# Cool Math Thing in the Bible **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 4, 2025, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847 "2025-05-04T02:38:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/21 "2025-05-05T12:32:01Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Sometimes the Bible is just weird like that. The Bible may or may not be weird, but sophomoric scholars surely are. A lot of bullshit, gematric and otherwise, over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/22 "2025-05-05T16:27:06Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The OP is claiming that pi was really known to 3.1415… and that this was hidden in the bible. But you can find just about whatever you want using gematria (converting Hebrew letters to numbers). You can search for your own favorite numbers here: To be clear, I’m not “claiming” anything, I’m just sharing this thing that I thought was really cool. If it’s nothing more than an example of the human ability to find patterns in random data, it’s a remarkably impressive example IMO. If you want to insist that it’s no more interesting than the sort of “insights” you can easily come up with by applying gematria to any random verse, or than whatever the hell “Pearls of Wisdom” dude is doing, I’m not arguing. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/23 "2025-05-05T16:35:16Z")
Shame the thread title wasn’t “Cool numerological thing in one translation in one language of one version of the bible.” ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/24 "2025-05-05T17:03:58Z")
It’s not a translation. I’m reading from the actual Hebrew text, which all scholars agree hasn’t changed in thousands of years. Shame you can’t put “Bible” in a thread title without a bunch of ignorami rushing in to threadshit. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/25 "2025-05-05T18:55:15Z")
Hebrew has things like a grammatically singular noun meaning a collective and vice versa. The question is what numerological/linguistic or other scholarly discussion is legitimate and what is bullshit (remember the Bible Code?) Comments about a singular frog literally meaning one frog strike me as possibly cutesy fanciful commentary (of the type people engage in to this day) rather than bullshit, but I cannot weigh in on this not having read the Talmudic commentary in question. The way to tell is to examine the reasoning behind it, which brings us back to the texts in question not being mathematics textbooks; people have used rules of thumb before the exact value of pi was calculated to some precision. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/26 "2025-05-05T19:17:51Z")
Moderating: > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Shame you can’t put “Bible” in a thread title without a bunch of ignorami rushing in to threadshit. This is attacking posters. If you have issues with thread shits, please report them. Don’t insult other posters. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/27 "2025-05-05T19:27:42Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > To be clear, I’m not “claiming” anything, I’m just sharing this thing that I thought was really cool. If it’s nothing more than an example of the human ability to find patterns in random data, it’s a remarkably impressive example IMO. Sure, it’s a cute coincidence. There’s just no need for an “if.” The authors of the bible didn’t have access to a precise calculation for pi a millenium before anyone else did. And the passage you cite was written before any system of Hebrew gematria was known to have existed. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/28 "2025-05-05T23:29:41Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > It’s just all pure coincidence. Start with a gigantic list of numbers and you can find whatever you want. Especially if you are allowed to make arbitrary changes like multiplying by 3 or adding/removing letters, and so on. Exactly. Look at the so-called Bible Code, which is a steaming pile of gibberish that too many people took seriously, proving that the Internet didn’t change behaviors, it merely spread them more widely. Martin Gardner, in his Scientific American column many decades ago, invented a character called [Dr. Matrix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Joshua_Matrix) who would mockingly spew reams of similar idiocy based on numerology. Hilarious and irrefutable claims ensued. There is nothing at all “cool” about such finds. They simply feed into peoples’ paranoia that much of reality is deliberately hidden from us, but the chosen few know the real truth. Society is being eaten from within by such groups from sovereign citizens to QAnon. Please don’t legitimize their harm by making the equivalent seem “cool.” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/29 "2025-05-05T23:43:42Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > ignorami Ignoramuses. Or ignoramapodes, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847/30 "2025-05-05T23:58:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Look at the so-called Bible Code, which is a steaming pile of gibberish that too many people took seriously, proving that the Internet didn’t change behaviors, it merely spread them more widely. Sort of ironic that the “this is from the original Hebrew version” makes the claim _more_ dubious, since they didn’t have access to the numeric conversions (let alone a precise value of pi) when it was written. A later translation could conceivably contain some embedded message, based on one of the numerous letter-\>number conversion tables that popped up over the centuries for various alphabets. Of course, the more likely explanation is still just coincidence. But it’s at least possible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-math-thing-in-the-bible/1017847.md?page=1)