PART II, ARTICLE VIII: NUMEROLOGY MADNESS, SECTION V

Further into his PowerPoint effort, my friend pivoted from Panin’s work to Bullinger’s. Several names for Satan are singled out as being mysteriously related to the number thirteen: Dragon, Tempter, Belial, Murderer, Serpent. For example, ‘Serpent’ has a numerical value of 780, which is perfectly divisible by thirteen; ‘Belial’ amounts to 78—again, a number that perfectly divides into thirteens. But what about names like Accuser, Adversary, Devil, Beelzebub, Liar, Prince of this World, God of this World, Prince of the Power of the Air? I am not a numerology expert, for the meaning, not the numerical value, of God’s word is what Christians are encouraged to know. But to show how erroneous this kind of numerology is, I went looking for Dr. Bullinger’s schemes to see what he has to say for Satan’s other names. It turns out that ‘Beelzebub’ adds up to a numerical value of 598. I don’t know if it really does, nor do I care. But if it does, it breaks down into 46-13s, just like he tells us. But note the interesting qualification, which he has in parentheses, just like so: ‘(with article.)’ The word ‘Beelzebub’ all by itself, then, does not do the trick that Mr. Bullinger wants it to do. So he adds an article. The article is the ace up the sleeve. Unlike the magician, he has to show us the ace because a lot of people are able to count. Next, for the ‘Prince of this World,’ he has to haul in as many words as are needed to make it into a numerical phenomenon. So, ‘because the prince of this world is judged’ amounts to a numerical value of 5,577, which amounts to 429-13s, or as Bullinger puts it: 13 squared x 33, or 13 x 13 x 33. Look at all those 13s. Too bad it can’t be 13 x 13 x 13. Regardless, what should we take away from this? Does it mean that Satan is so bad that he must be cursed with the number thirteen? Is the number 13 the origin of evil, maybe? The friend who put this PowerPoint together must have seen that some things are stretched a little far, and so only the names for Satan that are the most convincing of representing the number thirteen were chosen by him for his presentation.