Dr Ivan Panin after reading The New York Sun, November 19, 1999 decided to take up the challenge set by Mr WRL and provide the sceptic with some defence for his Christian faith.
These were some of the arguments from his letter with Greek and English illustration.
1. The first 17 verses of the New Testament contain the genealogy of Christ. It
consists of two main parts: Verses 1-11 cover the period from Abraham, the
father of the chosen people, to the Captivity, when they ceased as an
independent people. Verses 12-17 cover the period from the Captivity to the
promised Deliverer, the Christ.
Let us examine the first part of this genealogy.
Its vocabulary has 49 words, or 7 x 7. This number is itself seven (Feature 1)
sevens (Feature 2), and the sum of its factors is 2 sevens (Feature 3). Of these
49 words 28, or 4 sevens, begin with a vowel; and 21, or 3 sevens, begin with a
consonant (Feature 4).
Again: these 49 words of the vocabulary have 266 letters, or 7 x 2 x 19; this number is itself 38 sevens (Feature 5), and the sum of its factors is 28, or 4 sevens (Feature 6), while the sum of its figures is 14, or 2 sevens (Feature 7). Of these 266 letters, moreover, 140, or 20 sevens, are vowels, and 126, or 18 sevens, are consonants (Feature 8).
That is to say: Just as the number of words in the vocabulary is a multiple of
seven, so is the number of its letters a multiple of seven; just as the sum of its
factors of the number of the words is a multiple of seven, so is the sum of the
factors of the number of their letters a multiple of seven. And just as the number
of words is divided between vowel words and consonant words by seven, so is
their number of letters divided between vowels and consonants by sevens.
Again: Of these 49 words 35, or 5 sevens, occur more than once in the passage:
and 14, or 2 sevens, occur but once (Feature 9); seven occur in more than one
form, and 42, or 6 sevens, occur in only one form (Feature 10). And among the
parts of speech the 49 words are thus divided: 42, or 6 sevens, are nouns, 7 are
not nouns (Feature 11). Of the nouns, 35, or 5 sevens, are Proper names, seven
are common nouns (Feature 12). Of the Proper names 28 are male ancestors of
the Christ, and seven are not (Feature 13). Moreover, these 49 words are
distributed alphabetically thus. Words under 'alpha - epsilon' are 21 in number, or
3 sevens; 'stigma - iota' 14, or 2 sevens; 'lamda - upsilon' also 14. No other
groups of sevens stopping at the end of a letter are made by these 49 words, the
groups of sevens stop with these letters and no others. But the letters, alpha,
epsilon, stigma, iota, lambda, upsilon, are letters 1, 5, 6, 10, 12, 22 of the Greek
alphabet, and the sum of these number (called their Place Values) is 56, or 8
sevens (Feature 14). This enumeration of the numeric phenomena of these 11
verses does not begin to be exhaustive, but enough has been shown to make it
clear that this part of the genealogy is constructed on an elaborate design of
sevens.
Every Greek word is thus a sum in arithmetic obtained by adding the numbers for
which its letters stand, or their numeric values. Now the vocabulary to the entire
genealogy has 72 words. If we write its numeric value over each of these 72
words and add them, we get for their sum 42,364, or 6,052 sevens, distributed
into the following alphabetical groups only: alpha - beta have 9,821 or 1,403
sevens; gamma - delta, 1,904 or 272 sevens; epsilon - stigma, 3,703 or 529
sevens; theta - rho, 19,264 or 2,752 sevens; sigma - chi, 7,672 or 1,096 sevens.
But the numeric value of the 10 letters used for making these groups is 931 or 7
x 7 x 19, a multiple not only of seven but of seven sevens.
From Abraham to the captivity of the chosen people:
1 βιβλος γενεσεως ιησου χριστου υιου δαβιδ υιου αβρααμ
2 αβρααμ εγεννησεν τον ισαακ ισαακ δε εγεννησεν τον ιακωβ ιακωβ δε εγεννησεν τον ιουδαν και τους αδελφους αυτου
3 ιουδας δε εγεννησεν τον φαρες και τον ζαρα εκ της θαμαρ φαρες δε εγεννησεν τον εσρωμ εσρωμ δε εγεννησεν τον αραμ
4 αραμ δε εγεννησεν τον αμιναδαβ αμιναδαβ δε εγεννησεν τον ναασσων ναασσων δε εγεννησεν τον σαλμων
5 σαλμων δε εγεννησεν τον βοοζ εκ της ραχαβ βοοζ δε εγεννησεν τον ωβηδ εκ της ρουθ ωβηδ δε εγεννησεν τον ιεσσαι
6 ιεσσαι δε εγεννησεν τον δαβιδ τον βασιλεα δαβιδ δε ο βασιλευς εγεννησεν τον σολομωντα εκ της του ουριου
7 σολομων δε εγεννησεν τον ροβοαμ ροβοαμ δε εγεννησεν τον αβια αβια δε εγεννησεν τον ασα
8 ασα δε εγεννησεν τον ιωσαφατ ιωσαφατ δε εγεννησεν τον ιωραμ ιωραμ δε εγεννησεν τον οζιαν
9 οζιας δε εγεννησεν τον ιωαθαμ ιωαθαμ δε εγεννησεν τον αχαζ αχαζ δε εγεννησεν τον εζεκιαν
10 εζεκιας δε εγεννησεν τον μανασση μανασσης δε εγεννησεν τον αμων αμων δε εγεννησεν τον ιωσιαν
11 ιωσιας δε εγεννησεν τον ιεχονιαν και τους αδελφους αυτου επι της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος
The period of captivity:
12 μετα δε την μετοικεσιαν βαβυλωνος ιεχονιας εγεννησεν τον σαλαθιηλ σαλαθιηλ δε εγεννησεν τον ζοροβαβελ
13 ζοροβαβελ δε εγεννησεν τον αβιουδ αβιουδ δε εγεννησεν τον ελιακειμ ελιακειμ δε εγεννησεν τον αζωρ
14 αζωρ δε εγεννησεν τον σαδωκ σαδωκ δε εγεννησεν τον αχειμ αχειμ δε εγεννησεν τον ελιουδ
15 ελιουδ δε εγεννησεν τον ελεαζαρ ελεαζαρ δε εγεννησεν τον ματθαν ματθαν δε εγεννησεν τον
16 ιακωβ δε εγεννησεν τον ιωσηφ τον ανδρα μαριας εξ ης εγεννηθη ιησους ο λεγομενος χριστος
17 πασαι ουν αι γενεαι απο αβρααμ εως δαβιδ γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες και απο δαβιδ εως της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες και απο της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος εως του χριστου γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες
These are the 49 vocabulary words from Matthew 1:1-11 (feature 1).
βιβλος: record (c) *
γενεσεως: genealogy (c) *
ιησου: Jesus (v) *
χριστου: Christ (c) *
δαβιδ: David (c)
υιου: son (v)
αβρααμ: Abraham (v)
εγεννησεν: begat (v) ***
τον, τους, της: the (3 words sharing the same meaning) (c) ** ***
ισαακ: Issac (v)
ιακωβ: Jacob (v)
ιουδαν: Judah (v) **
και, δε: and (2 words sharing the same meaning) (c) ** ***
αδελφους: brother (v)
αυτου: his (v) ***
φαρες: Perez (c)
ζαρα: Zerah (c) *
εκ: of (v) ***
θαμαρ: Tamar (c) *
εσρωμ: Hezron (v)
αραμ: Ram (v)
αμιναδαβ: Amminabad (v)
ναασσων: Nahshon (c)
σαλμων: Salmon (c) **
βοοζ: Boaz (c)
ραχαβ: Rahab (c) *
ωβηδ: Obed (v)
ρουθ: Ruth (c) *
ιεσσαι: Jesse (v)
δαβιδ: David (c)
βασιλεα: king (c) *
σολομων: Solomon (c)
ουριου: Uriah (v) *
ροβοαμ: Rehoboam (c)
αβια: Abijah (v)
ασα: Asa (v)
ιωσαφατ: Jehoshaphat (v)
ιωραμ: Joram (v)
οζιαν: Uzziah (v) **
ιωαθαμ: Jotham (v)
αχαζ: Ahaz (v) **
εζεκιαν: Hezekiah (v)
μανασση: Manasseh (c)
αμων: Amos (v)
ιωσιαν: Josiah (v) **
ιεχονιαν: Jechoniah (v) *
επι: at (v) * ***
μετοικεσιας: deportation (c) *
βαβυλωνος: Babylon (c) *
ο: who (This word does not appear in the Alexandrian or Westcott & Hort Versions)
Of these 49 vocabulary words excluding "o", 28 begin with a vowel and 21 begin with a consonant. The symbol * denotes those 14 words which appear only once in the first 11 verses of Matthew (feature 9). (c) denotes the word beginning with a consonant and (v) a vowel (feature 4). The words "the" and "and" appear more than once in different forms.
Dr Panin also states that these 49 vocabulary words consist of 266 letters. Having counted the letters from these words on several occasions, I am yet to arrive at this figure.
If we add all of the letters from these 49 words together we have 283 letters in total. If we add all the letters from the words above except the words τους (which share the same meaning as τον and της) and δε (which shares the same meaning και) we have 276 letters. If we take out και τον and της and leave δε and τους we have have 274 letters. As I am unable to obtain 266 letters without manipulating the 49 vocabulary words I invite anyone who is able, to please explain how Dr Panin arrived at this figure.
Of these 49 vocabulary words, Dr Panin states, that 7 of these words occur in more than one form (feature 10). The symbol ** denotes those 7 words. The remaining 42 words occur in only one form.
Of these 49 vocabulary words Dr Panin states that 42 are nouns. Seven of these 49 words are not nouns (feature 11). The symbol *** denotes those words which are not nouns. I am able to locate only 6 words from the list of 49 which are not nouns.
The Hebrew and Greek alphabet and their equivalent numeric values.
This process of writing numbers dates back to 300 BC, and illustrated by the chart attached.