SOWER’S SEVENS IN THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH
I have discovered Sower’s sevens in the Samaritan Pentateuch. The solution is to use the numbers in the
Sower’s Parables (100-60-30) to produce factors of “70 x 7.” I have found these factors of 70 x 7 in
thirteen passages: nine passages in the Bible,
two in various versions of Aseneth,
and now these two in the Samaritan
Pentateuch.
What is the Samaritan
Pentateuch?
Briefly, the Samaritan
Pentateuch is the first five books of Moses that are also found in the Hebrew Bible. There are some differences between the Hebrew
and Samaritan versions of the Pentateuch.
These differences are laid out side-by-side at https://sites.google.com/site/interlinearpentateuch/
Thus, today’s Samaritans are heirs to Moses. You may already suspect this from reading John 4:12 where the Samaritan woman at
the well tells Jesus she is a descendant of Jacob.
There are differences between the Hebrew Pentateuch and the Samaritan
Pentateuch in Genesis, chapter 5,
involving the ages of the patriarchs.
There are 27 age values for patriarchs Adam through Lamech in Genesis
5:3-5:31 (NRSV), (27 is 3-cubed, special?). The Genesis
text presents 3 values for each of 9 men: (1) age at birth of first male child,
(2) years lived after that, and (3) total life-span in years.
When I first solved this puzzle in the Hebrew Bible by arranging the values in the order found in the text,
it did not work for me, so instead, I arranged the values in the order in which
they appeared but in the three distinct categories just stated. That
produced a factor of 70, and then 70 x 7 with a bit of finessing. See my previous post here.
Could it be that such a simplistic puzzle was later thought
to be insufficiently mysterious by an ancient editor and he or she changed the Hebrew Bible to add something more
exciting in what became today’s Samaritan
Pentateuch? Or could it be the
reverse? That an ancient editor thought
the puzzle too overstated and watered it down to produce a less flashy result,
which has come down to us as the version in the Hebrew Bible?
The Samaritan Genesis
produces a very exciting and rare factor of not only 70 x 7, but 3,430, that
is, 70 x 7 x 7. A
seven-cubed !!!
Also very interesting that this rare factor of 3,430 is the
very same factor I found in the Syriac version of Aseneth (see sidebar).
Solution
Using only the nine values that differ in the set of 27 in
the Samaritan Genesis, and arranging
these in the order presented in the text, in three sets:
Set one, patriarch Jared:
62 + 785 + 847 = 1,694
Set two, patriarch Methuselah:
67 + 653 + 720 = 1,440
Set three, patriarch Lamech:
53 + 600 + 653 = 1,306
Next multiply by the Sower’s Parable numbers (100, 60, 30):
100 x 1,694 = 169,400
60 x 1,440 = 86,400
30 x 1,306 = 39,180
Sum of products = 294,980 = 70 x 7 x 7 x 2 x 43
A seven-cubed !!!
This is my 12th example of a 70 x 7.
Did the edit which replaced nine values result in an
unworkable puzzle for all 27 values? It
was important to me to discover if the original puzzle had been ruined. In fact it was not ruined, but improved in
terms of sophistication and when I say that, I am assuming that the Samaritan
version is not the original but the edit.
The sophistication is that instead of taking the values in the order
presented in the text, the values must first be put in ascending (or
descending) order. Also, the solution
has been improved so that there are two puzzles in one, that is, the number set
for the first instance of 70 x 7 is within the number set for the
second. Further, the solution has been
improved so that instead of a solution that is basically awkward (adding back
in a number in the string that is “special” – 777), there is a factor of 70 x
7, attained by combining two Sower’s calculations as shown below. The ancient editor took great care,
apparently:
Solution
Twenty-seven values arranged in ascending order, in three
sets (with the nine variants bolded):
Set one:
053, 062, 065, 065, 067, 070, 090, 105, 130,
Sum of set one = 707
Set two:
300, 365, 600, 653, 653, 720, 785, 800, 807,
Sum of set two = 5,683
Set three:
815, 830, 840, 847,
895, 905, 910, 912, 930,
Sum of set three = 7,884
Now multiply with Sower’s 30, 60, 100:
30 x 707 = 21,210
60 x 5,683 = 340,980
100 x 7,884 = 788,400
Sum of products = 1,150,590
Now multiply with the reverse, Sower’s 100, 60, 30:
100 x 707 = 70,700
60 x 5,683 = 340,980
30 x 7,884 = 236,520
Sum of products = 648,200
Sum of sums of products = 1,150,590 + 648,200 = 1,798,790 =
factor of 70 x 7
This is my 13th example of a 70 x 7.
I do realize that maybe these are not sophistications added
by the Samaritans, but rather, theirs is the original, and Hebrew edits, or
even unintentional corruption of the text, resulted in a less exciting product
in the Hebrew Bible.
Of course I don’t know which is the original (maybe
neither). The changes might predate
Jacob for all we know.
But seeing the exact same rare factor of 3,430 (7-cubed) that
I find in Aseneth, ostensibly a
Christian Gnostic text, makes me want to place the Samaritan text later and say
the Hebrew is the original. Also, it
does seem reasonable to assume that the more sophisticated version is the edit.
Now with this 13th instance of my discovering a “seventy
times seven” with Sower’s Parables numbers (see links below for other
examples), I have to ask, what are the odds against gaining thirteen instances
of “seventy times seven”? We can readily see that the odds of a factor of 7 x 7
are 1 in 49. The probability against thirteen instances of 49 is 1 in 49 to the
13th power, or 1 in 9,387,480,337,647,754,305,649.
The odds against a 13th instance of 490 are 1 in 490 to the
13th power, beyond the capabilities of my calculator to deal with except in
math-speak (9.387480337647754305649e+34).
Given those astronomical odds, it seems pretty obvious to me
that Sower’s sevens were being embedded intentionally by the ancient writers. Probably because such sacred math was
well-received by their readers who were conversant with such, and clever enough
to understand it, and at ease enough with it to like it.
I am very happy to find these solutions to the Genesis passages on the ages of the
patriarchs because that is something I have wanted to do for many decades and I
was in fact, not particularly thrilled by the solution I had found earlier for
the Hebrew version. (Maybe I just didn’t
get the right solution?)
Seven is a favored number in the Bible. The biblical “70 x 7” is found in Matthew
18:22 (footnote NRSV) and also in Genesis 4:24. By the way,
I believe that means seventy times sevenfold (DRA), not 77 times.
The Sower’s Parables numbers can be found at: (1) Matthew
13:8 (100, 60, 30); (2) Matthew 13:23 (100, 60, 30); (3) Mark
4:8 (30, 60, 100); (4) Mark 4:20 (30, 60, 100); and (5) Luke
8:8 (100).
Links
SEVENS FROM SOWER’S PARABLES NUMBERS (intro)
SOWER’S PARABLES NUMBERS
REVELATION’S ANOMALOUS TRIBE – SOWER’S SEVENS CONTINUED
FOUR GOSPEL BOOKS DERIVED FROM ONE PARTY (Loaves and Fishes)
Posted: February 12, 2015
1 comment:
I deleted the solution to the Hebrew version of Genesis 5, the ages of the nine patriarchs, and hope to someday find a better a solution.
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