Christian Use of Jewish Numerology

7/31/2019 Christian Use of Jewish Numerology

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-1TMSJ 8/ 1 (Spring 1997) 47-59

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF JEWISH N UMEROLOG Y

William VarnerProfessor of Old Testament and Director of IBEX Program

The Master's College

A book called the Zohar emerged during the Middle Ages, giving rise to a Jewish form of mystical speculation known as the "Cabala" and creating stronginterest in the system' s mystical teachings in both Jewish and Christian circles.

During the Renaissance, Pico, Reuchlin, and Ricci led in applying the Zohar's

mystical teachings to the OT in defense of Christian doctrines such at that of theTrinity. The Cabalistic doctrine of emanations provided a solution to the tensionbetween the doctrines of God's transcendence and His immanence. Another exegetical method of the Cabalists was gematria , a system for discovering secret truths from the OT through various techniques of assigning numerical value toletters of the Hebrew alphabet. Christians should resist the temptation of usingCabalistic means for discovering truth from the Bible, because it deviates so widely

from the grammatical-historical method of exegesis.

* * * * *

Around A.D. 1300, a Hebrew book entitled the Zohar begancirculating in Spain and its adjoining coun tries. The Zohar , a Hebrew termfor "brilliance," was basically a mystical commentary on the Torahattr ibuted to the second -centu ry rabbi, Shimon bar Yochai. Late researchhas demonstrated conclusively that the real author was a contemporarySpanish rabbi named Moses de Leon. 1 The philosophical theology of the

Zohar constituted a d ecisive stage in the developm ent of the Jewish form of mystical speculation know n as the "Cabala."

1Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish M ysticism (New York : Schocken , 1961) 156-204.


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48 The Master's Seminary Journal

From the emergence of the Zohar to the rise of the "Has ka la" (theJewish Enlightenment) over four hundred years later, the Cabala 2 was themost influent ial molder of Jewish though t. Although never espoused byall and always opposed by some, this mystical theosophy in attempting toexplain the true relationship between God and creation influenced themind of every Jewish person. It is safe to say that du ring the periodfollowing the Spanish expulsion in 1492, the Zohar ranked next to the Bibleand the Talmu d in spiritual auth ority for the Jewish commu nity.

2I.e., "a m edieval and mod ern system of Jewish theosophy, mysticism, and thaum aturgymarked by belief in creation through emanation and a cipher method of interpretingScriptur e" (10th ed ., Merriam W ebster' s Collegiate Dictionary 158).

Furthermore, Jewish mystical writings did not escape the notice of non-Jewish thinkers. Many Christian theologians ridiculed the Cabala asoccultic and fanciful. At the end of the fifteenth century, how ever, amovement began to develop in certain Renaissance "Christian" circles thatsought to harmonize the doctrines of the Cabala with Christianity.Christian writers attempted to show that the true meaning of Cabalisticmysticism actually p romoted the teaching of Christian d octrines!

The twofold purpose of this essay is to explain the main points of Christian interpretations of the Cabala and to examine the Cabala'sinfluence on some modern evangelical though t.

RENAISSANCE CABALISTS


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The Christian Use of Jewish Nu merology 49

All attempts to discover a Christian interpretation of the Cabalabefore the late fifteenth century have failed . Everyone agrees that thefounder of this appr oach was the Florentine prodigy Giovanni Pico dellaMirandola (1463-94). 3 Pico evidently had a p ortion of Cabalistic literaturetranslated into Latin for him by the convert Samu el ben Nissim Abu lfaraj,later known as Flavius Mithridates. The major source for Pic o' s Cabalisticconclusions was a Bible commentary by Menachem Recanati. 4 Recanati'scommentary was basically a watered-down version of the Zohar , whichitself was a comm entary on th e Pentateuch.

In 1486 Pico displayed 900 theses for public debate in Rome.Included among these were 47 propositions taken directly from Cabalisticsources plus 72 more propositions that represented his own conclusionsfrom his Cabalistic research. Pico himself annou nced that h is work w as"derived from the fundamental ide as of the Hebrew sages, greatlystrengthening the Christian religion." 5 The theses contained the daringclaim that "no science ca n better convince us of the divinity of Jesus Christthan magic and Cabala." 6 Pico, therefore, claimed that h e could p rove thedogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ on the basis of Cabalistic axioms. This sud den discovery of a "secret trad ition" hithertounknown caused a sensation in the Christian intellectual world andarou sed the fierce opposition of ecclesiastical authorities. To defendhimself, Pico composed h is Apologia and ded icated it to Lorenzo d e Medici.This was not sufficient for the authorities, and he was declared guilty of

heresy, but w as cleared after a special app eal had gained the pardon of thepope.

Although tradition views Pico as the founder of "Christian Cabala,"an examination of his "conclusions" reveals a rather incoherent andunsystematic approach to t he subject. He does not discuss the preciseschematization of the sefirot ,7 he equates single terms from one system t oanother (e.g., he makes "night" in the Orphic system the same as En Soph 8

in Cabala), and his suggestions regarding number symbolism are

3Gershom Scholem, Kaballah (New York: Dorset , 1974) 197.

4Scholem ( Kaballah 63) mentions the title of Recanati's work as A ccording to the Path of Truth (Venice, 1523).

5Joseph Leon Blau , The Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance (New York:Columbia University, 1944) 20. 6Ibid.

7Scholem defines the sefirot as "spheres, whole realms of divinity, which underlie theworld of our sense data and wh ich are p resent and active in all that exists" ( Major Trends11).

8Literally translated as "The One Without End," En Soph (also spelled En Sof ) is thetechnical Cabalistic title for God.


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inconsistent and haph azard . Pico's successors had to clarify andsystematize his original suggestions.

John Reuchlin (1455-1522) is known in Jewish and Christian historyfor his eloquent defense of Hebrew literature against Pfefforkorn and theDominicans. To Reuchlin himself, how ever, those contribut ions wereph ases of his interest in the Cabala. Althou gh Reuchlin cited Pico as hisinspiration, the Jewish cabalist Joseph Gikatilla ( Shaare Orah 9) was th esource for his knowledge of Cabala. Reuchlin's work De Arte Cabalistica 10

(1517), reveals a well-thought out theoretical approach building on andextend ing Pico's scattered ideas. Reuchlin's main contribution was a seriesof bold speculations on the nam es of God w hich "proved" or illustrated th eIncarnation. Hu man history, Reuchlin argued, divides into three periods. 11

In the first, a natur al period, God revealed Himself to the Patriarchsthrough the three-lettered name of "Shaddai" ( ydv ,+s dy). In the period of the Torah, He revealed H imself to Moses through the four-lettered name of the Tetragrammaton ( hwhy , yhwh ). In the period of redem ption Herevealed Himself throu gh five letters: the Tetragrammaton with theaddition of the letter shin , thus spelling "Yehoshuah" ( hvwhy , yhw+s h ) or"Jesus." Thus Reuchlin's arran gement was able to combine the Jewishbelief in th ree ages (that of the Chaos, that of the Torah, and and that of theMessiah) with the tripartite Christian division of a reign of the Father, areign of the Son, and a reign of the Holy Spirit. Whatever be the merits of Reuchlin's interpretations, from his time on, no Christian writer whotouched on Cabalism did so withou t using him as a source. "That theChristian Cabala was at all resp ectable is attributable to the respect inwh ich Reuchlin's work w as held." 12

During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries a wave of conversions to Christianity induced by the Cabala took place among theJews. Certainly the most d istingu ished of these Cabalistic converts wasPaul Ricci, who after his conversion became physician to Maximilian I andin 152 1 became professor of Greek and Hebrew in the University of Pavia. 13 His main work was the lengthy dialogue De Coelesti Agricultara(1541; Eng., "Concerning the Agriculture of the Heavens") in four books.He a lso prod uced a translation of Gikatilla's Shaare Orah . Ricci unified thescattered dogmas of the Christian Cabala into an internally consistentsystem. Elaborate exegetical devices, however, as well as nu mber and

letter permutations did not appear in his work. Ricci's system proceeded 9Gates of Light , circa 1293, mentioned by Scholem, Kaballah 195.

10Johan n Reuchlin, On the Art of the Kabala (New York: Abaris, 1983).

11Ibid., 2.

12Blau, Christian Interpretation of the Cabala 60.

13"Ricius, Paulus," Encyclopedia Judaica (Jeru salem : Keter , 1971) 14:163.


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from Adam's original innocence and knowledge of all ten sefirot, throughthe Fall and its consequence, the loss of knowledge of the three highestsefirot, to the conversion and redemption of man at the second advent of Jesus. The Christian interp retat ion of Cabala reached its apex of theological sophistication in the w ritings of Ricci.

Although many other Christians wrote about the Cabala, continuingto the eighteenth century, these three "founders"Pico, Reuchlin, andRiccilaid the groundwork for all later Christological speculation on theCabala.

IDEAS AND METHOD S

All Cabalistic discussions about the relationship between God andman revolved around the tensio ns created by the doctrines of God'stranscendence and/ or imm anence. 14 Isaiah's concept ion of Deity combinesboth truths in a grap hic way:

For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name isHoly, "I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of thecontrite" (Isa 57:15, NASB).

Isaiah answers the question of whether God is very distant from man(transcendence) or very close to man (imm anence) by stating that the loftyGod is close to the meek. Therefore, the OT notion is clearly one of imman ence. However, und er the influence of Alexand ria (HellenisticJud aism), the notion of transcendence came strong ly to the forefront. Thecontradiction between a transcendent God and an immanent Goddemand ed a resolution. An emanation doctrine seemed to provide a w ayto escape the horns of that dilemma. Philo was a well-known exponent of one type of an emanation theory. The sefirot of Cabalism provid edanother. The sefirot reveal God to the earnest seeker through increasinglyexalted attributes, but they also are intermediaries by means of whichGod's intervention in hu man affairs took place. Therefore, thetranscendent conception of deity held by Jewish Cabalists made it easierfor them to accept the view of God p resented in the NT. It was not d iffic ultto substitute Christ for the sefirot as a means of explaining God's natu re. 15

But how exactly did Christ fit into the sefirot scheme? The tensefirot fell into two d ivisions: an upper three and a lower seven. Theupper three are those most closely associated with En Sof , the ineffableGod. The lower seven are the ones most closely associated w ith the lower

14Scholem, Major Trends 55.

15Christian David Ginsburg, The Kaballah (New York: Macmillan, 1956) 138-44.


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creation, i.e., the world of asiah ("creation"). The first sefir a, the one at thetop of the schematic tree of the sefirot, was Keter, "crown." 16 This was theFathe r. Ricci also associated the name of God, Ehyeh ("I am"), with thissefira. 17 The second , chochmah ("wisdom"), was associated with the Son, theSecond Person of the Trinity. Ricci also associated the d ivine name Yah(hy ) with this sefira. The masculine sefirot on th is side of the schema alsoserved to underscore the identification of chochmah as the Son. The thirdsefira, binah ("un derstanding"), correspond ed to the Spirit of God . Ricciassociated elohim with this sefira and emphasized the femininecharacteristics of that side of the schema. Thus, the upp er three form atriad answ ering to the Holy Trinity. This use of the up per triad of thesefirotic tree to teach the Trinity w as a common denominator among allChristian interp reters of the Cabala. 18

Another exegetical method emp loyed by the Christian Cabalists wasgematria . Since it was believed that Hebrew w as the original language,then the very letters of the language must have contained certain divinemessages for the read ers. One of the Cabalistic bo oks familiar to Pico, et.al., was the Sefer Yetsirah ("Book of Formation"). 19 At its very beginningSefer Yetsirah presents a theory of creation in which the letters play anactive p art:

By means of thirty-two mysterious paths of wisdom (i.e., the twenty twoletters plu s the ten sefirot) did the Lord of hosts ord ain to create His Universe.The twenty two fundamental letters God appointed, established, combined,

weighed, and ch an ged, and through them He formed all things existent anddestined to exist. 20

The term gematria was used in the Midd le Ages to describe all the practicesof numerical equivalencies, transformations, and permutations involvingthe Hebrew letters. In later times three terms d eveloped to describe threedifferent kinds of numerical methods. Gematria is the process of creatingequivalencies from the nu merical values of words. It is based on the factthat many ancient languages used the letters of the alphabet to representnumbers. N otarikon is an acrostic system. The initial or final letters of thewords in a phrase are joined to form a word which is then given occultsignificance. Themurah consists of transposing the letters of a word, orreplacing them with artificial equivalents obtained from one or another of

16Ibid., 89.

17"Ricius, Pau lus" 165.

18Ibid.; Ginsburg , Kaballah 143.

19Latin translation Liber Iezira , ed. John Rittangelius (Amsterd am, 1642).

20Ibid., 1:1.


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a group of anagrams. 21

In his work On the Art of Cabala , Reuchlin furnishes an example of how gematria was emp loyed to affirm Christian doctrine. The Cabalistsconstantly experimented with the divine name YHVH (hwhy ) to produceall kind s of secret "tru ths." The num erical value of the name is forty-two:

yud (10, 6, 4), y (5), vv (6, 6) h (5). From this flowed the forty-two lettername: Ab Elohim Ben Elohim R uach Hakadosh Elohim Shelosha Beachad A chad

Beshelosha , that is, "The Father is Go d , the Son is God, the Holy Spirit isGod; Three in One and One in Three." 22

Another of Reuchlin's "evidences" of the Trinity is in the very firstverse of the Bible. Taking each of the three letters composing the word"created" ( 'rb , br@) as the initial of a separate word results in theexpression b' iwr ,b (bn rw>h nb ), "Son, Spirit, Father." Furth ermore,the word "s to ne" ( b' , @b ) in Ps 118:22 can be divided into "Father, Son" ( ,b b' , @b bn ).23 Such methodology could prove or "illustrate" almost anydoctrine. Those "proofs" for the Messiahship of Jesus bring no hon or toChristianity and reflect bad ly against the one who u ses them as well as theone convinced by them.

In addition to the parallels from the sefirot and the use of gematria ,Christian interpreters of the Cabala have used one other "evangelistic"methodstatements in the Zohar that seemingly imply trinitariansim.Although Pico and other founders did not utilize these statements (due totheir unfamiliarity with the text of the Zohar ), some have taken thefollowing passages as clearly conveying that Jewish Cabalists affirmed theconcept of plu rality within the Godhead .

In commenting on the repetition of the Divine namesYHVH

,Elohenu , and YHVH in Deuteron omy 6:4, the Zohar ic auth or asks,

How can the three Nam es be one? Only through the perception of faith: inthe vision of the Holy Spirit, in the beholding of the hidden eyes alone. Themystery of the audible voice is similar to this, for though it is one yet itconsists of three elementsfirs, air, and wa ter, wh ich have, however, becomeone in the mystery of the voice. Even so it is with the m ystery of the threefoldDivine manifestations de signated by YHVH Elohenu YHVHthree modeswh ich yet form one unity. 24

After citing th is and other Zoh aric passages identifying the sufferingservant of Isaiah 53 with th e Messiah, Ginsburg comm ents,

21Scholem, Major Trends 100.

22Reuchlin, A rt of the Kabala 28.

23Johan n Reuchlin, De Verbo Mirifico (Basel, 1494).

24 Zohar , II, 43b.


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That these opinions favor, to a certain extent, the doctrines of the Trinity andthe Atonement, though not in the orthodox sense, is not only admitted byman y of the Jewish literati wh o are ad verse to the Kabbalah, but by som e of itsfriend s. Indeed , the very fact that so large a num ber of Kabbalists have fromtime to time embraced the Christian faith w ould of itself show tha t t he re mustbe some sort of affinity between the tenets of the respective systems. 25

That an affinity existed between the theosophical beliefs of medievalCabalists and Christianity cannot be reasonably doubtedthat it was theintention of the Cabalists that the affinity justified Trinitarian views isanother matter altogether.

CHRISTIAN CABALISTS TOD AY?

The Cabala does not command the allegiance of most Jews today,but is confined mainly to the Hasidim. Has a remn ant of "ChristianCabalists" likewise survived to the present? One looks in vain for aChristian interpreter who attempts to find evidence of the Trinity in theupper triad of the sefirotic schema, as did Pico and his successors.However, some evangelical writers still employ familiar Cabalistichermeneutical methodology.

At the turn of the twentieth century an Anglican clergyman namedE. W. Bullinger produced some voluminous writings that have influencedmany evangelicals at the beginning of the twenty-first century. His book

Number in Scripture is a thoroug h discussion of the spiritual significance of numbers throughout the Bible. 26 Although containing some very usefulmaterial about the symbolic character of certain num bers such as 3, 7, and40, the book lists over fifty numbers that convey hidden spiritual truth tothe reader! Bullinger, how ever, uses num bers to establish authorship of books of the Bible. Consider the following argu ment for the Paulineauthorship of Hebrews:

The New Testament contains 27 separate books (3 x 3 x 3 or 3 3). Of these 27books, 21 (3 x 7) are Epist les. Of the 21 Epistles of the NT, 14 (2 x 7) are byPaul, and seven by other writers. In this lies an argum ent for the Paulineauth orship of the Epistle to the Hebrew s. Witho u t it the Epistles of Paul are

only thirteen in nu mber, with it they ar e 14 (2 x 7).27

Furtherm ore, Bullinger could not comp rehend how Paul could w rite

25Ginsburg, The Kaballah 142-43.

26E. W. Bullinger, N umber in Scripture (reprint; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1969).

27Ibid., 41.


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thirteen epistles because that n um ber had evil connotations:

As to the significance of thirteen, all are aw are that it ha s come dow n to u s as anumber of ill-omen. Many superstitions cluster around it, and var iousexplanations are current concerning them. Unfortunately, those wh o gobackward s to find a reason seldom go back far enough . The pop ularexplanations do not, so far as w e are aware, go furth er back than the Apostles.But w e mu st go back to the first occurr ence of the nu mber th irteen in order to

discover the key to its significance. It occurs first in Gen. xiv. 4, where we read`Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and the thirteenth year theyREBELLED.' Hence every occurr ence of the nu mber thirteen , and likewise of every multiple of it, stamps that with which it stands in connection withrebellion, apo st asy, defection, corruption, disintegration, revolution, or somekindred idea. 28

Another writer on "numerics" popular among some evangelicals isIvan Panin. Panin's elaborate system o f "Bible Numerics" actuallyattemp ted to establish the tru e text of the N T. 29

The real problem with this and all methods of gematria is that onereceives from their use just w hat he pu ts into them. The possible nu mberof permutations is endless, particularly when dividing numerical totalsinto factors! For example, consider Pan in's treatment of Gen 1:1:

The numeric value of the first word of this verse is 913; of the last 296; of themiddle, the fourth word, 401; the numeric value of the first, middle and lastwords is thus 1610, or 230 sevens (Feature 7); the numeric value of the first,middle, and last letters of the 28 letters of this verse is 133, or 19 sevens(Feature 8). If now the first and last letters of each of the seven wor ds in th isverse have their num eric va lue placed against them, we have for their num ericvalue 1383, or 199 sevens. 30

Factoring number totals can prove almost anything. The practi ce alsolends itself to omitting anything that d oes not fit a p articular theory. 31

After careful consideration of the gematria techniques emp loyed by

28Ibid., 205.

29Ivan Panin, Bible N umerics (Lond on: Covenan t, 1934); idem, The New Testament fromthe Greek Text as Established by Bible Numerics (Toronto : Clark , Irvine, 1935).

30Ivan Panin, "Bible Nu merics," Things to Come 17 (December 1911):140.

31A more recent example of methodology the same as that of Bullinger and Panin isalong popular lines: a proph etic book by Harold Camping ( 1994? [New York: Vantage,1992]). In it the au thor, by using elaborate and deta iled calculations, conclud ed th at Jesuswou ld return in September 1994. His herm eneu tical meth odology involved extensive useof gematria . For further tr eatmen t of this subject, see Robert Morey's series of articles on"Bible Numer ics," in The Truth Seeker (New por t, Pa., Novem ber 1996Febru ary 1997).


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a nu mber of writers, Davis provides the following excellent evaluation:

The thing that is of special interest, however, is the gross silence in works of the above men concerning the origin of their exegetical systems. No cred it isever given to Pythagoras the Talmudic or Cabalistic literature from whichtheir methodology is derived . In fact, as one reads their works, he isconstantly reminded of the fact that what they are pr op osing is new andun ique. No m an ever saw it un til they brough t it to light. 32

There is no objective basis for contr olling this method ology. The inter preterselects his words, and th e combinations of numbers that he wishes. In otherwor ds 7 might have several combinations (6 + 1, 5 + 2, 4 + 3). How do w eknow which of these combinations the author intended to bear symbolicimplications? This wh ole system is based on a false prem ise. There is noproof that the Hebrews of the Old Testament used their alphabet in this

man ner (i.e., in Gematria). As was p ointed ou t earlier, the Moabite Stone andthe Siloam Inscription have their num bers written out. This is the case in allthe Old Testament. If we should grant that the Hebrews did use theiralphabet in this manner, it has yet to be proven that these tw o factors (i.e.,Gematria and Nu mber Symbolism) are combined in Scriptu re. 33

In addition to bequeathing to modern heirs the gematria technique,the Renaissance Cabalists also left the example of citing Cabalistic writingsto illustrate the teaching of a plur ality in the Godhead . The most recentwork in this vein is one entitled The Great Mystery, or, How Can Three BeOne? by Rabbi Tzvi Nassi (Hirsch Prinz) . The title page describes him asLecturer in H ebrew at O xford University. 34

The volume's p reface clearly delineates the volume's pu rpose:

The humble object of this little book is to prove that our sages of blessedmemory, long before the Christian era, held that there was a plurality in theGodhead. Indeed , this teaching was held for yet 100 years after thedestruction of the second temple, and, as it was contained and declared in theHoly Scriptu res, it w as also set forth in our m ost ancient books, as the readerwill see from quota tions given in these pages. 35

Nassi has written the book as a first-person description of thespiritual search of one "Nathanael" in the volumes of his father's library.

32John Davis, Biblical N umerology (Gran d Rap ids: Baker, 1968) 133.

33Ibid., 148-49.

34Tzvi Nassi, The Great Mystery (Jeru salem: Yanetz Ltd., 1970). Nassi was actually a"Rev. C. W. H. Pauli." See David Cooper, The God of Israel (Los Angeles: Biblical ResearchSociety, 1945) 65.

35Ibid., ii.


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tion. 42

CONCLUSION

The Jewish-Christian discussion will continue to be a lively debate inthe futu re. It is the author's firm contention, however, that it shouldcontinu e apart from any Cabalistic frame of relevance. The Christianshould not consider the emanation doctrine of the Cabala in any form as avalid doctrinal view. Neither the OT nor the NT verifies its tru thfulness.After all, Scriptu re is the on ly reliable means by wh ich to au thenticate sucha concept . The Cabalistic theory of sefirot has far more similarity to themetap hysical world of Gnosticism than to the biblical wor ldview. Notonly does the Bible never mention the sefirot, but it has passages thatclearly contradict the idea that a series of emanations exist between Godand m an: "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God andmen, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5, NASB).

Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasementand the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he h as seen, inflatedwithout cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, fromwhom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints andligaments, grows with a growth which is from God (Col 2:18-19, NASB).

Since the NT deals with some strongly metaphysical matters in itsdiscussion of God, it would be strange indeed if the emanation doctrinewere entirely absent if that w ere the worldv iew of its authors. The sefirotdoctrine is unnecessary for the Christian. The incarnate Son responded toPhilip's requ est to be show n the Father in th is unequ ivocal way, leaving noroom for competing mediatorial beings or spheres:

Jesus said to h im, "Have I been so long w ith you, and yet you hav e not come toknow Me, Philip? He w ho has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say,`Show u s the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and th eFather is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My owninitiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I amin the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the worksthemselves (John 14:9-11, NASB).

The attempts by some Renaissance scholars to give a Christianinterpretation to the Cabala arose from different motivessome wereseeking to establish a true understanding of reality (Pico), while others

42Further critical evaluation of Cabalistic metaphysics is available in John Warwick Montgomery, Principalities and Powers (Minneap olis: Bethany Fellowship, 1973) 87-95.


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were seeking to convert Jewish people to a Christianity that would havemore affinity with their background (Ricci). Although their motives mayhave been sincere, their hermeneutical methodology was so defective thatthey did more harm than good in its imp lementation. Their wr itings serveto warn Christians today about how not to conduct the Jewish-Christiandiscussion. Furthermore, their questionable borrowing of such Cabalistictechniques as gematria should serve as a serious warning to modernevangelical teachers to beware of straying from a grammatical-historicalhermeneutic.

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Christian Use of Jewish Numerology