Schools out, but I’m still wondering about something my Faith class teacher told me. It was about how much of the Bible, especially prophecy, is in a type of code, using numbers and sybolism.
WHY?
If God wants us to go to Heaven, know his truths, etc., why then wouldn’t he have inspired the writers of the Bible to be in common language that anyone could understand and figure out?
The concept of Bible codes existing is in itself a GD.
You do realize you’re making a number of assumptions here, don’t you? 
(God apparently can do anything except express himself in a clear and unambiguous way)
Maybe because gods just wanna have fun! 
In some Orthodox Jewish circles, the Torah is considered to have all the information ever in it somewhere. So, prophecy about all things that have happened and all future events, about everything is in there. Obviously, there needs to be some kind of encryption mechanism because nowhere in Bereshit or Bamidbar or Devarim does it say anything about Auschwitz. So, go fishing. Hence, the Torah Codes. Maybe we can try Huffman compression or a Lorenz cipher algorithm next. Needless to say, I’m still a skeptic. Finding “Auschwitz” written in code in the Torah proves absolutely nothing. You can find almost anything if you follow a similar code fishing strategy.
It’s tempting to think that all sorts of possible information might be holographically encrypted into scripture and there are certainly some interesting, even astounding numerological tricks that can be done with certain bits, but much of the work in this area is way ‘out there’ in the league of Mars faces and chemtrails.
I’m pretty much certain the answers to all the great metaphysical questions are to be found encoded somewhere in my teenage’s diaries, providing enough decrypters spend enough time analyzing them in all possible ways…
Well, Hayduke Lives!!, you should be aware that in believing that the Bible is “in a type of code”, your Faith class teacher is in a pretty small minority. Rather than ask us why the Bible is in code, it might be better to ask your Faith class teacher why he thinks it’s in code.
I got the impression from the OP that Hayduke wasn’t talking about things like the Bible Code, but more along the lines of hermeneutics. Like all the fours and forties and sevens and seventies are not necessarily literal numbers, but carry a symbological meaning. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about, Mr. Lives!!?
Or he could be talking about the use of specific words to form the stories and parrables. I remember doing a project in my Religion class my senior year in high school called an “exegesis,” or some such spelling. Basically, we looked at a story (for us, it was the story of Lazarus), examine the words used in it and thier initial greek meanings, and reinterpret the story. The Bible talks about Jesus going to see his friend’s family three days after he died, and bringing him back to life. Big deal for the Messiah, no? But when you study the language used to write the story, you discover things that the names of people and places and actions all basically translate into:
“When you’re friends are depressed and suffering, it’s your duty as a friend to pull them out of it and be supportive. And, when you are depressed and suffering, it is your friends’ duty to do the same, and your’s to accept their help.”
Very different meaning there between the literal and what’s intended. You can do with with pretty much any story in the Bible, and it gives each one a new meaning for the most part. Takes the mystisims out of it, almost. Not dealing with numbers, but actual words. Of course, all this is in terms of dealing with the New Testement, and there’s a whole set of different imagery and poetry to the old. Are you talking about a specific Testement, or the thing as a whole?
The stuff you need to know to live a good life, earn heaven, etc., is what’s written clearly. The coded, hidden stuff is for those who want more than the basics and are willing to dedicate their time and energy to a better understanding of the divine. It’s there for those who feel a deep desire to do the work necessary to find it but will not detract from the lives of those who prefer to live simply and just be good folks.
What the heck is Faith class?
pldennison wrote:
Hermen! (And Neutics!)
[sub]doodly doodly doodly doodly doodly doodly doo[/sub]
Skiddle diddle dee,
Skiddle diddle day,
It’s just like a ho-li-day,
Skiddle diddle dee,
Skiddle diddle day,
Hermen’s on his way!
(I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to say that for just ages! Woo!)
If you are talking about some of the Bible Code stuff written today, that claims to be able to decode future events and various knowledge from applying computer algorithms to the Hebrew text, this is (in my opinion) just a Rorschach test.
They have not one, but a number of different algorithms that they apply to various parts of the Bible - not the same one all the time. Then they look thru the results and see if anything can be gleaned from it.
I will believe it is real when they make some verifiable prediction from some part of the text using a code that applies to the whole Bible, and it turns out to be true. It doesn’t have to be a simple code, but it does have to work better and more predictably than being able to pick out references to a “bush” and “leaves” if you reverse every fourteenth word, translate it into Middle English, and then say it is a reference to the defeat of Bush Sr. in 1992.
I value the Scriptures too much to think very highly of methods that treat them as a Ouija board.
Sort of like the old story of the guy who wanted some advice from God, so he used the method of opening the Bible at random, pointing to a verse, and taking it as his answer.
The first verse he pointed at said, “Judas went and hanged himself.”
“That’s not it”, thinks the guy, so he tries it again.
The next one was “Go thou, and do likewise”.
Regards,
Shodan
The type of Faith objects. It’s hotly debated in OO theory whether the Works class should be a base class of Faith or derived from it, or should be a friend of it, or should be in a completely separate hierarchy.
Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?
:rolleyes:I don’t know why I thought that was funny.
Anywho, I’m forced to attend a Catholic school, and am required to take at least one “faith based” class per semester. Most of these classes are more about morals and such, and very little actual reading out of the Bible is done. However, I went on my own and was scanning Revelations, and my reaction was “what is this crap”. That’s where the conversation started.
The codes and symbols we talked about are pretty much like ** pldennison** mentioned.
Allen, my version is buggy. It keeps running ~Faith prematurely.
Oh, well, if you’re just talking about the numbers having symbols attached to them–four and twelve and seven and so on–it was a lot more obvious to the people who did the writing. It was, AFAIK, common knowledge that four referred to the earth (thus our expression ‘the four corners of the earth’), and three to God (IIRC) and so on, and so you could play around with them and say quite a bit through allusion and symbolism that we don’t get so easily today. You could put layers of meaning in a few words. Thus the Revelation of John, for example, describes not only physical splendor in Heaven, but more importantly, communicates the power of God and priesthood to be found there. Once you know what is up with all the ten horns of the beast, he becomes much more meaningful.
We have plenty of similar things today–you would understand quite well what someone was saying if they had, say, an American flag fluttering from their car antenna. They’re saying quite a bit with a bit of cloth. But someone a thousand years or more away, who wasn’t American and knew just about nil about American culture, wouldn’t get it at all.
[hijack]
Holy old toons, Batman… the instant I saw that line, even before I scrolled down, the very same tune came to my head.
I think I gotta go lie down…
[/hijack]
Funny, I scanned your OP and had the same reaction.