of the Phenomenal Features of Sevens Found in Genesis 1” (page 233).
Jeffrey cites the very first sentence of the book of Genesis, which in Hebrew is: ” Bet-Resh-Aleph- Shin-Yud-Tav, Bet-Resh-Aleph, Aleph-Lamed-Hey-Yud-Mem, Aleph-Tav, Hey-Shin-Mem-Yud-Mem, Vav-Aleph-Tav, Hey-Aleph-Resh-Tsade.” (In that rendition, I separated words by commas, and the letters within words, by hyphens. Also, in the Hebrew original the text is read from right to left while in the above rendition the letters are listed from left to right). The traditional translation of that sentence is “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
The listing of the “Phenomenal Features” in the above sentence is given by Jeffrey on page 233 as follows:
1. The number of Hebrew words..................................………….Seven
2. The number of letters equals 28 (28/4=7)… ..……...………….Seven
3. The first three Hebrew words… contain 14 letters (14/2=7)…..Seven
4. The last four Hebrew words …contain 14 letters (14/3=7)…..…Seven
5. The fourth and the fifth words have seven letters……….….,,,…Seven
6. The sixth and the seventh words have 7 letters…….......….…...Seven
7. The three key words: God, heaven and earth have 14 letters (14/2=7)Seven
8. The number of letters in the four remaining words is 14 (14//2=7)....Seven
9. The middle word is the shortest with 2 letters. However, in combination with the word to the right or left, it totals 7 letters. ….....................Seven
10. The numeric value of the first, middle and last letters is 133 (133/19=7)….......Seven
11. The numeric value of the first and last letters of all seven words is 1393 (1393/199=7).…………………………………………………….…....Seven
Having shown the above list of 11 “phenomenal features,” Jeffrey tells the readers (page 233) that “when professors on the mathematical faculty at Harvard university were presented with this biblical phenomenon they naturally attempted to disprove its significance… However, after valiant efforts these professors were unable to duplicate this incredible mathematical phenomenon.” Of course, true to form, Jeffrey did not name those Harvard professors of mathematics, neither did he tell us how and where their failure was reported. The reason for that omission is that Jeffrey would not be able to name those mathematicians even if he wanted to. This entire statement is fantasy. In fact, Panin’s alleged discoveries have been convincingly shown to be unsubstantiated, as can be seen, for example, in McKay’s web site at http://cs.anu.edu.au/!bdm/dilugim/panin.html . Although I am not a professor of mathematics at Harvard I will give examples illustrating the complete lack of significance in the alleged “phenomenal features of sevens” in the quoted sentence from the book of Genesis.
Before providing those examples, let us turn first to Jeffrey’s persistent attempts to exaggerate the significance of the alleged discoveries he is so fascinated with. Some of the eleven “phenomenal features” listed above are just repeating each other. For example, feature 3 is that the number of letters in the first three words of the sentence in question is 14. Simple arithmetic indicates that the number of letters in the last four words is also 14, since the total number of letters in the sentence is 28. Hence, feature 4 is actually a consequence of features 2 and 3, and listing it as an additional “phenomenal feature” is just a device to increase the number of alleged “phenomenal features” and thus impress the readers with the sheer number of alleged miraculous features. Likewise, feature 8 is just an arithmetic consequence of features 2 and 7 and its separate listing is again due to Jeffrey’s zeal in his trying to hammer, by whatever means, his beliefs into his readers’ brains.
Feature 10, as per Jeffrey’s listing, is that the first, the middle and the last letters of this sentence have the numerical value of 133 which is divisible by 7. However, as it is quite often with Jeffrey’s assertions, this statement is misleading. Since the sentence consists of an even number of letters (28), it has no middle letter. To get the quoted number, 133, it is necessary to add the numerical values of four rather than of three letters, namely the first (Bet), the last (Tsade) and the two letters in the middle of the sentence, Mem and Aleph.
Finally, let us view the examples I promised a few lines earlier. I will list the features observed in my examples in exactly the same way as done by Jeffrey.
As my first example, I will write a short statement which will express my view of the first sentence in the book of Genesis as follows: <IN THIS SENTENCE I SEE NO MIRACLES.>
Let us look at my statement printed above in capitals. It is obvious that this sentence was not contrived using any special tricks as its gist is germane to the ongoing discussion.
What we see in that sentence is as follows:
1. The number of words is 7……………….........................…….Seven
2. The number of letters equals 28 (28/4=7)…………........….....Seven
3. The first three words contain 14 letters (14/2=7)………….....Seven
4. The last four words have 14 letters (14/2=7)…….....................Seven
5. The word in the middle (I) is the shortest but together with the word to the left and the two words to the right it totals 14 letters (14/2=7)……….......................................................................…......Seven
6. The numerical value of the last letters of all seven words is 329
(329/47=7)…………………………………………………………….Seven
7. The number of letters in the words occupying odd positions is 21
(21/3=7)……………………………………………………………….Seven
8. The number of letters in the words occupying even positions is 7..
Seven
9. The number of letters in words ending with vowels is 14
(14/2=7)……………………………………………………………Seven
10. The numerical value of the first letters of words ending with vowels
is 259
(259/37=7)…………………………………………………Seven
11. The numerical value of the first and last letters of all words ending
in vowels is 329
(329/47=7)……………………………………..Seven
12. The number of vowels in all the words ending with vowels is
7…. Seven
13. The numerical value of all letters in the words whose length
is an
odd number is 119
(119/17=7)……………………………………Seven
14. The numerical value of the last letters of the words whose length is
an odd number is 14
(14/2=7)…………………………………….Seven
15. The numerical value of the first letters of the words whose length is
an even number is 329
(329/47=7)………………………………..Seven
16. The numerical value of last letters of the words whose length is
an even number is 315
(315/45=7)………………………………..Seven
17. The numerical value of the first letters of nouns is 140
(140/20=7)………………………………………………………Seven
18. The numerical value of the last letters of nouns is 105
(105/15=7)………………………………………………………Seven
19. The numerical value of the first and the last letters of nouns
is 245
(245/35=7)………………………………………………..Seven
20. The numerical value of all letters of the verb is 105
(105/15=7)……………………………………………………….Seven
21. The sum of numerical values of every seventh letter (i.e. of e, i, i, and s) is 245 (245/35=7)..………………………………………………..Seven
22) (where also 35/5=7)..............................................................…..Seven
I decided to stop listing the “phenomenal” seven-related patterns in my sentence when I completed 22 items, thus making it exactly twice as many as in Jeffrey’s list for the first sentence of Genesis. Many of the above features are exactly like those listed by Jeffrey/Panin for the first sentence in Genesis.
Some of the features listed by Panin/Jeffrey for the beginning sentence of Genesis (features 5, 6 and 7) are absent from the list of features in my statement printed in capitals. On the other hand, in my statement there are a number of features which are absent from Panin/Jeffrey’s list but seem to be the even more interesting coincidences. It is easy to imagine Jeffrey’s delight if he could include such “phenomenal” features in his list regarding the first sentence of the Bible.
Could it be that I came up with my sentence by “incredible” (one of Jeffrey’s favored epithets) luck and that such coincidences are extremely rare? OK, let us look at another sentence, which is again my own statement relevant to our discussion: <THE SEVENS OCCUR IN EVERY OLD TEXT.>
While
I would add that “sevens” happen in new texts as often as in the old ones,
what we see in the above sentence is as follows:
1. It consists of seven words…………………………………….…Seven
2. It contains 28 letters (28/4=7)…………………………………...Seven
3. The first three words contain 14 letters (14/2=7)……………….Seven
4. The last four words also contain 14 letters (14/2=7)……….……Seven
5. The middle word (IN) is the shortest with 2 letters. However, in combination with the word to the right or left it totals 7 letters….............................................................................................…Seven
6, 7, 8. The numerical value of all letters which are in odd positions in an odd-numbered word and also in odd positions in the sentence total 1715 =7*7*7*5….......…………………………(Seven, Seven, Seven)
There are more seven-related
coincidences in that sentence, and readers are welcome to look for them.
Maybe it was again my “incredible luck” to come across a second sentence with all those seven-related coincidences? Here is one more: <NO WONDER YOU SEE SEVEN IN GENESIS.> Again, this sentence is not about some arbitrary topic. It is fully relevant to the subject of discussion.
1) How many words in that sentence? Surprise, surprise, seven!...........Seven
2) How many letters? Of course, the reader has already successfully guessed – 28 letters (28/4=7)......…………………………………….............................…………......Seven
3) How many letters in the first four words? Is it fourteen? No kidding? Yes, fourteen (14/2=7).............……………………………………...........…………………....Seven
4) How many letters in the last three words? Yes, Mr. Jeffrey, fourteen letters (14/2=7). What a miracle!.…………………………………......................................……………...Seven
5) The numeric value of the first letters of all seven words is 875 (875/125=7). Isn't that nice?.…………………………………………………….............…......................Seven
6) The numeric value of the last letters of all seven words is 1316 (1316/188=7). Incredible!.......……………………………………………………..........................Seven
7) What is the sum of numerical values of the first and last letters of all seven words? Check it – it is 2121 (2121/303=7). Isn’t this “incredible,” “surprising” and “staggering,” Mr. Jeffrey, using your favorite expressions?....Seven
8) Also, one more “miraculous” coincidence in the sentence in question: the sum of numeric values of every fourteenth letter (14/2=7).................................................................................................................. Seven
9) is 105
(105/15=7)........……....................................................................Seven
Maybe such coincidences are easier to locate if the sentence has 28
letters? Let us see. Here is a sentence, expressing Mr. Jeffrey’s view of the
Harvard mathematicians:
HARVARD
MATHEMATICIANS WERE CONFOUNDED BY PANIN'S PUZZLE.
Here are some of the
patterns in that sentence.
1.
It contains seven words. 2.
It consists of 49 letters (49/7=7). 3. The numerical value of all letters is
5390 (5390/770=7). 4. The verbs in
that sentence have 14 letters (14/2=7). 5. The first word has seven letters. 6.
The numerical value of vowels in the nouns is 343 (343/49=7).
Many more sevens can
be identified in that sentence.
When one of my
friends read the draft of this paper, he sent me his opinion of it.
Here is an excerpt from his message:
Dear Mark, after
reading your article on Jeffrey/Panin,
I decided that
PROFESSOR MARK PERAKH'S NUMERICAL SENTENCES ARE WONDROUS!
Imagine my surprise
to discover that this sentence has
* number of words = 7
* number of letters =
7 x 7
* total numerical
value = 7 x 7 x 68 (Not to mention
many other patterns of 7.)
There is little doubt that many readers can easily compile many more examples of sentences with a host of allegedly miraculous seven-related patterns.
Maybe creating sentences with a pattern of sevens is
easier in English than it is in Hebrew? Let us then try some Hebrew examples.
The initial words of Genesis in the Hebrew original are “B’reshit bara Elohim et hashamaim veet haarets” which is translated in the King James version as “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” While that translation is reasonably close to the original, the expression “B’reshit” could be more accurately translated as First (“First God created …” etc). The expression “In the beginning” more precisely is matched by the Hebrew expression “B’hatkhalah.” So, in my example, I will use the latter expression. Furthermore, while in Genesis 1 we read the word “bara” translated in the King James version as “created,” in Genesis 2 the word “yatsar” is mostly used instead, translated as “formed.” I will use "yatsar" in my example.
Here is my example: <B’HATKHALAH
YATSAR ELOHIM ET HAADAMAH VEET HAMAIM.>
The translation of that Hebrew sentence is: “In the beginning God formed the land and the waters.”
Rendered in Hebrew letters, my sentence is as follows:
BET-HEY-TAV-CHET-LAMED-HEY,
YUD-TSADE-RESH, ALEPH-LAMED-HEY-YUD-MEM, ALEPH-TAV, HEY-ALEPH-DALET-MEM-HEY,
VAV-ALEPH-TAV, HEY-MEM-YUD-MEM.”
It is easy to see that my example differs completely from the first sentence of Genesis in its choice of words (and hence of letters) except for the word Elohim (God) and the preposition “Aleph-Tav” (et) which has no equivalent in English but is used in Hebrew to indicate the proper relationship between a verb and a noun.
What we see in the above Hebrew sentence I composed, is as follows:
1. The number of words is seven…………………………............Seven
2. The number of letters is 28 (28/4=7)……………………….…..Seven
3. The first three words have 14 letters (14/2=7)………............Seven
4. The last four words have also 14 letters (14/2=7)………........Seven
5. The middle word (Aleph-Tav) is the shortest with 2 letters. However, combined with a word to the left or to the right, it totals 7 letters …. Seven
6. The three "key" words: God, land, and waters, have 14 letters (14/2=7)......……………………………………………………………….Seven
7. The remaining four words also have 14 letters......................Seven
8. The sum of numeric values of first and last letters of all seven words is 1120 (1120/160=7)……………………………………….……................Seven
Listing the above features, I followed exactly what Jeffrey did for the first sentence in Genesis.
Maybe the last example was easy to compose because the gist of that sentence was somehow similar to that of the first sentence in Genesis? Well, then let us try to compose some other Hebrew sentence, relevant to the subject of our discussion. Here is such a sentence:
"BEDUGMAOT HAELE EIN SHUM NESIM O PLAIIM."
It translates as follows: "In these examples there are no wonders or miracles."
In Hebrew letters, this sentence is as follows: BET-DALET-GIMEL-MEM-ALEPH-VAV-TAV, HEY-ALEPH-LAMED-HEY, ALEPH-YUD-NUN, SHIN-VAV-MEM, NUN-SAMEKH-YUD-MEM, ALEPH-VAV, PEY-LAMED-ALEPH-YUD-MEM.
We see in that sentence the following features:
1) It contains seven words...............................................................Seven
2) It has 28 letters (28/4=7).............................................................Seven
3) The first three words have 14 letters (14/2=7)...........................Seven
4) The last four words have also 14 letters (14/2=7)......................Seven
5) The sum of numeric values of every seventh letter, if read in the Hebrew original from left to right,
is 308 (308/44=7)..............................................................................Seven
6) The sum of numeric values of the last letters of all seven words is 581 (581/83=7).....………………………………………………………….........Seven
7) The sum of numeric values of the first, last and two middle letters is 392 (392/56=7)…………………………………………………………….........Seven
Since we have used three examples of 28 letters-long sentences in English, let us make our exercise symmetric by adding one more example in Hebrew. Here is one more Hebrew sentence:
BEHEKHLET KAL LIMTZO SHEVA BETOKH GIRSOT SHONOT.
Its translation is “It is definitely easy to find seven in various versions of texts.” Obviously, this sentence is again relevant to the subject under discussion. In Hebrew letters it is as follows:
BET-HEY-KHET-LAMED-TET, QOPH-LAMED, LAMED-MEM-TZADE-ALEPH, SHIN-BET-AYIN, BET-TAV-VAV-KHET, GIMEL-RESH-SAMEKH-VAV-TAV, SHIN-VAV-NUN-VAV-TAV.
The features we see in that sentence are as follows:
1) It contains seven Hebrew words…..……………………………………............Seven
2) It consists of 28 letters (28/4=7)…………………………………………..........Seven
3) The first four words have 14 letters (14/2=7)…………………………........…..Seven
4) The last three words have also 14 letters (14/2=7)…………….........…………Seven
5) The middle word (SHIN-BET-AYIN) has only three letters, but combined with a word to the left or to the right, totals 7 letters………………………………......Seven
6) The first and the second words have seven letters……………..........……….Seven
7) The third and the fourth words have 7 letters………………… .... . ……….Seven
8) The numeric value of the first letters of all seven words is 357 (357/51=7)...…………………………………………………………………….....Seven
9) The sum of numeric values of every seventh letter Seven
10) is 560 (560/80=7)........…...................................................................................Seven
I believe the above examples provide ample evidence that seven-related pattern are common, not only in the above examples, but in any texts, both in English and in Hebrew. I leave it to the readers to try identifying more of the “sevens” in my examples.
Hence, we see that many seven-related coincidences occur by chance in any text, biblical and non-biblical. Therefore Panin’s and Jeffrey’s fascination with those alleged miracles is just an indication that they lacked elementary skills and the willingness to properly verify any observations which seemed to be “incredible” before claiming to have discovered a miracle.
The listing of “phenomenal features” in my examples could be continued, and examples of sentences with similar coincidences could be easily multiplied, but I believe I have already spent too much time showing the obvious lack of significance in Panin/Jeffrey’s exercise with the “sevens.” (Other examples of coincidences involving number seven in non-biblical texts can be seen on McKay’s web site at http://cs/anu.edu.au/~bdm ). Is there any principal difference between pattern of “sevens” in the text of the Bible and those in my examples? None whatsoever.
The readers can now decide whether or not they should believe Jeffrey’s assertion that professors of mathematics from Harvard University were unable to (I am quoting Jeffrey): “construct a sentence about any topic they choose” in English, which would incorporate features similar to those Panin discovered in Genesis. Using Jeffrey’s own expressions (page 82) we can justifiably assert that Jeffrey has displayed “unbelievable arrogance” when he was “sitting in judgment” of professors of mathematics.
On page 234 Jeffrey tells us that he tried to compile a text containing pattern of sevens himself but failed and therefore came to the conclusion that no human could have done it unless directly guided by God. Jeffrey writes: “I tried and it is impossible to complete a paragraph on any topic and remain true to the system of interlocking sevens.” On page 238, he provides a variation of the same categorical assertion: “…any honest attempt to create a paragraph on any subject that will contain this astonishing pattern of mathematical features within the surface text will utterly fail.” Then Jeffrey continues by asserting that even a super-computer cannot produce a passage with sevens like those found in the Bible.
First of all, even if that statement were true, it would be irrelevant because no one claims that the occurrence of the patterns of sevens in the Bible is a result of a deliberate effort by human writers. The most reasonable explanation of the patterns in question is that they occur by chance in every sufficiently long text.
Second, regardless of the origin of the patterns of sevens, Jeffrey’s assertion that no human mind and even not a super-computer are capable of creating such intricate mathematical webs in a text, calls for a reminder that Jeffrey was equally confident that no human could create a text containing ELS for 25 names of trees (see the preceding section). This confidence cost Jeffrey a thousand bucks. It would be wise for him to be a little more cautious when making such predictions.
When Jeffrey tried to create a text with ELS for 25 names of trees, and when he tried to create a paragraph with a pattern of sevens, he failed. This failure has led him to the conclusion that in both cases the task was beyond the capabilities of anybody but God.
The obvious flaw of that argument is that Jeffrey had chosen the wrong measure – his own personal intellectual power. To explain what I mean, I will give an example.
I would challenge Mr. Jeffrey to start with writing a sonnet. A sonnet is a short poem with a strictly prescribed form. Every sonnet consist of 14 lines, usually divided into four stanzas, the first and the second of them each four lines long, and the third and the fourth ones three lines long. The lines must rhyme following a certain pattern. Of course, the sonnet, besides following the strictly prescribed form, must also express certain feelings and/or ideas in a poetic form. I don’t think we can expect a good sonnet from Mr. Jeffrey any time soon. However, if, contrary to expectations, Mr. Jeffrey creates a reasonably good sonnet, my second challenge would be to him to write a “wreath of sonnets.”
The latter is the most difficult form of poetic creation. It consists of 15 sonnets. They all must relate to a single common idea, but relate to it from various angles, subtly exploring it in depth. The last line of sonnet 1 must become the first line of sonnet 2, the last line of sonnet 2 must be the first line of sonnet 3, etc. The first lines of each of the 14 sonnets must constitute the last, fifteenth sonnet. All this structure of interlocking rhymes, lines, and phrasal expressions contains an intricate mathematical pattern, partly involving “sevens” and not any less complex than that of the sevens in the Bible Jeffrey is so amazed with, even if only because the pattern in the combination of 15 sonnets must also obey strict semantic limitations, while the pattern of sevens in the Bible needs only to follow some mechanical arithmetic rules not related to the meaningful message.
Imagine that Mr. Jeffrey tried to create a meaningful wreath of sonnets. There is a very good chance he would fail. However, even if Mr. Jeffrey, as well as many of his readers, cannot write wreaths of sonnets, many poets can. Some of them wrote more than one such wreath, without a computer, and many of those creations have been commonly acclaimed as great poetry.
Would Mr. Jeffrey claim that, since he cannot write a wreath of sonnets, nobody can? Then, why does he think that nobody can compose a text with the patterns of seven just because he tried and failed?
What a pity that unlike in the case of the alleged Bible code, Jeffrey did not offer to pay a thousand bucks to anybody who would compile (I am quoting Jeffrey, page 234) a “paragraph of over one hundred and fifty words following such pattern of sevens as found in Genesis 1.” If he did, some people would have a chance to join Mr. Gidon Cohen in making Mr. Jeffrey poorer by a few more simoleons (of course, if any of them chose to spend the time necessary to complete that boring and senseless task).
Conclusion: the allegedly “phenomenal” features involving the number seven, discovered by Panin in the Bible and reported in Jeffrey’s book, have no significance and appear in the biblical texts by chance, as they also do in any other texts. Jeffrey’s fascination with the alleged “phenomenal features” is just one more proof of the unreliability of his statements and of his lack of sufficient knowledge and understanding of the subject he so brazenly chooses to discuss.
Finally, one more comment on the last two sections. The suggestion of an alleged "code" and of an alleged patterns of sevens could make sense only if the text of the Bible were a precise replica of the original text, letter-by-letter. Obviously realizing that, Jeffrey repeats several times in his book a claim that every letter of the Bible has been preserved precisely since Moses wrote the Torah, as it was dictated, letter by letter, by God. For example, on page 209 Jeffrey wrote: “Jesus Christ, Himself, affirmed that the actual letters composing the Scriptures were directly inspired by God and were preserved in their precise order throughout eternity.”
While eternity is too long a period of time to experimentally verify Jeffrey’s statement, we can do so for a much shorter period, namely for about sixteen centuries.
There exists a monumental compendium of commentaries and interpretations of the Torah written in the course of several centuries by Jewish “sages.” It is called the Talmud and consists of many books. Jeffrey is obviously not familiar with that source of information. If he were, he would know, for example, of a tractate named Kiddushin which is found in the Talmud. Here is a quotation from that tractate (Kiddushin 30a) written many centuries ago: “The sages of the previous generation were called soferim (meaning ‘those who counted’) for they counted all the letters in the Torah. Thus they said that Vav in the word Gachon (Leviticus 11:42) is the middle letter of the Torah; the words darosh darash (Leviticus 11.16) are the middle of the words; the verse Vaitgalach (Leviticus 13:33) is the middle of the verses.”
If though, we look at the Koren edition of the Bible we possess today, we find the following: 1) The middle letter of the Torah is Aleph in the word hu (Leviticus 8:78) which is located at a distance of 4829 letters from Vav in the word Gachon which appears only once in the Torah. 2) The middle verse is Vaiten alav et hachoshan (Leviticus 8:8) which is at a distance of 164 verses from Vaitgalach. 3) The middle word of the Torah in the Koren edition is achat (Leviticus 8:26) which is at a distance of 743 words from darash darosh. Hence, the text of the Torah as we know it today differs from that known to soferim centuries ago, by hundreds of words and verses and by thousands of letters. Of course, the fact that the text of the Bible underwent many changes in the course of its long existence, has been well known to experts in that matter. This fact alone makes all the suggestions about the ELS code or the pattern of sevens allegedly woven by God into the Bible void of any meaning. Jeffrey, though, is ignorant of this fact as he is of scores of others and arrogantly tries to impose his ignorance on his readers whenever it fits his agenda.
I admit that calling a person an ignoramus is not very polite, and I do not enjoy at all the situations in which I have reason to resort to such epithets in regard to anybody even if they are those whose views I reject. Unfortunately, some of Jeffrey’s statements are so extremely rude and arrogant that they provide ample justification for refuting his claims in the most blunt form.