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THE K I NG ' S B U S I N E S S
edition (which th e w riter has used th roughou t) b u t it can be dem onstrated thu s to have been w ritten last. The phenomena are th ere, and th e re is no hum an way of explaining them . E igh t men cannot each w rite last, 27 books, some 500 pages cannot each be w ritten last. B u t once assume th a t One Mind directed th e whole, and the problem is solved simply enough; bu t th is is Verbal Inspiration— of every jo t and tittle of th e New Testament. There rem ains only to be added th a t by precisely th e same kind of evidence th e Hebrew Old T estam ent is proved to be equally inspired. Thus th e very first verse of Genesis has seven words, 28 letters, or 4 sevens; its very first syllable h a s a num eric value of 203, or 29 sevens, to name only th ree ou t of th e dozens of num eric featu res of th is one verse of only seven words.—N. Y. Sun, Nov. 21, 1899. To th is le tte r several replies appeared in th e Sun, b u t no t a single answer. F o r in only th ree ways can it be re futed : a. By showing th a t th e facts are not as h ere given. b. By show ing th a t it is possible for eight men to w rite each afte r th e other seven; for 27 books, for some 500 pages to be each in its tu rn w ritten last. c. By showing th a t even if th e facts be tru e, th e arithm etic faultless, and th e collocation of the num erics honest, it does no t follow th a t m ere men could not have w ritten th u s w ithout In sp ira tion from above. Accordingly, as many as nine noted ratio n alists (of whom Drs. Lyman Abbot and Charles -W . E liot are still living) were respectfully b u t publicly invited to refu te th e w riter. One was not “ in terested ” in th e w rite r’s “a rith m etical” doings; two “re g retted ” th a t they “ had no tim e” to give heed thereto. Another “ did not mean to be unk ind ,” but, The re st were silent. F o r th e spe cial benefit of these th e w riter printed th e original data w ith num erous details.
7X6X3 , each num ber a m ultiple not only of sevens, h u t of 6 sevens, to name only two of th e many num eric featu res of these words. 'B u t how did Matthew know, when designing th is scheme for these words (whose sole characteristic, is th a t they are found nowhere else in th e New Testam ent) th a t they would n o t be found in th e o th er 26 books? th a t they would n o t be used by the o ther 7 New T estam ent w riters? Unless we assume th e impossible hypothesis th a t he had an agreem ent w ith them to th a t effect, he m ust have had th e rest of th e New Testam ent before him when he w rote his book. The Gospel of Mat thew , then, was w ritte n last. 5. I t so happens, however, th a t th e Gospel of Mark shows th e very same Phenomena. Thus the very passage called so trium ph an tly in today’s Sun a “ forgery,” th e L ast Twelve Verses of Mark, presents among some sixty fea tu re s of sevens the following phenom ena: I t has 175 words, or 25 sevens; a vocabulary of 98 words, or 2 sevens of sevens, w ith 553 letters, or 79 sevens; 133 forms, or 19 sevens, and so on to the m inu test detail. Mark, then, is ano th er m iracle, an o th er unparallelled m athem atical liter ary genius. And in th e same way in which it was sh ow n 'th at Matthew w rote la st it is also shown th a t Mark too w rote last. 6. It happens, however, to be a fou rth fact th a t Luke presents th e same phenomena as Matthew and Mark, and so does John, and James, and Peter, and Jude, and Paul. And we have thu s no longer two g reat unh eard of m athe m atical literati, b u t eigh t of them , and each w ro te a fte r th e other. 7. And not only this. As Luke and P ete r w ro te each two books, John five, and P au l 14, it can in th e same way be shown th a t each of th e seven and tw enty New T estam ent books was w rit ten last. In fact, not a page of th e over 500 in W estcott & H o rt’s Greek
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