Theos-Talk Archives (August 1997 Message tl00637)

It has been said by Jewish scholars that the law has seventy facets, and
is is always strongly put that there are exactly 613 mitzvot or
commandments. 

In my explorations of geometry I have been building models with bamboo
sticks, and I came to wonder how many sticks would be required if one
was to construct a model with 70 facets. Well, it appears to be that if
such a model were constructed of 70 triangular facets it would take 666
sticks to completely interconnect the model with sticks. The model would
have 37 outer vertices forming the 70 triangles.

Of course 666 has been tauted as represtenting coruption due to
excessive legalism, by Christian theologians, and I still wonder about
the proper number of mitzvot. I was told by a Rabbi that there are
actually many more laws in the Torah, and these are performances mostly,
that pertain to special cirumstances. So further, might it be that the
High Priest or other such person might be obligated to more commandments
than the ordinary man. Revelation 18 states that 666 is a "human
number", and has also been translated as the number of "a man".

Maybe this is a little obtruse for this list, but I just thought I'd
asks if anyone has a thought or two in this area.

Vincent
-- 

vincent@dmv.com

http://home.dmv.com/~vincent/