raindream

Abe, is it fair to presume you have read the bible and cross referenced the history with the known facts? Additionally, I know this is reaching, but have you ever considered the numerical consistancy that is through out the bible. Take for instance the number 12 It is the number for Judgement and we have multiples 144000 etc. or the number 6 or 7 and multiples of these. Did you know that Genesis Chapter 5 lists the Geneolgy from Adam to Noah and if you translate the English names back to hebrew it turns out to read Adam=man and so you wind up with "man appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed god shall come down teaching his death shall bring the despairing rest or comfort. I forget all the names right now but enoch means teacher and Lamech mean lament or despair. Kinda weird how that's a divine message hidden in the bland geneology of genesis chapter 5. If only the Jews had realized in their torah they had the program right there. I have many gems for you. See I never take another mans word for anything. I do my own homework and I had to know is there or isn't there and Abe trust me when i say there is....big time and the problem is it's truth you say you embrace so I'm going to feed you truth and you will be set free and freedom is awesome

ApostateAbe

You must be someone I met last Sunday, or at least someone who goes to Calvary Chapel. It is cool that you joined up. This sub-forum is for talking about activism, not about theological debate. But I think it would be great for you to start a thread on that theme in Biblical Criticism & History, and I will be happy to fully engage the argument.

Stacey Melissa

My real name is Matthew, which I understand means "gift from God." Kind of ironic, considering I no longer believe in any gods, and am a bit of an atheist activist.

I wonder what "Abel" means?

The way I understand it, the Hebrews frequently took common words from their existing religious lexicon and turned them into names for their children. So I wouldn't get too worked up about anything to do with their names.

Nor would I think much of any sort of numerology. The Bible is a big book, and if you look long enough, you can probably find any number you want in it. You can do the same thing with any big book. In a nutshell, that's why numerology is humbug.

ApostateAbe

OK, raindream, your post and mine has been made into a new thread. Welcome to the IIDB.

I have long known about the doctrine that some numbers are more important to God than others. The numbers 7, 12, and 40 especially. I was introduced to it in my Christian school education. Presumably, those numbers are God's favorites, and that is why you see them throughout the Bible.

And you say it is reaching. Yeah, if you are going to say that such a thing is evidence for the Bible being the Word of God, I guess it is. It is a stretch to explain numerical patterns in the Bible by saying that God has favorite numbers. But it is much less of a stretch to explain such a thing through the mythical propagation of numerology. When some numbers seem to have special value in important myths (like creation, the flood, the exodus, or the sons of Abraham), then those same numbers will be propagated in later myths. I never needed to think about it before now, but that explanation seems obvious to me.

ApostateAbe

"Abel" is Hebrew havel, meaning "breath." Please guard your language, because I want raindream to stick around.

post tenebras lux

Hi raindream and welcome to IIDB, I hope you find it interesting here. I'm a bit confused about how you can write the above post and yet have your user profile go 'Basic Beliefs: Neutral'.

Given that Adam is mythical and Noah (and the flood) is likewise mythical, is it really too much of a jump to wonder whether the people who composed that 'bland geneology' knew fine well that the names, when read in order, formed a sentence? :huh:

No more remarkable than that the 'first man' was called Earth/Man (Adam) or that the 'first woman' was called Living One/Life (Eve). It's easy to insert symbolism when you're writing fiction.

Likewise for the numbers found in the bible, with the added note that 'nice' (or symbolic) numbers are often chosen precisely because they have significance. Did Jesus choose 12 disciples because there were 12 tribes of Israel, or did the gospel writers choose to give him 12 disciples for precisely the same reason?

ETA: Typo

Anat

OK, so how do you tell if some numbers are repeated because they are important to God, or because they carry a meaning within the culture that uses them? The fact that numbers carry symbolic meaning does not in itself tell you whose meaning it is.

TMK 12 (and its multiples) were significant in many cultures, probably because of the many whole divisors of 12. 7 was the number of observable moving celestial objects (and as such served as the basic unit in the Babylonian calendar), also roughly the largest number of objects most people can recognise by sight without counting, thus pretty much the intuitive definition of many or plenty. 3 is significant both on its own - the smallest family unit, the smallest number of corners in a geometrical shape, but also because it complements 7 to 10, the basis of the counting system. 3 is also good for story telling and appears often in folktales (The 3 Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears) because the story teller creates a pattern with the first 2 repititions and breaks it on the third one. Thus these numbers get used a lot in various cultures, and in themselves cannot serve as evidence for divine origin of a text.

Stacey Melissa

That's what I purposely did when choosing character names for a screenplay I started writing (but never finished) a few years ago. Each character name was supposed to be ironic, in that they did the opposite of what the religious meaning of their name would suggest.

CaliNORML

Looking into this subject as well, it supports all my other pet topics, is the numbers.

The ones I have found are linked by many different thoughts. Such as the 8, from Japan into Egypt.

"Most historians believe that the Egyptians did not think of numbers as abstract quantities but always thought of a specific collection of 8 objects when 8 was mentioned."

In Egyptian mathmatics the number 3 held a meaning of not tossing any part of the #1 away such as in the decimal system 0.0333333333333, infinite.

The I-Ching has 8 as well this set of numbers seems to point to geometry in the perspective and directions, lending to dimensions. The Great Hall of 8 in the East is how gods came to Earth. When I now see 8's or divisions of,k I think of the first geometry and those axioms.

"The ancient Greeks considered geometry as just one of several sciences, and held the theorems of geometry on par with scientific facts. As such, they developed and used the logico-deductive method as a means of avoiding error, and for structuring and communicating knowledge. Aristotle's posterior analytics is a definitive exposition of the classical view.
An “axiom”, in classical terminology, referred to a self-evident assumption common to many branches of science. A good example would be the assertion that when an equal amount is taken from equals, an equal amount results."

That in the begining geometry had nothing to do with numbers, those 5-6 are the cycle of life in the samsra, physical place. Wheel of suffering, existence ect. and do fit into the Bilbe as well.

From 5 or 6 depending on the wheel the culture uses are 5 or 6 more equal steps. From my research I have compliled what I believe to be the "other side". A series of 5-6 more that are not found in this manner in the teachings.

Equality is key if there are 5-6 steps on Earth then there must be 5-6 in "Heaven". The most important are 4 and 7.

Numbers seem to follow a course in their reference, like geometry evolved. First was concept, next was algebra, then trig, and has changed over time. How we see this area of math today has lost its axioms, or common knowledge and has been conformed to our standard and non spiritual.

KMS

Diogenes the Cynic

That fake sentence made from string of names from Genesis has been debunked here before. Whoeever came up with that thing seems to have been making up Hebrew definitions out of thin air.