A triangular number is the sum of all the numbers up to an including the number.
1+2+3+4+…+34+35+36 = 666
36 is the square of 6
6x6 = 36
Just another observation.
Also, the book of kings records that Solomon collects 666 talents of gold in one year, and also mentions he imports egyptian horses and has alot of wives. This is generally regarded as indications of Solomon’s ‘fall’, as Deuteronomy had forbidden the kings to multiply gold, horses, or wives.
So 666 in Revelation is a literary echo of that story, and links the idea with somone who is gifted and great, yet behaves wickedly and falls.
Because Today’s featured Staff Column is What’s up with 666, the “mark of the beast”? and after addressing the regular hoopla about 666, it goes on to throw a whole bunch of factoids (some real) at the issue, making the OP to this thread a perfect complement to the report.
A traingular number? I’m glad you asked. On the US east coast, one of the minorities is a smattering of people who speak Gullah. The train systems make an effort to have a traingular, or Gullah translator on each train. The traingular number is the minimum number of Gullah speakers the railroad has to employ as a courtesy to its Gullah-speaking customers.
That’s one of the reasons it’s so costly to run a railroad.
The word translated “completed,” here (from “Youngs’ Literal Translation”) is often translated “finished,” but the sense of “completed” is understood. Note that passage claims that the work was completed (or finished) on the seventh day and that God “sanctified” that day (or “hallowed” it in other translations).
In Jewish theology, the completion and resting were part of the whole creative act and when they went to devise their numerology, seven was reckoned as the whole number. Had not God rested and blessed that final day, the creative act, itself, would have been incomplete.
(I would have edited my 'traingular" typo, but there is no edit function as far as I can see. And then I would have missed the delightful train gullah translator explanation)
Let’s be fair, Bosda.
I don’t see how the OP claimed anything in the post was “important”.
It is just the sort of tidbit that gets thrown into discussions like these.
Topics like this naturally lend themselves to thoughts about numerology, artifacts of number sequences and jokes (among many other things).
As such it was at least as “important” as anything else being said here.
One could argue that, at minimum, the post was civil and added an idea that some found interesting or curious. And was factual rather than speculative to boot.
As opposed to, shall we say, a pointless and snide comment that adds no value whatsoever?
also saying 6 squared is 36, is saying that if you write out 36 dots in rows of 6 dots each, you’ll have a square of dots.
So a triangular number can be conceved as what you get when you lay out all the ‘dots’ of the number in a triangular pattern, and the height of the triangle is the same as the base.
Yes. I really just shared it as an additional consideration (after following the link at the bottom of the article where it said “comment”) as to why 666 is a significant symbolic number. It has 3 6s in its decimal notation, but also is related to 6x6 (the triangular of the square). So if the valence of 6 = imperfection, 666 has it in spades.
I know that some units contain 60 divisions because it is divisible by so many integers (2,3,4,5,6, etc.). I’ve never heard of 6 considered in this sense.
The other reason for 360 degrees in a circle is that it’s close to the number of days in a year, so makes some astronomical calculations easier (if you are doing them on clay tablets or papyrus, rather than on an electronic calculator).
See What’s up with numerology?, the explanation of 12’s and 360’s in our various measurements (imperial measures, calendar, etc) is the ancient Babylonians, covered in the first few paragraphs of that Staff Report. It’s referenced in the Staff Report on 666.
