Dear Youngman:

Concerning your comment--

> Is there a Bible-word for "Bible-word?"

I perceive that you got a little warm in response to the term "three
corners" (which you called "three angles").  I did not send that email to provoke
your spirit.  I got warm just reading your response.  But be that as it
may, that is not the subject of this email.

In what we've been doing here, pursuing a Biblical Scholarship in our school,
I have not thrown out everything that I know.  That would make no sense and 
it is impossible.  I am not going to throw out the abc song or the mathematics I
was taught because I'd have nothing left.  In addition to that, my
daughter must know how to communicate with others in the society in which
we live.  She did not learn pi as pi at first.  She first learned that the
circumference (line round about) is three times the diameter (one brim to another)
in accordance with the scriptures (I Kings 7:23)--but she did eventually learn pi.  
She learned about polygons, triangles, quadrilaterals, etc. with a breakdown 
of each syllable, but she learned what they are in the scriptures.  
If someone asked her about these things she could communicate with them.

She learned the Pythagorean Theorem when I had a question about how long a
diagonal was on a scarf I was sewing.  She did not know that it was called the
Pythagorean Theorem until after she learned it.  It was useful to me, that
is why I showed her how to figure it out.  I told her that somebody smarter
than me came up with it.  I am not going to toss every advance and method 
I know in the trash can (just the useless ones).

However God called you, that is who you are.  I came to know the Lord with
Greek training and a college degree.  I learned no skills--except perhaps
for the writing craft as that was my occupation--but as I seek to be a
teacher, farmer, etc. I take what I know to the scriptures to get the real
meaning.  I taught Hannah her reading and mathematics using heathen books
and adding what I could from the scriptures.  That is what I had.  I am
now seeking to use the outlines to create USEFUL books from a Biblical
perspective.

BUT I WILL NOT THROW OUT ALL I'VE LEARNED.  It's impossible.  How could I
even read the Bible if I tried to throw out the fact that I can read?  Do I say, "I
can't read because a heathen taught me, what is reading?"  Of course not.  
But what I have done, now that I have taught my daughter how to read, 
is devise a way to teach reading using Bible words that can be taught to babies.  Hannah
read her first words at 20-months (I now know that she could have read sooner)
but I stopped teaching her reading until she was three because the reading
book I used was too high for her until that time.  I now know how I could
have continued to teach her reading, with Bible words, without taking that
one year break.

In my journey back to the old ways, I have known that I am not abandoning 
any good, profitable thing that I have learned today.  On my homestead, 
we will observe protocols (e.g., composting and waste management) that have 
proven to give more crops, avoid disease, etc.

You are in a strange position, one that I was not in.  I am asking you
mathematical questions without anything to hang them on.  I think that
this is not good and is a repetition of what I despise in today's
textbooks.  I had a daughter to teach, a heathen but systematic math book
in hand, a life to live, and a Bible that demanded to be included in every last 
bit of it.  My sending scripture for teaching counting was, "Count the number of the
beast."  My mathematical questions to you are not hung on anything.  I
release you from answering any of the mathematical questions that I've
asked you about.

I think that you should take whatever it is that you are learning right
now and find THOSE precepts in the scriptures and how you are USE THEM.  I
think that the question that I asked you about the basic operations of
mathematics will still be useful to you because what you are doing right
now is based on them.

Perhaps I will soon upload my letter to the Professor--he was voted
Professor of the Year a few years ago at a local University.   He
said that it was not necessary that students be able to build with their
mathematics.  He said that they could study engineering for that.  I was
stunned and I walked away determined that our mathematics would be USEFUL
and exciting.

I'll sign off for now,

Mephibosheth