Does 12-13-14 Have Any Special Meaning?

I imagine that the numerologists are very busy today looking for arcane messages in today’s date, 13 December 2014. This date can be represented as 12-13-14.  This alignment of dates will not happen again for 100 years.  Surely it must have some cosmic significance! Personally, I think it is just a coincidental arrangement of numbers due to our current dating system.

When I noticed the 12-13-14 arrangement, I thought about the significance of numbers, especially in the Bible, which does use numbers as symbols. Think of the numbers 3, 7, 666, and 1000. Some people think that they see beyond the obvious symbolic use of numbers and that they can detect many numerological messages secretly embedded in the text by God. This is on the same order as belief in the controversial Torah Bible Codes.

The hidden messages which do undeniably exit in the Bible were of human origin. For instance, investigate ATBASH. An example occurs at Jeremiah 25:26. These messages were meant by the writers to obscure the true meaning from hostile governmental authorities who might read the texts. The idea is "to hide in plain sight." Also investigate the use of acrostics, an intentional literary form used by some of the Old Testament writers. Two examples of biblical acrostics occur at Proverbs 31:10-31 and Psalms 119.

I do not believe that the Bible is full of hidden supernatural messages. That is a pagan Gnostic idea. God inspired the writing of the various books of the Bible as a coherent whole and it is intended to be understood. It is a tool, a book of revelation about the nature of God, not a book of puzzles.

The Bible tells us that God is not a man and that His ways are not our ways. God is totally other, unknowable, and perfect.  He moves in the sub-atomic places and in the cosmic places. The Bible is part of God’s effort to make the utterly unknowable (Himself) understandable, at least partly, to our inadequate tiny little minds. Over and over we are told, “the Kingdom of God is like ….” I believe that God has used the entire Jewish religious and cultural system to explain what He is like. The entire Bible points toward Jesus, Who is the ultimate revelation of Who God is.

The Connection of the Bible Codes to Kabbalistic Thought, Part 2

It is important to us as Christians to understand the Jewish origins of our faith since Jesus and his followers were observant Jews and were, at first, recognized as such by other Jews.

One stream of Judaism is the ultra-orthodox, many of whom believe that God dictated the Torah letter by letter. This is one basis of the thought which has fostered the study of the Bible Codes phenomenon.

One Jewish school of thought, considered heretical by some Jews, developed from a mixture of mysticism and ultra-orthodoxy to become what is known as Kabbalism.  “Kaballah” in Hebrew means “receiving,” and is concerned with secret doctrines, hidden meanings, and commentaries about the relationship between an unchanging God and the ever-changing world.  The early Jewish mystics developed in the first and second centuries at the same time that the Gnostic sects were developing among the Christian community.

Kabbalism remains strong among modern Hasidic Jews.

The emphasis of the Bible Code researchers on the Torah reflects, at least in part, kabbalistic thought about the true nature of the Torah.  The Rambam (Rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon, b. 1135, Spain – d. 1204, Egypt) declared that “… the entire Torah is the names of the Holy One.”

The Zohar Yitro 87a declares, “We have already taught; The Torah in its entirety is the Holy Name, for there is no word in the Torah which is not included in the Holy Name.”  So, according to the Kabbalists, the Torah is God’s Name.

Kabbalism teaches that God created the universe by the manipulation of the letters of the Torah. In other words, He created the universe by the use of His Name.

The most that a Christian can say on this is what the Bible says. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Genesis 1: 1-3.

As to the name of God, He has answered the question:

“And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”  Exodus 3:13-14.

Christian Heresies: Docetism

Docetism was a Gnostic Christian heresy which flourished ca 70 AD/CE.  The name of the heresy comes from the Greek word δοκέω, which means "I seem."  The doctrine taught that Jesus was wholly God and not Human at all.  His humanity, physical body, and crucifixion were all illusions because God can not suffer. 

Christian Heresies: Johannites

The Johannites were a Gnostic sect which said that John the Baptist, instead of Jesus Christ, was the saviour of mankind.  They are survived in the modern day by the Mandaeans, a dualistic sect scattered from Iraq by the 2003 Iraq war.  Before the war they numbered about 70,000 in Iraq, now about 5000 remain.  The rest are primarily now in Jordan and Syria.