Loading...QUESTION:
Listening to your Great Courses lesson on Greatest Controversies: you say Alpha and Omega adds up to 801. How? Your lessons also refer to the meaning of 666, etc. Could you post something sometime about how the Greek alphabet was used numerically? I get Alpha as 1, but Omega as 800? Some lessons on Biblical numerology would be interesting.
RESPONSE
Ah, good question! And the answer is not one that is widely known. So it works like this.
In English, we have different alphabetic and numerical systems. That is to say, we use the roman alphabet (a b c d… etc.) but arabic numerals (1 2 3 4 … etc.). Sometimes we use roman numerals (LXIV; CVII; etc.), but only in rare instances when we’re trying to confuse one another.
Most ancient languages…
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I find it annoying enough we use Roman numerals to enumerate Super Bowls, but at least it isn’t Greek.
I realize Dr Ehrman knows all of this, but if I could be forgiven adding a couple additional footnotes since the original question mentioned the “meaning of 666”.
First, among many modern writers about the “End Times” much is made of the sequence of digits “six-six-six” (for example, the number of letters in an individual’s three names,etc).
However, as is clear from the discussion above, the number “666” was not written in Greek by repeating the digit “6” three times; rather it was written with three completely separate symbols: i.e [six-hundred]-[sixty]-[six].
Second, perhaps more importantly. in virtually all manuscripts of the NT that contain Rev 13:18 (at least according to the apparatus in my copies of the USB and Nestle-Aland) the number was not written with digits, but rather it was written out “in full” (for example “six hundred and sixty”.)
(Not to get too far off-topic, we’ll set aside those manuscripts which record different numbers. 😉 )
[Of course, that should read “(for example ‘six hundred sixty and six’)”.]
In Hollywood, τμζ is the paparazzi.
Wow. I wonder if doing math with this kind of numerical system would be a bit more tedious than our way of numbering, and if it was less concise in the layout… particularly lengthier problems to be worked. I’d assume among all of the more mundane scraps that have been found over the years, someone’s math work must have been found by now.
You know, I have no idea how they did multiplication or division! I think I’ll ask around.
This sure is interesting. Will be looking forward to more. Thanks Bart.
Since I have completed two of Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson’s Great Courses, and found them to be very helpful, I was very interested in his recent review of “How Jesus Became God” that appeared on the Commonwealth website on 1/26/15. He seems to be saying that the truth of Christianity depends on personal experience rather than on verifiable facts. Since one cannot verify/validate another’s personal experience, and since different people can have personal experiences leading to different conclusions, I found Dr. Johnson’s conclusions problematic. Do you have any comments on his review?
I have no quarrel with his personal experiences. But my book wasn’t about the truth of Christianity. It’s odd that anyone would think that it was.
Great topic! I’ve always wondered about this too, but never took the time to look it up. How did they pronounce their numbers? We call 347 “three hundred and forty seven” or something similar. Did they call it “tau mu zeta”? Or, if the number in question made an actual word did they call it the word? Seems like that could make for some interesting additions to numerology.
They usually gave the “words” for the numbers instead of saying the names of the letters. (So “ten” instead of “iota”)
Wow, thats interesting, thanks for the incite.
Have you heard about this? Bob Price wants to debate you! I hope it happens! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7STpg3MiL0
Ha! News to me!
I’m sorry someone extinguished the lives of of North Carolina University students Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21 and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19 for no reason. My condolences Dr. Ehrman.
It is absolutely unbelievable. But I’m afraid there *was* a reason. And it was an unbelievably ignorant and hateful one….
For anyone who is interested, the Story Corp interview this morning (2/13) on NPR was between one of the women who was shot and a woman who taught the woman and her husband when they were in elementary school. It is definitely worth listening to. Very touching! I believe NPR archives these on their website.
For future reference, you can copy and paste characters if you find them on the web. I found digamma, koppa, and sampi on wikipedia, and I don’t know which forms you wanted, so I’ll give them all. You can copy and paste them from here.
Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ
Ϙ, ϙ as a modern numeral sign: ϟ Ϟ
modern: ϡ; ancient shapes: Ͳ, Ͳ