GETTING STARTED

In order to gain a proper understanding of the enormity of Dr. Panin's work, we must realize that he "started from scratch", so to speak. The mathematical precision required of his labors necessitated reference works that for all intents and purposes were non-existent! The first thing he had to do was compile a library of "tools" with which to work and he had to make them himself. Try to imagine if you can, the extreme difficulty that Dr. James Strong encountered in compiling his "Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible," where each and every word of consequence in the entire Bible was carefully noted, recorded, collated, etc., while corresponding Hebrew and Greek definitions (with assigned numbers) were given as well.

Yet, this Herculean task does not measure up to that task which confronted Dr. Panin! He had to compile his own unique concordance before he could begin work! Not only did the words of the original Greek texts have to be arranged into a systematic and workable concordance, but a very special concordance at that one in which each letter of the respective language was meticulously recorded, along with its numerical equivalent. The Hebrew and Greek cultures did not have a separate alphabet and numbering system as we do today. Their alphabet was also their numbering system each letter having a corresponding number associated with it. So their calculations were actually manipulations of the various letters of the alphabet. (We will not attempt to give illustrations of these alphabets, or tables reflecting their respective values, deferring instead to the various authors' books which list them.)

Additonally, vocabularies and other Bible analyses had to be compiled with a special view to absolute accuracy, down to the smallest detail. The first result was a thousand-page concordance listing every one of the 137,903 occurrences of the New Testament Koine Greek words. They are all in alphabetical order and every reference to chapter and verse is neatly listed beneath each word in hand-written entries. The reason this was made necessary was the fact that the very best Greek concordances in print at that time were just too inaccurate for Dr. Panin' s purposes! Next, Dr. Panin felt the need for a concordance listing all of the various forms of the Greek words, so he created another concordance of 2000 pages. twice as large as the first! Six years of tedious and time-consuming labor were required for these two "tools".

After that, other books containing the vocabulary words of the Greek New Testament were also compiled, in which each word was listed along with 16 columns of numeric data related to that word. Four columns containing the order number, place value, numeric value, etc. precede each word. Behind each word are 12 columns containing the number of occurrences, number of forms, syllables, letters, writers, books, diphthongs, etc. The completion of the vocabulary required an additional two years. But through all of the years of tedious and mentally taxing labor, Dr. Panin was not the only one who did not receive a salary. all of the secretarial assistance he received was done voluntarily as well.

The result of this lifetime of effort was a "NUMERIC GREEK NEW TESTAMENT" and a "NUMERIC ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT", both of which are commendable and scholarly pieces of work. The concise text of both testaments were established by means of the numeric designs discovered by Dr. Panin. designs that completely and literally permeate the whole of Scripture.

THE STORY OF THE TWO TESTAMENTS

At this point we probably need to explain why this would have been deemed necessary in the first place. And why just the New Testament? Wouldn' t the Old Testament require this same type of revision as well? Let's answer the question about the Old Testament first. The Old Testament Scriptures were given by God through the pens of various men chosen by Him and were confined to the nation of Israel. The copying and transmission of these writings were handled, for the most part, by religious professionals and done under the most rigorous rules imaginable. Each line and each page had a numerical equivalent attached to it, the sum of the individual letters, and absolutely no mistakes were tolerated. If, for any reason a single line or page did not "add up" properly, it was discarded and burned. The task was approached with the greatest of reverence and it has been said that if the scribe encountered any of the numerous names of God, he would put down his pen, take a bath, change clothes, get a new quill pen and then very reverently write down the name. If the name of God came up in the same verse, he would go through the whole procedure again! With such scrupulous and meticulous care taken by professional scribes, we can see how the Old Testament was passed down to us with only a very few, and relatively minor, errors.

However, the New Testament is another matter entirely. Most of the original manuscripts were sent as letters to various individuals and churches, where copies were often made and passed on to others. Those who wished to have copies for their own use, either paid semi-professional copyists to do it, or often did it themselves. Little care was taken to maintain strict accuracy and many times just the kernel of the information was recorded. Persecution of Christians was commonplace and therefore any copying done had to be done quickly. Some copies were the result of personal recollection being written down, while others were made from the recitations of those who had heard the words spoken by a preacher. Because of this desire for and love of the Word, over a period of time quite a hodge-podge of manuscripts were floating around the Christian world. And at some point along the way, the original "autographs" the actual documents penned by the apostles and others were lost entirely. This was obviously God's intent, because depraved men would doubtless have given an inordinate amount of attention to them (bordering on worship)! They would have worshipped a version of the Bible, rather than the Creator!

To determine the exact wording of the originals, their chronology, and even if they were Scripture or not, educated and godly men had to compare the available texts with each other and against the Old Testament Scriptures quoted by them, to determine authenticity as well as accuracy of text. They did such a wonderful job, that over the years the New Testament Scriptures were settled with a very high degree of confidence and no doctrine left in doubt. Yet, the scholars still could not come to 100% agreement and a few relatively minor places in the Old Testament were debatable. To a certain degree this problem still exists today, but according to the findings of Dr. Panin, all question has been removed and the bickering should cease immediately! The whole of Scripture, down to the last "jot and tittle" has been determined through Bible numerics and as it turns out, precious little needed to be changed anyway! What is so amazing is that this final determining factor was published nearly sixty years ago, but Protestant leadership have ignored it. Yes, I know that "the powers that be are ordained of God" and God can certainly open their eyes any time He chooses to do so. Perhaps this is the time?

What is the so-called "heptadic" structure that Dr. Panin discovered? Simply stated it is this: genuine Scripture, both Hebrew and Greek. where the numbers equivalent with the letters are added up properly. at some point: word, sentence, paragraph, or chapter, will always be divisible by the number seven! And, beyond this, utilization of "place numbers" determines punctuation as well as proper chronology of the various books. This mathematical phenomena occurs and reoccurs only in Holy Scripture and thus rules out all that is spurious. For instance, the "Apocrypha", the fourteen books written during the 400 year "inter-testament" period between Malachi of the Old Testament and Matthew of the New, have no numerics whatsoever and are thereby revealed as being merely of man. Numerous Greek classical writings have also been checked with no evidence of Bible numerics found. Thus Dr. Panin determined that Scripture and only Scripture has this numeric "signature of Divinity" within it.

RE-ISSUING PANIN'S CHALLENGE

To his credit, Dr. Panin actively sought men whose academic credentials would qualify them to serve as his critics, but few even bothered to respond and those who did offered no rebuttal whatever. To this day, no one has come forward with any substantive rebuttal arguments and if any were possible, we feel that Satan would have rolled them out long before now! For that reason we are constrained to re-issue the challenge made by Dr. Panin three quarters of a century ago. The importance of this subject dictates that it should be totally acknowledged by the Christian academic community or else conclusively proven false and discarded. If it is valid, (and we believe that it is) to continue to ignore it would be unthinkable because the harmful division now taking place in the body of Christ over textual issues has gone on entirely too long.

WESTCOTT AND HORT --

"Without the aid of Wescott and Hort I could not have really done my work, because the text of the Authorized Version from my point of view -- not from the point of view of salvation or doctrine even, but from the textual point of view -- the text of the Authorized Version was useless to me, and for this reason: it has too many inaccuracies for my special purpose. Erasmus, for example, who was the Editor of the first Greek text in print was very anxious to get ahead of the Roman Catholic scholars who were issuing a Bible of their own; and he was in such a hurry that he used one MS. [manuscript] for the Book of Revelation and the last page of Revelation was missing in that MS. So what do you suppose Erasmus did? He simply concocted his own Greek for that page; he took the Latin Vulgate and translated it into his own Greek! So that the last page of the Authorized Version is a translation of Erasmus into Greek of a Latin inaccurate translation itself! Now, you and I wish to have an inspired page of the Bible, not one man's mere guessage. The Received Text has a great many suspicious readings of that kind. They do not affect doctrine or conduct seriously, because the great blessing of the Word of God is like the Lord Himself. if you only touch the hem of His garment, you can be made whole. God has seen to it that His blessed Book, no matter how distorted it is in any language sometimes the missionaries are at their wits end to know how to translate the word "God" nevertheless, the Word of God is so full of spiritual power, that if we only get the fringe of it to them, those dear heathen can be converted by it. But you and I wish to have the last page of Revelation as it was truly the inspired Word of God. Wescott and Hort based all their work largely on the Vatican and Sinai MSS., and decided that wherever the two MSS. agreed, that should generally settle the reading. Well, you know, there has been some doubt cast upon the Sinai MSS., because a very shrewd Greek copied a great many MSS. and tried to foist his own MSS. on the folk, so that has left a cloud on the Sinai MSS., and some people see fit to cast doubt on it even now, when there is the question as to whether the British Government did wisely to take part in its acquisition ... I have analysed the Greek words for the Sinai and Vatican Codexes. I have here page after page of the numerics of those words in Greek. Whenever we wish to study numerics relating to our own affairs or life or anything else, we must always remember that the language in which God wishes us to count is Greek, because He left the name of the anti-christ in Greek. You and I will have to stand the test when anti-christ comes. The Holy Spirit has given us warning. "Be sure not to receive this mark of the beast upon you," because it will be the number of the beast upon ourselves. The Holy Spirit warns us that he is 666, that is, in Greek. You and I have to go to numerics in Greek when we wish to prove the correctness of a passage. The three words show striking numerics. There is a system there of sevens and nines at once on the blackboard. I have here page after page of the numerics of those three words. The Sinai Codex has a separate scheme of its own and the Vatican Codex has a separate scheme of its own."

"That is how God has set His seal on His book; so that by the aid of the text presented to us by Wescott and Hort, I was able to verify everything they stated, and verify all the doubtful readings, so that those two great MSS. can be established in such a way that no one can attack their authenticity. This is the testimony of numerics as to any aspersion on the Sinai Codex."

"My prayer is simply this. That God may make that blessed Book of His as precious to you as He has made it to me. It has been an inexpressible joy in my life to work these things out, simply because of the testimony of the majesty and the marvel of the loving-kindness of God vouchsafed in this Book unto our charge. Pray for me, and may the Lord bless you." (Ivan Panin, "Bible Numerics", pp.25-27, emphasis in the original).

From these statements made by Dr. Panin himself, he expresses an indebtedness to Messrs. Wescott and Hort for their work in editing a Greek text that, for the most part, stands up to the test of Bible numerics. However guilty these two men may have been in their involvement with the occult, that involvement should not. in and of itself. mean that the Greek texts they edited were thus rendered unacceptable. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" and Dr. Panin testifies that their work stands the numeric test! A diamond is still a diamond even if it is found in a mud-hole.