Computers in Genesis

The Computer as a Tool in Kabbalah

The purpose of the following experiment was to use a computer and appropriate software in order to establish if the Torah may have any hidden allusions to computers. In this instance it was decided that only the text of the Book of Genesis would be used rather than the entire Torah.  This experiment was prompted in part by sections of the Zohar where it is inferred that both the absolute placing and the relative spacing between words of the Torah are extremely significant.

A Windows based PC was installed with the commercially available ‘CodeFinder’ Bible Code software. For the purpose of this experiment the Koren edition of the Hebrew text of Genesis was loaded into the software and a search performed for the Hebrew word for ‘Computer’, or 'Makhshev'.

A limitation was placed on the search that only terms appearing in the open text would be acceptable as candidates. This meant that the term would have to appear as a consecutive sequence of characters. Notwithstanding this, spanning between words was permitted.

The results of the search were that three instances of were found. The table below presents these three instances along with their position in the text.

Table 1 Occurrences of in Genesis

It can be seen that there are three instances of that occur in Genesis. It is worth taking a note that the theme of ‘threes’ seems to be consistent throughout the results.

The first unusual thing to notice is that the most significant digit starts with a 7, not only this but the consecutive count of sevens matches the instance of the find. The first instance begins with a 7, the second instance begins with 77 and the third with 777.

Initially there appears to be nothing unusual, or out of place, with the first occurrence of at character 7088 within Genesis. However, this number contains many allusions to the other two instances of the word as well as to computers themselves. The number 7088 is now examined in depth.

In our sequence of three results the number seven stands out as being the first digit in each case. What is unusual is that the number of sequential sevens matches the instance of .

7 is also the maximum digit possible in the Octal numbering scheme, which, at one time, was in very popular usage in computing.

7 is also the position of the last character in the verse of the second occurrence of . It will be also shown that a permutation of 7088 alludes to the position of the last character of the third occurrence.

The basic unit of storage in a computer is the Byte. A byte consists of 8 bits each of which represents a single binary value. The most significant bit of a Byte is equal to 2⁷, whereas the least significant bit is equal to 2⁰. Here, in just these two numbers, we have a strong allusion to the range of values of the individual bits that make up a Byte.

It may also be significant here, that 70 is equal to 50 + 20. This is because the next two occurrences of appear in Genesis 50 verse 20.

7088 finishes up with a pair of eights. Eight is the number of bits in a Byte as well as being the base for the Octal numbering scheme. The two eights here give a couple of permutations: 8² = 64 (8*8) or 8*2 = 16 (8+8). Both of these numbers has relevance as shown here.

• 64 is the number of Kilobytes that can be addressed in general 8 bit microprocessors. Such microprocessors usually have an 8 bit Data Bus and a 16 (8+8) bit Address Bus.
• 16 is the character count between the next 2 instances of , it is also the basis for the Hexadecimal numbering scheme which has to a great extent replaced the Octal scheme of the early days of computers. Counting in base sixteen allows a Byte to be divided into 2 Nibbles, allowing a Byte to be represented as 2 Hexadecimal digits with a range of values from 0 to 255. 16 is also the usual width of the Address Bus of 8 bit microprocessors (as mentioned above).

Just as the number 7 indicates the position, in the verse, of the last character of the second occurrence of , so 7+0+8+8 (23) indicates the position of the last character of the third and final occurrence of , within the verse.

77684 is the starting point, in Genesis, of the second occurrence of . It stands out a little, mainly because it is a value 16 less than the third occurrence at 77700. As noted earlier, 16 is the numeric base (Hexadecimal) commonly used when representing single or multiple Byte values.

The second occurrence of has two consecutive 7’s at the first two digits of its starting position. This follows in sequence from the first occurrence, which starts with just a single 7.

This occurrence of starts on the fourth character and ends on the seventh character within the verse.

An 8 bit Byte can hold a value of between 0 to 255 or 256 unique values. In the results number 8 appears three times. It may, therefore, be a little more than coincidence that 768 is exactly equal to 3 * 256. This is the total number of unique numbers that may be represented by the addition of 3 eight bit Bytes.

Adding 7+7+6+8+4 gives a grand total of 32. Not only is 32 a power of 2 but it is in fact 2⁵. In this instance we are looking at the second occurrence of (2) which has a five digit (5) starting position. It may also be worth noting that a second iteration of adding this number results in 5 (7+7+6+8+4 = 32 then 3+2 = 5). This duplicates the 2, for the second iteration, and 5, for the final sum, adding a little bit of redundancy to the figures. 32 also represents the Data Bus width of many third generation microprocessors.

77700 is the starting point, in Genesis, of the third occurrence of . To all intents and purposes it looks very much like an Octal number and it has some interesting features when treated as one.   The number 77700 also has an interesting relationship with the number of Hebrew letters in Genesis.

77700 and the length of Genesis

Using just 77700 and two more permutations of 3 sevens it is possible to arrive at the exact number of letters in Genesis. The formula for this is simply 77700 + (7*7*7) + (7+7+7) = 78064. So by using the 6 sevens in the result, in 2 sets of 3, we can, almost trivially, derive the number of Hebrew letters within the text of Genesis given the starting location of the third occurrence of .

In keeping with the previous two results we see the number of sevens equaling the instance of the term. Also if we take the liberty of prepending the 777 with a number 1, since the instance is within Genesis (the first book of the Torah), we end up with an Octal number of 1777. This number is equivalent to the decimal number of 1023 this, in itself, being the maximum value that can be represented in a 10 digit binary number. Since numbering starts at 0 this gives us a total number of 1024 possible unique values. In fact 1024 is the unit actually used for the Kilobyte, rather than the 1000 generally used for other forms of measurement. Also worthy of note here is that this and the previous occurrence of are both in Genesis 50 verse 20. When we multiply 50 by 20 we get 1000, however when we add in the location of the last character of within the verse we get 1023, this being the last possible value with the Kilobyte boundary. It is also the last letter of the last occurrence of within Genesis.

Obviously 2 zeros wouldn’t exist in isolation. If taken as the last two digits in an Octal string they would denote the value is 64 times that which it would have been had not the zeros been there. This fits in with the above quite nicely when we consider that many 8 bit processors have a 64 Kilobyte addressing range. In fact if we borrow, or assume, the 1 as above then 100 Octal is equal to 64 decimal. This assuming a 1 is nothing unusual in computers, the standard for binary representation of floating point numbers always assumes a binary 1 as the most significant bit of the mantissa.

The Hebrew word for computer, , has a Gematria value of 350. When the start character position of the third occurrence is divided by this value we end up with 222 (77700/350 = 222). Internally a computer works with Binary values, where Binary represents numbers to the base 2. Genesis has three occurrences of , with maybe this value of 222 re-iterating the fact that there are 3 mentions of computers, which are in themselves tied to numeric base 2 operation.

One thing that stands out here is that 50*20 is equal to 1000, usually denoted as Kilo in units of measurement. The computer also uses Kilo in the context of KiloByte, although, as discussed above, the Kilo in this instance is equal to 1024 and, since computer numbering starts at 0, 1023 actually represents the 1024^th number in sequence. Also, as mentioned previously, the last character if the last occurrence of is the 23^rd character of the verse, heavily alluding to the correction factor between the normal and computer based values for ‘Kilo’.

Note also the two occurrences of in the one verse, alluding once more to a Binary or base 2 system of counting.

The text of Genesis 50:20 can certainly be read as applying to a computer. Computers have many uses ranging from the guidance of weapons of mass destruction to life saving medical imaging, depending on whether it is wished to use them in the destruction or in the saving of human life. Man uses the computer for both good and bad, perhaps this verse is alluding to the fact that we should continue to investigate life saving rather than life destroying aspects of computer controlled devices.

It seems that there is a lot of evidence that the three instances of are in Genesis by design rather than accident.  Not only that, but it would seem that there is a strong allusion to the basic units of measurement and the numerical bases currently in use in computing.   Furthermore, it would also seem as though these occurrences are carefully placed in order to provide a strong clue to the actual number of characters within the text of Genesis.  In short it would seem that the three occurrences of the wordact as a part of what would be called a 'Checksum' in computer terminology.  Checksums are used, in general, to verify the integrity of computer files.

There has also been, over the past few years, a lot of discussion as to whether the text of Genesis has survived the test of time since being passed down to Moses nearly 3,500 years ago. I think that, at least, this paper shows significant indications that the text region between characters 7088 and 77703 has survived intact, this is just over 90% of the text.  The fact that the number 7088 also seems to be significant may allude to the fact that all of Genesis, to at least character 77703, may also survived intact - this is 99.53% of the text and encompasses all but the last 361 characters.   If, however, the derived formula of 77700 + (7*7*7) + (7+7+7) has any basis, then the text of Genesis can be said to have survived 100% intact, at least as regards its length and the three placements of .