The Creation Triangle
An Introduction to the Mathematical Wonders Placed in Genesis 1.1
Following my introductory post, I’d now like to introduce some of the mathematical wonders enfolded within the Bible, along with the message they embody. Let’s begin at the beginning, with the Hebrew Bible’s first verse.
Hebrew and Greek letters doubled as numerals for counting purposes. Here is the Hebrew system of alphabetic substitution, which was adapted from an earlier Greek system in the 2nd Century BC.
So aleph has value 1, beyt, 2, gimmel 3, etc, down to tav, which has value 400.
These letter numerals could also be summed to give numerical values for words, phrases and Bible verses. If we now apply it to the Hebrew Bible’s first verse (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”) we obtain the following number. [1]
2701, then, is the sum of the numerical values of each letter in the Bible’s seminal verse. The individual word values are also shown, because these will soon become very important.
2701 itself is a remarkable sum for the opening verse, because it is a triangular number. This means that, as with the 15 reds on a snooker table, 2701 counters can be tightly packed to form a pixellated image of a triangle.
This verse was found in its current form long before alphabetic numeration came to the Hebrews, who, being monotheists, would not anyway have wanted to suggest a Triune God! So we are presented here with either a coincidence or an intriguing mystery.
The last two words of Genesis 1.1, “and the earth”, have values of 407 and 296, which sum to 703, which is also a triangular number and one that fits perfectly inside triangle 2701.
Notice that the numbers that created this internal structure came from the verse itself. Genesis 1.1 is like a zip file, packed with geometrically-related numbers.
Another is the outline of triangle 2701, which requires 216 counters and which can be created by subtraction of the middle and final words from the first word [2].
The largest hexagon that can be fitted inside triangle 2701 has 1801 counters. This can also be generated from the opening verse
We can see that the verse contains more information than that conveyed by the words themselves. The Bible is the ‘two-edged sword’ spoken of in Hebrews:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, . . . . (Hebrews. 4.12, NIV)
The ‘second edge’ is the numbers built into the text through this historically-attested numerical substitution system. Since they were largely fixed before the Jews learned of alphabetic substitution from the Greeks, we have prima facie evidence of divine inspiration in the Bible’s opening verse. [3]
But first impressions can be false and conclusions can be too hastily reached, especially when we are considering the most important words in the Judaic and Christian traditions. In my next page I will show further internally-generated structures that should lay to rest any doubts readers may have that these words, although written by men, were inspired by God.
Bill Downie April 2023
The next page is here.
Notes
MT means ‘Masoretic Text’, the source text for the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensis, the version of the Hebrew Bible used by most Jews.
The three words for the calculation and the outline itself are symmetrically positioned and create the number 216 by subtraction, reflecting each other.
Most of the information on this initial page was found by the late Vernon Jenkins.
(http://www.whatabeginning.com), with some additional contributions by myself.