The post from Grishka 24 Aug 13 - 08:04 AM is particularly interesting. Be sure to take a look at it.

There are those that thing the the Bible and other ancient religious writings have cryptic, coded meanings. For the most part, I just can't buy that. I can't see evidence in ancient history that people communicated in such codes to any great extent - but at times, such communication was important. But it drives me crazy when people seek hidden meanings in scripture and in fairy tales, when no such hidden meanings are to be found (although there are sometimes hidden meanings in both).

The Book of Revelation is one book that people go apeshit over, coming up with all sorts of preposterous "meanings." Yes, there is a lot of symbolic language in the book - but I think it is important not to take that symbolism too far. To me, the book seems to have strong political implications. It was written about the end of the first century, and appears in great part to be a polemic against the Roman Empire. It's my understanding that this book calls Rome "Babylon" because writing against the Roman Empire was considered to be sedition. It's also my understanding that "666," the Sign of the Beast, was the numerological value of the name "Neron Caesar" - Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68). Nero was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and we know his story.

The Book of Revelation was written in the first century, and seems to be a commentary on the situations of the first century. But many people read it as a prediction of the future. People of this ilk seem to think that the Book of Revelation just happens to be a prediction of what's happening in the current time, and they're just certain that this passage refers to that event in today's news, and this head of the Beast is a current nation that didn't even exist in the first century. The Book of Revelation begins with letters to seven churches which existed in Asia Minor (now Turkey) at the end of the first century. It's clear that the book must refer to them, not to the United States and the Soviet Union and Israel.

Then there's numerology. It does seem to be true that in ancient times, numbers had a sort of mystical significance. To the ancient Hebrews, the numbers 3, 40, and 7 seemed to have special significance - and other numbers also had meanings (e.g., 12, and 144,000). These numbers seemed to have more importance for their meaning, than they had for their mathematical significance., But for the most part, these numbers seemed to be widely understood by the Hebrew people - they weren't some sort of hidden code.

The ages of Methuselah and all those phenomenally old people, seem to be an indication of their righteousness, not their chronological age. If so-and-so was really old, that meant that he or she was a really good person. So, if Genesis says Methuselah lived 969 years, that means he was a really, really, really good person - good enough for him to deserve to be the grandfather of Noah.

But remember that the story of Methuselah is a very brief passage in the Book of Genesis - which is, more than any other book in the Bible, a collection of folktales. These folktales are wonderful, precious, sacred stories - but they are not intended to be an historical account. We shouldn't discount the stories of Genesis as "mere myth," but we should view them as valuable, sacred folklore that tells the significance of the beginning of an ethnic and religious group that has had a profound effect.

-Joe-