Acrostics are hidden sequences of letters that spell out words or phrases. These primarily happen by chance. But occasionally, scribes hide these for poetic or other purposes. Today scholars use these to answer questions of biblical authorship, for example, by comparing matching acrostics between pairs of Psalms.
This page shows some of the longer acrostics in the Tanakh. Click the books below to see the shorter ones too. A statistical summary is at the bottom of the page.
The Hebrew Bible contains many thousand acrostics, depending on the length you’re looking for. Here’s the counts for the simple strategies shown in the examples above. Note that the totals differ slightly due to palindromes, and we’re only considering acrostics that are a single word long.
| Length | Starts | Reverse Starts | Ends | Reverse Ends | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 118860 | 118476 | 113105 | 113064 | 463505 |
| 3 | 93161 | 93988 | 63228 | 63088 | 313465 |
| 4 | 30036 | 29669 | 14581 | 14335 | 88621 |
| 5 | 3693 | 3486 | 1439 | 1376 | 9994 |
| 6 | 244 | 198 | 82 | 66 | 590 |
| 7 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 13 |
| 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
We can know that the vast majority are noise due to the similar, though slightly smaller counts found when randomizing the words of each book and applying the same analysis.
| Length | Starts | Reverse Starts | Ends | Reverse Ends | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 117830 | 117616 | 113656 | 113470 | 462572 |
| 3 | 92327 | 92399 | 64421 | 64587 | 313734 |
| 4 | 28626 | 28744 | 15120 | 15295 | 87785 |
| 5 | 3377 | 3270 | 1497 | 1496 | 9640 |
| 6 | 166 | 194 | 60 | 85 | 505 |
| 7 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 13 |
| 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Indeed, from pure math we’d expect the following.
| Length | 95% Confidence Interval | Prediction | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | (385702, 387718) | 386710 | 463505 |
| 3 | (276494, 278302) | 277398 | 313465 |
| 4 | (85003, 86105) | 85554 | 88621 |
| 5 | (9575, 9960) | 9767 | 9994 |
| 6 | (469, 557) | 513 | 590 |
| 7 | (8, 22) | 15 | 13 |
| 8 | (0, 1) | 0.25 | 1 |
| 9 | (0, 0) | 0 | 0 |
A Markov chain gets us even closer to the actual results.
| Length | Prediction | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 463594 | 463505 |
| 3 | 313439 | 313465 |
| 4 | 89452 | 88621 |
| 5 | 10093 | 9994 |
| 6 | 531 | 590 |
| 7 | 16 | 13 |
| 8 | 0 | 1 |
| 9 | 0 | 0 |
These tables are not meant to show that all acrostics are incidental, but that we should set the bar high when ascribing intent. Acrostics are more likely to be intentional based on their length, number, and semantic relevance with the given passage. But whichever exist, we’ve narrowed them down here. Happy searching!
How to cite:
Bousfield, Rachel. . Created by Rachel Bousfield. Other Gospels. (accessed ).
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