Biblical Numerology

Question

Dear Rabbi,

Do numbers have anything to do with the existence, or preexistence of the holy Bible and with the prediction of the end of time? Why aren't the Kabbalah or any of the Yesod "Tree of Life" books included or at least considered to be part of our King James Version edition of the Bible? What sets that testimony apart from all the other so called "scriptures"? It seems very apparent that the Tetragrammaton is a big part of whom and what God really is. The four elements of the earth are the very center of all that God would seem to need to even come into existence. Or did God just always exist? The Catholic Bible contains additional books that I am told are not really "qualified" or "admissible" in the original Bible. When was the first Bible printed? Where the first tablets ever lost, and if so, were they ever found and by whom?

Answer

1) Kabbalah relies upon a considerable amount of numerology. I am not acquainted with it, and do not analyze the influence of numbers on the Bible and the end of time. As a matter of fact, the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97b) and Maimonides (Book of Kings 12: 2) were adamant that people should refrain from delving into these matters Those times when Jews counted on something happening at a 'prescribed' time which in fact did not come to pass, it created a great deal of disillusionment and unrest. This is the mainstream opinion in Rabbinic Judaism, though some chose to act otherwise.

2) The Hebrew Biblical cannon was closed some time during the third century B.C.E. Therefore neither Christian sources nor Kabbalistic texts, which came into existence after that time, could be included. Even later Jewish texts such as the Maccabees, Eclesiasticus (Ben Sira) or Judith could not be included either. The Talmud includes discussions on which books were included and why. The particular content of the books was also a consideration.

3) The four elements (which are the basis of medieval thought and not part of a modern scientific approach) had to be created by God. They couldn't preexist Him, though He could have created them before the creation of the world. (The traditional approach is that the world was created ex nihilo. However a minority opinion accepted the idea that eternal matter preexisted the creation of the world. Theologically it would be impossible to accept it preexisted God, who is ontologically different from any creature, which is why the letters that comprise the Tetragrammaton are those of the verb "to be").

4) The first Bible was printed by Johannes Guttenberg in the mid fifteenth century (probably between 1453 and 1456).

5) King Solomon kept the first tablets in the Ark of the Covenant. According to the Talmud, King Josiah, foreseeing the destruction of the Temple, hid the Holy Ark with the broken tablets in order to guard them against desecration at the hands of the enemy (Yoma 52b). We have no historical data about the location of those tablets.

I hope this is a satisfactory answer for you.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Diana Villa
September 1, 2004