The Bible relies heavily on symbolism, frequently seen in the usage of numbers. Among the many, 40 is a commonly seen number in both the Old and New Testament. Either God just has a certain affinity for a handful of numbers and any reference to "40" should be taken literally, or this is a part of the Bible that represents something else -- was there actually 40 day's and nights of flooding in Genesis, and did Jesus really spend 40 days in the desert? Probably not exactly.
Clearly symbolism was important in antiquity. But what happens when symbolism results in edits to these biblical stories in a significant way? The story of Noah and the flood told in Genesis is seen in places other than the Bible -- specifically here in the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem from Mesopotamia. The flood story in Gilgamesh parallels Genesis, almost to a "t". It is not too much of a stretch to claim that the flood story recounted in Genesis was modeled to some extent on the older, very similar Mesopotamian story. However, one of the few noticeable changes in Genesis's account of the flood is its length. Why? The easy answer is that the change from 6 days worth of flooding (as told in Gilgamesh) to a much longer and symbolic 40 days seems to suggest that writers had no qualms about editing their story for a greater purpose -- in this case, promoting the importance of symbolism through numbers which they do frequently in both the Old and New Testament.
When reading Van Liere's "An Introduction to the Medieval Bible", the idea of symbolism reared its head again. Van Liere states that the Codex Amiatinus has 70 books -- 70 another symbolic number. This didn't just happen by chance, as "two letters of Peter are taken as one, and the book of Lamentations was regarded as a part of Jeremiah"(54). This got me thinking, did this emphasis on symbolism have a grander effect on the canon as we know it today than just the changing of some stories as seen in Genesis? For example, the Hebrew Bible has 24 books in total, another symbolic number seen frequently in the Old Testament. If the writers in antiquity were willing to edit, blend, and cut stories in order to reach the number 70, did this occur in other cases still seen today such as the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (similar to where Van Liere discusses the 22 books put together by Jerome, and the symbolism of the number 22)? It certainly seems that Van Liere is suggesting this importance of symbolism had a much greater affect on the Bible than we previously may have given credit.
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