Do facts matter?

Not for the first time I have received by email, accompanied by heart-warming photographs, the following ‘astounding’ information.

• Q: What is the shortest chapter in the Bible?
• A: Psalms 117
• Q: What is the longest chapter in the Bible?
• A: Psalms 119
• Q: Which chapter is in the center of the Bible?
• A: Psalms 118
• Fact: There are 594 chapters before Psalms 118
• Fact: There are 594 chapters after Psalms 118
• Add these numbers up and you get 1188.
• Q: What is the center verse in the Bible?
• A: Psalms 118:8
• Q: Does this verse say something significant about God's perfect will for our lives?
• The next time someone says they would like to find God's perfect will for their lives and that they want to be in the center of His will, just send them to the center of His Word!
• Psalms 118:8 - "It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man."
• Now isn't that odd how this worked out (or was God in the center of it)?

I’m the sort of person who likes to verify amazing facts before I am amazed by them. In this case I was very careful about my counting and adding. I checked my figures twice to be sure. And I don’t ask you to believe me just because I say so. If you have access to a Bible, count the chapters for yourself.

The two ‘facts’ quoted above are wrong. There are 595 chapters before Psalm 118 and 593 chapters afterwards. The centre chapter of the Bible (according to this criteria) is Psalm 117 not Psalm 118. Maybe someone genuinely miscalculated, or maybe they felt the figures were so close to a nice neat pattern that a small adjustment for a perfect fit could be justified. Also, when it comes to verses within Psalm 118, the logical centre ought to be verse 15 (out of 29), but this doesn’t have such an obviously appealing message.

Never mind. The originator of this chain email is in good company. Matthew, the gospel writer, can’t count either. In chapter one, he names 14 people from Abraham to David inclusive. This is 13 generations if you count the gaps rather than the people. He names 15 people from David to Jehoiachin inclusive (14 generational gaps) and 14 people from Jehoiachin to Jesus inclusive (13 generational gaps). Altogether this comes to 41 named people and 40 generational gaps between them. There is no way that his summary in verse 17 (which speaks of three lots of fourteen generations) is mathematically accurate. This is a shame because it would have brought the total number of generations to 42, which, in the world of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, is the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything.

It may be heretical to say this, but even Jesus doesn’t seem to have been able to count accurately. In Matthew 12:40 he says, in reference to his death and resurrection, “The Son of Man will spend three days and nights in the depths of the earth.” By my reckoning only one day and two nights passed between his death and resurrection.

Do such numerical errors matter? Surely the significance of the three days and nights was to show how the story of the prophet Jonah foreshadowed the greater story of Jesus. The list of generations supplied by Matthew was intended to show how the coming of the Messiah was part of God’s overall plan. The point is still valid, even if the numbers are mistaken. I’m less sure there is an important message in the chain email once the central premise is shown to be false.

Years ago I wrote to Radio 4 to complain about a quiz in which they had allowed a margin of error in the wrong answer. To the question, “What is the probability of the same cricket captain winning the toss for all five test matches?” they were looking for the answer 1 in 32. (32 being 2 to the power of 5). To the question, “How many stations are there on the Glasgow subway system?” they expected the answer 15. The quizmaster accepted the answer ‘1 in 30’ for the first question, because it was near enough. He disallowed the answer 16 for the second, despite it being only one out. As a mathematician I felt deep in my bones that this was the wrong way round. The first question required an exact answer, the second could be allowed a margin of error.

Similarly, I am laid back about Matthew and Jesus getting their numbers wrong, because the numbers are only symbolic and their inaccuracy doesn’t spoil the meaning. I’m not so keen to let the email ‘facts’ go unchallenged. It seems to me that God is more interested in communicating a plain message that he loves us, than in hiding coded messages in the Bible. If you want to be astounded by the beauty of maths, there is plenty to amaze. I still find it wonderful, for example, that there are only as many rational numbers (fractions) as there are positive integers, but there are more irrational numbers than rational. It may not sound impressive, but it is a huge insight in getting to grips with infinity.

My conclusion? Don’t trust every email you read. It is in human nature to massage the figures so that they say what we want. Instead listen to God. Trust him to communicate the important things we need to know in plain enough terms for us to grasp. Or to put it in a nutshell,

“ It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”

Now, where have I heard that before...?