Re: [asa] A case of non-biological ID

I'm not familiar with the Hebrew numeration, but have run across the
Greek version that used the alphabet. There was also a different form
that was more akin to Roman numerals, with a capital pi for five, pente,
for example; delta for deka, ten, etc. Since there were only 24 letters
in the traditional or late alphabet, they brought in some archaic
letters. A small alpha followed by a stroke that looks like an acute
accent indicated one. A small beta, similarly, indicated two. Six was
indicated by the final sigma, or, originally, by the digamma, something
like a capital F. Theta gives nine, with iota as ten. Iota alpha stroke
means 11, etc. This is followed by kappa for 20, with koph, like an o
with a straight descending tail, stuck in for 90. Rho, sigma, tau, etc.,
were the hundreds,which ran out at omega or 800. A stroke below and
before the letter multiplied its value by 1000. I don't recall
encountering a symbol for 900, though I assume there must have been one.
This would allow numbering from 1 to 999,999.

Archemedes I believe antedated this system, and talked of /myrioi/,
myriads or 10,000, times itself twice, giving 10^12.
Dave (ASA)

On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 12:27:36 -0600 "Douglas Hayworth"
<haythere.doug@gmail.com> writes:
I have a dumb question: How are numbers assigned to letters and words?
Does each letter have a number based on its order in the alphabet? Does a
word have a value based merely on summing the component letter values?
Vernon's post sometimes refers to numbers corresponding to letters in a
word or name and sometimes to words ( e.g., Gen 1:1) being represented by
numbers.

I guess that I don't doubt that there is significant numerology in the
Bible, but I think there is a more obvious explanation than supernatural
design: The human authors and editors intentionally embedded those
values. Isn't it widely accepted that Genesis 1 is the later creation
story (vs. Genesis 2) and that much of its framework structure (including
its numerology) were the intentional composition of the Babylonian exile
editors?

Doug

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Received on Wed Jan 9 16:41:13 2008