Pattern 41: Eleven Alphabet-Position Subsets Divisible by 23

Pattern Statement:

Among the 127 possible nonempty subsets of the seven Hebrew alphabet-position word totals in Genesis 1:1, exactly 11 have totals evenly divisible by 23. The number 23 corresponds to the number of chromosome pairs in a typical human cell.

Why this pattern matters

A typical human cell contains 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs. In this calculation, 11 different subsets of the seven alphabet-position word totals produce multiples of 23. Within this theory, 23 is therefore identified as a number associated with DNA.

How this pattern is measured

Convert each Hebrew letter to its position in the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet, and then add the letter positions within each word. The seven resulting word totals are 76, 23, 41, 23, 62, 29, and 44.

Seven word totals have 27 − 1 = 127 possible nonempty subsets. Add the values in every subset and test whether the total is evenly divisible by 23. Exactly 11 subsets pass this test.

Result for Genesis 1:1

1,2,3,4,7 = 207 = 23 × 9
1,2,3,7 = 184 = 23 × 8
1,2,4,5 = 184 = 23 × 8
1,2,5 = 161 = 23 × 7
1,3,4,7 = 184 = 23 × 8
1,3,7 = 161 = 23 × 7
1,4,5 = 161 = 23 × 7
1,5 = 138 = 23 × 6
2 = 23
2,4 = 46 = 23 × 2
4 = 23

Each number identifies a word position in Genesis 1:1. These are all 11 qualifying subsets; none of the other 116 nonempty subsets has a total divisible by 23.

Words 2 and 4 each have an alphabet-position total of exactly 23. Consequently, adding either or both of these words to certain qualifying combinations produces additional multiples of 23. The 11 subsets are therefore mathematically related rather than independent results.

Read detail page for Pattern 41

Statistical caution

The 127 subsets are not independent because they repeatedly use the same seven word totals. This page therefore reports the complete observed result without assigning it a stand-alone probability. Any probability estimate would require a clearly defined control experiment using comparable seven-word passages.

Supporting tables

Hebrew alphabet-position word totals are highlighted in red.

Genesis 1:1
Hebrew WordNumber of Letters
בראשית6
ברא3
אלהימ5
את2
השםימ5
ואת3
הארצ4
Total Words: 7Total Letters: 28
Traditional Hebrew Letter ValuesWord Total
2 200 1 300 10 400 913
2 200 1 203
1 30 5 10 40 86
1 400 401
5 300 40 10 40 395
6 1 400 407
5 1 200 90 296
Verse Value Total2701
Hebrew Alphabet PositionsWord Total
2 20 1 21 10 22 76
2 20 1 23
1 12 5 10 13 41
1 22 23
5 21 13 10 13 62
6 1 22 29
5 1 20 18 44
Verse Position Total298