Gematria:
an early formal system of rhetoric mathematics?
What is gematria? Was it used in the Bible?
What does "a formal system of rhetoric mathematics" really mean?
What is gematria? Was it used in the Bible?
What does "a formal system of rhetoric mathematics" really mean?
FAQ
The main source of formal gematria is the Tanakh and the New Testament. It is most concentrated in the Torah, and in Genesis 1-2 it provides a numerical key to the order of the verses.
The evidence for its presence in the Bible is the presence of hundreds of formal mathematical calculations. The goal of this database is to collect as many of these calculations as possible. The accumulation of examples presents a compelling argument that their presence in these cannons is an intentional scribal method of adding extra context to scripture with mathematical expressions and their correspondences. But what were those correspondences?
Some of these are values that we all might recognize independently, such as the 365 days in a year or the 360 degrees of a circle. However, the design of the Merkabah also features a set of letters and values of the alphabet in a distinct set, which were skillfully combined to match parts of the Holy Name YaHWeH and to parts of God's creation.
What does "an early formal system of rhetoric mathematics" really mean?
By "early" I'm indicating the late bronze age and early iron age. The practice of gematria and other scribal methods likely began as a way of using number magic to affect blessings and curses, which would act as an operand to either double or halve a numerical value. The creation of blessings and curses was common in ancient Egypt.
The earliest known "curse tablets" in ancient Egypt are called Execration Texts. They are usually inscribed on clay figurines or pottery, listing enemies' names, which were then smashed and buried. This practice is documented from the 12th Egyptian Dynasty, (1991–1802 BC) with some earlier examples also existing. These texts were used to bind and symbolically destroy those who might harm Egypt, including neighboring states and their leaders.
It's a form of what Frazer called "sympathetic Magic". Unfortunately, the broken and fragmentary nature of the remains prevents an analysis of any mathematics, however the Mt. Ebal curse tablet (dated to the late Bronze age) is complete and was written with two gematria calculations. Eventually the tradition over the mathematical functions of blessings and curses was included into a sophisticated formal system used in the Bible.
By "formal system" I mean that it is a system of mathematics with strict rules and conventions that governed it. The components of this system are:
• Classes of nouns as numerals.
• Classes of nouns. with a preset value of a letter.
• Classes of nouns which are restricted, usually types of measurement.
• Classes of words which drew attention to the text or had other special functions.
• Verbs and some adjectives as operators. These operators have further rules and conventions attached to them, for instance over whether they are applicable to the next or former word.
It is only because biblical gematria was a formal system that it could be carefully tested, recorded, deciphered and restored.
By "rhetoric mathematics" I refer to a practice of mathematics without modern notation. This could either be written out in its long form, or included in poems, letters, spells and stories through gematria.
Why does it matter?
Whether its the Torah or the New Testament, the Bible is filled with mathematics and correspondences which offer extra context to the reader.
The Bible was intended to be read by people who could read the mathematics in their writings. There are verses in the Bible where the author buries his lead with gematria, and there are others that can only be understood by reversing key words like "Adam", "Eve", "Keturah" and "Amalek".
Taking up the practice of gematria can put biblical writings in focus, because the best exegesis of any text flows from using the exact same methods as the writer. By corresponding the gematria (and other methods) of the Torah to the Merkabah - the Ma'aseh Merkabah - the Work of the Chariot - is achieved.
Dating the Bible
The practice of gematria can also aid in our academic study of the Bible by aiding us when it comes to dating chapters, books and verses of the Bible, especially in respect of the Tanakh. Now its well known that the name of YHWH was missing that last letter Heh in the Bronze age, and the name was a tri-grammaton rather than a tetra-grammaton. The only reason why a three lettered name never appears in the Hebrew Bible is because the writing of the Name as the tetragrammaton was standardized at some point in the collection's common history, however this scribal interpolation was done without adjusting the underlying gematria, and so in all cases where the name is present in a verse, any calculation is off by exactly +5. This method allows us to better distinguish between late bronze age writings and iron age writings.
Pre-exilic vs Post-Exilic?
What kind of cipher the scribe uses is highly revealing, as indeed what place order (increasing or decreasing) the scribes use with their complex adding numbers. The pre-exilic way of counting was units-tens-hundreds, whereas the post-exilic way of counting was hundreds-tens-units, as explained most eloquently by Professor John Screnock.
In post-exilic times the Israelites took up the practice of writing with the alphabetic script of their captors (Ktav Ashuri). Because this script featured sofits (five letters that have an alternate character when they appear at the end of words) it became possible to extend the values of the alphabet through the hundreds by giving shin (3) the number 300 and tav (4) the number 400, but this was alright by everyone because gimel already had the value of 3 and dalet was already 4, meaning there'd been some doubling up of representation for these values. So with shin and tav at the back of the alphabet, (which was the usual place for them amongst the Canaanites in any case), the range of numerals that could be represented by the alphabet included 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, with an aleph written in extra large letters representing 1000.
The odd thing about biblical gematria in practice however is that biblical scribes didn't bother giving values to the sofits in their writings. They did change the value of the shin and tav to 300 and 400 however and this cipher came to be known as the 'standard cipher' (Mispar Hechrachi). Its reasonable to suggest that scribes may have used this new cipher so that readers might distinguish between their writings and those of the original pre-exilic writers before the fall of the 1st Temple.
The Smoking Gun?
What evidence is there that this type of rhetoric mathematics was used by biblical scribes? Do you have a smoking gun?
Evidence comes in a range of weights. The smoking gun metaphor represents evidence that automatically places the matter beyond reasonable doubt, however in science the 'smoking gun' is often a rigorous accumulation and testing of thousands of data points in order to place the matter beyond reasonable doubt. The 'smoking gun' is slowly established data-point-by-data point by repetition and testing. Any formal system of mathematics relies in there being firm rules and conventions governing the representation of numerals and operators. These conventions make up an immutable language of mathematics, and like phrases in a language, mathematical calculations only become coherent once the correct numerical ciphers are applied consistently along with all other rules and conventions.
Shematria is a research tool, and our research is collected in our database of calculations. Some of the earlier calculations may be false positives that need removal because they were calculated without full knowledge of all the operators, flag words, mnemonics, and practices more generally etc. If you spot one of these please drop me a line and I will remove it from the calculator. I'm weeding these out of the database over time, but until further notice you should take any late calculations (appearing further down in the table) as more authoritative than early calculations.
While not perfect, I contend that the Shematria collection represents such a body of work that places the matter of whether biblical scribes were writing mathematics at the same time as they were writing literature, beyond reasonable doubt as proven.
