You can assign any random number to any random Hebrew letter
this is not strictly speaking true. hebrew uses a system where numbers are written using hebrew letters rather than arabic numerals. context in the writing would clue you in it was a number and not a word, but 1-9 would be represented by the first 9 letters in the alphabet, the tenth letter would be 10, the elevent was 20, etc.
this is just Gematria- a form of numerology that uses hebrew to do… fancy math.
It’s still very unconvincing, however, since you could do the same thing with with any sufficiently long text. Lord of the rings. Mobby dick. the script for twilight. or a password generator turning out pseudorandom alphanumeric strings.
but the numerical values are not arbitrary; even if the rest of it is bullshit.
Sometimes, though, Gematria was a way of speaking in code. For example. the Book of Revelation, and the mark of the beast. ‘Nero Cesar’, transliterated into hebrew adds up to 666. Interestingly, Revelation was first written in greek, and used the greek version of Nero- that is Neron Ceasar- which totals to 616. 666 comes from the latin translation, which the translator knew The Beast was nero.
why was the author of the Book of Revelation speaking in code? Because speaking openly about a fucking dictator who was persecuting your people was a great way to get offed, so the author used ‘prophetic’ literature to spread current news about what was happening. (For example, the beast’s reign of persucution lasted 42 months, which was how long nero’s campaign of persecution against christians lasted.)
this is not strictly speaking true. hebrew uses a system where numbers are written using hebrew letters rather than arabic numerals. context in the writing would clue you in it was a number and not a word, but 1-9 would be represented by the first 9 letters in the alphabet, the tenth letter would be 10, the elevent was 20, etc.
this is just Gematria- a form of numerology that uses hebrew to do… fancy math.
It’s still very unconvincing, however, since you could do the same thing with with any sufficiently long text. Lord of the rings. Mobby dick. the script for twilight. or a password generator turning out pseudorandom alphanumeric strings.
but the numerical values are not arbitrary; even if the rest of it is bullshit.
Sometimes, though, Gematria was a way of speaking in code. For example. the Book of Revelation, and the mark of the beast. ‘Nero Cesar’, transliterated into hebrew adds up to 666. Interestingly, Revelation was first written in greek, and used the greek version of Nero- that is Neron Ceasar- which totals to 616. 666 comes from the latin translation, which the translator knew The Beast was nero.
why was the author of the Book of Revelation speaking in code? Because speaking openly about a fucking dictator who was persecuting your people was a great way to get offed, so the author used ‘prophetic’ literature to spread current news about what was happening. (For example, the beast’s reign of persucution lasted 42 months, which was how long nero’s campaign of persecution against christians lasted.)