The Honsbira Algebra

 

Differentiating Between the Specific and Universal Contents of the NT, Using the Honsbira Algebra.



Abstract: This thesis teaches the use of Algebra in teaching the pure arts, using the New Testament message. In this thesis, effort shall be made to explain the specific and the universal contents of the New Testament and scientifically distinguish between the two in the bid to lay bare the inherent intent of the messages. It is possible to do this, using prose. But it is more apt, and so, clearer and more memory-friendly, when explained in figures.



Passwords: Specific, Universal, messages, Application, New Testament and Jesus.



Aims of the Discourse.

Among the aims of this discourse are the following:

i.          To make the teaching and learning of the arts, generally, and Religion, particularly, more lively.

ii.          To prove to scholarship that what Science can do, the arts can do too.

iii.          To marry theory with practice

iv.          To reduce the air of arrogance and superiority around our science students as they relate with those in the arts.

v.          To effect a representative representation of Arts and Science.



Objectives of the discourse

By the end of this reading/teaching/hearing, the hearer should be able    to:

a.          Teach the arts, using science.

b.          Cut short the long literature of art subjects, to become apt as though science.

c.          Stamp the point more indelibly on the memory of the student.

d.          Make the students of Arts rank up with science students, shoulder to shoulder, in the orchards of scholarship.



Problems of the Strategy

1.          Conservative attitude of teachers/learners to the introduction of new methods.

2.          General dearth of average knowledge of Mathematics in teachers/students, especially in developing worlds.

3.          Dual Endeavour of the teacher who has to learn both the sentential and Mathematical renditions of the same topic.







Solutions to the Problems of This Strategy.

i.          Teachers must be made to learn how to always become new, remembering there is nothing to gain from conservatism.

ii.          Elementary Mathematics should be compulsory for all training to become teachers.

iii.          Teachers should be made to know that to be good teachers, never-to-end studiousness is necessary.

Workability/Pillars of the Strategy

i.          The teacher should be good at the oratorical rendition of the topic, to be able to render it in Algebra.

ii.          He should be good at elementary Algebra, things like x + x = 2x; k – k =0; 8y/4 = 2y; if 5c = 30, c = 6; if x = y, and y = m and m = 20, then x = 20 and so on.

Introduction

The issue in issue here is cross-disciplinarity – no, it is not cross-disciplinarity, it is para-disciplinarity. Cross-disciplinarity, a synonym of multi-disciplinarity, is the treatment of a discipline, using the teachings of another/other discipline/disciplines. Para-disciplinary thesis is that thesis in which a discipline is taught, using a far distance discipline. In the former, a disciple like Religion could be taught with the aid of history, Literature, Classics and so on. In the later, instead, religion, History, or Literature is taught with the aid of such far away subjects like Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Physics and Chemistry. The thesis about to be taught shall treat Religion, using Algebra! It is para-disciplinary, therefore.



Literature Review.

      This idea, though seems to originate from the imagination of Honsbira, it is not a thunder blast out of a clear sky. People have said things that are close to and fore-ran it.

For instance, Lord Kelvin (1883) in Honsbira (2012, 432) in US-China Education Review Vol. 2 April, 2012 says that one must be able to present his ideas in figures to be able to talk of having known it and also, to be able to be identified with the age of Science which the world experiences. Hear Kelvin:





I often say that when you can measure

what you are speaking about, and express

it in numbers, you know something about it;

but when you cannot express it in numbers,

your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind;

it may be the beginning of knowledge,

but you have scarcely, in your thoughts,

advanced to the stage of science…





                 Honsbira (2012) argued that arts are no arts removed from scientificity; that to teach the arts well, one must employ the language of Science. His inclusion in the US-China Education Review Journal of April 2, Vol. 2 was a step in this direction.

        Honsbira (2012) in “Applying the Reverse of Osmosis in Teaching” (Published in the Asian / Japanese Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, AJSC, June 2012. Email:[e-mail], [e-mail]) argues for the inclusion of scientificity as the measure of all things. His argument in that journal is that it is possible to include scienceness in all we think, say or do.

Dictionary.com (2013) teaches that for one to be able to do better than usual he should be able to think literally, taking into consideration all possible area of excelling. By looking toward the top of the company, one looks toward the optimum; by looking back at the company’s birth, on takes a experiential view; by looking the right, one explores a fresh area; by looking to the left, one searches for where difficulties are. All these, taken as one, is called Literal Thinking.

         Collins, Jim. (2001)  feels one man or company will do better than the other, if he/it employs strategies since strategies are meant to give one a leap to the disadvantage of others. The be-all of his idea is that we should be forward-looking. Collins’ idea is at tandem with the Literal Thinking aforesaid.

        Http.//Www.Facebook.Com./Pages/ in  I  Sleep With My Books Because I Believe in Osmosis says that what we know till now is not only all we can know. Other areas are there fallow – areas that weep, plead and wait for utilization. Thus, it is absurd to want to always rely on the old method of doing things since newer methods capable of bringing better results are available.

        Samuelson (1977) influenced Honsbira (2012) that scientificity as a measure of all things is true.

         Ojelabi (1970:155) argue that History is no History, if made of narratives alone, that History should be concretized into tangible facts hard enough to prove its worth. Though he himself could not wedge his findings with figures, his hint contributed to this initiative.

         Horne (1956) is of the view that for the society to move in the direction of the mind of its original maker, its members should develop a sense of social knowledge capable of changing the status-quo. Frowning at continuous conservatism, Horne longed for the day when his people would think anew. Solving arts with Mathematics is thinking anew.

         Manheim (1936:79) teaches that ideas must be treated with scientificity, and to portray and utilize the said scientificity, it must be presented in concrete terms. He adds that the ideological endeavor is like a boat, and that once one steps into it, not even the extreme revolutionary can step out. He used this as an excellent forum to teach that whatever ideology one holds, it should be backed up with adequate rigidity of scientificity.





Definitions of Terms.

Following are some of the (difficult) terms defined.

1.          Algebra: Algebra is the Branch of Mathematics that arrives at its conclusion, using signs and letters.

2.          Mathematics: Mathematics is the branch of learning on which the power of Science rest, made up of Arithmetic, Algebra, geometry and Trigonometry.

3.          Strategy: Strategy, identified as the acts of the general, comes from then Greek Strategos, meaning how to outdo the rival to do better than others (Kazmi 2010).

4.          Specific application means the extent of the applicability of the message to a single socio-politico-religious circle, to Jews only. It implies that the contents of the books of the New Testament are meant only for the Jews only.

5.          Universal Application implies that the contents of the books of the New Testament are meant for not only the Jews, both the Jews and the wider world. What is universality? The doctrine of the universality of the message of the Christ states that taking the leap saturate the world, to Judea, to Samaria and to the end of the world (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8).



Differentiating Between the Specific and Universal Contents of the New Testament.



To differentiate we shall point out a specific content and a universal content as well as that content that carries with it both specific and universal intents – to differentiate between the two.



Specific Contents of the New Testament Content

Many of the utterances of the Lord show that the message of the New Testament as well as the mission of Christ is monodirectional towards the Jewish race. When he sent out the disciples on evangelism, he asked them to preach the news only to the house of Israel, and never to go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans. Were the message for the world in general it would have been necessary to extend same to others besides the aforesaid. That they should call only at the houses of Jews only (Matthew 10:5) is symptomatic of the sectionalist claws of the message.

          Another instance often invoked to substantiate the view that the New Testament message was meant only for the Jews is found in Matthew 9: 1-10 where a centurion alien in Israel had to beg the elders of Israel to speak to Jesus to heal his slave since he was not worthy to come to Jesus for this purpose in his incapacity as a non-Jew. The ready consent of Jesus to the call by the elders for him to attend to the centurion, far from being an indication of the message being for all, is a pointer to the oneness of mind of the elders and Jesus as for as racial discrimination and segregation went. When Jesus accused the Samaritan of being a dog, she agreed, begging that she be allowed to pick crumbs from the master’s table – as a dog. If this is not a lie against the Lord, then it shows close circuitous intentions of the message of the New Testament.



Universal Contents of the New Testament Contents

  One reason we say the New Testament is universally intended is in the Great Commission where disciples were to witness salvation, not only in Israel, but also in other non-Jewish places. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” That the disciples should “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:18; Luke 24:47).





Other pointers to the universality of the applicability of the New Testament message are in the Epistles of Paul. Most climactic is the teaching that the root of Jesse shall come, he who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles hope" (Rom. 15:12). Here Paul teaches that the new times of salvation for the Gentiles is to come when the root of Jesse (Jesus) would ascend to His throne.



Specific and Universal Contents of the New Testament

  The case of the Jesus-woman-of-Samaria encounter at Jacob’s Well comes to mind here. Jesus asks her to give her water to drink from the well (John 4). But the woman said that it was not expected that Jesus should interact with or accept anything from, a Samaritan since He was a Jew. The question, “How is it that you, a Jew, asked a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” demonstrated that nothing good in the hands of any Jew, in this case, Jesus, could have been meant for Samaritans. The universality of the message in this encounter is in the response of Jesus, “Woman, believe me that the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father,” that a time would come when real worship shall be a matter of the spirit, not of a locale. That nor Jerusalem nor Gizzerim, but anywhere, would be centre of worship, points most sharply to the universality of Christology.  Another point pointing to the specificity as well as the universality of the testament is the acts of Paul in Acts of the Apostles were mixtures of specific and universal applications of the message of Jesus are portrayed (s and u). Because while Paul suffered imprisonment and tri-shipwrecks to make the Word universal (u), he also engaged in specificity, even paying some Mosaic vows in the temple (Acts 21: 23-26) (s). His argument that circumcision, though good for non-Jews, was not indispensible for same, but yet going ahead circumcising Timothy only for his Jewish maternity, is dia-directional (s and u).



Reducing the Difference Between the Specific and Universal Contents of the New Testament to Algebra – Step 1.

When the message was only specific, it had to do with the Jews only. We call this (s). When it was rendered universally, it related to the realities of all including the Jews.  We shall call this (u). Yet, in the former, some Gentiles were touched. Again, call this (u). In the latter, there were also tendencies toward Israel. Call this (s). Between these two polarities there is a no-man’s land, like all that lies in the Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well side (a combination of s and u). This is because while Jesus’ inclinations that the woman gave him drink spoke of universal intentions (u), the woman’s view that Jesus was too Jewish for her to interact with tended to Jewish specificity (s).

         

Reduction of the Contents of the New Testament to Algebra – Step 2. Differentiating Specific and Universal contents Using Algebra.

         To effectively produce algebra of the difference between the specific and general applications of the New Testament corpus, we must explain the difference first in sentences. The specific contents of the corpus are those messages of the New Testament that tend to show that Jesus Christ and his mission were meant for the Jews only. The universal contents of the New Testament are those parts of the corpus that show that Jesus and all he stood for were meant, not only for the Jews, but also the world in general. The difference between these is that while in the former salvation is of the Jews, by the Jews and for the Jews, in the later, salvation of the Jews by the Jews is for the world. Having known this, we shall explain same with the aid of Algebra for some reasons: i. to make it more memory-friendly (Honsbira 2012: 432); ii. to recommend the option two for those who find it harder to understand non-scientific concepts iii. Create a pleasant academic arena for those always looking ahead for exploration, those really on the go iv.  Directly serve the interest of those with the urge of ambition and the need to create. (More than millions of pages remain to be written about the Honsbira Algebra still unknown to Honsbira! See US-China Education Review Vol. 2 No 2 April, 2012, for instance).



Let the entire message be R

Let the specific part be s,

Let the universal part be u,

Let any universal part in the specific be s,

Let any specific part in the universal be u

Let the differences between specific and universal be x.



If all specific and universal messages is R,

Then, R = s+ u + s + u. (as there are traces of each in each).

          R = s + s + u + u

          R = 2s + 2u.

               

Jesus’ message and its salvation-giving capacity is complete and total, so, we assume R = 100.

Other Suppositions

Assuming the specific intent in the Specific is = 30,

And the specific in the universal is 10,

It means all specifics 30+10 = 40.



Assuming the universal intent in the universal = 50,

And the universal intent in the specific message 10,

It means all universals 50 +10 = 60.

                 

If R = s + u + u + s,

              = 30+10+50+10

                  = 100 (our starting point).

To effect a difference between specific and universal messages of Jesus is as per the New Testament, we subtract s from u,

Giving x = u – s

=  60 – 40

= 20.

  Check: If s = 30,

                where another s = 10,

                  and u = 50,

                  where another u = 10,

then, u + s =  30+10+50+10=100.

And u – s = 60 – 40

                = 20.



Thus, based on our assumptions, X = 20 is the difference between specific and universal applications of the NT message.           



Conclusion.



Based on our supposition, 20 as the difference between the specific and universal intentions of the contents of the New Testament, seeming to be clearer than the sentential rendition, shall stamp the point most indelibly to the learners’ mind! He shall always remember 20; he shall always remember how it came about. 20, though may take longer to pass through into the student(s), it possesses the capacity of remaining longer in them than the orthodoxy. Though it is harder memorizing the 8-multiplication table than counting when faced with calculations involving the 8-multiplication table, it is much easier and faster when it is memorized. And herein stands tall the justification of the Honsbira Algebra.







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