Gematria

Gematria (from Greek geometria) originated as an Assyro-Babylonian-Greek system of alphanumeric code/cipher later adopted in the writing of Hebrew scripture that assigns numerical value to a letter/word/name/phrase in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to nature, a person's age, the calendar year, or the like.

This article is about old school style gematria based on what you might have heard about in an encyclopedia. For the vastly different version practised by conspiracy theorists, see new gematria.

Similar systems, some of which were derived from or inspired by Hebrew gematria, have been used in other languages and cultures, i.e. Greek isopsephy, Arabic abjad numerals, and English gematria. Gematria is common in Kabbalah practice; it involves seeking out patterns in numbers and texts, and derives originally from the practice of writing numbers using ancient letters and adding up the letter values of various significant words. It's a form of Torah, Bible, and Qur'an exegesis.

Simple6,74 English7,74 Gematria8,74

Using 'the key'74 of A=1, B2, C3… Z26, we have…

simple=74=S19+I9+M13+P16+L12+E5, English=74=E5+N14+G7+L12+I9+S19+H8, gematria=74=G7+E5+M13+A1+T20+R18+I9+A1, connect=74=C3+O15+N14+N14+E5+C3+T20

gollark: They are sciency-sounding words which turn up a lot but have somewhat complex definitions.
gollark: I mean, in an extreme edge case, what if there's only one person in the entire universe, they punch a wall, and randomly die for unrelated reasons? How is that going to cause more violence down the line?
gollark: That's not some sort of universal truth, just a rough heuristic which is somewhat accurate.
gollark: I mean, those apply to some narrowly defined things in physics, for limited definitions of "action" and such, but not in general so far as I can tell.
gollark: I don't think so, unless you really stretch the definition most of the time or claim it's metaphorical or something.

See also

References
  • Rosten, Leo, and Lawrence Bush, The New Joys of Yiddish. New York: Crown Publishers, 2001, ISBN 0609607855.
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