Subject: Re: Equidistant letters

From: [email-masked] (Nichael Lynn Cramer)
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 13:43:51 -0500

Lewis Reich wrote:
>Ronald L. Minton wrote:
>> Is anyone familiar with an article in Statistical Science (Aug 94) or in
>> Bible Review (Oct 95) or The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
>> 152:1, 1988)?  I have received claims that amazing statistical sequences
>> in the Hebrew proves (even supernaturally so) the accuracy of the Masoretic
>> text and/or certain translations.
>I have read the Bible Review article and it seems an intelligent
>summary of what was done along with a good layman's discussion of
>some of the statistical issues.    Of course, all statistics can do,
>in effect,  is make statements on the likelihood that a particular
>result could be obtained by pure chance.  What conclusions one draws
>from those statistical results  are beyond the realm of statistics.

I think I'll have to respectfully disagree with Lewis on this.

Whatever the validity of the original claims, the BR article presented only
the must cursory and "hand-waving" description of what the original authors
claimed and virtually no discussion whatsoever of the statistical issues
involved.  It was very hard to come away from the article with any real
understanding of what was going on.

Rather the author, Jeffrey R. Satinover (a family therapist and mystery
novelist) did not even even attempt to appear to present a critical
examination --or indeed even a serious discussion-- of the authors' claims.
Rather he accepted the claims at full face value and presented them as
simple, given fact.

(A final note:  Those who look up the article in BR may also want to read
the letters column the Feb 1996 issue.  In that issue Marvin F. Cain,
Director of the Mid-Columbia Center for Theological Studies in Pasco
Washington reports that he applied the so-called "Equidistant Letter
Technique" to the opening sentences of Satinover's article.  The resulting
message:  "No, No, No, A Lie!"   ;-)

Nichael                                                      __
[email-masked]                         Be as passersby -- IC
http://www.sover.net/~nichael/

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From: "Lewis Reich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 17:55:35 -500

On  8 Feb 97 at 13:43, Nichael Lynn Cramer wrote:

> Whatever the validity of the original claims, the BR article
> presented only the must cursory and "hand-waving" description of
> what the original authors claimed and virtually no discussion
> whatsoever of the statistical issues involved.  It was very hard to
> come away from the article with any real understanding of what was
> going on.

Nichael is right; I had misremembered the author's response to 
various letters to the editor (BR  Feb. 1996) as if it were part of
the original article.  In that response he provides more information
about the procedure than he does in the original article.  However,
I'm not sure that what I regard as a "layman's description" would
necessarily be immune to a charge of "cursory hand-waving".

On  8 Feb 97 at 15:50, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> But this still doesn't address the point that some of us are still wondering
> about. That point being, "What did the articles claim?"

The Bible Review article stated the conclusion of the JRS article was 
that "words [were] encoded into the Hebrew text that could have not 
been accidental - nor placed there by human hand".   This rather 
unfortunate slant extends to the title of the BR article:  "Divine 
Authorship?  Computer reveals startling word patterns".  The 
subsequent SS article is described as yielding "results [that] do not 
reveal any secret messages encoded in the Bible, but they do 
demonstrate certain sequences of letters forming words that cannot be 
the result of chance."    The BR article quotes the editor of SS as 
saying:  "Our referees were baffled: their prior beliefs made them 
think the Book of Genesis could not possibly contain meaningful 
references to modern day individuals, yet when the authors carried 
out additional analyses and checks the effect persisted.  The paper 
is thus offered to *Statistical Science* readers as a challenging 
puzzle."

Lewis Reich
[email-masked]

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 17:14:19 -0700

On Sat, 8 Feb 1997, "Lewis Reich" <[email-masked]> wrote, in part:

>been accidental - nor placed there by human hand".

Which is, of course, not true. It is the nature of coincidences that
*they happen*.

Note that I don't say this is false -- merely that it is meaningless.

>This rather 

Ouch. I'll believe *this* when I see some real evidence.

Thanks for the explanation.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                            Robert B. Waltz
                         [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A very rough draft of part of the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)