Fun With Numbers

The Book of Numbers is divisible by laws and rules, accounts of wilderness wanderings, and a talking donkey, sort of a precursor to SHREK. Numbers is also a book of counting, containing two censuses of the Hebrew people.

Counting books are good for children. Hebrew people had a lot of children, and a lot of children to put to bed every night. It is my contention that Jewish history laboriously records the begats to encourage slumber in the many descendants of Abraham.

Numbers is the fourth book of the Old Testament in the Bible. It has thirty-six chapters. Thirty-six is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 18. Still awake?

I suggest a Venn diagram as the best graphic representation to illustrate the Hebrew emigration from Egypt to Canaan, the Promised Land. Draw two circles that overlap. One circle is Egypt, the other circle is Canaan, and the overlapping portion is the wilderness.

Moses led the people in the wilderness for forty years, that’s a good, hard number. We can build equations around that. The place where the circles intersect, the wilderness, is forty years. In the Egypt circle, the Hebrew residence could be represented as:

The time of Moses – The time of Joseph = Hebrew residence in Egypt

However, we’re dealing in B.C. years which run backwards to modern thinking; therefore, reverse the equation so you don’t get a negative number, thus:

The time of Joseph B.C. – The time of Moses B.C. = Hebrew residence in Egypt

In the Canaan circle, the Hebrew residence could be represented as:

Forty years + (The time of Joseph B.C. – The time of Moses B.C.) = Hebrew residence in Canaan

Yes, that’s very nice isn’t it? I just love ancient algebra.

We can also represent the demographics in our diagram. In the Egypt circle, obviously we have Egyptians, then right on the line where the circles intersect, we have dead Egyptians when they tried to cross the Red Sea to follow the Hebrews into the wilderness.

Also in the Egypt circle, we have the Hebrews born in Egypt.

In the wilderness overlap, we have

Egypt-born Hebrews + Wilderness-born Hebrews = Hebrew Wilderness population

In the Canaan circle, we have

((Egypt-born Hebrews + 40 years) x rate of mortality) + ((Wilderness-born Hebrews + n number of years wandering < 40) x rate of mortality) + ((Begotten of both or either of the first two variables) x rate of mortality) = Hebrew people living in Canaan

That last equation can be factored further into Hebrew Men and Hebrew Women between parentheses for multiplication.

Thus we have variables built into equations for a census, not only covering general numbers of people, but also breaking down into approximate ages relevant to 40 years. We don’t have to know all of the variables to deduce the populations for any given time period. We can track populations across time and over geographical locations, right up to

One B.C. - (days < 40 weeks) = 0 A.D.

The most important census of Christianity falls in the New Testament. What if Jesus had been born at home in Nazareth instead of Bethlehem? I don’t know what the Hebrew custom for childbirth was at the time, but I’m sure it did not involve the mother being alone without help. And what did Joseph know about birthing babies? He was a carpenter, not a shepherd or a nurse midwife. Not only was Mary in a barn, but she was away from the comfort and aid of her home and family.

The census of Caesar Augustus forced the extremely humble beginnings of Jesus.