Of Twelve, and Ten, and Twenty, and Forty--Counting Systems

An email penpal and I were talking (or writing, maybe I should say) about whether it was significant that Christ had 12 apostles and there were 12 Tribes of Israel. I claimed that by Christ's time there were no longer 12 tribes because one of the two kingdoms of Israelites--I think the northern one--had disappeared along with its 10 tribes--which came to be called the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.That led to my commenting on the number 12--and then on other "round" numbers frequently appearing in the Bible. He (said friend) thought what I'd written sounded like a blog posting and suggested I post it; so here it is:

Twelve is sort of a "round number" (more about which later). The Bible is full of round numbers, e.g. 40. The Israelites, after leaving Egypt, wandered in the desert of Sinai for 40 years. Noah's flood was when it rained 40 days and nights. And I think Christ spent 40 days in the desert. I think armies are often specified as 40,000 strong, in the Bible. Just as a few examples; I am sure there are others.

A grad school chum, a resident in psychiatry, explained all this to me and said the reason is that 40 weeks is the length of human gestation.

Now, 12: As natural as it seems to us, not all systems of counting are based on 10. 10 is the number of fingers, but 12 is the fingers plus two fists, and 20 is the fingers and toes.

English has some vestiges of a system of counting by 12's. We have the special word dozen (though etymologically dozen comes from words for 10 and two--which may undermine my argument here). And how many make up a jury? Look at our numbers above ten. Starting with thirteen, they go x + 10 (thirteen--the word, not just the number--is three + ten, and similarly with all the other "teen" numbers)..... but eleven and twelve are different.

French has vestiges of a system of 20's. The word in French for 80 is quatre-vingt, i.e., 'four twenties'.

And we still have a relic of a system of 60 which we inherited from the Sumerians of some 5000 years ago: 60 seconds in a minute (of either time or angle/arc), 60 minutes in an hour or degree. Sixty perhaps comes from 5 x 12 (again 12 is our ten fingers plus two fists).

So (back to the original issue)--considering that twelve is sort of a "round number," it's conceivable to me that there may not have actually been 12 Disciples. I guess the 12 Tribes are all named so maybe we want to accept that. But yes, both numbering 12 may have been coincidence or maybe things were so ordained in both cases because someone liked the number 12 because it's a "round number."

So, as I said, there were not still 12 Tribes of Israel by the time of Christ. At one time there were two kingdoms, Israel and Judea. The northern kingdom was wiped out and 10 of the tribes disappeared, and I believe this was considerably before Christ's time.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Richard Stein