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Troubling Gematria "Coincidence": "God is love"/ "God is love"

LAGoff

Member
The only place where I see the NT in the OT is the fact that the keystone verse of the OT is "God is one" and the keystone verse in the NT is "God is love". Both one and love add up to 13 in Hebrew (one/echad = 13; love/ahava = 13). The implication is that the OT without the NT is incomplete. God is one and God is love go together to make up one of the key verses in the NT Mark 12:29-31, which is basically a concretization of God is one/God is love. Unless this gematria is just a coincidence, I find this very troubling to my Judaism. I would appreciate any comments.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
The only place where I see the NT in the OT is the fact that the keystone verse of the OT is "God is one" and the keystone verse in the NT is "God is love". Both one and love add up to 13 in Hebrew (one/echad = 13; love/ahava = 13). The implication is that the OT without the NT is incomplete. God is one and God is love go together to make up one of the key verses in the NT Mark 12:29-31, which is basically a concretization of God is one/God is love. Unless this gematria is just a coincidence, I find this very troubling to my Judaism. I would appreciate any comments.
You are troubled by the fact that two words happen to have the same value in one system of gematria? You DO realize that there are loads of other words with the same value, right? (da'aga, worry; gei, valley; chagav, locust; agadah, story and others).
That "cornerstone verse" in the Torah is no such thing. The phrase "ykvk echad" appears twice in the entire of tanach, both in a larger verse with other qualifying statements.
And the "implication" that something is "incomplete" because there is another phrase elsewhere? What does that even mean? Your insistence that the quote from Mark has any value undercuts any claim you have to being any sort of educated and aware Jew.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
The only place where I see the NT in the OT is the fact that the keystone verse of the OT is "God is one" and the keystone verse in the NT is "God is love". Both one and love add up to 13 in Hebrew (one/echad = 13; love/ahava = 13). The implication is that the OT without the NT is incomplete. God is one and God is love go together to make up one of the key verses in the NT Mark 12:29-31, which is basically a concretization of God is one/God is love. Unless this gematria is just a coincidence, I find this very troubling to my Judaism. I would appreciate any comments.

You see, what I'm worried about is that the words of cornerstone verses in the Quran for the Takbir (G-d is Great) like Quran 31:30 "G-d is Most High and Most Great (אללה הו אלעלי אלכביר)" is exactly the same gematria as the words in Numbers 14:43 where Moses tells the Jews "Because G-d is not among you (כי אין יקוק בקרבכם)". The implication is that Islam's claim that G-d is with Muslims and not with us is too clear! Unless this gematria is just a coincidence, I find this very troubling to my Judaism.

How can you feel relaxed about that?!?
 

Flankerl

Well-Known Member
People caring about numerical values of words are among the weirdest people on this planet. Probably weirder than the Flat/Hollow Earth people.
At least they are afraid of the Lizard people, a quite realistic threat.
 

Akivah

Well-Known Member
The only place where I see the NT in the OT is the fact that the keystone verse of the OT is "God is one" and the keystone verse in the NT is "God is love".

At least one bright spot in this. You stated that this is the only place that you see the xian bible in the Tanakh. Since we've now explained why this is meaningless, you should now know that the xian bible doesn't appear anywhere in the Tanakh.
 

LAGoff

Member
The OT says to love your neighbor and God. Fine. This is love as a verb. But the NT 'totalizes' it by making it a noun: God is love- Mark. This is threatening to me because it seems to me that this is what we (i.e. most humans) really worship (i.e. 'LUV' / All you need is Love). So the gematria synchronicity (I can't see it as a coincidence because it's a 1 in 1600 chance) in these MOST key verses (they tell you what God is!) hits home to me like a snake in the Garden BECAUSE the NT puts this thing we all REALLY worship at the #1 position (as a noun: 'God is Love'- Mark) and the OT puts love in the #2 position (as a verb). I would like to see myself as one who only worships God, but when I am really honest with myself, I am just a Beatle, and thus a Christian, and thus in essence an idolater.

Oh, I forgot to add that Hashem's name adds up to 26. So echad ("God is one"- the calling card of OT/Judaism) and ahava ("God is love"- the calling card of NT/Christianity) both are 13 and together they equal 26. This is what I mean by a real challenge to my faith because this screams out to me that the OT and the NT are working together to come to some conclusion. And that's what troubles me: that this implies that we need the NT/Christianity to 'conclude' something.
 
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Flankerl

Well-Known Member
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rosends

Well-Known Member
The OT says to love your neighbor and God. Fine. This is love as a verb. But the NT 'totalizes' it by making it a noun: God is love- Mark. This is threatening to me because it seems to me that this is what we (i.e. most humans) really worship (i.e. 'LUV' / All you need is Love). So the gematria synchronicity (I can't see it as a coincidence because it's a 1 in 1600 chance) in these MOST key verses (they tell you what God is!) hits home to me like a snake in the Garden BECAUSE the NT puts this thing we all REALLY worship at the #1 position (as a noun: 'God is Love'- Mark) and the OT puts love in the #2 position (as a verb). I would like to see myself as one who only worships God, but when I am really honest with myself, I am just a Beatle, and thus a Christian, and thus in essence an idolater.

Oh, I forgot to add that Hashem's name adds up to 26. So echad ("God is one"- the calling card of OT/Judaism) and ahava ("God is love"- the calling card of NT/Christianity) both are 13 and together they equal 26. This is what I mean by a real challenge to my faith because this screams out to me that the OT and the NT are working together to come to some conclusion. And that's what troubles me: that this implies that we need the NT/Christianity to 'conclude' something.
You should be reassured then because your fear and feeling of being threatened are all based on inaccuracies!
1. In the Torah, love is a noun and a verb! So you don't need any other text -- the concept is complete without any supplement!
2. The "gematria synchronicity" is not 1 in 1600. The chance that any two words share numerical value can't be computed as odds because distribution of letters and methods of computation create unpredictable variables!
3. These are not "Most" key verses according to Judaism. Therefore they aren't subject to being undermined by other texts!
4. We don't worship love. Apparently the mistake you make is (and this took hours of internet research) confusing the lyrics to a song (there was a group called "The Beatles" and they had a song which included the line "all you need is love") with theologically relevant biblical texts. So since that isn't a true statement, your worries engendered by it are baseless.
4a. I looked up the members of said band and saw no one by your name, so you are not a Beatle! Also, I can't find anything in various reference texts which equates membership in The Beatles with identity as a Christian. Good thing you dodged that.
5. You are worried because Hashem's name adds up to 26. Fortunately, only one of the various labels we use for God adds up to 26! But since there are many names for God, and almost all DON'T add up to 26, any conclusion you note is statistically insignificant. Whew...
6. Your grammatical confusion between the statement "God is one" and "God is love" -- in the former, "one" is a predicate adjective and in the second, "love" is a predicate nominative. Since they are disparate grammatical forms, they cannot supplement each other out of need. At best, they could complement each other ("the president is tall" and "the president is Fred" can approach the same concept "president" in two unrelated ways, but neither needs the other).

Having thusly defused your fears, I have reaffirmed your complete faith in and commitment to modern, Pharisaic Judaism. You have no more questions and concerns and can completely reject all of Christianity and its texts and beliefs. I await your next post, in which you openly and explicitly deny anything and everything Christian as insidious lies and deception.

Praise be!
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
Your initial post has me thinking -- when is God equated to a noun in the Torah? So I did some checking.
I found "Hashem Ish Milchama" -- God IS a man of war. That would be parallel to "God is Love" as a predicate nominative (noun).

So initially, it sees that the gospelized vision completely contradicts the Torah concept of God.

But then I checked the Gematria:
Since the gospels were not written in Hebrew, I had to guess at how the phrase "God is love" would have been translated into Hebrew. Using "Hashem ahava" gave me the number 39 which clearly refers to the 39 forbidden activities on the sabbath. The phrase from the the Torah adds to 434 which is exactly 395 MORE than the gospel wording.

395!

That's like the same 39 but also 5 more, and 5, as we all know is the number of books in the 5 books of the Torah! That CAN'T be a coincidence -- the odds against are 23002 to 1!

This has all shaken my religion to the core -- it seems that the gospels are completing the idea of not working on the sabbath by attesting to the love that God is in the 5 books! Without the Gospel, how could we come to that particular conclusion? Madness I say! Madness!

I mean, work, as we know and worship it (cf "I worship my work" in Pascal's Wager
By Nancy N. Rue, page 195) should be number 2 and God should be number 1 but those two together make 3 which points explicitly to the three progenitors of the Jewish people! And since there were actually more than three, the argument is that it takes 2 to make a thing go right but it takes a village to raise a child!

It is all so clear to me now!
 

LAGoff

Member
God is one (echad=13) in the OT, and God is love (ahava=13) in the NT, and God's name equals 26 (YKVK).
Putting this all together means that what this is telling us is 'one love'.
You may say, "So what"? What's wrong with "one love"?
When Shabat is over I will try to tell you what I find troubling in this seemingly innocuous teaming of the OT and NT.
For starters, it seems be telling us that God is 'one love'.
 

lostwanderingsoul

Well-Known Member
Using the laws of mathematics
if God is one and God is love then love is equal to one. This surely means that one can love oneself and there is no need for a second person to have love. God means for us to only love ourselves. Love of anyone else would break to mathematical law and love would no longer be one. We cannot even love God for then again there woud be two in love instead of one.The key to peace and joy is self-love. Love is one and only one.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
God is one (echad=13) in the OT, and God is love (ahava=13) in the NT, and God's name equals 26 (YKVK).
Putting this all together means that what this is telling us is 'one love'.
You may say, "So what"? What's wrong with "one love"?
When Shabat is over I will try to tell you what I find troubling in this seemingly innocuous teaming of the OT and NT.
For starters, it seems be telling us that God is 'one love'.
You are getting this confused with this
 

RabbiO

הרב יונה בן זכריה
Using the laws of mathematics
if God is one and God is love then love is equal to one. This surely means that one can love oneself and there is no need for a second person to have love. God means for us to only love ourselves. Love of anyone else would break to mathematical law and love would no longer be one. We cannot even love God for then again there would be two in love instead of one.The key to peace and joy is self-love. Love is one and only one.

While recognizing your good intent, I must point out that you have posted in the Judaism DIR in a manner prohibited by the forum rules.
 

LAGoff

Member
At least one bright spot in this. You stated that this is the only place that you see the xian bible in the Tanakh. Since we've now explained why this is meaningless, you should now know that the xian bible doesn't appear anywhere in the Tanakh.

True. I guess I can relax a bit for now.
In order to lessen the impact of the gematria 'coincidence' I showed, I will consider that the NT masterminds felt that "God is one" was incomplete and unsatisfying, so they-- with their obvious knowledge of some Hebrew-- added that "God is love", which is obviously a gematriatic way of saying that the Tora is incomplete and unsatisfying.
So, let's say that these masterminds did just that -- i.e. by saying: "Hey, Judaism is a drag, let's inject a heavy dose of Love (put it into the #1 position) into it- and here: we can co-opt future readers (who know a little Hebrew) into believing that God's name (YKVK=26 = one + love) is about "one love".
 

LAGoff

Member
Also, can you see how this may relate to the Kabala (sefirot, Aba, Eema, Ben, Adam Kadmon, Shekhina)- i.e. how "God is one" is unsatisfying alone to certain Jews?

Perhaps they also 'saw' the gematria that was waiting to be 'filled' with the missing 13 of ahava which would add ('complete') what they might have felt is the missing 13 to the 13 of echad alone.


p.s. I should have added to my OP that 1 John 4:8 is where it states that "God is love"
 
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rosends

Well-Known Member
Also, can you see how this may relate to the Kabala (sefirot, Aba, Eema, Ben, Adam Kadmon, Shekhina)- i.e. how "God is one" is unsatisfying alone to certain Jews?

Perhaps they also 'saw' the gematria that was waiting to be 'filled' with the missing 13 of ahava which would add ('complete') what they might have felt is the missing 13 to the 13 of echad alone.


p.s. I should have added to my OP that 1 John 4:8 is where it states that "God is love"
Well, since there are ten sefirot, you need to find a word which indicates God is ten, right? or you can add in the shechina as a female emanation, plus abba and you get 12, so God is 12. If you add in the original 1, you get 13 so that proves (proves...ha) that God is 13, not love or one, but 13. Uh oh, but if we add in the "one" then we have to add in the "love", right? So God is 14. God is also "Lord." No we are up to 15! God is also truth, and "I am" so that's 17. And isn't God also the word? 18! Shocking gematria which worries me to the core.

See, the existence of these other concepts isn't a contradiction to the idea that God is one. The only "certain Jews" who would find this unsatisfying would be Christians.
 

LAGoff

Member
What comes right after "God is one"? "And you shall love".
This can imply an imperative that you should add the 13 of love to the 13 of one, which implies that "one" without "love" is incomplete (i.e. not 26- God's name).

Dyslexia acting up again: The title of this thread should be God is one / God is love, not God is love / God is love. I'm not advocating God is love (which the doubling of God is love would imply. I am actually AGAINST "God is love".
 
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rosends

Well-Known Member
What comes right after "God is one"? "And you shall love".
This can imply an imperative that you should add the 13 of love to the 13 of one, which implies that "one" without "love" is incomplete (i.e. not 26- God's name).
No, the meaning of the text is that God is one and YOU shall love. This indicates an imperative for us to respond to God's oneness with love. Our relationship with one should be reflected through love. That word is v'ahavta -- it is about us, not about God, and its gematria is 414.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
Also, can you see how this may relate to the Kabala (sefirot, Aba, Eema, Ben, Adam Kadmon, Shekhina)- i.e. how "God is one" is unsatisfying alone to certain Jews?

Perhaps they also 'saw' the gematria that was waiting to be 'filled' with the missing 13 of ahava which would add ('complete') what they might have felt is the missing 13 to the 13 of echad alone.
No, the sefiros are not G-d. We do not gain any knowledge of G-d Himself through the study of the sefiros. Abba, Ima [what you're calling] Ben and the Shekhina are just groupings of various sefiros. Adam Kadmon is a dimension. We don't pray to any of these things and none of these things are G-d. G-d is not Abba. If someone were to pray to the kabbalistic concept of Abba they would be performing idol worship.

There is no reason in the world to add two words together to make 26 as a way of explaining the Tetragrammaton. Choosing "love" is arbitrary. Why not choose "my father (AVI) which also has the numerical value of 13? Avi echad - "my father is one" equals 26. Now we've solved your problem of making random words have the numerical value of 26 and we've done so without having to resort to other religion's texts. Isn't that great?
 

LAGoff

Member
No, the meaning of the text is that God is one and YOU shall love. This indicates an imperative for us to respond to God's oneness with love. Our relationship with one should be reflected through love. That word is v'ahavta -- it is about us, not about God, and its gematria is 414.

Could very well be as you say (although I don't understand what your 414 gematria is referring to). But I'd like to know what I'm to love about this 'oneness'? If I am to love that God is the only God, and therefore the only God who could possibly be truly worshiped, then I can love that; but if I am to love the fact that all is God (i.e.there's nothing other than God), then... I'll have you finish the sentence
 
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