Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
6-1-2013
Abstract
Over two hundred years after his death, an unfinished notebook of Jonathan Edwards’ was published for the first time in1993. Edwards was a father of the Evangelical movement, but because his work on typology was not published until recently, it has received almost no attention. In his notebook, Edwards makes an explicit argument for extending biblical typology to nature in a biblically grounded manner. This study is an attempt to extend that research program into mathematics/statistics.We will consider the following proposition, “The normal distribution (the graph of which is the bell curve) is a biblical type of Christ.” The basic idea is that as the normal distribution is the center of the discipline of Statistics, so Christ is the center of the plan of God (Eph 1:9-10). Evidence for the proposition will be given from four different statistical phenomena regarding the normal distribution: the Central Limit Theorem, limiting distributions, its striking conditional and marginal distributions, and its unique name.
Recommended Citation
Wilson, Jason, "Expanding Jonathan Edwards’ Typology Program: The Bell Curve as a Type of Christ" (2013). ACMS Conference Proceedings 2013. 29.
https://pillars.taylor.edu/acms-2013/29
Included in
Applied Mathematics Commons, Computer Sciences Commons, Higher Education Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Mathematics Commons, Science and Mathematics Education Commons, Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons