CJUS 745- Discussion Forum1-Reply2

Reply must be at least 200-300 words. For each thread, you must support your assertions with at least 2 citations from sources such as your textbook, peer-reviewed journal articles, and the Bible. 

Field, A. P. (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics (5th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

***Paul***

How does analyzing statistics contribute to the Christian Worldview? Analyzing statistics from a Christian worldview perspective is important because the numerical values, especially in battles from the Old Testament illustrates God’s powerful and true magnificent glory. For example, according to Fernandez (2010) God raised up Gideon to prepare 32,000 fighting men to fight against approximately 135, 000 of the grand Midianite army know as the true enemy of Israel at the time. The book of Judges, chapters 6-8 King James Version explain how God kept dwindling down Gideon’s army to the exact number of 300 fighting men. God wanted to show his true might by proving that an inferior number of fighting men fighting under his name and annihilate and overwhelming force that worshiped idols. God shows a pattern in the Old Testament of the bible of  desiring to use inferior forces to defeat superior numbers.

            Numerical value was also applied in the form of specific instructions when God directed Joshua to circle the city of Jericho for seven days. In Joshua 6:15 the bible states, “On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times.” God chose to use the number seven to show his great power on this significant event. In the bible we see that God has a pattern for the following sacred numbers: 3, 7, 21 and 40.  If they had no value then God we have to assume that God would had not highlighted them by signifying great events such as Jesus and Moses fasting for 40 days and Moses traveling for 40 years to the promise land (Joshua 5:6). 

What do statistics tell us about the world?

            Numbers and statistics are important from a worldview because us a consensus and an origin of men and which tribe they were derived from. For example, in the book of Numbers provides us a consensus and a clear illustration of the numbers of Israelites specific men and which tribe they were derived from. We have to use statistics and a census summary chart to come up with the exact number of the total population as the book of Numbers 26:51 says there were 601,730 family men ready to enter the Promised Land, suggesting a total population of at least two and a half million, including women and children (Wenham, 1967). Without the census we would not know the origins of the people from the twelve tribes of  Israel. In fact we know that God desires the use of census and numerical accountability because in the book of Numbers 1:1-54, God states, “The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, “Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head.”

Fernández, C.,  (2010). Drawing some evaluation patterns inferred from the biblical Gideon’s passage. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 22(4), 327-343. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1007/s11092-010-9104-0

Wenham, J. W. (1967). Large numbers in the Old Testament. Tyndale Bulletin, 18, 19–53. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a6h&AN=ATLA0000701276&site=ehost-live&scope=site