Genesis Bible Commentary: Magic Numbers

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Note:

This is part 4 of a series of 6 articles on the Bible's book of Genesis.

Click here for the series overview.

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by Rod Martin, Jr.

(I recommend you read the series of 6 articles in sequence for the greatest understanding.)

The Final Clues

Some time later, I happened to be perusing Genesis for possible anomalies and found that Genesis 4 offered a couple that I had previously rejected. The two numbers—7 and 77.

"And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him" (Genesis 4:15).

"If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold" (Genesis 4:24).

The two lists of names seemed to be related, but I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to find something that cinched the connection in a way that made it seem more obvious that Genesis 4 and Genesis 5 were two halves of a whole.

Several days later, I decided to look into the ages of the Genesis 5 patriarchs. I took the numbers apart—finding their prime factors.

Lo and behold, both Cainan and Lamech contained a "7," while the others did not. And like Seth's Cainan and Lamech (Genesis 5), Cain and Cain's Lamech (Genesis 4) also were singled out with the lucky digit.

Seven has been used many times in the Bible, most notably as the seventh day of creation—God's day of rest, and the mortal "Sabbath," described by some Jewish scholars as the day of "perfection." This is a day dedicated to getting closer to God.

Could the ages of the other pre-Flood patriarchs (besides those of Cainan and Lamech) need perfecting?

The "mark" of Cain in Genesis 4:15 is the number 7 as the quantity of vengeance aimed at the ones who might harm him. Similarly, 77 is the quantity of vengeance aimed at the ones who might harm Lamech for his murders.

Why was God giving such protection to two murderers? And Cain was also a liar who despised giving God the requested sacrifice.

It struck me that perhaps the entire purpose of Genesis 4 was nothing so dark. Stepping back from the chapter, it's clear that the subject is one of cause-and-effect. While Genesis 4 seemed to be a story of death and retribution, Genesis 5 seemed to be a story of life—but life with imperfections (lacking 7's).

Giving life to your children is also cause-and-effect, but of a far happier variety. Originally, the numbers in Genesis 4 seemed to have nothing to do with my quest because of their seemingly dark intent. They seemed to have nothing to do with adding to life.

But as the female path (Genesis 4) descends from God (full of death and retribution), so the male path (Genesis 5) ascends toward God (full of life).

The positions of Cain and Cainan each received a "7" of perfection, while both Lamech's receive a double portion of perfection.

I have placed these on the Sefirotic "Tree" only to show the symmetry of this pattern.

In Genesis 5, both Cainan and Seth's Lamech already have the 7 of perfection in their ages. The other patriarchs are found lacking. Cain's Lamech has 77, while Seth's Lamech has the prime factors of 3, 7 and 37 (=777).

The mandate of Genesis 4 is thus applied to Genesis 5. Those who cause effects on Cainan (Cain) will receive 7 times the effect. In the case of Genesis 5, this effect is the generation of life. Likewise, those who gave life to Seth's Lamech will be given 77 times the life they already have.

Using these two numbers in addition to the generational "40," produces the following chart:

And again, the date for Adam is well within 1% of Cayce's rounded approximation.

From an anthropological standpoint, this number is far more acceptable than either 4004 BC or the previous chart's 94,210 BC. Both of those dates fall far short of the current minimum age of Homo sapiens sapiens—200,000 years.

The Value of the Dates

Could these two dates—27,970 BC for the Flood and 10,454,130 BC for Adam—be what the writers of Genesis intended? Again, the 10½ million BC date is a bit hard to swallow. Imagining Homo sapiens running around with the creatures of the mid-Miocene Epoch sends chills up my spine.

In my geological research on Atlantis, I discovered a mechanism for the formation of a land bridge which connected Atlantis to Europe and Africa at Gibraltar. This resulted in the Messinnian Salinity Crisis wherein the Med dried up for something like 700,000 years. This gave Plato's Atlantean elephants a chance to walk across and populate the once isolated island. If Homo sapiens also existed at this time (circa 5.5 Mya), then humans could have passed on foot to the former and future Atlantis island along with elephants and other species.

Perhaps a more pressing value of this timeline is one of breaking a deadly prejudice that some Christian Fundamentalists have regarding science and science education. The Texas school board oversees the publication of the nation's schoolbooks for at least a large portion of states. Diluting science for a perverted interpretation of the Bible is not a good idea for America. Personally, I feel America needs more spirituality, but not this delusion. Perhaps such a timeline could put back an appreciation of science, now that "poor science" has to play catch up to a more "knowing" Bible. Dirty politics? Perhaps. But I think many Fundamentalists may be missing the salvation boat by their current arrogance.

I had gained a solution for the Genesis timeline problem -- one which used information found in Genesis, but how valid is this new timeline? Does this timeline help us understand anything else? Is there any proof? See, A Problem with Noah's Flood.