Early examples include vase graffiti dating to the 6th century BCE. The practice of using alphabetic letters to represent numbers developed in the Greek city of Miletus, and is thus known as the Milesian system. In this inscription, Sargon II states: "the king built the wall of Khorsabad 16,283 cubits long to correspond with the numerical value of his name." The first documented use of gematria is from an Assyrian inscription dating to the 8th century BCE, commissioned by Sargon II. Neither the concept nor the term appears in the Hebrew Bible itself.
It is largely used in Jewish texts, notably in those associated with the Kabbalah. The word has been extant in English since at least the 17th century from translations of works by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Some hold it to derive from the order of the Greek alphabet, gamma being the third letter of the Greek alphabet ("gamma tria"). It is likely that both Greek words had an influence on the formation of the Hebrew word. Etymology Ĭlassical scholars agree that the Hebrew word gematria was derived from the Greek word γεωμετρία geōmetriā, " geometry", though some scholars believe it to derive from Greek γραμματεια grammateia "knowledge of writing".
In early Jewish sources, the term can also refer to other forms of calculation or letter manipulation, for example atbash. Donations of money in multiples of 18 are very popular. This has made 18 a " lucky number" among the Jewish people. 'alive'), which is composed of two letters that (using the assignments in the mispar gadol table shown below) add up to 18. A short example of Hebrew numerology that uses gematria is the word חי ( chai, lit. Gematria sums can involve single words, or a string of lengthy calculations. The value of words with Aru were assigned in an entirely arbitrary manner and correspondences were made through tables, and so cannot be considered a true form of gematria. Aru was very different from the Milesian systems used by Greek and Hebrew cultures, which used alphabetic writing scripts. Īlthough a type of gematria system ('Aru') was employed by the ancient Babylonian culture, their writing script was logographic, and the numerical assignments they made were to whole words. When read as numbers, they can be compared and contrasted with other words or phrases – cf. It involves reading words and sentences as numbers, assigning numerical instead of phonetic value to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The most common form of Hebrew gematria is used in the Talmud and Midrash, and elaborately by many post-Talmudic commentators. Similar systems have been used in other languages and cultures, derived from or inspired by either Greek isopsephy or Hebrew gematria, and include Arabic abjad numerals and English gematria. The first evidence of use of Hebrew letters as numbers dates to 78 BCE gematria is still used in Jewish culture. Table of correspondences from Carl Faulmann's Das Buch der Schrift (1880), showing glyph variants for Phoenician letters and numbers.Īccording to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), isopsephy, based on the Milesian numbering of the Greek alphabet developed in the Greek city of Miletus, was part of the Pythagorean tradition, which originated in the 6th century BCE. The letters of the alphabets involved have standard numerical values, but a word can yield several values if a cipher is used. Gematria ( / ɡ ə ˈ m eɪ t r i ə/ Hebrew: גמטריא or gimatria גימטריה, plural גמטראות or גימטריאות, gimatriot) is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase by reading it as a number, or sometimes by using an alphanumerical cipher. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. Please read the layout guide and lead section guidelines to ensure the section will still be inclusive of all essential details. Please help by moving some material from it into the body of the article. This article's lead section may be too long for the length of the article.
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