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Twelve Is A Fuzzy Concept


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According to the bible, Israel was descended from twelve patriarchs, the sons of Jacob. He had twelve sons by four women. By his first wife, Leah, he fathered Reuben (his firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon. By Leah’s slave, Zilpah, he had Gad and Asher. By Rachael, his second wife whom he loved, he had Joseph and Benjamin. And by Rachael’s slave, Bilhah, he had Dan and Naphtali. There were twelve sons in all1, and you would think that each of them became the ancestor of a tribe. They did—sort of.

Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Typically, the eldest son would receive a double portion of his father’s inheritance, but Jacob had already broken with that tradition when he cheated Esau out of his birthright and connived with his mother Rebekah to steal Isaac’s blessing. He broke it again in elevating Ephraim and Manasseh to the same standing as his other sons. So Ephraim and Manasseh also became ancestors of tribes in Israel, replacing Joseph. This brings the number of tribes to thirteen.

When the land of Israel was allotted to the tribes, however, the tribe of Levi was excluded2. Because they were designated priests and caretakers of all the accoutrements of worship in Israel, their portion was not land but the Lord himself. They were given six cities of refuge to which those who had accidentally killed someone could flee for safety until their cases were adjudicated. They also had 42 other towns in which to live and raise families.3 The land was divided among the remaining twelve tribes, so back down to twelve. During their marches in the wilderness, the ark of the covenant was carried by the priests in the center of the tribe of Levi. The remaining twelve tribes were distributed around Levi: three in front, three in the rear, three on the left, and three on the right. In this way any attacker would have to go through three tribes and the Levites to reach the ark.4

When John lists the twelve tribes in Revelation 7, he leaves out Dan and Ephraim but includes Levi and Joseph. No one is entirely sure why, but it could be because Dan and Ephraim were most implicated in Israel’s apostasy. If we add them back in, that makes fourteen tribes, although Joseph is the ancestor of two of them.

Similar confusion ensues if we try to nail down the twelve apostles. The gospels, taken all together, list fifteen names of men called apostles. They are Simon Peter, James and John (the sons of Zebedee), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew (whom John apparently calls Nathanael), Thomas, Judas Iscariot, Matthew (whom John calls Levi), James son of Alphaeus (possibly a brother to Matthew), Simon the Zealot, Judas son of James (who may or may not be Thaddaeus). Judas Iscariot lost his place among the Twelve because he betrayed Jesus and was replaced by Matthias5 about whom nothing else is known. God apparently had his own idea about who should replace Judas. He selected a man named Saul of Tarsus, later Paul, who wrote about half the New Testament. What’s more, Paul uses the word “apostle” to describe still other people, including a woman named Junia. Of course, he never claimed that any should be numbered among the Twelve. He also never claimed that honor for himself.

It appears that twelve is not really a fixed quantity in the bible, or if it is, it isn’t clear which twelve it refers to. It may have some symbolic meaning, perhaps order or completion or optimal administrative division. We tend to think of numbers, especially natural numbers, as immutable and readily countable. Maybe not everyone thinks of them in the same way. Maybe some numbers have a semantic space that overlaps with other concepts to such a degree that for purposes of our own we try to make the things we count fit in with those concepts. Most of us learn to round numbers in grade school. We round to units or tens or hundreds or thousands. Rounding is a way of simplifying measurements or quantities, often to make calculations easier. But it’s easy to imagine that the roundness of rounding has something to do with the roundness of the zeros that end multiples of ten in our number system. We refer to 100 as a round number, even though there is nothing especially curvaceous about it apart from the way it is written. In duodecimal, it would be written 84, and in hexadecimal, it would be written 64. In binary, it would be just as round as in decimal: 1100100.

The fact is rounding need not have anything to do with round numbers. Some scholars think that the use of twelve in the bible reflects the influence of ancient Mesopotamian cultures that used a duodecimal number system. In such a system (using modern place-value and Arabic numerals), twelve would be written as 10, a round number. Even in decimal it is possible to round numbers to the nearest 12. For example, 37 would be rounded to 36 (= 3 × 12), which in duodecimal would be written 30. It turns out, you can round to any number. You can round to the nearest half. You can even round to the nearest π6 or fraction of π, something that comes in handy if you’re measuring angles in radians.

When my children were small, I used to play a game with them I called the Twelve Game. It was very easy for the children but less easy for me. I would ask a question (How many inches are in a foot?), and the answer would always be twelve.

  • How many faces does a dodecahedron have?
  • How many fluid ounces in a cup and a half?
  • How many disciples did Jesus have?
  • How many months in a year?
  • How many hours are on a clock?
  • How many eggs are in a dozen?
  • How many dozens make a gross?
  • In English, what is the largest number that is just one syllable?
  1. Genesis 46:8-25. There was also a daughter, Dinah. If there were other daughters, they were not mentioned. Dinah was noteworthy because she was abducted, raped, and forced into a betrothal. Her brothers rescued her and slaughtered the man and all his relatives. See Genesis 34. ↩︎
  2. Joshua 18:7. ↩︎
  3. Numbers 35:6-7. The cities of refuge are never mentioned outside the accounts concerning the division of the land, so it is not clear whether they were ever actually used. ↩︎
  4. See Numbers 2. ↩︎
  5. Acts 1:15-26. The apostles put forward two candidates to replace Judas: Matthias and Joseph called Barsabbas, also known as Justus. Instead of voting on them, they cast lots, which is to say, they flipped a coin. Heads it’s Matthias and Tails it’s Joseph. Matthias won the coin toss. Allowing important decisions to be decided by chance was seen as a way to allow God to make the decision. As Proverbs 16:33 puts it, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” It’s hard to imagine most churches today following their example, but it’s worth pondering. After all, if the candidates are all well approved by most of the group, why not let chance decide among them? ↩︎
  6. Rounding to π sounds like something you would have to do in the kitchen before baking. ↩︎

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