Page 183 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
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162 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
in the right intensities, produce white or nearly white. Among these pairs are cer-
tain yellows and blues, greens and blues, reds and greens, and greens and violets.
Table 12.2 reproduces the mixture of the additive primary colors (RGB ) needed

to produce some perceived colors. This table is a short version of the table given
by Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_list.

The system used in the table is based on the RGB color model, which utilizes an
additive model according to which red, green, and blue light are combined in
various ways to create other colors. In the RGB system, each of the component
colors is given a value (of intensity) on a scale between 0 to 255 (this scale is based
on the fact that in the computer memory each of the RGB components has 8 bits
8
associated, giving 2 or 256 intensities for each of the three primary colors ).
To understand what the entries in the table mean, let us take, for example,
mauve. It is obtained from 153 red, 51 green, and 102 blue. If we wished to con-
vert these intensities into contributing proportions, we would have

mauve = [153(R)+51(G)+102(B)] / (153+51+102) =
= (1/2)(R) + (1/6)(G) + (2/6)(B)

12.2 Hebrew Names for Colors

How does biblical Hebrew relate to color names?
We start by first enumerating what we believe is an exhaustive list of Hebrew

names of colors, most of them as they appear in the biblical text (when color
names do not appear in biblical text but are used in modern Hebrew, we will note
this). Names of colors are given in no particular order.

1
• lavan (white)
2
• chivar (white)—source Aramaic
3
• shesh (white)—frequently interpreted as “white material,” yet it gives
4
rise to numerous white-related words such as yashish (male elderly),
5
6
shoshan (“Lilium,” a white garden fl ower) and shaish (marble, made of
crystal lime)
7
• shachor (black)
8
• kachol (blue)—nonbiblical, but inferred from a related verb
9
• tchelet (blue)—perhaps also pale blue, and also the name of material so
painted
10
11
• adom (red)—the color of dam (blood)