Theomatics
Encyclopedia
Theomatics is a numerological
Numerology
Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...

 study of the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 text of the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, based upon gematria
Gematria
Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...

 and isopsephia, that its proponents assert demonstrates the direct intervention of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 in the writing of Christian scripture.

Etymology

The term "theomatics" was invented by Del Washburn in 1976, who coined the name "theomatics" as a combination of "Θεός" ("God") and "mathematics", and wrote several books and created a website espousing the hypothesis.

Methodology

Theomatics is not the same thing as Bible code
Bible code
The Bible code , also known as the Torah code, is a purported set of secret messages encoded within the text Hebrew Bible and describing prophesies and other guidance regarding the future. This hidden code has been described as a method by which specific letters from the text can be selected to...

; it uses an entirely different technique. The Bible code (also called ELS for Equidistant Letter Sequences) uses a letter skipping technique. Theomatics, on the other hand, is based on gematria
Gematria
Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...

 and isopsephia, systems which assign numerical values to letters in the ancient Hebrew and Greek alphabets.

Proponents of theomatics claim that an analysis of the Bible reveals numerical patterns that are not explicable by chance.

Controversy

An analysis and criticism of theomatics has been published anonymously by "A. B. Leever".

A German statistician published an analysis that found that "The observed quantity of theomatic hits is significantly not random". His findings led Del Washburn to write that theomatics is "an issue that has been settled and is both determinate and conclusive". A response to the findings was posted by A. B. Leever.

Another page, entitled "Theomatics Debunked", claims to show the same phenomenon in a secular text.

Washburn's website has a page entitled "Scientific Proof" which discusses and responds to potential arguments against theomatics.

Further reading

  • Theomatics and Other Bible Codes from Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
    Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
    The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance are a small group in Kingston, Ontario dedicated to the promotion of religious tolerance through their website, ReligiousTolerance.org.-History of the group and its website:Bruce A...

  • Bible Code from the Skeptic's Dictionary
    Skeptic's Dictionary
    The Skeptic's Dictionary is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 with nearly 400 entries. As of January 2011 the website has...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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