Q&A: Connections Between Physical Constants and Corresponding Gematria Values
Connections Between Physical Constants and Corresponding Gematria Values
Question
I wanted to ask about Professor Haim Shore’s book, Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew. In his book he demonstrates a number of surprising phenomena that show a connection between physical constants such as the length of a day/month/year and the logarithmic ratios of the corresponding gematria values of the words day/moon/year. The same phenomenon is also demonstrated regarding the ratio between the radii of the sun/moon/Earth and the corresponding gematria values, and regarding the relationship between the wavelengths of different colors in the Bible. A summary of these relationships is shown at this link (a short four-page article — what matters there mainly are the tables). In his book he also mentions that the word pregnancy = 271 in gematria corresponds to the length of human pregnancy in days (273 days), along with many other examples. My question is whether, in your opinion, it really does seem that there is a non-coincidental connection here between the gematria values of words in Hebrew and the corresponding physical constants. Another question: let us assume for the sake of discussion that there really is a non-coincidental connection — can any conclusions be drawn from that connection? And if so, which ones?
Answer
Someone already sent me this once, and I remember that I didn’t agree. I haven’t gone back and looked at it again now, so I’ll write only general comments.
First, in my opinion there is no proof that there is a connection. To check this systematically, one would have to go through all the numerical constants and all the words and see in how many of them there is a connection and how clear it is (271 versus 273 is a problematic connection. Especially since in the time of the Sages they also thought there was a seven-month pregnancy). To choose fitting examples ad hoc is problematic. After that, this should be compared to other languages and we should see what comes out.
Second, it is well known that logarithms always help fit values, because the logarithmic function softens the sensitivity to the independent variable. After all, a small difference in the logarithmic value is a huge difference in the actual values (for example, a value multiplied by 10 adds only 0.3 to the base-10 logarithm). That is how universal laws were constructed such that the ratios of the paths of the stars match every possible ratio on earth (I don’t remember the name of the Dane who found this). There are universal power exponents that do not say very much.
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Questioner:
If we assume there was a non-coincidental connection, what conclusions would you derive from such a connection, if any?
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Rabbi:
If the connection were statistically significant, I would conclude from this that whoever wrote the Torah intended it. By the way, this does not prove very much about the writer’s abilities, since I too could do this. Assuming I am constructing the language and the values of the letters, there is no great problem in constructing words that will match their values in this sense. So it doesn’t sound very important to me.
If those values were not known at the time the text was written, that would change the picture, because it would mean that he had knowledge beyond what existed in the world at that time.