This article contains an analysis of Greek text concerning the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew 1:18-25. Unlike English where we have a set of characters for letters and another set of characters for numbers, Greek uses the same characters for both. Therefore, when any Greek word is written in the New Testament, is also a set of numbers. This is called gematria.

Nevertheless, the analysis of the Greek word patterns is very interesting because so many of the counts are divisible by 7. The question is whether or not this is evidence of divine inspiration. You’ll see what I mean in the table below.

The information for the analysis can be found at

• Vedder, Mark. Ivan Panin’s Numerics in Scripture (Kindle Location 555ff). Unknown. Kindle Edition
• http://www.palmoni.net   Look at the gematria section for reference. What do you think?

Birth of Jesus in Matthew in English

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 19 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 20 “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 21 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 22 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” 23 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 24 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus,” (Matthew 1:18–25).   New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

Birth of Jesus in Matthew in Greek

“Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἡ γένεσις οὕτως ἦν. μνηστευθείσης τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας τῷ Ἰωσήφ, πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτοὺς εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου. 19 Ἰωσὴφ δὲ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, δίκαιος ὢν καὶ μὴ θέλων αὐτὴν δειγματίσαι, ἐβουλήθη λάθρᾳ ἀπολῦσαι αὐτήν. 20 ταῦτα δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐνθυμηθέντος ἰδοὺ ἄγγελος κυρίου κατ̓ ὄναρ ἐφάνη αὐτῷ λέγων· Ἰωσὴφ υἱὸς Δαυίδ, μὴ φοβηθῇς παραλαβεῖν Μαρίαν τὴν γυναῖκα σου· τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματος ἐστιν ἁγίου. 21 τέξεται δὲ υἱόν, καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν· αὐτὸς γὰρ σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν. 22 τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος· 23 ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσουσιν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον μεθ̓ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός. 24 ἐγερθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου ἐποίησεν ὡς προσέταξεν αὐτῷ ὁ ἄγγελος κυρίου καὶ παρέλαβεν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, 25καὶ οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν ἕως οὗ ἔτεκεν υἱόν· καὶ ἐκάλεσεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν,” (Matt. 1:18-25).   Nestle, Erwin, and Paul R. McReynolds. Nestle Aland 26th Edition Greek New Testament with McReynolds English Interlinear. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997.

	Analysis of Greek occurrences of letters, words, and patterns in the birth of Jesus narrative in Matthew
1	Number of words	161 = 23 x 7
2	Number of letters is	896 = 128 x 7
3	The 161 words occur in 105 forms which is	105 = 15 x 7
4	Of those 105 forms the number of verbs is	35 = 5 x 7
5	The gematria value of those 161 words is	65,429 = 9,347 x 7
6	The gematria value of all the letters is	93,394 = 13,342 x 7
7	Six Greek words here are found nowhere else in Matthew. Their gematria is	5,005 = 715 x 7
8	The total letters of those 6 words is	56 = 8 x 7
9	The number of proper names is	7
10	The number of letters in these 7 names is	42 = 6 x 7
11	“Emmanuel” occurs nowhere else in the N.T. Its gematria is	644 = 92 x7
12	When speaking to Joseph, the number of words the angel uses is	77 = 11 x 7
13	The gematria of those 77 words is	21,042 = 3,006 x 7

 

So what do you think? Do you think this is evidence of inspiration or do you think the results are merely coincidental?  If you affirm the latter, then do what I try to do. Try and write a paragraph of equal characteristics. I could not do it. Perhaps you might have better luck.

Greek Gematria, Letters and Numeric Values

I mentioned where the Greek letters are also numbers. This is called gematria. In the table below you will see in rows 5, 6, 7, and 13, that mention gematria. When it says that the value of those 161 words is 65,429, is saying that when all of the letters are added up (Greek letters are also numbers), their value is 65,429, which is 9,347 x 7. Likewise in row six, the gematria of all the letters in that section of Scripture is 93,394, which is 13,342 x 7.

Following is a table that shows the gematria values. This is not some mystical mumbo jumbo. These are actually what the ancient Greek writers used. To them, the same set of characters was used for both letters and numbers and the following table shows the Greek letters and their corresponding numerical value.

 

Gematria Table of Greek letters that are also used as numbers
Greek Letter	Greek Name	English Letter	Numeric Value		Greek Letter	Greek Name	English Letter	Numeric Value
Α, α	alpha	father	1		Ξ,ξ	xi	box	60
B, β	beta	boy	2		O, ο	omikron	off	70
Γ, γ	gamma	god	3		P, π	pi	pet	80
Δ, δ	delta	dog	4		ϟ Ϟ	Coph	rock	90
Ε, ε	epsilon	end	5		Ρ ρ	rho	rat	100
F	Digamma		6		Σ, σ, ς*	sigma	sam (s,V)	200
Z, ζ	zeta	zebra	7		T, τ	tau	test	300
H, η	eta	hey	8		Υ, υ	upsilon	up	400
Θ, θ	theta	thick (q)	9		Φ, φ	phi	phone (f)	500
I, ι	iota	it	10		Χ, χ	chi	bach	600
K, κ	kappa	kit	20		Ψ, ψ	psi	cups (y)	700
Λ, λ	lamda	low	30		Ω, ω	omega	orange (w)	800
M, μ	mu	mike	40		Ϡ	sampsi	sam	900 = sampsi
N, ν	nu	new	50	* means the form of the letter that occurs when it is the last letter of a word.