How to extract meaning from the Bible

References:
1. http://www.asis.com/users/stag/numerics.html
2. http://www.asis.com/users/stag/godcount.html

I’m curious. I’ve seen a number (no pun intended) of articles on the importance of numbers in the Bible.

My curiosity is this: the Bible was originally written in two different languages - Hebrew (Old Testament) and Aramaic (New Testament), with the Greek version of the New Testament following. With so many copies of the Old and New Testament, even in the Hebrew and Greek languages, with variations in each one, how can the study of one version be said to be an authority on what the Numbers mean?

I found a book called The Cipher of Genesis by Carlo Suares. It goes into the letter-number theory of the Old Testament based on the Hebrew language (similar to reference 2 above), but he uses a translation of the Bible that is unknown to me. (To make a point, the original Hebrew and Aramaic writings as we know them are hand-me-down interpretations of stories over generations with none of the books ever written by any of the so-called authors - hence, there are no known “original” Bible books.) The interpretation given by Suares is fascinating, but in my mind only lends credibility to plausibility that the Bible was written in code, a practice that Sufis use in story telling to hide the real meaning of the passages. This code writing was done by Sufis (and still is) for two reasons, one, to keep them from being “discovered” by fundamental Islamic practitioners who would kill anyone attempting to teach from any source other than the Koran, and two, to prevent the Sufi teachings from being abused by those who would otherwise misinterpret the teachings - a common fault of Humans.

To shed a little light on why I refer to Sufis, the original band of Sufis were ardent followers of the teachings of Jesus. This band lived in a village of Persia which was then under strict Islamic rule. Today, a Sufi can be found among the ranks of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, or any other or no religion and of any or no political persuasion. Food for thought.

The Ten Commandments could very well be interpreted much differently than the surface ‘literal’ meaning. “Thou shalt not kill” can easily be interpreted as “Thou canst not kill” when we consider that Life is eternal, hence an act of “killing” with an intent to end the life of another human (or any living thing) is futile, since the life force of a living thing is not terminated by the destruction of the body that carries the life force. Now, if we want to really dig into the interpretation of this one commandment, we have to dig out the “original” text in the “original” language and break it down into numeric and idiomatic representations of the letters and words and look for the underlying story - the way Suares did. But a caution should be noted here: of the many possible interpretations of any work, we are sure to find one that pleases us and one that does not appear to make any sense to us. It may be that the ones that do not make any sense to us are the true lessons simply because they are beyond our ability to recognize their worth. As such, in a single Sufi passage there are layers of lessons, each of which are intended to be revealed only to the individual who has opened their mind to that level. Each layer leads progressively to some ultimate “truth” or realization. I think a reading of The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav would be a good start to understand that what we think we see is not the reality that is really there.

So, based on what I can understand, how can anyone attribute any importance of numbers to any translation of the Bible? Do the numeric values found in one translation hold true for any and all translations? Given that some translations are literally interpretations and not direct language translations (i.e., the King James version, the Catholic Bible, and many, many others), how can anyone justify interpreting an interpretation and claim to find the underlying true meaning?

I think the conclusion I’m trying to draw here is that it is a fallacy for anyone to draw conclusions such as some have done about the scientific proof of the validity of the Bible as the true Word of God. Yes, they have done wonders in finding the supposed significance of the number 7 throughout the Bible.

The Sufis didn’t rely on number systems alone when coding their works. The Sufis also used analogy of words and phrases. The underlying meaning of such a coding system is lost when the passages are literally translated from the original Persian into any other language (not all idioms of one language can be directly translated into another). Hence, when translated, it is best done by a Sufi who has a mastery of both languages and the lessons to be transmitted. Can we say that of the translators of the Bible? I seriously doubt it, because I seriously doubt that any Bible scholar really understands the coded messages found in the original text, if any actually exists.

The first lesson of the Bible starts with “In the beginning...” Physicists today have a major problem trying to identify an actual beginning of time. In fact, the concept of time is one that is purely relative and has no meaning in and of itself. Place yourself back in time five or six thousand years ago. How would you teach someone back then using the simplified vocabulary of the era about what we today understand as The Big Bang Theory and the evolution of the Universe? Likewise, words used in the Bible to describe aspects of consciousness have given way to new words such as ego, id, and subconscious, concepts that today have fairly clear meanings but were regarded as mysteries during Biblical times and given terms such as Satan, evil, and Hell. Truly, one who does not know their true self is living as though in a hell of their own making.

The mind is a wonderful thing. But beyond the mind is a power inherent in all humans that supersedes thinking to become knowing. A closed mind merely thinks.

To me, the most fascinating thing about the Numbers thing is that anyone can actually create such coded documents as what Panin (see reference 1) disclosed. I mean, even if we allow that the works that Panin used were “official” documents the fact that he came up with such an amazing repetition of numbers is awesome.

I became quite discouraged in the study of the Bible when I discovered that I couldn’t find an “original” version of either the Old or New Testament. So, rather than study the Bible I became engrossed in the study of Self. I am happy to say that I have freed myself from religious doctrine and dogma and that my relationship to God is a highly personal one.

There is no Bible today that isn’t an interpretation or translation of an earlier work. Even the Torah and Koran are interpretations and translations of earlier works.

It still stands that there is no one actual “original” version of either the Old or New Testament - that everything we have today is a translation of earlier documents. We keep finding scrolls that support stories in the Bible and even augment them (e.g., The Book of Judas), but those scrolls themselves are not the “original” stories. By that fact alone, Panin’s work and Suares’s work are merely interesting oddities and not reflective of any definitive “truth.” And one still has to consider that the Old Testament is based on thousands of years of hand-me-down stories that started long before there was a written language to record them (and how many of those stories are Pagan in nature that were later converted by Christian followers to become God’s Word). At some point in time, someone (actually, several someones) made the effort to codify the stories in the manner that Panin and Suares found them. Granted, those people had an insight to code that was very advanced, and this is similar in awesomeness to how the Pyramids were built and other similar stone structures around the world.

Panin’s work (and Suares’s work) are amazing studies that are accurate and scientific. However, it’s easy to refute these works as relative to religious studies when considering one basic fact: if the “code” is applied to each of the various interpretations and translations of the Bible - no matter how “original” one may think it is - the numbers don’t come up the same way. The different translations use different words and different phrases in an attempt to portray what the translator felt was the best way to carry the meaning of the “original” text. The public also hasn’t seen the hundreds or thousands of scrolls that the Catholic church has squirreled away; and we have no real idea how "original" any of those scrolls are. The Bible of today is a selected, small portion of hundreds or thousands of scrolls that one man in the Catholic church deemed worth giving to the masses for study. Tossed out were stories of reincarnation and other very interesting subjects. So, if all the scrolls were included in Panin’s analysis, would the results be the same?

Now, if it can be shown that no matter what translation is used that the “essence” of the original lessons have been successfully carried down, that would bear more weight than any Number system. 

And if, in fact, that Panin and Suares are right, then all subsequent translations of the Bible should be thrown out and only the Hebrew and Greek languages, as known at the time of the original writings and not as known today, should be used to study and teach the Word of God with a full emphasis on the underlying meanings and not the literal interpretations (as so many deluded fundamentalist insist on - my opinion). Therein lies my entire objection to religious studies.

I applaud those who do their best to learn the lessons of the Old Testament by studying the Qabala. That is something that anyone might care to look into if they are truly interested in religious studies.

The only thing separating us from realizing that we are one with God is our thinking that we are not.

Realizing that we are one with God is not the same as being able to work miracles as Jesus did, for that comes only to those who have learned the true meaning of Love.

Wisdom = Knowledge + Experience

Knowledge is acquired when Thinking and Reason give way to Love.

Love has nothing to do with Emotion and everything to do with Relationship.

Studying Quantum Physics is a good start on grasping what Relationship means.

The Bible is a highly coded work on Quantum Physics and Psychology.

Matter is energy in motion.

Love is God in motion.

Think about it. Then stop thinking about it.

Don’t think about it. Be it.

It's really interesting to think that we call our country and our government a Social Democracy, yet many of us think we should resist Socialism in every form.

From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy)

However, modern social democracy has deviated from socialism, and supports positions that include support for a democratic welfare state which incorporates elements of both socialism and capitalism, resulting in a mixed economy combined with a comprehensive welfare state.^[2] Social democrats aim to reform capitalism democratically through state regulation and the creation of programs that work to counteract or remove the social injustice and inefficiencies they see as inherent in capitalism. This significantly differs from traditional socialism, which aims to replace the capitalist system entirely with a new economic system characterized by either state or direct worker ownership of the means of production.

I'm not a missionary. Nor do I want to be known as one. Nevertheless, unsolicited comments such as what follows may brand me as such. So consider this as just sharing - like what may be done after seeing a great movie.

I've been enamored with the teachings of Jesus since I was old enough to walk across the street on my own to attend church. Over the years, I have listened to many stories about Jesus, read several books about him, and recently came across one that I think bears a little attention.

Have you heard anything about the bone box of "Jesus son of Joseph" that was found along with the bone box of Maria (Mary) and several other bone boxes with names that all seemingly connect directly to Jesus of Nazareth? There was a documentary created by a journalist that tells the story. See http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/tomb.html.

What is forgiveness, and when is it necessary?

As I study A Course In Miracles, the one thing that stands out is that God created all life, and that life is in Him, not "elsewhere" - meaning that He did not create something apart from Himself. If this is so, then nothing that God created is any less perfect than Himself (how could what is perfect create anything that is not perfect?) If this is so, then what is perfect cannot do but what God Wills, since His Will is the same as the will of what He created (God's creations are an extension of Himself). And what is done according to God's Will needs no forgiveness.

In reference to a post in the "Ask the Real Jesus" website that discusses the accuracy of A Course In Miracles:

I've been thinking about this one item from the ten commandments - "Thou shalt not kill".

What is really meant by that?

Does this imply that to squash a bug is no different than to squash a human being?

If it is only referencing human beings, then we have two versions of "killing", one for bugs and for human beings.

And after all, don't we "kill" fish and fowl and animals for food?

Then "killing" isn't really what is meant by this commandment, is it?

Would it then refer to "murder"?

But what is murder? Is it only the killing of another human being?

Does that mean we don't murder fish or bugs?

If a government sends a soldier to a war with an order to kill another human being, doesn't that contradict God's commandment? Or can a government decide which kind of killing is okay and which kind isn't?