Thursday, August 9, 2007

153

I’ve done 2 blogs on numerology. Why not go ahead and make it 3…”The Lord’s Holy Number.” Insert scary music here or maybe just the “intense chipmunk” video. Have you seen that? Youtube it. Anyway, what I’m about to talk about I’ve already discussed with a friend, so sorry friend but this is going to be repetitive…and yes I’m trying my material out on you first.

153. Simple number…I think not.

John 21:11 – “Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.”

This is the story that comes after Peter’s denials of Christ. Peter went back to his old job of being a fisherman because he had denied the Christ just like Jesus said he would. I thought it was interesting that he named the exact amount of fish he caught. Jesus told him to cast his net on the other side and what was worthless all day turned into a full net. There is a lot to be taken from the story. For instance, you could say that working on our own without guidance is futile. With God's direction, we will "see a harvest." Another way to look at it is why did he name the exact amount? Bragging fisherman? Is he trying to tell us that this was a miracle because the typical nets at that time couldn't hold that many fish (“even with so many the net was not torn”)? Does 153 stand for something? Fish is ixthus in Greek. The early Christians used IXTHUS as an "anagram" (I think that's what it's called). It's in the catacombs of Rome.

I = Iesous = Jesus (pronounced “E A soos”) Sounds a little like Spanish "Jesus."
X = Christos = Christ
Th = Theos = God
U = Uios = Son
S = Semerion = Savior

We use fish all the time to symbolize Christianity. My church's official email address is "fishermansnet@...". Anybody have a Jesus fish? Some of them come with Greek letters…the same that I listed above. Look at some strange properties of 153:

If you add 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17=153
You may remember my 6.6.06 blog which said that if you do this same thing with the numbers of a roulette wheel, you’ll end up with 666 (1 through 36). Basically 1 through 17 = 153

I found this one on my own. Ready for this:
153 x 1 = 153 which adds up to 9 (1+5+3=9)
153 x 2 = 306 which adds up to 9 (3+0+6=9)
153 x 3 = 459 which adds up to 9 divided by 2 (4+5+9=18 divided by 2=9)
153 x 4 = 612 which adds up to 9 (6+1+2=9)
153 x 5 = 765 which adds up to 9 divided by 2 (7+6+5=18 divided by 2=9)
153 x 6 = 918 which adds up to 9 divided by 2 (9+1+8=18 divided by 2=9)
153 x 7 = 1071 which adds up to 9 (1+0+7+1=9)
153 x 8 = 1224 which adds up to 9 (1+2+2+4=9)
153 x 9 = 1377 which adds up to 9 divided by 2 (1+3+7+7=9)
153 x 10 = 1530 which adds up to 9

I’m tired of trying to see how long it will work. 10 times is pretty good. We’re pretty familiar with the fact that “9” does this (e.g. 9x2 or 9x10) but why/how does 153 work?

Oh remember when I used the above figure and stopped at 17 and how lately I’ve been talking about 9? 17 x 9 = 153

153 = 1x1x1 + 5x5x5 + 3x3x3 (This is really written as 1 cubed + 3 cubed + 5 cubed =153)

I don’t know how much of this is true and how much is wikipeidiology but check this out:

“The precision of the number of fish has long been considered peculiar, and many scholars, throughout history, have argued that 153 has some deeper significance. Jerome, for example, claimed that the Greeks had identified that there were exactly 153 species of fish in the sea (modern marine biology puts the figure as something over 29,000, though the disciples were fishing in the Sea of Tibeias, which actually is a lake)....In the time of Pythagoras, 153 was most significant for being one of the two numbers in the closest fraction known, at the time, to the true value of the square root of 3, the fraction in question being 265/153 (the difference between this and the square root of 3 is merely 0.000025......). The ratio of 153:265 was consequently known throughout the Hellenic world as the measure of the fish.
The fact that the measure of the fish was known to include 153, as one of its two numbers, and that the measure of how many fish the disciples are said to have caught is also 153, has not gone unnoticed by many scholars….”
Reference from "Catch of fish" (as of 7/9/07)


To investigate this further try:

http://www.shyamsundergupta.com/c153.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_of_153_fish


I don't know. Numerology is weird. I just like to think about it. You didn't happen to notice that I used exactly 153 lines to write this did you?...or did I?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Very good reading. I haven't read your original blog on 153, so not sure if you covered this or not, but 153 is considered a "triangular number". Interesting......very interesting what the power of three means in our faith.