Talk:Isopsephy

Variant letters and letterforms
There's no evidence I know of that the system of Isopsephy was even in existence at the time that the letter San was eliminated from widely-used versions of ancient Greek alphabet, so therefore San should not be listed in the table. And despite the current name of its article, "Stigma" is not actually a letter as such. Furthermore, Sho should not be listed in the table unless it was actually used for purposes of isopsephy; I read through the linked n2411.pdf article, and found no evidence of this... AnonMoos (talk) 15:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Isopsephy vs. Gematria
“Isopsephy is related to Gematria, the same practice using the Hebrew alphabet”: I'm not sure if that statement is accurate. I don't think Gematria is done exclusively with Hebrew letters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frater Liberabit (talk • contribs) 14:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

"Isopsephy is related to Gematria" is quite true! Although, Aramaic gematria was used by the ancient scribes and English gematric is quite in vogue today (google it). - Brad Watson, Miami (talk) 16:49, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

ELLAIVARIOS ECHETLEUS ZEURAGOS (talk) 12:08, 4 October 2020 (UTC) It is not related.

The similarity stops with "one letter representing one number".

I am a Classics Academic. This is misinformation being propagated by popular culture in modern Greece today, spread around in conspiracy circles, and has taken hold in recent years, popularized by quacks and crackpots, and the uneducated who want to impress their friends in coffeehouses about their deep mystical knowledge of the ancient past.

The Hellenes never used "Gematria". This is a Jewish and Egyptian magical system, and therefore the mention in this section is inaccurate. Gematria assigns numbers to each letter, and tries to equate the sum of numbers of a word to the sum of numbers of another word or phrase, and then based on such "equation" it tries to assert that there is a predictive correlation in the meaning of the two words, or between word and phrase, i.e. the word "egg" might have a number sum of 965, and the word "sphere" might also have a number sum of 965, so the egg somehow also "reveals" its spherical shape. Entire phrases may also be equated to words, and vice versa. Gematria was often used to predict the future, i.e. if your name happened to be "Mara" and its number sum value was 456, and your name equated with the numeric sum of the phrase "Tony loves you", then Mara could be certain that her love for Tony would be reciprocated. If this didn't work out, then they may try again by finding a "pythmen" (the bottom of the pit) of the sum of sums, by adding the digits of a number, i.e. 456 (4+5+6 = 6) between the two equated words, and see if their resultant pythmens happen to be equal, and in turn try to make assertions and predictions out of that. Curses were also used with Gematria in like manner.

However, this was a Jewish and Egyptian magical practice, and not Greek. Isopsephy and Gematria are not the same. The Greeks used the notion of isopsephy for poetry but not with predictive magical purposes. Isopsephy means that "the digits/pebbles are equal", and was used to balance one line or stanza in a poem with another, so that they would have an equal number value (since Greek letters were also numbers) with another line or stanza in that poem, in addition to having the correct meter, rhyme, etc. This made writing the poem especially challenging, as combining all aspects (isopsephy, meter, rhyme, line word count, etc.) limited the ability of choices one could have in order to "make things work" for the poem, so only the most skilled poets could do this, and it also allowed hiding a second voice or multiple interpretations (ergo it was perfect for secretive and ambiguous texts).

In the Hellenistic times, this practice took off in poetry. There is a famous example of this with a poem marking the death stela of a young boy in Asia Minor who passed away prematurely, and whose father erected the stela with one of the boy's best poems, making sure to indicate the isopsephy overtly in order to show what a greatly skilled poet the young boy was.

Overall, the Greek isopsephy served entirely different purposes from Gematria (i.e. no properties of magical predictive "equations"), and was limited almost exclusively to poetry. All the examples, even in this article herein, confirm this: isopsephy does not connote predictive and magical usage, and any magical usage of isopsephy was limited to judeoegyptian cults in late Hellenistic times (as in after Christ) through the practice of Gematria magic, not Isopsephy. Isopsephy is not magic, and is not used to predict cooncordance of meaning of a word to another word or phrase through the equation of their sums. Isopsephy merely implies what the word connotes: that the sum of the letter-to-number concordance in a word or phrase, is equal to that of another word or phrase. That's where the similarity ends.

It is more accurate to say that "Gematria is the magical practice concerned with what you do with isopsephy."Italic text

Magical Papyri in Oxyrhynchos confirm that the Greeks did not use Gematria, but that this was a Jewish and Egyptian magical practice syncretism. The furthest you might be able to stretch this, if you still want to make an inclusion in this wiki page, is to say, at most, that in "the Hellenistic times the Egyptians and Jews may have occasionally used Greek numerals to perform magical Gematria, given the ubiquity of the use of the Greek language at the time", and that's that. Isopsephy does not belong in this section, and should not be conflated with Gematria. The similarity stops with "one letter representing one number".

In summary, Isopsephy is not a "magical practice". It merely describes that there is a number-to-letter- sum concordance between words or words and phrases -- and NOT magical usage thereof. The magical usage of isopsephy or geometry and other mundane practices was at large an judeoegyptian cult practice, and forms parts of the kabbala.

Being cryptic and obscure or ambiguous is not the same as "predictive" and "magical". Isopsephy is not a magical practice, much as geometry is not a magical practice. It merely describes the concordance of sums. The example of the name "Nero" being equated with "He killed his mother" is witty and purposefully obscured (i.e. you're accusing the emperor, so death could be certain), but it is not "predictive", nor magical. It is simply a statement hidden in a basic cryptographic manner. Isopsephy does not make claims of absolute correlation as gematria does. For example, it does not care that the word "ball" might happen to equate with the word "god" and at the same time the phrase "it is divine" -- gematria does.

I suggest this section be re-edited with clarifications that confirm this distinction lest that the article might be misleading, as it does not have any sources for the supposed connection between gematria and isopsephy, and none will ever be found other than popular modern speculations circulated in clown-publication magazines that are wishywashy, and re-interpret anything cherrypicked out of ancient sources. ELLAIVARIOS ECHETLEUS ZEURAGOS (talk) 12:08, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I run the Shematria Gematria Calculator. I have written two books on the subject and I regularly blog with the Times of Israel.

Actually Sir, the early Christians (most of whom were ex-Jews) transposed the gematria they used in the Tanakh over to the Greek script and it's frequently found to be used in the New Testament. Here are the values transposed: https://shematria.pythonanywhere.com/assets/images/Isop.jpg

They were using Standard gematria as a clever method of concealment for a hidden gematria system and that has wrong-footed many an academic. Moreover the practice of Gematria and Isopsephy was more complex and sophisticated than you are giving it credit for. The practice began during the first Temple period using the Paleo- hebrew script, and Genesis 1-2 has been arranged according to a priestly order of the alephbet with each verse being replete with correspondences for a macrocosmic schematic they called 'the Seven Palaces' or (in the case of Ezekiel) just 'the Wheel' (of the Merkabah). It was at the core of biblical hermeneutics. Much of the Isopsephy in the New Testament also corresponds back to this schematic: https://shematria.pythonanywhere.com/assets/images/sp-line-drawing-1104x1201.jpg

Going back to the point about complexity - they used some words as mnemonics for a value associated with a letter. For instance, the word Nachash נחש should be 61 but it actually has the value of 50, and likely came about because the pictogram of the letter Nun was originally a serpent. You find similar mnemonics for words that mean "Eye" (70), "Mouth" (80), "Woman" (111), "Corner" (90), "House" (2), "Spirit" (2), "doors" (4), etc. See more here: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-few- common-torah-mnemonics/

They usually used the nouns as numerals and verbs & prepositions as mathematical notation, and unlike today they don't show the slightest interest in whether two words have the same value. They had grander goals with the holy letters of their alephbet, such as embedding information that explained the mysteries of their Temple cult; for example the identification of the "fruit" eaten by Adam and his woman.

I'm going to give you a taste of the calculations in the bible so that you know I'm not pulling your leg or leading you down the garden path here. You can find more in the Shematria database: https://shematria.pythonanywhere.com/

The Seven Days of the Week: ראשון שני שלישי רביעי חמישי שישי שבת = 777

Examples in the Tanakh: 2 Kings 2:9-11: 777 = (אליהו x 2) + רכב אש וסוסי אש / 2) + אליהו בסערה השמים) Genesis 1:1: בראשית + אלהים + השמים + הארץ = 700

Genesis 1:2-3: פני תהום - וחשך + אור = 365

Genesis 1:4: האור + החשך = 248

Genesis 1:2-4: 365 + 248 = 613

Exodus 14:19-21 (the Shemhaphoresh) with a reversal cipher: ויסע מלאך האלהים ההלך לפני מחנה ישראל וילך מאחריהם ויסע עמות הענן מפניהם ויעמת מאחריהם ויבא בין מחנה מצרים ובין מחנה ישראל ויהי הענן והחשך ויאר את הלילה ולא קרב זה אל זה כל הלילה ויט משה את ידו על הים ויולך יהוה את הים ברוח קדים עזה כל הלילה וישם את הים לחרבה ויבקעו המים = 9000

Proverbs 31:10-31: (the Eshet Ḥayil which is already an alphabetical acrostic) אשת בטח גמלתהו דרשה היתה ותקם זממה חגרה טעמה ידיה כפה לא מרבדים נודע סדין עז פיה צופיה קמו רבות שקר יהוה תנו = 777 This one is composed from 'the Genesis Order' which is a reduced form of gematria which assigns value to letters based on their position in the priestly order of the alephbet (see Shematria for full explanation).

and much much more, but let's not waste time and move on to the New Testament:

John 21:10-11: Ιχθυων + μεγαλων + δικτυον + γην + 153 = 777

The number 153 is from the number of fish they collected.

Revelation 1:8: Εγω ειμι יהוה אלהים α α α α Παντοκρατωρ = 777

Note that John could never bear to use the values of the Greek names for God. He uses them only to refer to the Hebrew words & their value. The four alphas are for "the one being, and one was, and one coming, one almighty."

John 1:1: εν αρχη λογος λογος αλ αλ λογος = 777 Note: John replaces the value of the Greek word for God: 'Dios', with the Hebrew One: αλ.

Revelation 1:5: βασιλέων τῆς γῆς = 800

Revelation 3:7: αγιος αληθινος κλειν Δαυιδ = 800

And I'll stop here. I could be accused of cherry picking but I refer my accusers to my book "The Genesis Wheel" which analyses the gematria of every verse of Genesis 1-2. Final note: if you don't find this in any academic articles of reputable journals its because of the type of closed minded attitude you've just displayed: "...and none will ever be found other than popular modern speculations circulated in clown-publication magazines..."

That kind of talk simply holds back genuine research and advancement in the fields of biblical hermeneutics and epigraphy.

Bethsheba Ashe. Bethsheba Ashe (talk) 20:29, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Sargon II
I removed one paragraph for the moment, since it's extremely hard to understand how "isopsephy" would have worked in the non-alphabetic cuneiform writing system used for the Akkadian languages. There should be some type of basic explanation of that point, so that the reader can understand that this really falls under isopsephy... AnonMoos (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know directly about your reasoning, AnonMoos. I too find it hard to understand, and I can't find out who does. There is of course a non-isopsephic system of numbers in cuneiform. As far as I can ascertain, the cuneiform of the time was a mixture of syllabary and ideogram, but how numerical values were assigned I can't discover. However it does seem to be attested with references that there is this inscription claiming isopsephy, so my leaning is to include it in history as the earliest reference we have to it. Let me put th paragraph here so I can find it more easily, perhaps when I've found out a little more:
 * A system of isopsephy appears to have existed among the Babylonians and Assyrians. There is a single example from the time of Sargon II. An enscription on a clay tablet states that the king built the walls of Dur-Sharrukin, present day Khorsabad, then the Assyrian capital, "according to the value of his name", 16280 Assyrian units.


 * - the above copied from my talk page--Annielogue (talk) 22:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Their letters had numerical connections, right? Also, 'Sargon'(74=S19+A1+R18+G7+O15+N14) 'the king'(74)/'ruler'(74) & 'cubits'(74) all equal 74 in Simple(74) English(74) Gematria(74=G7+E5+M13+A1+T20+R18+I9+A1). - Brad Watson, Miami (talk) 16:54, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * For the billionth and first time, gematria is not a reliable source, and Wikipedia does not accept original research. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ian! Look what I can do!
 * '''O15+R18+I9+G7+I9+N14+A1+L22=95
 * '''R18+E5+S19+E5+A1+R18+C3+H8=77
 * '''95+77=172
 * '''1+7+2=10
 * '''1+0=1
 * '''1
 * The power of 1!  &mdash;  Jason Sosa  19:36, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Which proves that if we're going to accept gematria, we have to reject it as original research. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup,  &mdash;  Jason Sosa  22:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Formatting
I'm playing around with different ways of displaying the method:

$$ \begin{matrix} \overbrace{\Nu}^{50} & \overbrace{\epsilon}^{5} & \overbrace{\rho}^{100} & \overbrace{\omega}^{800} & \overbrace{\nu}^{50} \\ N & e & r & o & n \\ \end{matrix} $$

$$ \left(\begin{smallmatrix} \iota && \delta && \iota && \alpha && \nu \\ i && d && i && a && n \\ 10 & + & 4 & + & 10 & + & 1 & + & 50 \end{smallmatrix} \right) + \left(\begin{smallmatrix} \mu && \eta && \tau && \epsilon && \rho && \alpha \\ m && e && t && e && r && a \\ 40 & + & 8 & + & 300 & + & 5 & + & 100 & + & 1 \end{smallmatrix} \right) + \left(\begin{smallmatrix} \alpha && \pi && \epsilon && \kappa && \tau && \epsilon && \iota && \nu && \epsilon \\ a && p && e && k && t && e && i && n && e \\ 1 & + & 80 & + & 5 & + & 20 & + & 300 & + & 5 & + & 10 & + & 50 & + & 5 \end{smallmatrix} \right) $$

They're all just so large, taking up so much space.

Eievie (talk) 00:55, 12 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Being devolved at . Any feedback on whether this format is good?
 * Eievie (talk) 02:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Eievie (talk) 02:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Eievie (talk) 02:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * A simple table will display in the widest range of browsers.  Using mathematical notation for something other than its intended use may be doubtful.   See article Text annotation for the basic concept (not sure if there's a Wikipedia article standard). AnonMoos (talk) 17:22, 13 April 2024 (UTC)