Someone said they were reading about a Heptadic design at the end of Mark and I decided to check it out.  I found http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/201/ , which said this....

"There are 175 (7 x 25) words in the Greek text of Mark 16:9-20. Curious. These words use a total vocabulary of 98 different words (7 x 14), also an exact multiple of seven. That's also rather striking.... the number of vowels is 294 (7 x 42); and the number of consonants is 259 (7 x 37). Do you sense that someone has gone through a lot of trouble to hide a design or signature behind this text? "

One problem with this is that everything you just read is factually wrong.  I have printed Mark 16:9-20 from the Textus Receptus at the end of this post so you can count for yourself.  Here's the correct count

• Word Count: 116 (not divisible by 7.  Count the words yourself below)
• Number of Vocabulary words: 80 (not divisible by 7)
• Number of letters: 666 (not mod7)
• Number of vowel letters: 357
• Number of consonant letters: 309 (not mod7)

Only one of these counts is divisible by 7.  The 357 vowel letters is a count divisible by 7.  The others are not heptadic as alleged in the above article.  Now I've printed Mark 16:9-20 straight out of the Textus Receptus so you can see this yourself and count it yourself.  But how does this type of misinformation happen?

Well...some folks don't check facts.  Some folks can't count.  And some people jump the gun because they start on something THINKING there is something there and  try to get the facts to fill in afterwards.

But that may not be the whole story.  Remember when I said the power elite spreads misinformation so you won't know the real info from the false info?  I believe the forces of darkness spread misinfo like this in order to discredit Christians as well.  Fortunately, we can double check this type of information simply by counting ourselves.  So go ahead and count the below if you don't believe me.

"016:009  anastaV de prwi prwth anastaV de prwi prwth epta daimonia 
016:010  ekeinh poreuqeisa ekeinh poreuqeisa klaiousin 
016:011  kakeinoi akousanteV oti zh kai eqeaqh up authV hpisthsan 
016:012  meta de tauta dusin meta de tauta dusin poreuomenoiV eiV agron 
016:013  kakeinoi apelqonteV aphggeilan toiV loipoiV oude ekeinoiV episteusan 
016:014  usteron anakeimenoiV usteron anakeimenoiV usteron anakeimenoiV eghgermenon ouk episteusan 
016:015  kai eipen autoiV kai eipen autoiV pash th ktisei 
016:016  o pisteusaV kai baptisqeiV swqhsetai o de apisthsaV katakriqhsetai 
016:017  shmeia de toiV shmeia de toiV daimonia ekbalousin glwssaiV lalhsousin kainaiV 
016:018  ofeiV arousin kan ofeiV arousin kan ceiraV epiqhsousin kai kalwV exousin 
016:019  o men oun kurioV meta o men oun kurioV meta ek dexiwn tou qeou 
016:020  ekeinoi de exelqonteV ekeinoi de exelqonteV bebaiountoV dia twn epakolouqountwn shmeiwn amhn"

Don't just pass along what you read.  Check at least a few of the facts out first.  If you can only cross check 3 of 10 things they are alleging, check out at least that much.  If part of it doesn't hold up under scrutiny, the rest probably won't either.

Shalom,

Joe