It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Is there evidence elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature of the deliberate addition of a seven to numbers? It is conspicuously present in the lists of pre-diluvian rulers known as the Sumerian King List. In two of the three editions that have been preserved, the ancient scribe expressed the total of reigns in terms of a standard symbolic number plus an additional number seven (see Table 2, below). As for biblical literature, consider the case of the number of provinces in the Persian Empire. Internal records list from 20 to 30 of them at the time of Darius, whereas the Bible states that there were 120 (Dan. 6:1). However, at the time of his successor (Ahasuerus), there were 127 of them (Est. 1:1). Nothing prevents an empire from expansion, but why precisely by seven? Then, consider the ages of the patriarchal figures (Table 1).
Keep in mind that the ‘ideal’ age among the Egyptians was variously stated to be 110 or 120, and that the maximum lifespan allowable by the Bible is also 120 (Gen. 6:3). Curiously, only those persons who attain precisely those ages have been residents of Egypt (Joseph and Joshua at 110 and Moses at 120). One might be astonished, therefore, to notice that Sarah attains the age of 127! These concerns apply to the ages of the post-diluvians as well, although less conspicuously so (Table 1):15 cases out of 27. It is also evident in most of the other numbers in the early chapters of Genesis, among them the following: the dimensions of Noah’s ship (300 × 50 × 30), rain for 40 days and 40 nights, water covers the tops of the mountains to a depth of 15 cubits and endures for 150 days. Calculation in Base-60 The second fundamental observation to be made is that a substantial number of the ages involve the number 60. For example: Enoch’s 300 years is 60 × 5, Kenan’s 840 years is 60 × 14, Moses’ 120 years is 60 × 2, Methuselah’s 187 years is (60 × 3) + 7, Sarah’s 127 years is (60 × 2) + 7, Enosh and Sarah’s 90 years is 60 + 60/2, and Shelah, Peleg and Serug’s 30 years is 60/2. Fixation with this same number is evident in many other places in the early chapters of Genesis and conspicuously so in the dimensions of Noah’s ark. Its volume is 450,000 cubic units, which can be expressed as 602 × [(60 × 2) + 5] cubic units. That this focus on the number 60 represents a common ancient Near Eastern convention, rather than biological reality, becomes clear from a comparison with the Sumerian King List (Table 2). Table 2: The Sumerian King List Name Length of Reign
originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Sahabi
"Islam's Incorruptible Qur'an Is Corrupt"
All our organised religious texts are corrupt considering they were written by Man with all his fears and fallibility at play.
Simple fact is they are laced with control constructs, contradictions and double standards, designed to keep all but the priest cast away from any true grains of knowledge than may have slipped by.
Some books have ideas about political ,social choices .We are born into a construct that makes a culture .Our culture is both passed on down to us and as time goes by we insert different norms .Our parents parents handed down to the present what we have today .
I like books also buddy, just not ones that tell me how to live my life
The point may be to tptb that yes these methods as well as the mistakes do work .(not necessarily to benefit us) but to move their agenda .As far as us learning from the past we can make mental notes of how tptb operate .Take the new religion of Scientology .A good reason for creating such a thing would be to serve both the technocratic age while appeasing peoples Religious sprite . A kind of new god so to speak . The attempt to usher in ecumenical links where at present there are differing camps was a tip off to as what was really going on . So most of the masses were not buying it . tptb are at a place where their options are zero in that front.
Point is our methods and mistakes are repeated from generation to generation without us seemingly attaining the ability to learn from those mistakes.