9 The Secret Science of Numbers
Noah and his forthcoming seed were vexed in having three different calendar systems to mark events. This was very confusing, to say the least. It was nearly impossible to tell the exact moment in time, causing Noah to shake his head and utter, There has to be a better way!
And there was.
Much later, around 1000 BC, the Babylonians discovered another way of telling time between the various systems. This new calendar was based upon an 8 years solar calendar that could be translated into an equivalent number of days within the lunar calendar based on simplified calculations of 2922 days. The number of days can be computed as 365.25 days per year for eight years (but remember, no fractions existed back then, so technically 2920 days should also be considered).
How then did this work?
The modified lunar component was 354 days per year, with an additional 90 days as three 30 day months, one each after the third, sixth and eighth years in the cycle. This was equivalent to the solar component of 2922 days.
Linearly, this would be: 354 + 354 + 384 + 354 + 354 + 384 + 354 + 384 = 2922.
If Noah had been around at this time, it would have been much easier for him and his family to get the dates straight in increments of 8 years. 600 years would be 75 cycles of 2922 days within the new calendar.
The 360 days concept of translation was no longer needed. It had become antiquated.
If Noah did not use fingers to count years, then what was the secret to calculating the flood numbers?
Esoterica is the secret knowledge that the ancients possessed that we may now be ignorant of.
For instance, did you know that when multiplying a number by 11 you can turn it into an addition problem. And usually the results can be done in your head without using an electronic calculator, computer or the ancient device called an abacus (beads).
Say you wanted to multiply 360 by 11. The first step is to take the first and last digits in the number 360, 3 and 0, and place a space between them.
3 0
Then start adding the digits of the number together in pairs from the right.
6 + 0 = 6
3 + 6 = 9
Now put all the numbers together, 3960. That’s your answer!
Any number that is a multiple of 11 could be manipulated in this way to make multiplication problems simpler, such as 33, 55, 110, 220, 330, etc.
Divide each of these multiples by 11 to get 3, 5, 11, 22, 33. Multiply that number once by 3960 to get your answer.
For other numbers between the multiples of 11 it would be necessary to interpolate the result.
The number 50 is 6 more than 44. Multiply 3960 x 4 and add 6 x 360.
15840 + 2160 = 18000.
You probably will need a pencil and paper to do these more complicated calculations that cannot be divided by 11 equally.
Let’s do another example just to be sure of our understanding of the addition principle.
3960 x 22 (22/11 = 2)
3 0
6 + 0 = 6 x 2 = 12
9 + 6 = 15 x 2 = 30 + 1 = 31
3 + 9 = 12 x 2 = 24 + 3 = 27
3 x 2 = 6 + 2 = 8
Add the numbers, 87120.
Notice how the numbers greater than 9 were carried over to make a three and a four in the final number.
The Mesopotamia calendar had six yearly units of 353, 354, 355, 383, 384, and 385 days rather than a single count. A nineteen year cycle was used to arrive at 6939.75 days, but this only occurs after 13 cycles or 247 years. Also a leap day had to be added every 128 years. The math for this can be represented as a quarter day reduced by about .00785:
.00785 x 128 = 1.0 day
The first 2 cycles would look like this (calendar days in a year inside brackets):
01 [354] 354 + 11 = 365
02 [355] 344 + 21 = 365
03 [385] 364 + 1 = 365
04 [354] 353 + 13 = 366
05 [353] 340 + 25 = 365
06 [385] 360 + 5 = 365
07 [354] 349 + 16 = 365
08 [383] 367 – 1 = 366
09 [355] 356 + 9 = 365
10 [354] 345 + 20 = 365
11 [385] 365 + 0 = 365
12 [353] 353 + 13 = 366
13 [355] 342 + 23 = 365
14 [384] 361 + 4 = 365
15 [355] 351 + 14 = 365
16 [353] 339 + 27 = 366
17 [384] 357 + 8 = 365
18 [355] 347 + 18 = 365
19 [383] 365 + 0 = 365 6939 days
20 [355] 355 + 11 = 366
21 [354] 343 + 22 = 365
22 [385] 363 + 2 = 365
23 [355] 353 + 12 = 365
24 [354] 342 + 24 = 366
25 [383] 359 + 6 = 365
26 [355] 349 + 16 = 365
27 [383] 367 – 2 = 365
…
247 13 x 6939.75 = 90216.75 days
247 is a significant number for the lunar observations, but 896 years are required for a complete cycle for the solar observations. So the two different systems do not completely mesh with each other and may take a little bit of imagination to make the whole work.
Inherent incompatibility between observations does not seem to phase Don Roth at www.biblicalcalendarproof.com, who believes he has found the absolute proof in regard to the time of the flood. For him, the Flood year was exactly 385 days, representing an intercalated year of 13 months with 355 + 30 days that appears somewhere in the 19 years cycle described above.
Don’s argument relies upon 386 days, figured as 46 days before the flood begins, with 40 days and nights following, and 150 days of rising and 150 days of falling waters. One day must be subtracted because the text explains that the standing water was already gone on the first day of the first month of the following year. Thus, the flood waters seem to have flourished for a total of 340 days. The second use of the word dry occurs 57 days later. This means that the ground was completely dried out by then, but this is during a new year.
I disagree strongly with Don’s assessment in preference of the traditional view of the dating of the flood that necessitates adding 40 and 110 to make 150 days. This calculation allows the first year of the flood to be 314 days in duration. Then the second year contains an additional 56 days. I’m not convinced at all that the flood period needs to be 30 days longer, or fully understand the reasons for rejecting of the orthodox viewpoint.
Although I am highly suspicious of people like Don, I want to be fair about forming a judgment until I have more time to assess it. The main gain in Roth’s new vision, if it is one, is that the solar and lunar calendars are of the same number of years in either system, and this removes the necessity for a 360 days model, as I have demonstrated in this study.
360 days removes the need for half days added to each month of the 354 days of the lunar calendar. Roth on the other hand would like to keep the 30 and 29 days of the alternating values for a month. This is hard to achieve in a calendar with 13 months with 2 consecutive months of 30 days. Adding 30 days to 354 results in 384 days and not 385. If Don were able to get all of these things to mesh together with the problems resolved, including adding a leap day every 128 years, I’d be willing to give a listening ear.
The problem is even further compounded by the fact that Passover was considered as a second Sabbath day in a single week, if it did not fall on the day of the first Sabbath. For those, like Don, who envision a uniform Biblical calendar set at creation that has been running without change ever since, some of these difficulties need to be explained. To help others to understand his cause he offers free floppy disks to interested persons with an engineer’s mind and a simple heart.
I myself would steer clear of such oversimplifications and go with the 360 days model instead.
