Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A numerological system used in kabbalah and other forms of Jewish mysticism that assigns numerical values to words based on the fixed numerical values of their letters.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A cabalistic system of Hebrew Biblical interpretation, consisting in the substitution for a word of any other the numerical values of whose letters gave the same sum.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A Kabbalistic method of
interpreting Hebrew words , based onnumerical values ofletters .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Centuries later, Jews would repay the compliment by appropriating the Greek word geometry and creating the word gematria, which is Hebrew for
mental_floss Blog 2009
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According to this ancient system of ciphers (called gematria), the meaning of the Hebrew word for "serpent" matches that of another word: "messiah."
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According to this ancient system of ciphers (called gematria), the meaning of the Hebrew word for "serpent" matches that of another word: "messiah."
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This practice is known as gematria - a way of deciphering information from ancient Hebrew texts based on commonalities in the numerical significance of certain words.
Sorry, wrong number! Ann Althouse 2005
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According to Jewish tradition, there are 903 kinds of death, as is elicited by a Kabbalistic rule called gematria, from the word outlets (Ps.lxviii. 20); the numeric value of the letters of which word is 903.
Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala Various
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The method of allegorical interpretation here used is that species known as gematria, in which the numerical equivalence of letters composing a word is employed as
A Source Book for Ancient Church History Joseph Cullen Ayer 1905
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Elijah applied the biblical analysis technique (still used today) called gematria, where the Hebrew letters are given their appropriate numerical values according to their sequence in the Hebrew alphabet, to the two spellings of the word for "line measure" and found the following.
Recently Uploaded Slideshows sahmozac 2010
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Siblin cuts back and forth between these three narratives in a kind of dazzling verbal counterpoint, and he manages to touch on almost everything there is to know or say about Bach, ranging from the secret messages that Bach may have encoded into his compositions using the kabbalistic number symbolism called gematria to the improvisations of the Bach Remix Competition in Eugene, Ore., where "Bach's little organ fugue was mixed with hip-hop beats and spoken word by competing turntablists."
Articles 2010
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(known as gematria), the Baal HaTurim commentary remarks that the numerical value of the letters that spell "shalom" (376 - shin = 300, lamed = 30, vav = six, and mem = 40) is equivalent to the letters of the name "Esau" (376 - ayin = 70, shin/sin = 300, vav = six).
Articles 2009
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Professor Greg Snyder of Davidson College in the US, one of the leading experts in the study of the ancient practice of number mysticism (known as 'gematria'), says that the number 666 is most likely to refer to Nero Caesar (a Roman emperor who was particularly unpopular with early Christians, thanks to his habit of turning them into candles) because when that name is transliterated into Hebrew and the numerical equivalent of each letter is added up, the total comes to 666.
06.06.06 - A Date with The Devil Sam Jordison 2006
treeseed commented on the word gematria
Gematria (Rabbinic Hebrew גימטריה gēmaṭriy�?, from the Greek γεωμετ�?ία; English since the 17th century) is the numerology of the Hebrew language and Hebrew alphabet, and is used by its proponents to derive meaning or relative relationship. Several forms can be identified: the "revealed" form, which is prevalent in many forms of Rabbinic Judaism, and the "mystical form," a largely Cabbalistic practice. The word itself comes from the Greek word 'geometry' and the concept or system is the same as the Greek isopsephy and the Arabic Ḥis�?b al-Jummal. There is also a gematria of Latin-script languages, dating from the early Middle Ages, and very possibly back into Roman times, too. Recent times have also seen an emergence of new gematrias, though these lack a length of exploration that more ancient versions have seen.
The most common form of gematria is used occasionally in the Talmud and Midrash and elaborately by many post-Talmudic commentators. It involves reading words and sentences as numbers, assigning numerical instead of phonetic value to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. When read as numbers, they can be compared and contrasted with other words.
_Wikipedia
February 6, 2008