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Theomatics: God's Best Kept Secret Revealed
Asserts that a mathematical design within the Bible, in the original Hebrew and Greek, provides proof that God did in fact write every word of the Old and New Testaments
- GenresTheology
Hardcover
First published June 1, 1977
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September 6, 2024
BEFORE THE "BIBLE CODE," THERE WAS "THEOMATICS" AS A "PROOF" OF THE BIBLE
Jerry Ray Lucas (born 1940) is a former NBA player [who was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history], who is now a memory education expert. He has written/cowritten other books such as 'The Memory Book,' 'Ready, Set, Remember,' 'Learning How to Learn,' etc. Coauthor Del Washburn is the author 'Theomatics II,' 'The Original Code in the Bible: Using Science and Mathematics to Reveal God's Fingerprints,' etc.
Lucas wrote in the Foreword to this 1977 book, "I met a young seminar student by the name of Del Washburn... I saw some of the research work he was doing... its implications were impressive... Apparently, Del had found a key that would unlock a whole new dimension in the Word of God... I invited him to move down to Los Angeles, so we could work on the project together. After several months of continued research we submitted our findings to a team of statisticians. Their convincing conclusions will be found in the last chapter of this book.
"We could find no existing work to describe this mathematical continuity in the Bible, so we had to come up with a new word: Theomatics... The Greek word for God is 'Theo,' and when combined with the suffix for the word 'mathematics'... It means 'the numbers or mathematics of God.'" (Pg. 12)
They explain, "The truth of theomatics is not difficult to understand. God did not put a design into His Word that could be confusing to His people... There are five basic concepts that must be learned... Concept 1: The Theomatic Number Codes... The early Greeks ... used the letters of their alphabet as numbers... The Hebrew number code ... has been in use since the time before Christ... Concept 2:... Everything in Theomatics operates by multiples [of certain key numbers]... each major Bible truth has a key number assigned to it by God... Concept 3: ... the clustering of numbers around these multiples... Concept 4: Grammar of the Hebrew and Greek Languages... God has provided Himself with a language that is extremely flexible... What God simply does is to use the right combination of words (with their various spellings), along with the different articles, to construct a sentence, phrase, or thought that adds up to the proper theomatic value He has chosen... God took the languages... and thus constructed His entire Word with an intricate mathematical design... Concept 5: Rules and Guidelines for Theomatics research... The only allowable variable in Theomatics is sometimes to eliminate the article altogether." (Pg. 29-40)
Later, they assert, "In order to prove the existence of the theomatic design in the Word of God, we are going to hinge our entire case on one scientific statement of fact... [which] is the most important statement that we will ever make in this entire book, because on it rests our entire case...: Numbers must occur at random, unless there is a design. If there is no theomatic design present in the Bible, then all of the number values for the words would simply be one great big conglomeration of random numbers." (Pg. 256)
Later, they admit, "In figuring probability, one must always take into consideration every single possibility that he could have used for a theomatic feature. In the above example, there are eight possible combinations for the word 'fishes' in the New Testament... Anything that could have been used must be taken into consideration when figuring probability calculations." (Pg. 259) Later, they add, "Out of a total of forty references to the birth of Christ and the child Jesus, thirty-six ... have features that clustered around the multiples of 111. In compiling all of these features, we cut the length of the phrases off at those points where we thought the complete spiritual thought of that particular passage had been enunciated. This, of course, was a matter of judgment on our part." (Pg. 303)
They explain at the book's end, "Theomatics either stands or falls based on Method 3... we shall now make a daring declaration from which there is absolutely no escape: If the theomatic designs we have presented in this book are untrue, then this means that all of these so-called designs were simply created from random numbers. Therefore, any other number values randomly assigned to the letters of the alphabet should produce the same results." (Pg. 305) They conclude, "no other number-letter equivalencies can produce these designs except those that God placed in the papyrus." (Pg. 334)
One can certainly criticize the authors' methodology [e.g., their selective use of different spellings; their inclusion/noninclusion of articles; their cutting off of phrases, etc.]; and the preponderance of multiples of 10 in the letter/number equivalents is hardly "random." The vast majority of Christians will probably be repelled by such an application of the Bible as Theomatics proposes. But this is certainly an intellectually stimulating book, that will appeal to a certain subgroup of Christians.
Jerry Ray Lucas (born 1940) is a former NBA player [who was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history], who is now a memory education expert. He has written/cowritten other books such as 'The Memory Book,' 'Ready, Set, Remember,' 'Learning How to Learn,' etc. Coauthor Del Washburn is the author 'Theomatics II,' 'The Original Code in the Bible: Using Science and Mathematics to Reveal God's Fingerprints,' etc.
Lucas wrote in the Foreword to this 1977 book, "I met a young seminar student by the name of Del Washburn... I saw some of the research work he was doing... its implications were impressive... Apparently, Del had found a key that would unlock a whole new dimension in the Word of God... I invited him to move down to Los Angeles, so we could work on the project together. After several months of continued research we submitted our findings to a team of statisticians. Their convincing conclusions will be found in the last chapter of this book.
"We could find no existing work to describe this mathematical continuity in the Bible, so we had to come up with a new word: Theomatics... The Greek word for God is 'Theo,' and when combined with the suffix for the word 'mathematics'... It means 'the numbers or mathematics of God.'" (Pg. 12)
They explain, "The truth of theomatics is not difficult to understand. God did not put a design into His Word that could be confusing to His people... There are five basic concepts that must be learned... Concept 1: The Theomatic Number Codes... The early Greeks ... used the letters of their alphabet as numbers... The Hebrew number code ... has been in use since the time before Christ... Concept 2:... Everything in Theomatics operates by multiples [of certain key numbers]... each major Bible truth has a key number assigned to it by God... Concept 3: ... the clustering of numbers around these multiples... Concept 4: Grammar of the Hebrew and Greek Languages... God has provided Himself with a language that is extremely flexible... What God simply does is to use the right combination of words (with their various spellings), along with the different articles, to construct a sentence, phrase, or thought that adds up to the proper theomatic value He has chosen... God took the languages... and thus constructed His entire Word with an intricate mathematical design... Concept 5: Rules and Guidelines for Theomatics research... The only allowable variable in Theomatics is sometimes to eliminate the article altogether." (Pg. 29-40)
Later, they assert, "In order to prove the existence of the theomatic design in the Word of God, we are going to hinge our entire case on one scientific statement of fact... [which] is the most important statement that we will ever make in this entire book, because on it rests our entire case...: Numbers must occur at random, unless there is a design. If there is no theomatic design present in the Bible, then all of the number values for the words would simply be one great big conglomeration of random numbers." (Pg. 256)
Later, they admit, "In figuring probability, one must always take into consideration every single possibility that he could have used for a theomatic feature. In the above example, there are eight possible combinations for the word 'fishes' in the New Testament... Anything that could have been used must be taken into consideration when figuring probability calculations." (Pg. 259) Later, they add, "Out of a total of forty references to the birth of Christ and the child Jesus, thirty-six ... have features that clustered around the multiples of 111. In compiling all of these features, we cut the length of the phrases off at those points where we thought the complete spiritual thought of that particular passage had been enunciated. This, of course, was a matter of judgment on our part." (Pg. 303)
They explain at the book's end, "Theomatics either stands or falls based on Method 3... we shall now make a daring declaration from which there is absolutely no escape: If the theomatic designs we have presented in this book are untrue, then this means that all of these so-called designs were simply created from random numbers. Therefore, any other number values randomly assigned to the letters of the alphabet should produce the same results." (Pg. 305) They conclude, "no other number-letter equivalencies can produce these designs except those that God placed in the papyrus." (Pg. 334)
One can certainly criticize the authors' methodology [e.g., their selective use of different spellings; their inclusion/noninclusion of articles; their cutting off of phrases, etc.]; and the preponderance of multiples of 10 in the letter/number equivalents is hardly "random." The vast majority of Christians will probably be repelled by such an application of the Bible as Theomatics proposes. But this is certainly an intellectually stimulating book, that will appeal to a certain subgroup of Christians.
October 2, 2011
The authors use the fact that Ancient Hebrew and Greek used letters as numbers to come up with numerical values for common terms in the Bible and they believe there is some great significance behind the numbers, but the numbers are probably just coincidental.
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