🚀 go-pugleaf

In soc.culture.jewish on 13 Sep 1997 02:29:13 GMT
jl...@engin.umich.edu (Jacob Love) posted:

>In article <EGEv0s.Fn...@deshaw.com>,  <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
>[replying to me]
>>In soc.culture.jewish Jacob Love <jl...@engin.umich.edu> wrote:
>>: The authors of the article base their conclusions on the notion that
>>: there is a fixed text of the Hebrew Bible which can be relied upon for
>>: such purposes.
>>
>>I'm not sure this is a flawed assumption. If the current text, regardless
>>of history, must be relied upon for halachah, why not for codes (if I
>>believed in their value) as well?

>As I have already pointed out a dozen times, if you have to rely on the
>text you find printed in any book being accurate to the extent of
>matching fully consonant for consonant with anything else, then you
>have nothing, "halakhic" or otherwise. Have you ever actually examined
>any of the Masoretic manuscripts such as the Leningrad Codex, the
>Aleppo Codex or one of the the three Erfurt manuscripts? Do you know
>how the text you find in the Miqra'ot G'dolot was actually assembled?
>I'll give you a hint: none of them match to the precision you would
>need to verify the "codes" nonsense. So be careful before you claim
>that halakhah requires a notion that such precision exists, because
>instead of merely being without an idiotic theory, you may be without a
>basis in halakhah.

But that is the opposite of Micha's point.  His point is not that
Halacha require a particular level of precision in spelling, but that
whatever level we have, if it is sufficient for Halacha, why is it not
sufficient for codes? (I almost said 'It is not...' but I checked what
Micha wrote, RK)

>Again, regardless of what your religious position may be, there is no
>doubt whatsoever that the Masoretic text which scribes *attempted* but
>*failed* to precisely reproduce is based on an earlier text which had a
>much more fluid system of spelling. Indeed, it is partially because of
>the fluidity and ambiguity of Hebrew spelling that the Masoretic work
>became necessary.

>>This only addresses Drosnin's book. The point made in the original
>>book "Hamaymad Hanosaf" (The Added Dimension) is that they have a
>>model for predicting the frequency of such patterns in Hebrew
>>text. And the model works -- for the Samaritan text, for war and
>>peace in Hebrew, for random permutations of verses, etc...

That is, the model works and predicts much lower levels of closeness
for these books and these are the levels that are found, or, the same
analysis reveals much lower levels of closeness for these works.

>My understanding is that this is not true. In fact, I'm not sure how
>any comparative work could be done since I don't believe the digitized
>texts actually exist for manuscript comparison. (I would be happy to
>receive correction on this point.)

Wouldn't they have to be idiots to say they had run tests on these
works if there were no computer-stored copies?  How hard would it be
to type in copies of these works?  If War and Peace is published in
Hebrew, someone had to type it at least once.  Do you think these guys
are idiots?

> However, if you are merely 
>claiming that some form of "codes" can be reproduced via this method,
>I don't disagree. As Brendon McKay has stated repeatedly, *any* text
>of sufficient length can be made to yield up "codes."

Adding the word "repeatedly" doesn't add anything to your sentence,
and of course one would normally use another work of similar length to
Torah, except that the mathematics if properly done can allow for
additional length.   The point is not that one can find codes but that
one can find codes which have an unusually low probability of
occurring by chance.  In this case, this is shown by an unexpectedly
low skip distance in the equidistant letter sequences and an
unexpectedly low distance between the ELS name and the ELS date of
death.  These two sentences are the most detailed description that
anyone has yet posted, not counting web sites, to describe how these
things are measured, but I still haven't given any of the mathematics.
(I hope my description is accurate, at least.  There is a 5 or 6 page
summary in the Drosnin book. I refuse to pay for it, and I think the
appendix further enables him to trade on the credentials of W, R and
G.  It also lists their lists of about 64 rabbis and the dates.
Interesingly enough, one is named Gans.) There are many people on
these newsgroups who like mathematical puzzles of any sort and these
codes are interesting just to find the mathematical reasons they are
no good (if they're not).  

It will be interesting to read Prof. McKay's analysis, because I'm not
enough of a mathematician to analysize their technique myself and to
know I have thought of all the possible flaws, but I might be
competent to judge the 'flaws' he finds.

I think it demeans the Harvard guys to say, as someone did, that they
took a lighthearted approach to it, and then imply that that their
conclusions couldn't relied on as their honest considered opinions.
If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't screw around with my reputation
and if I couldn't take it seriously enough, I would withdraw from the
reviewing committee. (off-topic to this post, but I didn't answer that
one.)

>>However, when looking at the current, halachically accepted, text
>>of the Torah, the number of finds jumps by orders of magnitude.

>There is no such thing as "the current halakhically accepted text of
>the Torah" if you mean by that some precisely accurate text no matter
>how much you want one to exist. 

He plainly doesn't mean that, although you continue to emphasize this
point.  Micha, if I may, you mean the text found in the Torahs at my
shul, and at yours, and in my Hertz, Hirsch, and Artscroll Chumoshim.
Are we agreed that these are all the same?

>Today's scribes rely on a Tikkun (a
>standard text) which is in turn based on the printed texts which were
>the product of the press of Daniel Bomberg (a Christian) working from
>expertise supplied by Jews who converted to Christianity. 

So do Witzum Rips and Gans and that was the point of Micha's post.

>This version
>was produced before the best texts became available for study; in
>particular, it was produced without any knowledge of the Aleppo Codex
>which is believed to be the text upon which Maimonides based his model
>Torah scroll.

 (BTW, unrelated to above, the codes lecturers devote time to 'codes'
that appear with no special level of improbability, and they agree
that such 'codes' mean nothing, except that simple ones are useful to
show what is meant by ELS codes.)

>>Therefor, no single "code" has any value, since it may be one of
>>those findable in any text. It's the number of them in total that
>>raised eyebrows.

>Well, keep raising those eyebrows, because if enough texts are tested
>you will soon be finding ones that have even more codes! What are 
>you going to do then--decide that War and Peace must be more holy
>than the Bible because we can find even more codes?

No, if codes such as found in Torah were found with same degree of
improbability in other books it would show that the analysis of
improbability is flawed.  Operating on the assumption that there were
no codes, the mathematical methods used would be reexamined for the
third or fourth time and if the flaws could not be found, the problem
would be one of interest for mathematicians and statisticians.  The
problem would be: Either such 'codes' are not as improbable as has
been calculated, or why are they showing up a human authored human
translated text such as War and Peace? 

But THAT HASN'T HAPPENED YET.  Other books are used as 'controls' just
as in any scientific experiment, and so far among the texts tested,
they have shown that Torah is unique.  Further, the number and
closeness of codes found has, I believe, matched that predicted in the
model (analysis).   When Enrico Fermi supervised the first operation
of the first nuclear pile at the University of Chicago, the rods were
pulled out slowly until the reaction became self-sustaining, and
measuring devices were used to tell when this happened and when to
stop.  Afterwards, those who examined his notes made in advance saw
that Fermi had predicted very very closely, within the limits of the
imperfections of the rods and of the construction of the pile.  This
implied strongly, but did not guarantee, that Fermi understood the
mathematics of nuclear chain reactions. Nothing that happened later
ever showed that he didn't.

>>Frankly, I think the whole trend into experimental religion is not
>>what Judaism is about.

I agree, but now that we've started it's hard to stop.  The worst that
can happen is that it will be shown that these are not improbably
occurring codes, but rather random occurrences.  If this is adequately
shown, Rips and Witzum and Gans will admit they made an error, and I
am sure their careers will not be seriously damaged or damaged at all,
because this is not such an obvious mistake or it wouldn't have taken
years and it has still not been shown.  Why do I say "adequately
shown"?  Because R, W, and G have shown the opposite now and others
are not convinced their demonstration is adequate.  That is fair, and
what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

>I really don't understand what this means or what it has to do with
>the topic. But maybe I don't want to know.

We don't need codes to believe in God, trust in Him, and seek to obey
his Torah.      Did I mention that I missed one Codes lecture at the
Columbia, Md, Hilton, but I returned as it was breaking up.  I met a
man about 35 or 40 who said that during the lecture, he felt "fear and
trembling" although his understanding of mathematics was far below
what would be necessary to understand the math here in 3 times the
time he spent.  The rabbi in charge later told me, "He never came
back."  For those who believe, codes may be superfluous, and for those
who don't believe, I don't know of any cases where codes are enough.

It may be that most don't understand math well enough to base belief
on codes, in a similar way that almost all of us don't understand God
well enough to *not* believe in Him.

>-- 
>-----------------------
>Jack F. Love
>Opinions expressed are mine alone, unless you happen to agree

P&M&M

mei...@erols.com

        I miss many posts so please e-mail if you want me to answer.

          Judge all men favorably. Mishna Avos 1:6 from Lev 19:15,
B'tsedek tishpot amitecho. You shall judge your neighbor with righteousness.