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This article translates the first verses of Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1, into Hebrew and Greek numeric values, then uses a single formula on both to get good approximations for e and pi, each times large multiples of ten.

In the Hebrew and Greek languages, each letter had a numeric value, as shown on the next page.

Here is Genesis 1:1 written in Hebrew. It is written from right to left.

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

Now consider this expression: (number of letters)(product of letters) / (number of words)(product of words) ≈ 3.141554508×10^17(approximation of πtimes a power of 10) The absolute error is less than 0.00004

Here is John1:1 written in Greek. It is written from left to right.

Εν αρχηι ην ο λογος και ο λογος ην προς τον θεον, και θεος ην ο λογος

Now consider the same expression used in Genesis: ...≈ 2.718312812×10^40(approximation of e times a power of 10) The absolute error is less than 0.00004.

Numerology has obviously been considered; the interesting parts are the constraints:

  • use of the same formula
  • use of the opening verse in each instance

and the accuracy achieved.

How likely is this to happen with random text? How much does the multiple of ten caveat arbitrate these findings? Are these examples in any way exceptional?

https://joevasta.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/talk_pi_and_e_in_the_bible_.pdf

Reluctantly I am adding the disclaimer (that I hoped would both be a given and irrelevant) that I am not on a mission to prove Divine Intent; even if the odds of this happening are faithfully interpreted as extremely low, they will not be lower than the odds that a deity bestowed Pi and Euler's number into an ancient book.

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user7778287
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    Little help with the greek text: The actual text in modern greek is: "εν αρχή ην ο λόγος και ο λόγος ην προς τον θεόν και θεός ην ο λόγος" . And εν = into, αρχή = beginning, ην = is, ο/τον = the, λόγος = reason(for this text), προς = to, θεόν = God, και = and . And the original text : "ἐν αρχἦ ἦν ὁ Λόγος καί ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρός τόν Θεόν καί Θεός ἦν ὁ Λόγος· οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρός τόν Θεόν" wich makes things more complicated as ancient letter 'companions' are used that varies the letters. – Stefanos Zilellis Jul 15 '19 at 15:07
  • I'm kind of surprised we don't have a `numerology` tag. Should we create one? – Nate Eldredge Jul 16 '19 at 01:30
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    I think you're asking on the wrong site. Try https://stats.stackexchange.com/ to answer *"How likely is this to happen with random text?"* and https://christianity.stackexchange.com/ and https://judaism.stackexchange.com/ to answer what theological perspectives on the topic exist, and support and criticisms therein (i.e. the value of this thing if it's a mathematically exceptional thing). –  Jul 16 '19 at 03:17
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    @NateEldredge On this site, can you see any numerology related question answered differently from the next? Details aside, they'll all say the same thing: with essentially arbitrary starting points, skip values, etc., meaningful patterns are easy to find in any text, data, static, whatever (even the revealed message is arbitrary, like "why in the hell math constants in ancient text?"). Such skeptic examples abound. A fun one I remember demonstrated that Twain's *Tom Sawyer* predicted the Kennedy assassination. –  Jul 16 '19 at 03:29
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's asking for math verification, not fact checking. You need a math site. –  Jul 16 '19 at 03:37
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    Please remember, this is Skeptics.SE, which means you need to substantiate your claims with references that support them. This is a *difficult* question to answer properly and your off-the-cuff analyses are not welcome. – Oddthinking Jul 16 '19 at 04:25
  • How would one answer this satisfactorily? I tried yesterday, using a Numerology calculator I found online, to apply a similar formula to the last sentence of the question, and it unsurprisingly yielded a result that has significance in various scientific papers. But I deleted it because I thought it was a poor answer. The thing is, those calculations used in the referenced PDF are not special, but rather are arbitrary calculations that have been tweaked to find answers that have "significance". – Jerome Viveiros Jul 16 '19 at 13:09
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    How do you define the product of words and letters? Doesn't make sense. – Raskolnikov Jul 16 '19 at 16:09
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    @Raskolnikov: The word you should google for is "Gematria". – Oddthinking Jul 16 '19 at 18:25
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    I find it amusing how this keeps getting voted up. Several people voted it down but overall the vote is back to zero because others keep voting it up again. It's funny how some subjects get treated this way... could it be because people *want* it to be true? – Jerome Viveiros Jul 17 '19 at 05:55
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    @JeromeViveiros is the vote on a question a vote on the believabilty of the claim? hope not, as i upvoted some 'this BS needs debunking right now' issues... – bukwyrm Jul 17 '19 at 14:27
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    @bukwyrm I see your point but for me it's a vote on the quality of the question. It's just another numerology claim this one with formulas tweaked until they gave something "meaningful" to those looking... It shouldn't need to be debunked specifically because then every numerology claim should be treated the same. It hasn't attracted decent answers either. – Jerome Viveiros Jul 18 '19 at 05:33
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    To decide if this is exceptional we would need tto know wo things: 1. How many numbers did the group calculate that found these numbers? 2. Have the numbers be manipulated in any way, like are there characters that have been substituted, exchanged, left out or added from whatever the standard versions of these paragraphs are, or have words been combined or split? – gnasher729 Jul 21 '19 at 20:39
  • If it is a modern back translation, all claims can at maximum state facts about that back translation. A historic text would only allow speculations about the author of that version of the bible and the time it was written. If the translation is performed by the person, finding the numbers, the odds aren't low that he massaged the encoding and choice of characters/words/numbers to fit his claim. – user unknown Jul 23 '19 at 09:16
  • What bothers me is this: Why should anybody want to bury pi in some ancient script? And why should anybody spend time looking for it? Not a snark, I just can't imagine why... – RedSonja Jul 24 '19 at 12:31

2 Answers2

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There are a lot of formulas that look simple.

"The absolute error is less than 0.00004" (actually that's the relative error) basically means that the first four digits match (when ignoring the location of the decimal point). So the chance of two given verses matching a given formula to this extent by random is about 1e-8.

On the other hand, the Bible has 80 books, probably 5 languages that could be used without making it too much of a stretch (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, English), there are a dozen or so famous constants which could be reasonably used. Let's say there's ten possible ways to get a number (sum of letters, sum of words, product of letters, product of words, sum of pairs, the whole sentence as a number, product of words read backwards etc. - this is probably a low estimate), and we restrict ourselves to the four basic arithmetic operations, that's at least 10^4*4^3 options (more because e.g. (a*b)/(c*d) is not the same as a*(b/c)*d but it's hard to put a number on that). Take that all together and we are at 2.5e9 already, and there are probably plenty more fudge factors.

Tgr
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    This answer has the spirit I was looking for: giving reason to be skeptical. There are some details you generalize though: the languages examined here are the original written languages of the text, and the fact that they use the first line in each book: these constraints are not appreciated in your response. – user7778287 Jul 16 '19 at 00:53
  • You're answering the question, but only theoretically. Find a different constant, though that might fall afoul of the original research prohibition. –  Jul 16 '19 at 03:22
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    "So the chance of two given verses matching a given formula to this extent by random is about 1e-8." That's the probability of getting a particular two verses. The probability of getting *any* two verses is much higher. – Acccumulation Jul 16 '19 at 04:17
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    @user7778287: If this is the kind of answer you are looking for, you have asked in the wrong place. This is likely to be deleted. – Oddthinking Jul 16 '19 at 04:27
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    @fredsbend how do you expect a question about a purely mathematical argument to be answered if not "theoretically"? – Tgr Jul 16 '19 at 08:34
  • @Tgr The problem is the question ... –  Jul 16 '19 at 08:52
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    This answer is biased against the claim. The two verses are closely linked to each other by wording, and they are theologically very prominent. Greek and Hebrew, the original languages of these verses, are more logical choices than any other. Pi and e are the first two constants mentioned in the list, which suggests they may be more prominent targets than any other constant. Yet, your back-of-the-envelope calculation incorrectly assumes equal probabilities for each of these factors. It's very hard to model this correctly, but a convincing theoretical answer would have to attempt exactly that. – Schmuddi Jul 16 '19 at 09:09
  • [This FAQ answer](https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2930/36637) from meta discusses the inappropriateness of back-of-the-envelope calculations as answers on skeptics.SE. – Schmuddi Jul 16 '19 at 09:15
  • I understand why theoretical counterarguments and back-of-the-envelope calculations are inappropriate for empirical claims. But this is a non-empirical claim (no one contests the empricial parts, such as the Bible actually including those words) so it's the only kind of argument that applies. The alternatives would be saying that a) scientific skepticism cannot be applied to numerology-style claims, b) such claims can only be answered if a "reputable expert in the field" (what field is that, even?) has answered that specific claim and can be quoted. Those both seem like poor approaches to me. – Tgr Jul 16 '19 at 09:34
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    The point is that I have considerable doubts that your calculation (80 * 5 * 10 * 10^4 * 4^3) is "the right operation to match reality, and no other factors or complications have been omitted" (as stated in the FAQ answer). As my previous comment shows, there are several complications that your answer ignores. That's why I consider your answer inappropriate for this claim. – Schmuddi Jul 16 '19 at 10:11
  • It's different to say "this specific answer is incorrect" and "back-of-the-envelope calculations are inappropriate". Anyway, the gist of the answer is that in choosing a simple-looking formula you get a surprisingly large degree of freedom, which will make up for most if not all of the improbability of finding such numerical matches in the text by pure chance. The details can be nitpicked... – Tgr Jul 16 '19 at 10:33
  • ...(fair point about the language, OTOH the number of constants has already been a very conservative estimate; consider that they could have been famous physical constants, numbers of biblical significance, notable birth dates etc. just as easily); the core point is that one immediately assumes that such matches are based on the author being able to choose all kinds of parameters, but here the numbers seem too large for that - but actually, choosing the formula can account for a suprisingly large amount of "parameter space". – Tgr Jul 16 '19 at 10:35
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    @Tgr: "no one contests the empricial parts, such as the Bible actually including those words" - I do. – Oddthinking Jul 16 '19 at 18:27
  • @Oddthinking you could write that up as an answer then. – Tgr Jul 16 '19 at 20:43
  • Your 1e-8 is perhaps too hand-wavy. The original 4e-6 error for each hit (or, in the light of the claim ignoring powers of 10, the error of 5e-6 for the value of log_10 x mod 1) seems more appropriate (per hit). With some 30000 verses in the Bible (says Google), we **expect** 0.16 such near hits *per language* and *per math constant* and *per test-to-number function*. The end result is the same - just a little bit of variation in the languages/constants/functions allowed quickly pushes the expected number of hits easily above 2. – Hagen von Eitzen Jul 19 '19 at 13:46
  • @HagenvonEitzen the error is 4e-5, FWIW. – Tgr Jul 19 '19 at 14:52
  • Actually, the first five digits match, ignoring the decimal point. Because pi is rounded equal to 3,1416 and e is rounded equal to 2,7183 and the same holds for the approximations – Riemann Apr 11 '22 at 07:42
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No

This is Numerology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology#Lack_of_evidence, It is star signs/ astrology for numbers. There is no scientific evidence that backs this up in any way. I find it best summed up by the movie Pi

From the 1998 movie Pi

You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.

A more basic example of this is the picture that circulates occasionaly of the fact that attitude adds up to 100, which is nicely written up here:

From http://www.flyingcoloursmaths.co.uk

This awfully (100) selective (100) use of words is not reputable (100), according to this researcher (100) - it's inapplicable (100) and therefore (100) discredited (100) and deserves someone immature (100) like me to excoriate (100) it.

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Jon.G
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    What does the movie quote have to do with the question? In order to derive π and _e_ from the bible verses, you need to do a fairly complex (and also fairly arbitrary) transformation from letters to numbers, and then some more. This is totally unrelated to the observation that once that you believe a certain number is meaningful, you (allegedly – a movie quote is not exactly a reliable reference) start seeing it everywhere. – Schmuddi Jul 15 '19 at 12:19
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    @Schmuddi Doing arbitrary and complex transformations you can derive any number from any source. I can derive today’s date, the name of the fourth US President or my car’s fuel consumption from your comment. Does this mean that you enciphered them all in your text? No. And this is what this answer is about - if you want to find something you’ll “find” it (which means “invent” in this case). – Common Guy Jul 15 '19 at 12:34
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    @CommonGuy: Please, you don't have to tell me that numerology is nonsense. As my comment already implies, I know very well that you can derive virtually everything from anything. What I'm trying to point out here is that this answer is presently not really a good answer because it's attacking a straw man with the movie quote. – Schmuddi Jul 15 '19 at 12:38
  • @Schmuddi sums my thoughts exactly; I felt immediately patronized discovering these arguments. – user7778287 Jul 15 '19 at 12:50
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    I would add some non-wikipedia sources to this. Numerology is obviously BS; but wikipedia is pointing to other sources, so citing those sources directly would probably make a better answer. – JMac Jul 15 '19 at 13:10
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    You aren't answering the question. –  Jul 16 '19 at 03:19