Biblical numerology Rev Mervin Stoddart Neither the Catholic Canon of 73 books nor the 66 books of the Protestant Bible contains a single scriptural command or encouragement for Christian believers to practise biblical numerology. The 27 New Testament books (identical in both major canons) certainly do not encourage followers of the Christ to participate in any form of numerology. Overall, the biblical verdict concerning numerology seems to be that believers should shy away from it since it borders on the occult, witchcraft, and necromancy. Numbers is a book of the Bible, but only because compilers of the ancient Greek canon (the Septuagint or LXX) chose to name it Arithmoi (meaning numbers) and the Latin Vulgate followed suit with the name Liber Numeri (Book of Numbers). These "numbers" clearly refer to the two censuses of the Children of Israel taken in chapters 1 and 26, respectively. Even so, the Hebrew Bible named the book by its opening word Wayyedabber (meaning, "And He said"), although Jewish scholars preferred to call the book by its fifth word Bemidbar, meaning "In the wilderness". Numbers does not teach numerology but outlines the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness that Israel suffered because of disobedience. It also shows God's mercy in preserving and providing for their needs throughout the wanderings. Many numbers are used repeatedly in the Bible, thus giving an emerging pattern suggesting that they have divine significance. However, there is not a single scriptural statement saying that God honoured those numbers and so intended for believers to attach significance to them. When God declared the seventh day holy, he was honouring the day of rest and not the number 7. Fact is, if the several hundred mentions of the word "seven" in Scripture should be examined carefully, there are numerous times when it refers to terrible things like plagues, famines, ungodly end-time rulers, and so on, not just to positive things like angels, churches and spirits of God. This fact holds true for other biblical numbers often regarded as numbers of perfection, such as number 3, number 10, number 12 and number 40. Number 3 sometimes referred to temptations; number 10 at times denoted plagues; number 12 was once the number of pieces in which a woman's body was slashed (Judges 19:29); and number 40 at times showed years of wanderings. Biblical numerology, therefore, is strictly speculation and can hardly pass the usual criteria for sound hermeneutics and proper exegesis of Scripture. A special case is that of the number 3 which denotes the Trinity or Godhead. Those who say 3 is the number of divine perfection must remember that God honours unity more than trinity. He even commands: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Apparently, compilers of the King James Version of Scripture got so carried away with the Trinity concept that they interpolated 1 John 5:7 which proved the Trinity, but which is now known to be absent from most credible original scriptural manuscripts and might have been a marginal notation. Extreme caution must be used when asserting divine authentication for any numerological lesson from the Bible. Various would-be numerologists have claimed to see divine significance in practically every number mentioned in Scripture. They forget that numbers are a major part of God's creation and as Pythagoras, Archimedes, Fibonacci and others have shown, mathematics is a major scientific principle that governs life in our universe. This leads us to consider how some numbers came to be used so repeatedly in the Bible. Biblical numerologists will claim that God intended for those numbers to be meaningful. Some go further and teach that certain numbers should be used for good fortune and seen as divine digits. But it could be that some biblical numbers were used repeatedly by coincidence or because they fitted into the cultural Sitz im Leben of Bible times. The fact that in the New Testament Jesus chose 12 disciples might relate to the 12 Old Testament tribes of Israel. Both sets of 12 converge in the Revelation but no effort is there made to give magical significance to the number 12, even when 12 times 12 thousand witnesses were featured in that book. Apparently, Jesus had more than 12 disciples since 120 of them were found in the Upper Room in Acts. Also, among the 12 disciples who were called apostles, one (Judas Iscariot) was a demon, as noted by the Christ in John 6:70. Hence, after Judas was demised, the 12 came to be called "The Eleven" in six different references, including Mark 16:14 and Acts 2:14. Later, with the choosing of Mathias and the addition of Paul, there were 13 apostles such that scholars differ as to whether Paul or Mathias will have their name inscribed on Heaven's gates, as per Revelation 21:14. Of course, the NT teaches that other apostles were given to the church by the Holy Spirit. Another source of repeated numbers in Scripture could be the work of redactors or scribes who collected the writings and edited them throughout the years until they were canonised. Seemingly, the redactors of the Apocalypse deliberately used numbers symbolically. And even if those scribes did not deliberately play up some numbers, modern interpreters have certainly done so. Aspects of biblical numerology as presented by some writers approach silliness, especially when significance is attached to the number of the verses and when various methods are used to add up people's name to the well-feared 666 mark of the beast. One numerologist even went as far as saying that 6 must be the number of man because 6 x 6 = 36 and 36 + 35 + 34 + 33 +.3 + 2 + 1 = 666. Numbers can be made to do wonders, and one wonders where biblical numerologists will stop in seeking to attach divine or magical significance to numbers. Perhaps the only Numbers in the Bible which must be studied carefully is the book with that name. But I end here with 999 words.