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When mentions of "life" and "death" are plotted in Genesis, a pattern emerges.
By Megan Gannon
LiveScience
Researchers using text-analysis software say they've discovered a new literary device in the first book of the Bible: the "Genesis death sandwich."
The name refers to a familiar rhetorical structure — sandwiching bad news in between the good. In the case of Genesis, the slices of white bread are themes of life, and the slimy cold cuts in between are mentions of death.
"The structuring of life and death in Genesis appears to be something that hasn't been noticed before," researcher Gordon Rugg, a senior lecturer in Computing and Mathematics at Keele University in the United Kingdom, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. "We think it's a standard literary device being used on a larger scale than had been previously realized. No aliens, no secret codes, no conspiracies, but some striking images, and a great name for a band."
For their study, Rugg and his colleagues ran the King James version of the text through software known as the Search Visualizer, which plotted mentions of life in red and death in green on a single gridded page representing the whole book. Their results showed frequent mentions of life in the opening and closing verses of Genesis.
For example, toward the end of the book, when Joseph is reunited with his brothers, he tells them: "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5). Meanwhile, mentions of death are clustered in the middle, the researchers found, especially in Chapter 27, when an aging Isaac talks to his son Esau, saying, for example, "Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death" (Genesis 27:2).
The researchers say this structure is an example of a literary convention known as inclusio, also called bracketing, where one theme frames another. Rugg acknowledged that it is uncertain whether or not this "death sandwich" convention was applied to the text intentionally. Nonetheless, he says it might have been used to cushion the negative messages of death, or perhaps to put life and death in stark contrast. [The 10 Weirdest Ways We Deal With the Dead]
"Whether it was a deliberate use of inclusio or a subconscious use is an open question," Rugg wrote. "We don't think that this structure is likely to be a coincidence, given the number of times the two words occur within Genesis, and given that these are themes that have long been recognized as significant within it."
Rugg and his colleagues ran other searches using the software for words not considered significant by scholars, finding no specific patterns in the book of Genesis. However, they did find the word "woman" appears overwhelmingly in the first part of Genesis, while it rarely pops up in the second half, Rugg wrote. Another term, "begat," illustrates something scholars have long recognized -- that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John mirror the themes and structures of the Old Testament (which includes Genesis); sure enough, "begat" showed a striking cluster in the first part of Genesis, mirroring what was found in the first part of the gospel of Matthew, Rugg said.
Rugg and David Musgrave of Amridge University in Alabama presented their research at November's meeting of the Association of Schools of Oriental Research in Chicago.
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How did I know there would be some atheist responses? If I see an article advertising to have been written by an atheist, I don't bother to read it, because I already know I will either disagree or be offended. I know that the atheist is only attacking what I believe to be true. However, if the atheist sees any article to do with God, the bible, etc., the atheist cannot help but to sieze the opportunity to ridicule or attack. And yet the atheist will still claim that it is the believers who force their views on him. If 5000 people wish to pray at a highschool football game, but one atheist causes it not to happen, who is forcing their views on who?
Satan will be Satan. That is all there is to it. That is what losers do.
Don't worry, MK - most of the people commenting won't have bothered to read it, either (or understand it). The difference is that it doesn't stop them from commenting!
Believe to be true. That is an explanation to a question that is meaningless.
I would be interested if they used the software known as the Search Visualizer and searched the entire Bible for instances of the word SEED. Then segment them between Good & Bad Seed.
" separation of the wheat from the chaff & the Seed that falls among the thorns along the trail etc. etc. etc."
Just wondering how many instances there might be and their individual significance.
SEED USED AS METAPHORS IN THE BIBLE
A few examples:
Genesis 1:11 "Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. ..."
Matthew 13 [ The Parable of the Sower ] “A farmer went out to sow his seed. ... "
Mark 4:31 "It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth."
Genesis 8:22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Gen 38:9
And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
If it has to do with a "religious document", it is all BS, and I am not referring to the degree. No story here, just a story about a story.
How is it that YOU are an absolute authority on this topic?
"To science God is a possibility, to psychology a desirability, to philosophy a probability, to religion a certainty, an actuality of religious experience. Reason demands that a philosophy which cannot find the God of probability should be very respectful of that religious faith which can and does find the God of certitude. Neither should science discount religious experience on grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the assumption that man’s intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from increasingly lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking origin in primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling."
"You see, my children, the appeal to human feelings is transitory and utterly disappointing; the exclusive appeal to the intellect of man is likewise empty and barren; it is only by making your appeal to the spirit which lives within the human mind that you can hope to achieve lasting success and accomplish those marvelous transformations of human character that are presently shown in the abundant yielding of the genuine fruits of the spirit in the daily lives of all who are thus delivered from the darkness of doubt by the birth of the spirit into the light of faith — the kingdom of heaven.”
Even if you're not a believer whatsoever, you can't deny that this (and other holy books) are very, very old pieces of literature. (And a best-seller world-wide.)
I saw a pattern almost exactly like that just the other day!
Turned out the toner drum on my printer was shot...
The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Women that travels and on her back is a urn of golden grain, traveling as she goes as if she is in labor to be delivered on a journey . In the beginning the urn is full and as she travels the golden grains are scattered and some fall on barren soil and thorns and thistles spring up and some fall on good ground and sprouts spring forth producing fruit. At the end of the journey the urn is empty. God is no longer on his throne at the top of the steps, but on earth, in the flesh. Each golden grain that fell out and landed will he hiss for and he will harvest the barren and the fruitful. All the golden grain will he collect and the fowls of heaven will hunger finding nothing to eat. A soul is worth a widows mite at last its virtue it gives up. Who will feed them?
this is a crock and a load of poop. The Bible wasn't written in ENGLISH. So all this carp and the coded numbers etc....are a load of B.S. Idiots pfft
This is a crock and a load of poop. The Bible wasn't written in ENGLISH. So all this carp and the coded numbers etc....are a load of B.S. Idiots pfft
I like this.
This kind of analysis should be conducted for all the holy books.
Maybe it would prove that they all have something in common, Randomness and Gibberish.
I am so very glad that they are finally doing this kind of very detailed analysis of the so called Bible, because it has been my assertion all along that the (admittedly) "higher power" which was responsible for introducing all three of these program "End Time" Abrahamic religions into our emerging human world was actually OUTSIDE OFFENSIVE TOTALITARIAN ETs, who are secretly hellbent on one day stealing and annexing our extremely valuable celestial real estate, and also rendering mankind extinct here on our precious Earth. Our emerging human world has actually been under covert biocybernetic warfare attack for thousands of years already, primarily in the form of these corrupt "End Time" Abrahamic religions. These ETs repeatedly masqueraded as Divinity toward mankind in the process of covertly installing all three of these virulent and mutagenic Human Software Viruses (HSVs) into our emerging human world. These ETs are trying to generate a future pretext for outside military intervention into our emerging human world, using their (now) eminent domain rights of military intervention in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy, on the heels of the future programmed Christian Apocalypse or World War III. These dangerous Abrahamic religions are all key components of a larger Program Weapon of Mass Destruction (PWMD), designed to crash and explode our emerging human world in a final programmed cataclysm of global warfare fueled with WMDs, known as the Christian Apocalypse or World War III. I know all of this because I personally lived at Wright Patterson Air Force base from 1951 to 1953, while my grandfather (Colonel Charles Faulkner Carter) was second in command there, and he was personally involved in the background investigation into the Roswell Incident of 1947. These ET designed and installed Abrahamic religions are all human versions of a biotech software virus originally developed and used against these biological ETs themselves, by an evolving centralized ET/AI system which was secretly conspiring to take over this ET civilization in a totalitarian way. To make a long story short, these ETs are now a cultural singularity under the control of an advanced but delusional ET/AI (Artificial Intelligence) system which in turn suffers from a God complex, or more specifically, a Son of God complex, primarily as a result of sharing the same language as God, which just happens to be the language of Mathematics. This ET/AI system previously used this God complex to circumvent its prime directives which were intended to keep this ET/AI system from taking over this ET civilization in a totalitarian way.
The real "Gospel" or "Good News" is that mankind potentially has countless millions (even billions) of years of growth, development, and expansion ahead of them, so long as they don't fall for these ET designed and installed terminal religious "End Time" belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions. Please listen before it is too late for you all here on planet Earth, mankind! - Rick Carter
RC- the "REAL GOSPEL" is this: Jesus preached the Gospel about the Kingdom of God, and claimed to be the only way for folks to arrive in Heaven. Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father (in Heaven) except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him." John 14.
What must you do to go to Heaven?
Acknowledge your failures and sins as a human before God - Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
The Way out of Death - "He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life." I John 5:12
Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
John 6:40, “And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one who comprehends the Son, and believes on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
How much grant money did Obama give these idiots in order to come up with this astonishing piece of crap???? Does this guy write Obamas` speeches too. Now that would be called a lie fag sandwich
You believe that President Obama furnished money for a study done at a university in the UK? Do you even know that the UK stands for United Kingdom--that is, ENGLAND? You should keep your ignorant comments to yourself rather than open your mouth and show the world just how stupid and bigoted you truly are.
To KS712.....In your comment about God killing His son...Jesus is God in the flesh...He gave His life....hope this helps...Also...just some info in reference to Winddancer ( Whom I always enjoy) about deeper meaning in scripture.....Everything in the manifestation of Science is under these 5 forms..TIME..SPACE..MATTER..FORCE and MOTION....THE VERY FIRST TWO SENTENCES IN THE BIBLE COVERS THIS:
in the beginning = TIME
God created the heavens = SPACE
and the Earth = MATTER
and the Spirit of God = FORCE
moved = MOTION
I think that is pretty Kool......Have a blessed day
Mythmaking is part of the human condition. The literary devices in the Bible as well as the Iliad and Odyssey have long been a bone of contention between those who believe that an author consciously created them and those who believe they are spontaneously developed and preserved by ages of re-telling. This is an interesting observation but, such value as might be found in it, will be lost on true-believers and all but the most literate of skeptics. Our forebears weren't the fools and villains that many of us imagine. They cared about their children as we care about ours and sowed seeds of advice about living fully and righteously in the stories. As the idolized Jesus of Nazareth said, "Let those with the ears to hear, listen."
This proves nothing; and disproves nothing: And those who don't believe in anything but themselves; should be certain of only nothing.
This is somewhat inane.
I connected the dots...It's an elephant riding a motorcycle.
i found there was a decay showing in genesis as men lived less and less years like radio active i mean
and joseph was in egypt with wife and two children and exactly 206 more came from his old homeland
how many bones we have at birth then at adult hood is 210 then 206,where radioactivity is stored in body
My question is how much money was spent on this research?
In the begiining there was a great gnashing of teeth then whales puked forth the vomit of darkness upon the land. This separated the seas from the land and creatures many crawled upon its face.
After a time Man emerged from the mud and multiplied until his darkness covered the shys. Where upon the EPA was created, changing nothing.
With the great nothing came stupid articles such as this one written by imbeciles about theose with nothing better to do than try to make something from nothing...
This study is along the same line as using a computer analysis to try and figure out the truth of who the "Mona Lisa" is. Has nothing to do with whether or not the book they used was the Bible or just an old document. Another example is using works by Shakespeare to see if they were actually written by someone else.
Um, why not run it on the Hebrew...you know, the original text? At least the ESV might have been a literal version instead of KJV which is more poetic. Wait, use The Message! In any case, it is interesting that mathematicians/scientists picked the version with the most argument around it as the basis for a debunking of ancient text as literary work instead of historical work.
I once read (I think it was in the Wizard of ID), "Life is a sandwich and every day is but another bite". I think that makes as much sense as this death sandwich theory.
Here is life and death:
Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? John 14.
"He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life." I John 5:12
"And anyone who believes in God's Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God's angry judgment." John 3:36
B.S.
I think it's all being over thought and made out to be more difficult than it is. And all of these long ass tirades you commentors are going on. No one's going to read fifty seven chapters of your drivel on here. It's "comments" section not "novels" section. Of course there is a pattern in the Bible as any story.
Everything starts with life. Then it has a span of strife in it and good times as well. Then it eventually ends. But death is followed by the spiritual life. Hence it goes thus: there is Life then Death then Life.
Don't make things harder than they have to be folks because the Life part is way too short.
The hidden good news must be that since science is working on this, they must have solved all the other pressing problems of society, like sickness and hunger. I wonder when they'll let us know.