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2012 A.D.: 6th Day Series: The Number of Bones In A Human Adult Have A Pretty Amazing Correspondence!
Strong but slightly bendable, multipurpose and mendable...our 206 adult bones are amazing!
We humans have up to 350 bones in our body when we are infants, according to more than one source I checked. The number 350 seemed to be an agreed upon upper number. But some of those bones grow together to form one single bone or bone plate. In the end, by the time that we are an adult, we have 206 bones in our body.
For years I have believed that 206 must therefore be a very important number, and that it must correspond to something very profound, but when I would drift around in the Bible looking to see what it might be (if anything) I never could find anything that seemed to really strike home as truth. It's been something that my mind has turned to over and over and over when I would consider the human skeleton. Why 206? God seems to always have a reason for the fundamental things that He uses, and bones are pretty fundamental if you are a human!!
Tonight, I quit my job so that I could try to do something more useful to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit - which I think and hope He has called me to do now - and for whatever reason - tonight of all nights - I think I stumbled onto something. It may be something God guided me to. Right now, though having just found it, I'm feeling pretty satisfied with it for some reason. Here's the idea of it:
Jesus protects those who take refuge in Him. He is like Noah's Ark in that respect. There were 8 people in Noah's Ark. It was humanity's only refuge from the long-delayed wrath of God. Jesus is our only refuge from being judged and sent to hell for our sins. His righteousness is like the hull of a ship. Though you are just as bad a swimmer as everyone who is out there drowning, yet because you are a passenger on the ship you do not have to swim. You don't have to be a better swimmer than some and a worse swimmer than others. You are not the one making sure that you don't die. The ship, the ARK, provides your protection.
And so, Jesus' death on the cross is our protection. He died to provide a place of refuge for sinners elsewise lost.
People often say that Jesus' number is 8.
Consider that circumcision - the cutting off of the flesh of the son - occurred on the 8th day of the child's life by command of the Mosaic Law. It is cut off from the body part that DNA or seed comes from, for the male. The cutting off of the flesh of that which delivers the messages that can bring life to an egg - a 'world shaped' human egg. That is what the flesh is cut off from in the rite of circumcision. The cutting off of the flesh of the son that delivers the life-giving message to a 'world' otherwise dead. If an egg receives no 'messenger', it does not become alive. It is washed away in blood. That's how God made things to be. Over and over again. Cycle after cycle. If someone doesn't bear the message to the egg, there is no chance for the egg. If the message arrives to the egg, but is never accepted, there is no chance for the egg. But, if the message comes, and the message is accepted, there is life! The egg divides and begins to form a person in the womb, developing and destined for a life outside of the womb of its mother.
Octaves of sound, as their name subtly hints, involve 8. There are 7 levels of successive sound, and then the 8th harmonizes with the 1st. There were 7 days in Jesus' last week, including the days when He was 'dead', and then on the 8th day He rose again.
There was the first Adam, and there was the last Adam. The last had a resonance, a relationship, to the first. The first, Adam the man, made a mistake. The man associated with '8' made it right. The 1st Adam was apparently (possibly) ageless. Had he not sinned, he might have lived forever. But the other Adam - the last Adam as scripture calls Him - is Jesus, and He holds the power to return us to the condition of enjoying eternal life.
Anyway, if you look it up (even online), people have found a good number of reasons that have led them to feel that the number 8 has a strong correlation to Jesus. I've read a lot of them, and I think they seem to have a good case.
So, here's the possible tie in with our bones:
In the Book of Genesis, the first 8 chapters in the NIV and King James that I checked take us from creation of the Creation, until the creation of Adam, and then Eve, and then it explains how they first went astray, disobeyed God and sinned, were evicted from the Garden of Eden, and were told to work the land in hard toil (Adam) and have many babies despite the pain (Eve), and know the serpent to be their enemy, and it tells how the people became evil, partly because of Angels that lost a war in Heaven and who then came down, leaving their first 'estate', to live like humans did on Earth, much like men but more powerful. And those rebellious angels took wives from among mankind, as many as they wished, and their progeny were the 'mighty men of old'. Titans, Chitons, whatever you want to call them.
And then it tells of how violence filled the world because of these disobedient angels and their monstrous powerful progeny, and because of mankind's sin as well. And it tells how God chose a 'preacher of righteousness' and tried to reach the sinning world. (Actually Josephus, a Jewish scholar from 2,000 years ago, speaks more directly of how Noah tried to preach but was rejected.) And when the world would not listen, Noah was told by God to build the Ark. It was of 'gopherwood'. (A gopher is a creature that can go underground but then emerge alive. Does that relate? Maybe!) This wood was used to build a ship, a vessel of refuge, that was designed exactly as God specified. And then, pairs of all creatures living, and Noah and his family (8 humans in all) entered it. And the flood came, and death (by drowning) erupted from the deep even as great rains fell from the heavens. But, though all other land life perished, those on the Ark were safe (just as those who take refuge in Jesus will be safe.)
And eventually the rain stopped, after while the waters receded, and finally the Ark came to rest on a mountain. In time the land became dry, and the people emerged along with the animals.
Noah gratefully made a sacrifice to God. And it pleased God, and God made a promise: No more destruction of the world by flooding. He reassured Noah's family that that particular death would not be meted out again, so they needn't worry when there were rains or storms or floods. Such occurrences would never again reach such a terribly destructive level as what they had just survived! Consider the last verses of Genesis Chapter 8 (and did you notice that it's chapter 8, the 'number of Jesus' as some say?):
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
22 “As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”
End Quote
Well, there is an interesting correspondence in these 8 chapters of Genesis to the whole creation story. Notice how 'the Ark' preserves them through the horrible time of the deluge. And Jesus preserves his church through the time of the church age. And then freedom from danger comes when the Ark arrives upon the mountain. And Jesus will fight for His people in the end, and then reign upon Mt. Zion (with the Father above Him, of course.) And sacrifices will be made from there at that time which are pleasing to God, just as Noah made sacrifices that the Father was willing to accept. There really are resemblances, aren't there? It's the first 8 chapters of Genesis, sure. But it also contains the bones, the essential storyline, of the whole story of sinful mankind needing to be rescued by Jesus because they simply cannot manage it on their own. The Ark had to serve as refuge and bring all mankind to the mountain to offer sacrifice. And Jesus had to be the refuge for us sinners, and He will eventually have all mankind at the mountain to offer sacrifice. So, it's not fleshed out very much, but the bones, the skeleton, the essential basics of the story of salvation are there.
Well, in the NIV and King James Bibles for instance, there are those first 8 chapters of Genesis. And they have 31 verses, then 25 verses, 24 verses, then 26 verses, 32 verses, then 22 verses, 24 verses, then 22 verses. That adds up to 206 verses, from the first word in Genesis chapter 1 to the last word in Genesis chapter 8. In that many verses we are given the bones - not fleshed out yet, not too many details yet - but the bones of the story of the fall of man, and mans' salvation through Jesus.
Let's consider Jesus saving His Bride, the Church, dying on the cross because His Bride the Church is composed of sinners and an acceptable atonement price for sin had to be paid. It is somewhat like the Ark enduring the same deluge as Noah's family for the sake of Noah's small family, to save them. There was a door in the Ark's side through which they gained entrance. Without the Ark's protection Noah's family would have perished. It is like Adam eating the punishing forbidden fruit because his bride had done so, the bride created from what came from Adam's side. What is it that Adam said of Eve? He called her BONE of his BONE, and flesh of his flesh. The bride is composed of Adam's flesh and bone? And Adam must surely have had 206 bones. And the story of man created, man falling, the sinful unrighteous world being destroyed except for those found worthy of entering into the Ark, and the Ark bringing them to a safe landing place upon a mountain.... that is a possible 'type' of the story of Jesus' love for His bride. And it took 206 verses to save this bride...who is the church. Jesus is also called 'the last Adam' in scripture. Are we supposed to notice these things and think about them?
So, 206 bones in the adult human, 206 verses in the first 8 chapters of certain Bibles....in this case, the NIV was the first Bible translation I checked. The only other I've checked so far is the King James, which as I mentioned also had 206 verses in the first 8 chapters of Genesis.
Could this be a part of the mystery of why we have 206 bones? Some things fit, so perhaps!
Who can probe the riches of the mind of God? Whether this turns out to be right or wrong, I know that we barely scratch the surface.
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