The Colel Rule of Gematria

Adding or subtracting the isopsephia value of two words always results in a whole number. A circle however can represent two words - one for the diameter, the other for the circumference. If one measure starts out as a whole number the other word never comes out as an exact whole number because the calculation always involves the value of pi which is an irrational number. The Greeks then applied the Colel Rule of gematria which allows the calculated value to be rounded up or down by one unit.

The Greek word Helios ('hlioV = 318), meaning the “sun,” is a perfect examples of the colel rule in action because a circle with a diameter of 318 units can have a circumference of either 999 or 1000 units depending on the direction of the calculation. When the diameter is 318 units the circumference is 999.0 units but when the circumference is given as 999 units the diameter is 317.99 units which the rule rounds up to 318 units. When the circumference is 1,000 units the diameter is 318.3 units which the rule rounds down to 318 units.

Gematria Verse Diagrams

The gematria value of a word, name, phrase, or a sentence can be made into either straight lines or the circumference of a circle. If you are dealing with a circle in a graph, the calculated number of a cross, diameter, or a circumference could match the gematria value of hundreds of Greek words that a gematria master could then pick and choose from to construct a story. It is completely unreasonable and unnecessary for the colel rule to have a margin of error of just one or two units for verses that could have a gematria value of five to ten thousand units or more. It makes sense that the margin of error be the number of units that equals the width of the finest line that can be drawn with a compass or pen by an expert draftsman on the diagram. By experience, if the gematria value of the verse is within 1 to 2% of the actual value that the diagram calls for, the margin of error is virtually invisible to the naked eye when plotted on a graph.

All the diagrams in this book were drawn using a computerized drafting program accurate to one ten thousandth of a unit. The length of the red lines on the diagrams in the following chapters represent the exact gematria value of the Greek source text. The computer generated drawings appear to make a perfect fit. The very small gaps and overlaps that the red lines make with the Jesus Graph and the various circles only become visible to the naked eye when the drawing is greatly enlarged. If an expert draftsman drew each diagram with a very sharp pencil-lead, the results would be identical to the computer drawing because the fit of the lines in any direction is less than the thickness of the lines used to make the drawing! The computer also calculated each diagram's margin of error from a perfect fit. That data is shown in table form in Appendix B. As anyone can verify, the average margin of error is less than 1%.