Page 8 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew
P. 8

Preface





          This book is about coincidences in the Bible and in the biblical Hebrew language.
          The nature of these coincidences, what they are and what they are not, and the
          structure of this book will be expounded in the introductory chapter that follows

          this preface. For now, suffice it to say that the coincidences addressed here are
          those that I have become acquainted with from my long-standing familiarity with
          written Jewish sources, or coincidences that I have detected by personal observa-

          tion over the many years since these coincidences first intrigued my curiosity.
             From  a  personal  perspective,  I  was  reluctant  to  author  this  book.  I  am  a
            tenured professor in an engineering department at an Israeli university, and coin-
          cidences are outside the reach of my area of expertise. Furthermore, writing about
            coincidences may not add points to my international academic standing. Yet for
          quite a few years now, I have observed peculiar coincidences in the Bible and in
          biblical Hebrew that were indeed troubling. As these amazing coincidences grew
          in number over time, a growing sense of uneasiness left me sleepless at night. I felt
          that my integrity as an academic researcher—whose mission in life, as I perceive
          it, it is to tell the truth—was starting to be undermined. I realized that the sheer
          number of these coincidences had reached a critical mass, where not making the
          coincidences public would compromise my personal ethical values. Furthermore,

          it would be incompatible with my values as a scientist and with the very scientific
          method, which I have applied throughout my academic career as a researcher. So
          I decided to put these coincidences in writing.
             As the process of authoring this book progressed, I gradually have come to
            realize  that  my  expertise  in  statistics  may  be  useful  in  establishing  in  a  more
            rigorous manner the true nature of some of the coincidences addressed in this
          book. Therefore, statistical analysis has been applied to some of the coincidences
          to  ascertain  whether  they  might  be  rightfully  perceived  as  conveying  concrete
          information. This endeavor  brought  forth  about a dozen and  a  half  statistical
          analyses,  scattered  throughout  this  book,  where  certain  amazing  relationships
          are  explored,  depicted,  and  statistically  tested  to  establish  their  validity. These

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