Remarkable New Discoveries -- Not!
Normally I don't do this, but I thought that I would cross-post this from my blog because it may be of interest to people that don't read my blog.
I just saw this book on Amazon: New Discoveries in the Divine Inspiration of the Bible, by Werner Adrain (Lake Mary, Fl.: Creation House, 2008). It's a load of numerological garbage (a la Michael Drosnin's The Bible Code [NY: Touchstone, 1998], which -- God help us -- was a New York Times Bestseller) that is supposed to prove the divine authority and character of the Bible:
"Discover how the numeric value of words demonstrates the astonishingly perfect harmony between the 66 books of the Bible. Further, read as Werner Adrain reveals that the Holy Scriptures contain hidden references to the name of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and His connection to every book of the Bible. You will gain a newfound understanding that God's Word was written by Him and not by the words or influence of man." (front flap)
The copyright page says that the "Hebrew evaluations are derived from the Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament..." with a similar statement about "Greek evaluations." In other words, Mr. Adrain doesn't even know Hebrew or Greek, which, in my book, reduces his credibility to publish a book about the Bible to close to nil.
What he does know are the Greek and Hebrew alphabets and their numerical value (like Latin numerals: I, V, X, etc.). He then adds up the values of biblical phrases and comes to "remarkable" conclusions, such as that huios tou anthrōpou (the Son of Man) adds up to twice that of Christos (3). Such numerological observations are supposed to show us that "the Bible is not a dry book, nor Christianity a dry religion" (8). I had Amazon show me a random page, and it just gets stranger: "The Lord's birth in Luke 2:7 Is verse 24981 in Scripture (plus the writer Luke 721) is 25702, which Is 181 PEACE x 142 MANNA !" (234) I'm not even sure what he's doing there.
One could numerically analyze any book that way and come up with "remarkable" results, which is the exact same way that the so-called Bible Code works. What is interesting about such numerological works is not that they are absurd, but how they reveal a serious problem in Christianity today: people want to make the Bible meaningful and relevant somehow, and just reading the Bible for its plain, literal meaning isn't working. The attempt to find the name Jesus in the Old Testament is, of course, a theological problem that goes back to the four Evangelists themselves.
Personally, I do believe that the Bible is a remarkable book. You can find that out if you just read it for what it says, not to find some esoteric gnōsis.
I just saw this book on Amazon: New Discoveries in the Divine Inspiration of the Bible, by Werner Adrain (Lake Mary, Fl.: Creation House, 2008). It's a load of numerological garbage (a la Michael Drosnin's The Bible Code [NY: Touchstone, 1998], which -- God help us -- was a New York Times Bestseller) that is supposed to prove the divine authority and character of the Bible:
"Discover how the numeric value of words demonstrates the astonishingly perfect harmony between the 66 books of the Bible. Further, read as Werner Adrain reveals that the Holy Scriptures contain hidden references to the name of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and His connection to every book of the Bible. You will gain a newfound understanding that God's Word was written by Him and not by the words or influence of man." (front flap)
The copyright page says that the "Hebrew evaluations are derived from the Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament..." with a similar statement about "Greek evaluations." In other words, Mr. Adrain doesn't even know Hebrew or Greek, which, in my book, reduces his credibility to publish a book about the Bible to close to nil.
What he does know are the Greek and Hebrew alphabets and their numerical value (like Latin numerals: I, V, X, etc.). He then adds up the values of biblical phrases and comes to "remarkable" conclusions, such as that huios tou anthrōpou (the Son of Man) adds up to twice that of Christos (3). Such numerological observations are supposed to show us that "the Bible is not a dry book, nor Christianity a dry religion" (8). I had Amazon show me a random page, and it just gets stranger: "The Lord's birth in Luke 2:7 Is verse 24981 in Scripture (plus the writer Luke 721) is 25702, which Is 181 PEACE x 142 MANNA !" (234) I'm not even sure what he's doing there.
One could numerically analyze any book that way and come up with "remarkable" results, which is the exact same way that the so-called Bible Code works. What is interesting about such numerological works is not that they are absurd, but how they reveal a serious problem in Christianity today: people want to make the Bible meaningful and relevant somehow, and just reading the Bible for its plain, literal meaning isn't working. The attempt to find the name Jesus in the Old Testament is, of course, a theological problem that goes back to the four Evangelists themselves.
Personally, I do believe that the Bible is a remarkable book. You can find that out if you just read it for what it says, not to find some esoteric gnōsis.