Biblical Numerology for the win!

Mel Brooks as Moses with these fifteen... TEN commandments. History of the World, Part 1, 1981

“How much do you pay for oil a month?”

“Not sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

“It’s on a spreadsheet. I can tell you later.”

“How many days till your vacation?”

“Don’t know.”

“How can you not know that?”

“Someone will tell me the day before.”

“How many miles on the car, sir?”

“Let me check.”

“Just an estimate.”

“A million?”

I’ve never been good with numbers. It is difficult for me to remember them or to report them correctly without looking directly at them (and it took me a lot of years to even learn to do that right.) I would only know that this is notably strange by the looks on people’s faces who know better when I accidentally inflate numbers, for instance, when I say twelve thousand when I mean twelve hundred.

Luckily, the Bible has an answer: symbolic numerology!

The writers of the Bible had specific numbers they returned to again and again to communicate particular ideas and this immediately appeals to me because numbers to me are abstract notions attached to nothing. The biblical numbers are also abstract, but they are attached to concepts I can appreciate, envision and understand.

Forty days and forty nights = a good long time.

Twelve brothers = impressive family

One thousand = happily ever after/they are totally screwed

Again, these numbers are thought to be approximate. Moses meets a certain number of women drawing water from a well. It’s more than two. It’s more than three. It’s not quite so many as twelve. Seven is a good round estimate. Who cares if it’s six or eight? Jacob’s descendants heading to meet Joseph number seventy, but again, it’s approximately seventy. It’s just an impressive group. What, are you planning seats at a wedding reception?

So the next time I get asked a question that requires a number, I just have to choose one of a set of numbers I’ve memorized and throw it out with confidence. It will be very meaningful for the person who wants to hear a number and I’ll have responded with basically how I feel about the approximate number.

“How many students are at your school?”

“A thousand.”

“How many weeks until break is over?”

“Seven.”

“How many days do you get for Christmas this year?”

“Twelve.”

“You guys are lucky!”

“Sure are!”

A Lesson from the Mahabharata for a New Homeowner

The Khandava forest fire, from the 10th century Cambodian temple Banteay Srei, in Angkor.

As I plot the destruction of the rodents undermining my yard, and meditate on having recently drowned a mouse that took up residence in my barn, an episode from the Mahabharata is on my mind. I was shocked and horrified when I read of the burning of the Khandava forest, an act of destruction and death that is sanctioned by Krishna, who, in the tradition, was God on earth. As a new homeowner, I feel the Khandava story, along with the recent burning of the Amazon, as a personal struggle that is both internal and with nature. The Khandava fire story goes that the Pandava brothers and the Kaurava brothers, cousins competing for the throne, decide to divide the kingdom. The Kauravas take the settled civilization and the Pandavas take an area covered in trees. Krishna says that in order for civilization to exist, nature must be destroyed. Let me stress that: nature must be destroyed. There is a firewall between culture and nature in Hindu myth that is illustrated by gods and other creatures that do not know or follow the values of man. Man follows rules that are based in culture. Animals do not. They are engaged in a struggle for life that does not know any mediating rule. The rules of man, which is dharma, separate us from animals, from the law of the jungle.

Dharma rules that the weak should be protected, that the strongest people don't get everything at the expense of the weak. By Krishna's sanction of the destruction of the forest, which includes the destruction of every animal living inside it, I take it that dharma is not for animals, however weak they may be. Animals do not live by the rules of dharma and they are not protected by the rules of dharma. The Kaurava brothers eschew dharma, for the law of the jungle in the story and Krishna is ruthless in their destruction. Any rule of civilized society could be broken to destroy them. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. There are no war crimes against those who live by the law of the jungle. And there are no war crimes against animals, who cannot know dharma. The animals will do what they must in my yard and home. They will destroy the ornamental grass hiding my well pump. They will leave holes that will trip my wife and I when we walk across the lawn. They will eat and foul our food and worry us while we sleep. It is in their nature. They can do no other. The choice of Krishna is clear and easy. Civilized life requires me to kill them.

If you are having trouble with this, I’m with you. I do not relish killing the rodents or clearing the birds’ nests from my eaves. My response to the story and my understanding of it brings to my mind Dante when Virgil chastises him for sympathizing with the damned. Of course there is no morality in the actions of animals, but that is sort of the point. I gave sanctuary to several nests this spring, including a couple of Phoebes who raised nest parasitic Cowbird chicks (which accordingly killed the Phoebe’s young and tossed its corpse on my porch.) A pair of adorable Finches warn me from a section of my yard when I try to do any yard work (I’m putting up with it). But there comes a point where you can’t accommodate territorial creatures that do not understand the values of sharing or property. I will try to discourage them from encroaching into my space, but I must bring myself to destroy them when they threaten it.

Portland Protester and the Power of the Female Nude

Portland protester, photographed by Dave Killen, Oregonlive.com and a 12th Century sheela na gig carving from the Church of St. Mary and St. David, Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England, courtesy wikipedia.com.

An as-yet unidentified nude female protester who held off a line of federal officers in Portland Oregon has been dubbed “Naked Athena” in Portland’s The Oregonian, but at least one of her poses places her in the sheela na gig tradition, proving the continuing apotropaic power of female genitalia in the 21st Century United States.

According to an article in The Oregonian, the protester, wearing only a hat and mask, presented herself in the street in front of a line of camouflaged and riot gear-bearing federal officers, doing ballet, and at one point sat on the concrete spreading her legs in a sheela na gig attitude. The internet has dubbed the woman “Naked Athena” but I think sheela na gig is more appropriate as I don’t know of any references to Athena baring herself.

The officers did shoot pepper ball bullets at the woman’s feet, but did not approach and “within ten minutes” they withdrew from the area.

A sheela na gig is a type of medieval grotesque to be found in architecture (even churches) throughout Europe. The carvings are of a woman with an exaggerated vulva baring her genitalia to the viewer. The exact purpose of the carvings are not known, but they are believed to have been meant to ward off evil. In this case in Portland, it seems to have at least warded off men intent on violence.

Link to original article:

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/07/the-story-behind-the-surreal-photos-of-portland-protester-naked-athena.html