Clivedurdle

These numbers appear in the gospels.

30 60 100 may be a mistake - should it have been 30 60 90, the angles of a triangle?

But 60 and 100 also have very long pedigrees, 60 minutes in an hour, 100 as the square of ten and the square of the hypotenuse on a six by eight triangle.

It is not obvious that there is an explanation.

Pythagoros!

DCHindley

It might help to say what you are referring to.

Well, I think I know (Jesus' parable about a grain of wheat that produces 30, 60 & 100 fold), but this could not be about the abundance of any known variety of wheat, rye or barley.

Mark 4:8 8 And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

Matthew 13:8 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

[RSV]

It probably refers to the abundant fertility of the future messianic age mentioned by 2 Baruch 28:7 - 29:8

7 Is it in one place or in one of the parts of the earth that those things are come to pass, or will the whole earth experience (them)?' 29:1 And He answered and said unto me: 'Whatever will then befall (will befall) the whole earth; therefore all who live will experience (them). 2 For at that time I will protect only those who are found in those self-same days in this land. 3 And it shall come to pass when all is accomplished that was to come to pass in those parts, that the Messiah shall then begin to be revealed. 4 And Behemoth shall be revealed from his place and Leviathan shall ascend from the sea, those two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation, and shall have kept until that time; and then they shall be for food for all that are left. 5 The earth also shall yield its fruit ten thousandfold and on each (?) vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each grape produce a cor of wine. 6 And those who have hungered shall rejoice: moreover, also, they shall behold marvels every day. 7 For winds shall go forth from before Me to bring every morning the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the close of the day clouds distilling the dew of health. 8 And it shall come to pass at that self-same time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years, because these are they who have come to the consummation of time.

[ed. R H Charles, APOT]

On the other hand, Irenaeus in Against Heresies Book 5 36:2 says:

2 [They say, moreover], that there is this distinction between the habitation of those who produce an hundred-fold, and that of those who produce sixty-fold, and that of those who produce thirty-fold: for the first will be taken up into the heavens, the second will dwell in paradise, the last will inhabit the city; and that was on this account the Lord declared, "In My Father's house are many mansions." For all things belong to God, who supplies all with a suitable dwelling-place; even as His Word says, that a share is allotted to all by the Father, according as each person is or shall be worthy. And this is the couch on which the guests shall recline, having been invited to the wedding. The presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, affirm that this is the gradation and arrangement of those who are saved, and that they advance through steps of this nature; also that they ascend through the Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father, and that in due time the Son will yield up His work to the Father, even as it is said by the apostle, "For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." For in the times of the kingdom, the righteous man who is upon the earth shall then forget to die. "But when He saith, All things shall be subdued unto Him, it is manifest that He is excepted who did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."

[ed. Donaldson, Ante Nicene Fathers]

Hi ho!

DCH

Doug Shaver

I don't see anything yet that needs explaining. Just what do you think is anomalous about the appearance of those particular numbers?

Clivedurdle

That they are significant in the pythagorean tradition.

Jeffrey Gibson

They are? Could you please back this claim up with some citations from the primary sources on Pythagoras such as Iamblichus (and not a quote from Britannica) that say as much or show that they are?

And are the other numbers which appear in the Gospel texts -- e.g. 40, 3, 7, 5, 10, 11, 12 -- significant in this tradition as well?

Jeffrey

Doug Shaver

How does that make their use by the gospel authors anomalous? What it is about the context of their use that suggests the authors would probably have used some other numbers absent the pythagorean significance of these particular numbers?