The Genesis Wheel: & other hermeneutical essays.

I’m gearing up for the release of my new book at the moment.  As an independent author this means I’m sorting out last minute cover issues with the paperback, and looking up journalists to bother with my press releases.  I’ve also sent in a query to Amazon.com asking why (why on earth?) have they listed it under “Christian Books and Bibles?”  Sure, I demonstrate how the Christians copied biblical gematria from the Jews, but apart from a few paragraphs to correct an old misconception that it was the other way on, it’s definitely not a Christian book.  The listing under the Amazon.co.uk site is a little better.  There its under the “Israel and Palestine” category, but that’s still not quite right.

The book is about the use of gematria in the Tanakh; but not just any type of gematria.  Its gematria discovered on the paths and the palaces of the Merkabah, which I show most probably originated at a time when there was not a lot of difference between ancient Israelites and the Canaanites.  It has some features that are highly cogent with the Ba’al cycle legends from Ugarit (now Northern Syria).  In the book I make a special study of Genesis 1 & 2, and I show how every line of those 2 chapters relates to the Seven Palaces through gematria.  They’re quite the masterpiece of the calculatory art, and there are some really beautiful and clever hebrew compositions in Genesis 1-2.  Would you like an example?

Except from the book…

ז The path of Zayin (7)

Aspect: Creatures of the Earth

24 ויאמר אלהים תוצא הארץ נפש חיה למינה בהמה ורמש וחיתו ארץ למינה ויהי כן׃

25 ויעש אלהים את חית הארץ למינה ואת הבהמה למינה ואת כל רמש האדמה למינהו וירא אלהים כי טוב׃

24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

²⁵ God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

The pictogram for the letter Zayin is thought to be a plow which would have been harnessed to an Ox.

Line 24 is straightforward;

הארץ 296 + נפש 133 + (חיה 23 x 2) + בהמה 52 + ורמש 249 + וחיתו 34 + (ארץ 291 x 2) = 1392.

The gate of the Beth 233 + the gate of the Resh 452 + the gate of the gimel/heh/zayin path 217 = 902, so 1392 – 902 = 490, which is 7 [Zayin] x 70.

Note ~ it’s useful to compare how the scribe uses the marker כל [all] in line 21 but doesn’t use it here with similar calculations. In verse 21 we see the כל just before עוף כנף [birds winged] so we take both words into consideration when it comes to multiplying them by 2.  However as line 24 doesn’t use the כל marker, we only take the noun that is directly before the למינה [multiplication notation] into consideration, regardless of whether the meaning of the word seems attached to the noun prior, so out of וחיתו ארץ  [and beasts of the earth] we only multiply the word ארץ [earth].  The scribal conventions over such matters are very strict, and they needed to be, to be sure there was no room for error.

Line 25:

חית 22 + (הארץ 296 x 2) + (הבהמה 57 x 2) + (רמש האדמה 298 x 2) = 1324

I spent several hours completely perplexed by this sum, but eventually I worked out: 1392 + 1324 = 2716;

2716 =  777 + 777 + 777 + 77 + 77 + 77 + 77 + 77;

or (gimel 3 x 777) + (heh 5 x 77), which are the letters zayin shares on the path before the throne.  It’s a particularly nice example of the skill and ingenuity of the scribe.

Writing can be a lonely business sometimes, so I was really gratified when I released a draft paper featuring about 25% of ‘The Genesis Wheel’ on Academia.edu last month, and it was among the top 0.5% of papers on there!  578 views!  That’s wonderful!  It means the word is finally getting out there and I’m reaching the right people.  I’ve had an increase in visitors to the Shematria calculator too (which now has a new logo).  Shematria is שמטריה “That Umbrella” to Jewish speakers so the the choice was obvious.  It has a value of 267 like מרכבה Merkabah – which is a happy accident.

I’m not at all superstitious about gematria numbers that appear in my life.  I don’t see them as signs from God or portents from the angels and I don’t believe the Masons are murdering people on select dates and leaving gematria calling cards.  There are people who have some very odd ideas about gematria out there however.  I’m hoping this new book of mine will help to lessen the superstition that surrounds gematria and the Torah, after all there’s a big difference between a belief in ‘the spirit’ and rank superstition.