And now . . . this - Oct. 18/09

Oh, brother:

Barack Obama - African American Bible Cover - Prayer Changes Things

This bible organizer is perfect for sporting your bible or favorite book.

Cover Reads: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14

[Source]

You know, I'm all for celebrating a legitimate accomplishment - a black President was a long time coming in the United States - but, sheesh.

I'd be tempted to get a copy of The Audacity of Hope and slap a dust cover from a Bible on it. But I have the feeling that the satire would be wasted on many . . .

Ransom "elated" by Nobel Peace Prize loss

U.S. President Barack Obama is humbled by his Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him by the Norwegian Nobel committee "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between people."

[Full Story]

Past winners of the Nobel Peace Prize include:

• Anwar el-Sadat (1978), who started the Yom Kippur War
• Yasser Arafat (1994), Palestinian terrorist
• Jimmy Carter (2002), for failing to find a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict
• Al Gore (2007), for environmentalism having nothing to do with peace

Ransom shares his No-Bel with the following:

• Mahatma Gandhi, seminal non-violent leader of the Indian independence movement
• Pope John Paul II, pacifist and anti-Communist
• Corazon Aquino, who restored democracy to the Philippines
• Vaclav Havel, Czech post-Communist democratic reformer

Pro-choice fascism strikes again; or, a lecture you can't refuse

Pro-choice activism is now officially the new kindergarten.

On Tuesday night, pro-choice activists at McGill University unveiled their new campaign for abortion rights in Canada. It goes something like this:

Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on this farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there
Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O

See for yourself:

Yes, this is exactly as irritating as it sounds, so I'm not going to post subsequent installations. In part 2, the videographer notes that he's filming fascism in progress, as the "protesters" move from bad songs to bad jokes, then actually have the temerity to start complaining that they did not give permission to be filmed. (It apparently never occurs to them that no one was filming them outside.) The videographer does not give in - there are close to 20 installments, if you have the stomach for it.

There is, of course, not even a token attempt to reason with Jojo Ruba - who, despite their false assertions that he had no right to be there, was as usual an invited guest of a campus club at a sanctioned event. The purpose was to run out Jojo's clock, nothing more.

Arguably the most iconic scene of the novel and movie The Godfather occurs when Corleone family lawyer Tom Hagen flies to Hollywood to reason with studio owner Jack Woltz, to persuade him to cast Don Corleone's godson, singer Johnny Fontane, in a movie. Woltz refuses; he has a personal grudge over a girl that Fontane seduced away from him. The next morning, he wakes up and finds himself sharing his bed with the severed head of his prize race-horse.

In the past, Jojo and like-minded pro-life advocates have been able to air their views, whether via lecture or debate, without being drowned out. But as more and more pro-choicers find themselves on the losing end of effective arguments for life, they have abandoned any semblance of reason (Choose Life McGill tried to find a debating opponent for Jojo, but were unable) and gone instead for more direct action: what free-speech advocate Nat Hentoff has termed the "mob veto."

The debates were reasonable. Singing "Old MacDonald" to shut a public speaker up is the horse head in the bed. And we're going to see a lot more of it. Fortunately it will have the unintended consequence of showing how intellectal fascism has taken over the next generation of pro-choicers. This is what our universities are grooming, people.

And now . . . this - Oct. 7/09

Remember the dude last July who was nabbed for stealing over 125 manhole covers in Ottawa for their scrap value? The saga continues:

An arrest warrant has been issued for a man convicted of stealing manhole covers from Ottawa streets after he failed to show up at court for his sentencing.

[Full Story]

If there is any such thing as poetic justice, it's not his fault. Maybe he just fell into an open manhole.

Unintentionally ironic Pro-Choice Quote of the Day

One of the few bits of vapid pro-choice pontification that randomly appears on Twitter's #prolife hashtag:

When you force someone to do something, that is not choice. Prolife don't care if women choose life- they will force her anyway.

Meanwhile, Jojo Ruba's talk "Echoes of the Holocaust" is scheduled to begin as planned at McGill University in a little over half an hour, despite the official "censure" of the student blackshirts. I wonder if his audience will be free to exercise their choice to hear Jojo speak? Or will the SSMU force the closure of the event, as their counterparts at St. Mary's did in February?

Pro-choice rhetoric: emptier than a vacuum chamber in geosynchronous orbit.

Is mob rule on the menu at McGill?

Remember last February, when Jojo Ruba's talk "Echoes of the Holocaust" was shut down by spineless officials at St. Mary's University after a handful of student fascists shouted him down for the better part of an hour?

It is starting to look like the pro-abortion damage-control apparatus is gearing up for Jojo's upcoming talk at McGill University in Montreal, where the pro-life club Choose Life McGill will be hosting Jojo on October 6.

The Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) has recently granted Choose Life provisional club status. Basically, they are on a three-month probation during which they must hold a certain number of events and prove they are an active club, as a prerequisite to full club status being granted. This was not, naturally, well taken by the campus womyn:

Women’s Studies student Andrew Thorne, watching from the gallery, claimed Choose Life was a structurally violent group and opposed its legitimization through SSMU.

“Pro-life is inherently violent against women and against human rights,” he said of the ideological mandate of the group.

[Full Story]

During the debates over campus pro-life clubs at Carleton three years ago, we saw the same rhetorical tactic. It is irrelevant whether any actual violence takes place or can be attributed to the activities of "pro-life"; all the womyn have to say is that opposition to abortion on demand is "inherently violent against women." (As I've asked before: if talking about abortion is inherently violent, what does that make an actual abortion?)

Choose Life McGill has already held one event: the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, in which a number of women told the story of their negative experiences with abortion. Predictably, this has already been denounced as "scare tactics" by the campus feministas, who were apparently freaked out by being forced to see graphic images of women holding an "I Regret My Abortion" sign. (Time to break out the smelling salts again.) And there were protestors on site as well:

“I am deeply disturbed...that someone might walk to class and encounter signs that target a difficult decision that they had to make.... Whether they are made to feel ashamed for a minute or for the rest of the year, it’s not okay,” they said.

Arts Senator Sarah Woolf (U2 Political Science and Women’s Studies) student participated in the pro-choice protest and agreed that Choose Life’s activities, including hosting SNMAC, are offensive.

“As a woman on campus, their activities are offensive to me. Within the context of their current activities, I don’t want them on campus,” Woolf said.

[Full Story]

We can't have the poor dears be made to feel uncomfortable, can we? It's ironic that the campus blackshirts should accuse Choose Life of being "manipulative", while at the same time attempting to shame them off campus with manipulative emotional blackmail.

But never mind emotional blackmail: how about the normal kind? Last night, a motion - co-authored by the aforementioned Sarah Woolf - censuring Choose Life for scheduling Jojo's talk was passed by the SSMU Council. Should they go ahead, apparently their eligibility for funding will be revoked. ProWomanProLife has the full text of the motion, including:

Whereas this event violates tenets of social justice, anti-oppression, and respect. . . .

Be it further resolved that the SSMU demand that the Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson intervene in order to cancel the event regardless of any inconvenience this will cause Jose “Jojo” Ruba or the Choose Life Club.

Yep, you have to love the way the campus blackshirts think: in the name of fighting "oppression," call upon the power of the university administration to ausrotten an ideologically impure lecture and public assembly.

Tuesday night, assuming it goes forward, is going to be interesting.

No-- no-- notorious

I've said many times that I have somehow become the intellectual equivalent of the opposite of a "chick magnet." That is, instead of naturally attracting supermodels or society's most brilliant thinkers, I seem to naturally attract kooks, cranks, and assorted weirdos.

My previous post managed to attract no less than its subject: Periander A. Esplana, the author of the mathemagical "miracle" that supposedly proves the divine origin of the 1611 KJV, even though it doesn't actually work with the 1611 KJV. And then the roof fell in. My blog is strictly small potatoes, so it's rare that I get even a handful of comments on any one post. But my previous, as well as its counterpart on the backup blog on WordPress, have already garnered a total of 29 comments as of now - including further rants by Esplana himself. (Nothing really seems to bring out commenters like a KJV-only post. I figure they must be trolling Google Blog Search just to find something to get indignant about.)

Meanwhile, Esplana has also discovered the Bible Version Discussion Board where, posting as "sciencephilosophyreligion," where he continues to hawk his math trivia. Not only that, but he has taken his rebuttals to posts on that forum, and for some reason thrown them into an ebook instead of posting them to the forum directly, as though putting his opinions into a PDF file makes them seem more legitimate.

Espana continually crows that no one can answer his "Bible Formula Challenge." Of course, I do have an answer. It's two words, in Latin:

non sequitur.

This phrase means does not follow: in other words, the argument doesn't lead to the conclusion.

The letter count of the first and last verses of the Bible simply doesn't matter. Is it a statistical curiosity? Sure. Is it an interesting bit of trivia that the letter and vowel counts of Genesis 1:1 and Revelation 22:21 sum up to the same count in 1 John 5:7? Sure, why not? But what Esplana and other math magicians fail to show is how this proves the divine origin of the KJV. Scripture itself never says that the proof of its divine origin lies in letter counts. God commands faith, but he doesn't point to 18th-century typography as proof of his existence.

Before Esplana can convince me that letter counts are proof of the divine origin of the Word of God, he has to demonstrate that it's proof of anything. On the contrary, it's completely arbitrary, and I won't let numerological nitwits like Gail Riplinger, Peter Ruckman, or Periander Espana bind my conscience contrary to the Word of God.

KJV-only silly math rides again!

It's Crank Week, take 2!

If you put Harold Camping into a particle accelerator and fired him at near-lightspeed into Gail Riplinger so they fused together, what would you get? None other than Peter S. Ruckman, of course. Dr. Petey's biblical hermeneutic, and I use that term most generously, combines the bombastic nuttery of Riplinger with the incomprehensible pseudo-mathematical hermeneutic of Camping.

Here's a real gem of an "argument" I found courtesy of the evil Alexandrian Cultists plotting to overthrow Christianity at Bible Versions Discussion Board, from the June 2009 issue [PDF] of Dr. Petey's newsletter, the Bible Believers Bulletin:

Now, do you want a bomb to put in your pocket to shut the mouths of these stupid idiots who deny the four Scriptural truths written in "the scripture of truth" (Dan. 10:21). Well, here it is: it is delivered by a Filipino Christian who came out of Manila. This is Periander Aban Esplana, who was 35 years old when he wrote it. His work is callled "The Bible Formula." . . .

Bro. Espiana's AV 1611 "Mathematical Formula" turns out to be anohter one of several hundred "advanced revelations" that were totally missed by A. T. Robertson, Kenneth Wuest. . . . The "formula" is as follows:

A. At the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1:1 - 10 words, 44 letters 17 vowels, and 27 consonants - IN ENGLISH, not ANY Hebrew manuscript.

B. At the end of the Church Age in 1 John 5:7 - 22 words, 88 letters, 34 vowels, and 54 consonants IN ENGLISH, not ANY Greek manuscript.

C. At the end of the Bible in Revelation 22:21 - 12 words, 44 letters, 17 vowels, and 27 consonants - IN ENGLISH, not in ANY Greek manuscript.

The AV 1611 Mathematical Formula is as follows:

A-44 plus C-44 equals B-88

A-17 plus C-17 equals B-34

A-27 plus C-27 equals B-54

That is, the WORDS found in Genesis 1:1 added to the WORDS found in Revelation 22:21 (the beginning and the end are summed up in 1 John 5:7 by the Trinity.

The LETTERS found in Genesis 1:1 aded to the LETTERS found in Revelation 22:21 produce the total LETTERS in 1 John 5:7.

The VOWELS found in Genesis 1:1 added to the VOWELS found in Revelation 22:21 give you the total VOWELS in 1 John 5:7.

The CONSONANTS found in Genesis 1:1 added to the CONSONANTS found in Revelation 22:21 equal those CONSONANTS found in 1 John 5:7.

Got it? Explain it. Not one Hebrew or Greek manuscript found in 2,000 years displays that mathematical miracle.

"King James only! King James Onlyism! Heresy! Oh, God, save us from RUCKMANISM! Oh, what a cultic RUCKMANITE!"

Ahh, go stick you [sic] left hind leg in your right ear.

I'll repent of that advice when you send me the EXPLANATION for that ADVANCED REVELATION God gve you through a 35-year-old Filipino. In the meantime, act like a gentleman, even though you are NOT. Go "strut your stuff" before some cloned robots like yourself, and don't waste our time. We have "the holy scriptures"; you don't.¹

Wooooooooow.

Paging Harold Camping.

But what's to explain? Before someone can even begin to "explain" this pseudo-mathematical loblolly, Dr. Petey has to explain a few things himself. To wit:

• Who is Periander Aban Esplana, and why should I care?
• Why should I expect this apparent mathematical coincidence to have any significance at all?
• Why should we accept that 1 John 5:7 stands for the "end of the Church Age"? I suspect Dr. Petey takes some incomprehensible, hyper-Dispensationalist nitwittery for granted, but I remain not-convinced.
• Does the letter Y count as a consonant or a vowel?
• Does it work for spacing and punctuation as well, or just letters?
• Is this "mathematical miracle" truly unique, or would I find another one if I started searching for it elsewhere in the Bible - or, for that matter, any other English text that I happened to download, like the ridiculous "Bible codes" that were so popular 10 years ago?

More to the point, as I asked in another recent post: What possesses people to start hunting for these arbitrary patterns in the Bible and then ascribing some sort of theological meaning to them? Did it go something like this? "If only there were the same number of letters, consonants, and vowels in the first and last verses of the Bible, and when you added them together, you got the exact letter, consonant and vowel count of 1 John 5:7! That'd sure show those Bible skeptics, wouldn't it. Say, I think I'll try it. Whaaa -? Gasp! I - I don't believe it, it's absolutely true. It's a miracle! I've got to call someone about this. Operator, give me the number for Bible Believers Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, and right away, the future of the human race is at stake!" Only, of course, it would be in Tagalog.

Well, you knew I was going to do some fact-checking, didn't you? In fact, Dr. Petey's/Esplana's word/letter count is quite correct.

But wait a minute. It's correct based upon the 1769 KJV - the revision of the KJV text made by Benjamin Blayney that is usually published today. But didn't Dr. Petey say this an "AV 1611" mathematical formula? Does the logo on the Bible Believers' Bulletin not have "AV 1611" on it? Yes, it does.

No fair pulling a bait-and-switch and substituting the wrong Bible! Let's see if this "mathematical miracle" works on the edition of the KJV that Petey says it's supposed to. After all, as KJV-onlyists constantly harp, there's no real difference between revisions of the KJV apart from corrections of spelling or punctuation. Well, suddenly, now we have a "proof" of the KJV's inspiration that relies on the precise spelling of the text, so let's see how it stacks up.

I looked up the images of the original KJV on SCETI, one of my favourite Web sites for this kind of work. Here's the text as it originally appeared in 1611, along with the word, letter, vowel, and consonant counts:

In the beginning God created the heauen, and the Earth. (Gen. 1:1)

Whoops. Thanks to the peculiarities of early-17th-century typography, there's a superfluous vowel in there. That means that this verse has a count of 10 words, comprising 44 letters, of which 18 are vowels and, obviously, 26 consonants. On to the last verse of the Bible:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (Rev. 22:21)

This verse is letter-for-letter identical in both editions. Count: 12 words comprising 44 letters, of which 17 are vowels and 27 consonants.

So the total for the first and last verses of the Bible are: 22 words, comprising 88 letters of which 35 are vowels and 53 consonants. It's all up to you, Iohn:

For there are three that beare record in heauen, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost; and these three are one. (1 John 5:7)

So sorry. That's 22 words, 89 letters, 36 vowels and 53 consonants.

I guess we'll just have to chalk this one up as yet another crackpot KJV-only goofy proof . . . of nothing.

You gotta laugh

Footnote

¹ Peter S. Ruckman, "A Mathematical Bomb for 'Cloned Robots,'" Bible Believers' Bulletin, Vol. 33 No. 6 (June 2009) (accessed 14 August 2009), 13, 19. Available at http://www.kjv1611.org/BBB/2009/jun-2009.pdf; Internet. Emphasis in original.

Nothing says fun like a free car

Got an amusing email overnight from a KJV-onlyist named Keith Whitlock, who wrote:

Thought you might be interested in a little laugh. Got a nice BMW in restoration right now. If you can come up with any errors in the KJV or any lies in Gail's works I'll deliver it to your door. Great deal, Eh? Good luck!

Glad to oblige, Keith. For reasons I explained in my previous post on Gail Riplinger, I don't have a paper copy of New Age Bible Versions and cannot give a precise citation for this quote, apart from a chapter number and a corresponding footnote. I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding the exact location from the information I provide, nonetheless.

Concering the papyrus P75, Riplinger writes the following in Chapter 35 of New Age Bible Versions:

[Bruce M.] Metzger says, "Papyrus 75 supports the majority text dozens of times. In relation to the [majority] text, P46 (about A.D. 200), shows that some readings . . . go back to a very early period . . . P66 [has] readings that agree with the [majority] . . . text type." (emphasis added)

Riplinger cites this excerpt in footnote 38 of chapter 35 as coming from Metzger's book Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, pp. 64, 108. The full citation for this book is in footnote 9:

Bruce Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) . . .

Let me note, first, that Riplinger mis-cites this quotation. None of it appears on page 108 of Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, and some appears on page 64. So it's a very badly formed citation - typical of Riplinger's sloppy writing . but it isn't, technically, a lie.

This is, however.

Note the section that I've emphasized, above. This phrase, "Papyrus 75 supports the majority text dozens of times," does not exist - on page 64, 108, or anywhere else in Manuscripts of the Greek Bible. It simply isn't there. And in any case, it contradicts what Metzger says about P75 elsewhere in the book, for example:

Textually the manuscript is of importance in showing that the Alexandrian type of text characteristic of the fourth-century codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus was current at the beginning of the third century . . . Furthermore, not only is the text of P75 Alexandrian, but it is closer to B [Vaticanus] than that of any other manuscript, while the influence of the readings of the Western type is almost non-existant. (Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, 68)

So, in short, Gail Riplinger manufactured a quotation from Bruce Metzger to say the exact opposite of what he actually says in the same book.

Certainly sounds like a lie to me.

So, Keith, once you've finished that restoration job, I'll let you know where to deliver it. I guess we'll see if you have the stones to be a man of your word. I doubt it, though. Riplinger sycophants and the KJV-onlyists who make the biggest boasts also usually have the biggest problem with integrity.

Postscript, 11:30 pm: Earlier this evening, after posting the first draft of this article, I emailed Whitlock back with a link to this post, adding:

Let me know when I can expect my car.

I reserve the right to make any further communication public.

To which Whitlock responded:

You do that. and in writing.

I am, of course, happy to oblige, so here it is. A couple of minutes later, Whitlock added:

So the Butcher never said P75 supports the Textus Receptus/Majority/ Byzantine? I'll check it out. Anyway, what is your favorite color? Don't get your hopes up.

(Believe me, I haven't.) And then, a couple of hours later, he added:

P75 does support the TR in dozens of places. Kiln and Pickering researched that. Why don't we ask the Butcher himself? I'll email him.

Note the not-so-subtle shift of categories, from the content of Metzger's book to the factuality of Riplinger's fictitious quotation? These people don't even try to be sneaky about their deception. I responded:

Hi Keith. I wondered how long it would take you to fabricate an excuse not to honour your offer after making it. Didn't take long, did it? Not even three hours, and you're already lying to my face.

Hypocrite.

Gail the Ripper said that the words:

p75 supports the Byzantine text dozens of times

appear in Bruce Metzger's _Manuscripts of the Greek Bible_ on page 64 or 108. Those words do not appear in that book on those pages or elsewhere.
Gail the Ripper made up a quotation.
Therefore, Gail the Ripper lied.

It is disingenuous of you to try to claim now that my beef was with whether or not P75 supports the TR, when you know full well my beef is with manufactured quotations.

Try again. Can you find the following words in the 1981 edition of _Manuscripts of the Greek Bible_ by Bruce Metzger:

p75 supports the Byzantine text dozens of times

What's that? They're not there? Then man up, and give me my car.

I'm still not holding my breath, mind you. You have to wonder whether honesty is even in these dolts' vocabulary.

You gotta laugh.

Post-postscript, 1:30 pm Aug. 15: Overnight I got three more emails from Keef, who really needs to learn to plan ahead instead of filling up my inbox with crap he could have sent in a single message.

Sent at 1:04 am:

KInd [sic] of weak eh? Allow me time to research the Butcher's book and/or ask Gail about it. It is possibly a mistake not a lie. Gail is a woman of God not a liar.

Got any more "lies" What [sic] is the dictionary definition of a lie. [sic] To deceive correct. [sic] The chapter of her book is about the earliest papyrus manuscripts and their support of the KJV type manuscripts of which P75 is one.. [sic]

Metzger died in 2007. Did you catch that?

Actually, I did; note, however, that the Keefster was the one who offered, earlier last night, to "email the Butcher" himself. Confused, would we?

Then, at 1:41:

Got any more lies for me? Could you be fair and allow me the time to check it out myself? I'll have to use inter-library loan. That may take a couple of weeks. I could ask Gail and she would set it straight but I need the practice " iron sharpens iron" [sic]

The BMW is a 1974 2002. All new paint, interior, souped up engine & suspension, nice stereo. A really fun car.

Maybe J R could be of assistance

Is it just me, or are Keefer's emails getting more incoherent as the night waxes late?

I'm not sending him any more lies. I've already met the terms of his challenge, and now he's trying to backpedal.

The backpedalling continues at 2:29:

Up kind of late eh? I hope it is not because of me.

No, at this point I'd already been in bed for an hour. As I said, incoherent. Unaware of this, Keef continues:

Relax, if I find out that Gail's qoute [sic] is a lie intended to deceive you as regarding the witness of ancient Papyri P75 for the common text, you will get your BMW.

Scott, this offer has been open to everyone for a few months. So far no one has been successful. You will not be either.

But I will welcome any honest attempt. What I really want is attempts to discredit the KJV.

Keefo is backpedalling so fast, I hope he's installed rear-view mirrors on his bicycle.

My response, this morning:

You KJVers wouldn't know "honesty" if it bit you in the ass, but thanks for playing MY game, Keefie. Have a day, thanks for the blog fodder, and enjoy your fictitious car.

It was fun when it started, but with Keef's emails becoming consistently more whiny and desperate for attention, it's time to move on.

Post-post-postscript, 1:40 pm: And while I'm writing this, I get yet another email from Keef, pleading with me to stay on the line. I swear this guy is worse than one of those phone psychics. Anyway, he writes:

Such verbal grace seasoned with salt. People consider "men" who beat up, slander and levy false accusations against little old ladies anything but stony.

Do your anti villification laws apply just to Canadians? Did not the Canadian Protestant Association endorse Gail's NABV?

Here is a picture of the car in restoration. I'll keep you all updasted on it's progress.

And, of course, the email had a HUGE jpeg of his totally, sincerely, no-I-mean-you-can-really-have-this one-hundred-percent-genuwine BMW attached to it, just to be extra annoying.

Now, unless I get yet another email before I sign this off, I've had enough fun with the idiot man-child.

Any moment now.

Nope? Oh well.

This is shaping up to be Crank Week on the blog

I started the week with the numerological eccentricities of Captain Camping, and so I may as well finish it off with another bit of mathematical nitwittery, this time courtesy of the King James nuts.

This is Steven L. Anderson, a self-proclaimed "Baptist" "pastor" from somewhere near Phoenix. He rose to Internet infamy a while back, thanks to his unintentionally hilarious "sermon" in which he denounced all non-KJV Bibles for omitting the phrase "pisseth against the wall" from numerous locations. He has since posted dozens of clips from his asinine preaching. Unfortunately, ignorance begets ignorance, and Anderson now also has a small cadre of "young Baptists" who imitate his style.

More recently, Anderson diversified his career by adopting a "patriot" stance, which meant cruising around looking for police, border guards, or other authority figures to harrass, then post YouTube videos accusing them of harrassing him. This reached its climax a few months ago where he pushed a little too far at an internal checkpoint, and received a well-deserved tasing from the border patrol. Meanwhile, since he hasn't appeared in court, gone to jail, or been shot, so I'm guessing that his fifteen minutes are up and he's abandoned grievance-mongering as a career opportunity, and has gone back to posting blithering nonsense on YouTube again.

Here is the latest idiocy Stevie has posted:

For those who can't be bothered to watch - and I can't blame you - he prompts the congregation to count up the number of verses in the gospel of Mark in the New International Version of the Bible, according to the last verse number of each chapter. Added together, these total 678. He then points out that though the NIV includes the longer ending of Mark, it is a disputed passage, and significant enough that it warrants a textual note in the middle of the text rather than a footnote. This ending contains 12 verses.

And what is 678-12? You do the math, and cue the spooky music.

I hardly know where to begin commenting on this codswallop.

First: so what? There is precisely one context in which the number 666 has a negative connotation: that is John's cryptic identification of the Antichrist in Revelation 13:18. Outside of that context, 666 means . . . six hundred and sixty-six. As Freud is rumoured to have remarked, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Second, so what? Chapter and verse references are not part of the original, inspired text; they were added to the New Testament in the 13th and 16th centuries by Stephen Langton and Robert Estienne, respectively, to make it easier to look up specific passages. To ascribe any specific theological meaning (e.g. "The NIV is evil!") to these divisions would be equivalent to saying that revelation was added to the Bible during the Middle Ages.

Third, Anderson's math is selective. There are all sorts of footnotes throughout the Gospel of Mark noting minor textual variants: a word here, a word there. Add them together, and they probably make up the equivalent of two or three verses. But Anderson doesn't focus on what is actually not there; he inexplicably subtracts what is there.

Finally, Anderson's math is wrong. There are, in fact, five complete verses found in the KJV's Gospel of Mark that are not in the NIV: 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, 11:26, and 15:28. The remaining verses are not renumbered (since concordances and other helps wouldn't work if they were), so adding up the last verse numbers of each chapter doesn't give an accurate count of the entire book. Of course, if his total comes to 661, Stevie can't rant and rave about the "mark of the beast."

I want to know what dimbulb actually thought counting verses in the NIV, to try and total the Spooky Number of Evil, actually proves something. Also, if you're going to be obsessive and superstitious, is it too much to ask that you be accurate, as well?