Differences of Letter/Word Count

[Gematria]

Hi all,

I am encountering a frustrating problem. Essentially I can't determine which letter and word count of the Pentateuch is the most accurate. According to another thread on this site, the Bible Wheel utilizes B.H.S. 4th Edition.

For Exodus I have:
Total Words: 16709
Total Letters: 63531

Based on the database provided by the site. I have gone over my work twice, and there are no errors in my copying of this information.

Yet I have found other sources which cite 16,713 (as the official Torah Scroll count) and 16,723 (Aishdas.org count) as the number of words.

Furthermore, most sources agree there are 63,529 Letters, not 63,531.

I understand the BHS is based on a masoretic text, but is it accurate enough to be reliable? How does the Bible Wheel database divide words and letters? Does it count dashes "like -" as a letter?

It matters immensely because I'm looking for something very specific dealing with the number of letters and words in each section of the Pentateuch, but I need to work from the most accurate version possible. Any help in this matter, or pointers to how I can better research it, would be greatly appreciated.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Hi all,

I am encountering a frustrating problem. Essentially I can't determine which letter and word count of the Pentateuch is the most accurate. According to another thread on this site, the Bible Wheel utilizes B.H.S. 4th Edition.

For Exodus I have:
Total Words: 16709
Total Letters: 63531

Based on the database provided by the site. I have gone over my work twice, and there are no errors in my copying of this information.

Yet I have found other sources which cite 16,713 (as the official Torah Scroll count) and 16,723 (Aishdas.org count) as the number of words.

Furthermore, most sources agree there are 63,529 Letters, not 63,531.

I understand the BHS is based on a masoretic text, but is it accurate enough to be reliable? How does the Bible Wheel database divide words and letters? Does it count dashes "like -" as a letter?

It matters immensely because I'm looking for something very specific dealing with the number of letters and words in each section of the Pentateuch, but I need to work from the most accurate version possible. Any help in this matter, or pointers to how I can better research it, would be greatly appreciated.

Excellent questions! I'm glad you are interested.

I do not count the maqeph (hyphen) as a letter. And I count words connected with a maqeph as two words.

It is encouraging that the counts are all very close, but personally, I would not have any confidence that there is a complete text of the Torah that is letter-for-letter perfect. This is because there are textual variations in different manuscripts, so there is no way to know which is correct. The electronic text that I used had lots of extra characters I had to parse out. For example, it was the "critical text" which means it had the Qere and the Kethiv indicated by different brackets. You will note that the database allows you to view either. And there are letters like Samek used to mark sections that were not part of the inspired text. So though I am confident concerning the general integrity of the database, I have not confidence that every single letter is correct. I do not even have access to all the different text forms, so I don't know what the differences are.

I do recall encountering some big differences in one printed version of the Tanakh in the book of Isaiah. Unfortunately, I don't know the source and don't have an electronic version to compare with the BHS.

Sorry I could not help more. The study of the exact structure would be fascinating, but I think it is doomed by a lack of a perfect text. I know that some aspects of the text show a profound depth and perfection of structure, like Genesis 1:1-5 + John 1:1-5, but there are too many uncertainties when we look at large portions of the text.

All the best,

Richard

[remi]

I have met this letter count problem, and in disturbed me a lot.
First hi to all from France.
I know these site and forum for long, and I congratulate Richard for them.
I thought many times about suscribing, and hesitated about as many times cause I'm not a believer, and I felt a bit repelled by some enthusiastic claims.
Yet I am not a real unbeliever, and when I began to study biblical gematria around 1985 I quite believed I was working on something divine.
I soon found that Genesis 1.1 was an equation
T(2n+1) = 3T(n) + T(n+1)
but I didn't see the interaction with John 1.1, which impresses me much. Great, Richard!

I'm not easy with explaining in French how things changed, and it's quite more difficult in English.
I'll just describe an example of what I found in these first years, about the 69 people of Jacob's family that settled in Egypt in the year 2236 (= 26 x 86, see Deuteronomy 6.4 = 1118).
Genesis 46 divides them in 48 people from Leah's lineage (and from her handmaid Zilpah); the gematria of the 48 names is
11952 = 48 x 249
and 21 people from Rachel's lineage (and from her handmaid Bilhah)
4998 = 21 x 238
This one is amazing as 238 is Rachel's gematria. Leah's is 36, and it's possible to write
11952 = 36 x 332

Before that, Genesis 35 gave a list of Jacob's 12 sons, forgetting his daughter, when he arrived in Canaan.
Without Benjamin, born in Canaan, the 11 sons born in Aram give
3014 = 11 x 274
274 = 36 + 238 = Leah + Rachel
This list first gives Leah's and Rachel's sons, then their handmaids' ones, and I saw a kind of logic in these harmonies :
- Jacob's family was one when coming in Canaan, centered on 274 = Leah + Rachel
- in Canaan (= 190) began the rivality between Leah's sons and Joseph, which led to the departure towards Egypt (Misraim = 380 = 2 x 190)
- this rivality (which will lead to the separate kingdoms of Juda and Israel) was already meant by the gematrias of the 2 groups, multiples of 36 and 238.

I forget here some side features, to come to what disturbed me. I worked with a common Hebrew Bible, thinking from what I read that it was a reliable text, exactly the same that could be read 2000 years ago, and even more.
I soon found my handwork could not give me all I wanted, and I bought an e-file of the Bible. There was no free version in those days, and it was expensive... As soon as I got it I wrote software to analyze the gematria of the 304805 letters of the Tora, and didn't find this wellknown number in the file. I learnt then about the different versions, and that what I bought was a copy of the Leningrad Codex (actually the one used by Richard on his database).
Yet I still had enough energy to check it letter by letter, and this led me to a curious discovery. Among about a hundred differences between the two Torah texts, there is an unusual concentration of 3 names spelled differently in Leah's lineage, each one with an extra waw, and this leads to another harmony.
The tradition retains the number of 70 (as in Ex 1.5), including Jacob, for the Hebrew settling in Egypt. Jacob sems to be included in Leah's people in Gn 46, so the 48 names = 11952 become
49 names = 11952 + 18 (3 waw's) + 182 (Jacob) = 12152 = 49 x 248
The 21 Rachel's people are still
4998 = 21 x 238
and the 70 together are
12152 + 4998 = 17150 = 70 x 245

It's likely there were many different Bibles, maybe as many as manuscripts, but now only two are easily available, the so called Textus receptus used for the first printed Bible, and the Leningrad Codex used for the critical edition (the critical apparatus doesn't concern the matres lectionis, otherwise it would probably be thousands pages long).
Nothing sensible allows to think these texts are more reliable than all the other manuscripts, and it's hard to believe these two texts allow two great numerical harmonies. It's hard to say which one is the best, but if we start with one, it's clear that only the addition (or substraction) of 3 waw's leads to another meaningful harmony.

The number of letters seemed significant too in my first search:
- in Leah's lineage 32 names and 126 letters for her, 16 names and 63 letters for her handmaid, exact halves
- in Rachel's lineage 14 names and 52 letters for her, 7 names and 26 letters for her handmaid, exact halves
Now for the 70 with Jacob and 3 waw's we have 274 letters, again Leah + Rachel, in an apparent contradiction with the first results.
Oh my...

[Richard Amiel McGough]

I have met this letter count problem, and in disturbed me a lot.
First hi to all from France.
I know these site and forum for long, and I congratulate Richard for them.
I thought many times about suscribing, and hesitated about as many times cause I'm not a believer, and I felt a bit repelled by some enthusiastic claims.
Yet I am not a real unbeliever, and when I began to study biblical gematria around 1985 I quite believed I was working on something divine.

Hey there Remi,

Welcome to our forum!



I'm sorry for the slow response to your post. A lot has been going on around here lately, and posts can quickly become buried. But they can also be resurrected just as quickly with a single response. That's one thing I love about this form of communication. Conversations from years ago can be picked up right where we left off when the time is right.

I understand your hesitation to become involved in discussions that had too many "enthusiastic" claims. Almost all of my writings used to be very "enthusiastic" like that. I'll probably never know how many people refrained from joining because of that. But it doesn't matter - it's all water under the bridge, and it was an authentic expression of what I believed at that time. In any case, I am glad things have changed enough around here to make you feel welcome. I appreciate your contributions.

I soon found that Genesis 1.1 was an equation
T(2n+1) = 3T(n) + T(n+1)
but I didn't see the interaction with John 1.1, which impresses me much. Great, Richard!

I first learned about the connection with John 1:1 from Vernon Jenkins [source]. I had been really frustated with the alphanumeric structure of John 1:1 because I didn't know about the iota subscript and so it didn't show any significnant patterns no matter how long I looked at it. And then when I learned about the Iota subscript the whole thing just sprang open in a single day. I was utterly amazed.

And now I just learned something from you. I didn't realize that the structure of Genesis 1:1 = 2701 = 3T(36) + T(37), which is derived from its natural grammar because "and the earth" = T(37), was a specific case of the general forumula. That's really amazing.

I'm not easy with explaining in French how things changed, and it's quite more difficult in English.
I'll just describe an example of what I found in these first years, about the 69 people of Jacob's family that settled in Egypt in the year 2236 (= 26 x 86, see Deuteronomy 6.4 = 1118).
Genesis 46 divides them in 48 people from Leah's lineage (and from her handmaid Zilpah); the gematria of the 48 names is
11952 = 48 x 249
and 21 people from Rachel's lineage (and from her handmaid Bilhah)
4998 = 21 x 238
This one is amazing as 238 is Rachel's gematria. Leah's is 36, and it's possible to write
11952 = 36 x 332

That is indeed fascinating that the sum of the children of Leah and Rachel sum to multiples of their names.

But as for the date 2236 - I can't think of any reason to believe dates like that are real. The genealogies are too uncertain. Though I guess they could be meaningful as symbolic dates that were intended to fit with the symbolic genealogies.

I forget here some side features, to come to what disturbed me. I worked with a common Hebrew Bible, thinking from what I read that it was a reliable text, exactly the same that could be read 2000 years ago, and even more.
I soon found my handwork could not give me all I wanted, and I bought an e-file of the Bible. There was no free version in those days, and it was expensive... As soon as I got it I wrote software to analyze the gematria of the 304805 letters of the Tora, and didn't find this wellknown number in the file. I learnt then about the different versions, and that what I bought was a copy of the Leningrad Codex (actually the one used by Richard on his database).
Yet I still had enough energy to check it letter by letter, and this led me to a curious discovery. Among about a hundred differences between the two Torah texts, there is an unusual concentration of 3 names spelled differently in Leah's lineage, each one with an extra waw, and this leads to another harmony.
The tradition retains the number of 70 (as in Ex 1.5), including Jacob, for the Hebrew settling in Egypt. Jacob sems to be included in Leah's people in Gn 46, so the 48 names = 11952 become
49 names = 11952 + 18 (3 waw's) + 182 (Jacob) = 12152 = 49 x 248
The 21 Rachel's people are still
4998 = 21 x 238
and the 70 together are
12152 + 4998 = 17150 = 70 x 245

It's likely there were many different Bibles, maybe as many as manuscripts, but now only two are easily available, the so called Textus receptus used for the first printed Bible, and the Leningrad Codex used for the critical edition (the critical apparatus doesn't concern the matres lectionis, otherwise it would probably be thousands pages long).
Nothing sensible allows to think these texts are more reliable than all the other manuscripts, and it's hard to believe these two texts allow two great numerical harmonies. It's hard to say which one is the best, but if we start with one, it's clear that only the addition (or substraction) of 3 waw's leads to another meaningful harmony.

The number of letters seemed significant too in my first search:
- in Leah's lineage 32 names and 126 letters for her, 16 names and 63 letters for her handmaid, exact halves
- in Rachel's lineage 14 names and 52 letters for her, 7 names and 26 letters for her handmaid, exact halves
Now for the 70 with Jacob and 3 waw's we have 274 letters, again Leah + Rachel, in an apparent contradiction with the first results.
Oh my...

Fascinating problem you uncovered! It really shows how difficult it is to discern between chance and design in this kind of study. You began with one text and found patterns that were missing in the other (critical) text but then found patterns in that text that were different than the original! Sigh ... does this mean that both patterns were deliberately designed by the scribes working on their respective manuscripts? This problem you discovered really throws a shoe (sabat) into the gears of all this gematria.

[remi]

Thanks for the answers, Richard.
I knew my first post lacked of clear explanations, but the person who read it and made me feel like sharing a bit more of my old research checked the whole thing, and made beautiful tables of Leah's and Rachel's lineages. I'll ask him if I can put them here.

Is 2236 a reliable date for the settlement in Egypt? Of course not, but in my humble opinion if we want to really understand secret messages originally put in the Bible, we'll find more truth in chronology than in gematria, which was quite probably unknown.
Sure we find lots of overwhelming gematrias, and I'm not easy to discuss their origin. It might has to do with Jungian synchronicity, something out of time and of usual reason, that one can call divine if one feels so.
My original article, about 20 years ago, was titled Chronology and Gematria, and I tried to develop in it a theory about the main dates found in the Tora, in the so-called Sacerdotal Document.
I'm not holding now much to this theory, which was just a way to come to strange gematrias.
The main dates after the Flood (1656) are the births of the 3 great Patriarchs, in 1946, 2046 and 2106 (Jacob), and then the Settlement in Egypt, when Jacob is 130, and the Exodus, 430 years later (which seems impossible as far too long).
Many scholars think the Flood date is alterated, and was probably a multiple of ten, yet if we take the numbers as they actually are, we have 2236 = 26 x 86 (YHWH x Elohim) between 130 (5 x 26) and 430 (5 x 86).
In this year 2236 Joseph is alone in Egypt while his 11 brothers are in Canaan.
We have Joseph = 156 = 6 x 26,
and his 11 brothers = 3010 = 35 x 86.
Then Joseph keeps Simeon as an hostage, in order to see his beloved brother Benjamin. The other brothers fear Benjamin might become too Joseph's prisoner, so we would get the extraordinary new configuration
156 + 466 + 152 = 774 = 9 x 86
and the 9 other brothers = 2392 = 92 x 26.
If we add the father to the 9 brothers, Jacob = 182 = 7 x 26, we have the possible factorizations
774 = 6 x 129
2574 = 6 x 429
129 = 3 x 43 is just one unit from 130 = 10 x 13, and
429 = 33 x 13 is just one unit from 430 = 10 x 43.
Remember we are supposed to be in the year 2236 (2.2.13.43), 130 years after Jacob's birth and 430 years before Exodus, that it's quite easy to add a waw = 6 ('and') to both groups, and all this becomes quite entangled (and it's far more in the French article)...
To explain why Jacob didn't seem to be so happy to find his son Joseph alive, the midrash says he was reciting the Shema' Ishrael (= 1118 = 2.13.43)...

[RC Christian]

Thanks for the answers, Richard.
I knew my first post lacked of clear explanations, but the person who read it and made me feel like sharing a bit more of my old research checked the whole thing, and made beautiful tables of Leah's and Rachel's lineages. I'll ask him if I can put them here.

Is 2236 a reliable date for the settlement in Egypt? Of course not, but in my humble opinion if we want to really understand secret messages originally put in the Bible, we'll find more truth in chronology than in gematria, which was quite probably unknown.
Sure we find lots of overwhelming gematrias, and I'm not easy to discuss their origin. It might has to do with Jungian synchronicity, something out of time and of usual reason, that one can call divine if one feels so.
My original article, about 20 years ago, was titled Chronology and Gematria, and I tried to develop in it a theory about the main dates found in the Tora, in the so-called Sacerdotal Document.
I'm not holding now much to this theory, which was just a way to come to strange gematrias.
The main dates after the Flood (1656) are the births of the 3 great Patriarchs, in 1946, 2046 and 2106 (Jacob), and then the Settlement in Egypt, when Jacob is 130, and the Exodus, 430 years later (which seems impossible as far too long).
Many scholars think the Flood date is alterated, and was probably a multiple of ten, yet if we take the numbers as they actually are, we have 2236 = 26 x 86 (YHWH x Elohim) between 130 (5 x 26) and 430 (5 x 86).
In this year 2236 Joseph is alone in Egypt while his 11 brothers are in Canaan.
We have Joseph = 156 = 6 x 26,
and his 11 brothers = 3010 = 35 x 86.
Then Joseph keeps Simeon as an hostage, in order to see his beloved brother Benjamin. The other brothers fear Benjamin might become too Joseph's prisoner, so we would get the extraordinary new configuration
156 + 466 + 152 = 774 = 9 x 86
and the 9 other brothers = 2392 = 92 x 26.
If we add the father to the 9 brothers, Jacob = 182 = 7 x 26, we have the possible factorizations
774 = 6 x 129
2574 = 6 x 429
129 = 3 x 43 is just one unit from 130 = 10 x 13, and
429 = 33 x 13 is just one unit from 430 = 10 x 43.
Remember we are supposed to be in the year 2236 (2.2.13.43), 130 years after Jacob's birth and 430 years before Exodus, that it's quite easy to add a waw = 6 ('and') to both groups, and all this becomes quite entangled (and it's far more in the French article)...
To explain why Jacob didn't seem to be so happy to find his son Joseph alive, the midrash says he was reciting the Shema' Ishrael (= 1118 = 2.13.43)...

Remi,

Hi! I was wondering if you could point me to or explain where you derived your chronology dates. (Richard...I know what your thinking) I've seen various listings of the dates, but never the specific ones that you list. I look at the chronology as you do...the numbers telling a story to those who can decipher it. I follow your dates of The Flood (1656), of course, Noah's birth (1056), but I find the following dates when adding the breadcrumb trail:

Some of the most significant dates that I've worked with are the following:

Noah's birth(1056)

The Flood(1656)


------------

Abraham's birth(1948)

Covenant between the Parts(2018)

Isaac's birth(2048)

Jacob's birth(2108)

Jacob enters Egypt(2238)

Moses' Birth(2368)

The Exodus(2448)

Moses' Death(2488)

I realize that the gap between 1656 and 1948 is
DISCLAIMER: Just for the record...and Richard...I don't see the dates as actual years or the people as actual people. I "believe" the years are there as a number to lead to deeper wisdom hidden underneath. So I understand the 12 months/year issue that Richard brought up to me in an earlier post...but that's not at all how I "believe" it was intended to be understood.

Below is a link to a Wikipedia article that I believe is the same years that I get, when manually tabulating them. Any input would be great. Thanks.

And in regards to the 430 years in Egypt...yeah, that's a whole other post.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Thanks for the answers, Richard.
I knew my first post lacked of clear explanations, but the person who read it and made me feel like sharing a bit more of my old research checked the whole thing, and made beautiful tables of Leah's and Rachel's lineages. I'll ask him if I can put them here.

You are welcome Remi, :yo

I was going to ask for a table of Leah's and Rachel's descendants since that would help confirm the results.

Is 2236 a reliable date for the settlement in Egypt? Of course not, but in my humble opinion if we want to really understand secret messages originally put in the Bible, we'll find more truth in chronology than in gematria, which was quite probably unknown.
Sure we find lots of overwhelming gematrias, and I'm not easy to discuss their origin. It might has to do with Jungian synchronicity, something out of time and of usual reason, that one can call divine if one feels so.

Well, I'm not really interested in looking for "secret messages" that people might have put in the Bible. Why would I care about that? My interest in the structure of the Bible originated in my sense that it was a message from God. If it's just a message from long dead humans I don't care enough to look for the patterns.

I've tried to explain the patterns I've seen (which I knew were not deliberately desgined by humans, like the holographs and the Bible Wheel) as possibilty arising from the Jungian collective unconscious. Sort of like a "group dream manifestation" - similar to a mandala that appears in a dream. But I'm not really satisfied with that explanation because the structures are too detailed. It's hard to imagine anything but conscious agent producing them. So now my best guess would be some sort of transcendent conscious agent below the level of divinity which I guess would be classed as "angels." Or perhaps agential components of the universal mind. I don't know - just thinking out loud here.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Remi,

Hi! I was wondering if you could point me to or explain where you derived your chronology dates. (Richard...I know what your thinking) I've seen various listings of the dates, but never the specific ones that you list. I look at the chronology as you do...the numbers telling a story to those who can decipher it. I follow your dates of The Flood (1656), of course, Noah's birth (1056), but I find the following dates when adding the breadcrumb trail:

Some of the most significant dates that I've worked with are the following:

Noah's birth(1056)

The Flood(1656)


------------

Abraham's birth(1948)

Covenant between the Parts(2018)

Isaac's birth(2048)

Jacob's birth(2108)

Jacob enters Egypt(2238)

Moses' Birth(2368)

The Exodus(2448)

Moses' Death(2488)

I realize that the gap between 1656 and 1948 is
DISCLAIMER: Just for the record...and Richard...I don't see the dates as actual years or the people as actual people. I "believe" the years are there as a number to lead to deeper wisdom hidden underneath. So I understand the 12 months/year issue that Richard brought up to me in an earlier post...but that's not at all how I "believe" it was intended to be understood.

Below is a link to a Wikipedia article that I believe is the same years that I get, when manually tabulating them. Any input would be great. Thanks.

And in regards to the 430 years in Egypt...yeah, that's a whole other post.

Hey there RC,

Your understanding of the dates as symbolic signs revealing "secrets" (<-- haha! gotchya) within the text makes sense to me.

But I have the same question about Abraham. I check the All-Knowing One (wikipedia) and found 1948 for his birth too (along with two other wildly different dates if you follow the Seputagint or the Sameritan Torah).

So where'd that 1946 come from?

And as an aside, this is why this kind of study holds little interest to me. Too much uncertainy. And besides, why would I want to waste my time looking for secrets some old farts deliberately hid in the book? If I wanted to do that, I'd go back to reading Finnegans Wake!

Richard

[RC Christian]

Hey there RC,

Your understanding of the dates as symbolic signs revealing "secrets" (<-- haha! gotchya) within the text makes sense to me.

Son 'uvaaaa...did I just read that correctly?!?!?!...
Just kidding...I know what you mean...but finally...maybe I've expressed that correctly, as far as how I see the years (as not real...just numbers).

But I have the same question about Abraham. I check the All-Knowing One (wikipedia) and found 1948 for his birth too (along with two other wildly different dates if you follow the Seputagint or the Sameritan Torah).

So where'd that 1946 come from?

Richard

It must have come from Remi's calculations somewhere between The Flood (1656) and Abraham's Birth (1948). I hope to see a response from Remi showing the numbers.

Modern day Israel makes a proud statement about how Abraham's birth in the Hebrew calendar is the same as their new state, 1948, in the Gregorian calendar. (It is kinda' cool, you gotta admit... )

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Modern day Israel makes a proud statement about how Abraham's birth in the Hebrew calendar is the same as their new state, 1948, in the Gregorian calendar. (It is kinda' cool, you gotta admit... )

Yeah I was gonna mention that. But isn't it a little more strange than cool since you are comparing symbolic apples with literal oranges?