Here follows a small Bio of Ivan Panin. The reader can find him online where there remains a caldron of controversy over his N.T. work, but very little mention about his Old Testament proofs, because…they are incontrovertible.

Ivan Panin was born in Russia on December 12, 1855 and as a young man he was an active Nihilist, which meant he was one who was so “turned off” by the inane circumstances surrounding him that he adopted the attitude that all values were worthless and nothing was knowable or communicable.

Apparently, he detested the Czarist government so much that he participated in various plots against it and eventually was forced into political exile. From there he moved to Germany where he spent a number of years furthering his education. When he left Germany he immigrated to the United States and soon entered Harvard University where he became the personal friend of both the famous philosopher and psychologist professor William James and Harvard President Eliot.

Panin was a brilliant scholar and a Master of Literary Criticism. After graduating from college he became an outstanding lecturer on the subject of literary criticism and toured the country speaking on such luminaries as Carlyle, Emerson, Tolstoy and Russian literature in general. He received “top dollar” for each address he delivered, which shows the caliber of his talent. His lectures were delivered on college campuses and to exclusive literary clubs in many cities of the United States and Canada. During those years of travel and exposure to the public, Mr. Panin became widely known as a confirmed agnostic. So well known, in fact, that when he renounced agnosticism and embraced Jesus Christ, several newspapers carried banner headlines announcing his conversion! Upon hearing of this remarkable turn of events, Professor James, who was reputed to be the greatest Metaphysician of his day remarked, “What a pity that Mr. Panin is cracked on religion. A great philosopher was spoiled in him.”

Prior to his life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, Mr. Panin wrote some three thousand aphorisms (brief statements of principle) and many outstanding essays, which stand today as a memorial to his days as a Master of Literary Criticism. He also was an editor of two daily newspapers, a gifted writer, and an eloquent speaker.

What event made this brilliant and gifted man, one firmly convinced that absolute truth (“God”) was unknowable, change his mind? What so challenged his intellect and shook him to the very core of his being that he was left with no alternative but to believe in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior? Well…. the testimony goes like this.

One day in 1890, Mr. Panin was casually reading the first verse of the Gospel of John in the original Koine Greek. This verse, in the original, says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And as he read this sentence, his curiosity was stirred by the fact that the definite article “the” preceded “God” in the first instance, but not the second. Why the difference? To analyze this apparent discrepancy, he made a parallel list of all verses in the New Testament in which the word “God” occurs with the article “the” and all those without it.

When the learned professor compared the two lists he noted that there was a mathematical relationship between the two sums. Next, he went through the same procedure for the word “Christ” and on through several other words, each time taking note of the amazing numeric relationships hidden beneath the surface of the text.

This “chance” observation would later prove to have been a life-changing event as Ivan Panin enthusiastically pursued the newly-found and exciting discovery he later named “Bible Numerics.”

As these discoveries began to unfold, one after another, Mr. Panin quickly came to the realization that they were far more than just coincidence. There was a mathematical precision inherent to the entire Bible that no mere mortal could have devised and his intellectual objections relative to an unknowable God were overruled! Jesus Christ revealed Himself through His Word to this “chosen vessel” and, like the apostle Paul and a host of others, Ivan Panin was never the same man again.

From that day in 1890 until he died on October 30, 1942, Ivan Panin literally devoted his life (over 50 years) to fully developing this discovery and preserving it for the world. It is said of him that he worked tirelessly for 12-18 hours each day counting letters and words, compiling hand-written concordances, and working out mathematical problems. He worked with such zeal that on several occasions his health completely failed. But in spite of the tremendous mental and physical strain this placed upon him, he labored without pay, giving himself entirely to this labor of love. At one point he was offered the very tempting position as president of a college, but he turned it down trusting God to provide for his needs. This man, whom the world would gladly pay “top dollar” for a lecture, chose a life of frugality in order to serve his Master by counting words, letters, syllables, and Bible numbers. Preserving his findings in neat, hand-written notes now yellowed with age. All 40,000+ pages of them!

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Our readers may find Panin’s Work:
“Inspiration of Scriptures Scientifically Demonstrated & other writings” @ http://www.telusplanet.net/public/tsgibson/panin.pdf

{The reader should be aware that there is a controversy over the work of Panin, one that centers around the New Testament and what texts were used for his calculations. While he used a variety of extant Greek texts, and primarily the ‘Received’ Wescott/Hort text, he is accused of picking and choosing the ones that fit the ‘numbers’. If he did so it was in the belief that when they conformed to bible numerics it only proved their validity. The fact that Wescott and Hort proved to be occultists and perhaps Satanists has only added fuel to the criticism.

First of all, Panin’s work should not seriously affect any believer’s faith, for no one who knows God personally needs to have the Word of God proven to them intellectually for they will have already experienced its reality and truth, and therefore will have an empirical knowledge of its living validity.

Panin’s work was and is directed at converting the unbelieving soul, just as he himself had been converted from agnosticism to faith in the living Christ by the power of the Word.

Second, and most edifying to a believer should be the whole body of work concerning the Old Testament where there is no controversy over text. All agree, atheist and Jew, Agnostic and Christian that the scrupulous care taken by the Jewish scribes over the centuries to hand down the perfect manuscript was unassailable. Panin’s work holds solid and true for conformity and numeric purity. The Hebrew Apocryphal books, rejected by the Jews as inspired canon of the Holy Writ, on the other hand do not have any such symmetry and perfection, testifying to the truth of the Books of the Old Testament. Elisha’s Outcast Eagles have concluded that the unassailable truth of the Old Testament also renders the conclusion that Panin’s work with the N.T. manuscripts should not be negated, for his yeoman work in the New Testament found the same mathematical results and continuity as in the Old Testament.}