Shematria Gematria Calculator

A gematria cipher assigns letters to numbers and thus values to words. The earliest Gematria calculations with the alphabet that we know of were made by writers of the Hebrew Bible. The ciphers likely began as a way to keep track of verses of the creation story which were handed down and memorized through the oral tradition (chanting). Early examples of gematria assigned numerical values to names, and especially the names of God. From these early beginnings a formal system of mathematics developed which grew in complexity and structure until it flourished during the time of the First Temple.

In this system of early math, only the nouns were counted, and other words were reserved to indicate types of calculations. Some words held set values by convention, and this will have made the practice of calculation faster. Another class of words were used to indicate the presence of gematria in a text - for instance 'הנה' which means 'Behold!'. Due to all these conventions, Gematria was as accurate in ancient times as modern math is today, and biblical scribes expected that their readers would know of it. Learning biblical gematria is like taking a seat at the table of the scribe, and becoming a part of his intended audience.


The Gematria ciphers for the Hebrew Bible were transposed to the Greek alphabet by Jewish converts to Christianity and used in the New Testament. However at the time of the Sages the Hebrew Biblical Cipher was hidden, because it was part of the knowledge concerning the Chariot of God, and was considered too Holy to be shared. Soon afterwards, the New Testament cipher was lost by the Christian Churches, to the detriment of general exegesis.

In 1900 the Biblical Ciphers were re-discovered by Aleister Crowley, who transliterated them to our modern alphabet and used them in Liber Al vel Legis and other of his Class A texts. Aleister Crowley used his knowledge of the Merkabah and the biblical ciphers as the architecture behind the Qabalah of Thelema.

In 2015 the biblical ciphers were rediscovered by cryptographer Bethsheba Ashe, the creator of this calculator. She found that these ciphers were akin in their function to the Rosetta Stone that allowed Jean François Champollion to decipher the system of Hieroglyphics used by Ancient Egyptians. Ashe has presented the results of several years of biblical decipherment in her guide to the study of gematria throughout the ages: 'Behold'.

"Shematria is the main hub I go to, to decipher the gematria and notariqon of the Bible and the Book of the Law. I built this site because it's useful, not just to me, but to anyone interested in pursuing a complete exegesis of texts that employ these scribal methodologies. It is my hope that by providing tools to decipher gematria, we shall gain a better understanding of our Holy Books." — Bethsheba Ashe.