CJ Labuschagne points out in his Numerical Secrets of the Bible that “Exod 39:32–43 tells how the Tabernacle with all its equipment was presented to Moses, who inspected all the work and saw that the craftsmen had done their work according to the command of the Lord, and he blessed them (verse 43). This is a clear allusion to what is said in Genesis: having performed his last act of creation, ‘God saw all he had made, and it was... Read more
JB Kennedy’s The Musical Structure of Plato’s Dialogues is a kind of Bible Code for classical philosophy. In a 2010 article in Apeiron (“Plato, Pythagoreanism, and Stichometry”), Kennedy lays out the basic argument. Kennedy’s argument begins from the observation that Greek prose writers, like poets, composed their works in lines, and that the number of lines was often symbolic. He writes, “The practice of counting the number of syllables in a line or the number of lines in a stanza... Read more
Henri de Lubac’s Corpus Mysticum is a densely detailed study of the changing punctuation of the medieval theology of the triple body of Christ. “Body of Christ” has a threefold significance: His historical body, in which He lived, died, and rose again; His sacramental body, the bread of the Eucharist; and the ecclesial body, the church. Early Eucharistic theology presumed this punctuation: [Sacramental body – Ecclesial body] / Historical body. That is, the focus of theological reflection was not primarily... Read more
Back in the 1990s, seminaries seemed to be thriving. A 1994 cover piece in Christianity Today reported, “In 1992, the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) reported a 9.8 percent enrollment increase over 1991, the largest single increase ever recorded. There was a full-time-equivalent enrollment of 46,400 students in more than 210 institutions. This fall, at least one school reports a 20 percent increase in 1994-95 total enrollment over the previous academic year. Other institutions around the country say they have... Read more
Some gleanings from CJ Labuschagne’s Numerical Secrets of the Bible on the Psalms. On Psalm 23: “the three words in the phrase kiaatta immadi, ‘for you are with me’ (23:4), are situated in the mathematical center of the text, with 26 words preceding them and 26 after them. The structure of the text, formed according to an often used model, the balance-model: 26 + 3 + 26, signifies that the statement about the presence of God is a central and... Read more
One of the faults of discourses, argues Hobbes (Leviathan, 1.8), occurs when “men speak such words as, put together, have in them no signification at all.” The words are spoken for different reasons: They “are fallen upon, by some, through misunderstanding of the words they have received and repeat by rote; by others, from intention to deceive by obscurity.” Normal human beings don’t talk like this: the “common sort of men seldom speak insignificantly,” and for this reason the scholastics... Read more
It appears that the biblical text was composed according to preconceived models and patterns shaped by certain numbers that regulate the amount of words, sentences, and verses,” writes CJ Labuschagne in his Numerical Secrets of the Bible (1). Like music, “literary texts in biblical antiquity were composed and structurally organized with the help of certain numbers. In short, the art of writing practiced by the biblical writers seems to have involved compositional techniques inextricably bound up with counting” (1). Important... Read more
Paul begins his first letter to the Corinthians with a scathing denunciation of Corinthian factionalism. He poses several rhetorical questions: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? And he brings us baptism: Into whose name were you baptized? Paul’s? Peter’s? Calvin’s? Luther’s? Baptism is a naming ceremony, and it places the same Triune name on all the baptized. Marked by that name, we are all servants of the same master. If I were baptized in the name of Paul,... Read more
TM Luhrmann (When God Talks Back) wants to explain believers to contemporary unbelievers. How can orthodox believers withstand the pressures of the secular world and have what they can describe as a personal relationship with God? Luhrmann emphasizes that this experience doesn’t come overnight: “Skeptics sometimes imagine that becoming a religious believer means acquiring a belief the way you acquire a new piece of furniture. You decide you need a table for the living room, so you purchase it and... Read more
The problem with sacramental theology is that it’s sacramental theology. That is, the problem is the abstraction of certain events, acts, objects, things from their surroundings and subjected to detailed scrutiny. To do sacramental theology, you have to isolate bread and wine from the sequence of liturgical actions that surround it. To do sacramental theology, you have to isolate the rites of the church from the church whose rites they are. To do sacramental theology, you have to isolate the... Read more
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