Just on a whim, the other day, I went looking to see if I could find out where we get the notion that KST was supported by 1453 columns and twice as many pilasters. I knew it wasn't in the Bible. It is mentioned in Andersons Constitutions, so it's been in masonic lore for a good long while. By googling, I found some references in old non-masonic reference boods that said it came from Josephus, but I've checked History of the Jews and Wars of the Jews pretty thoroughly, and can't find it there. Any ideas?
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a Mystery.
- Thread starter tomasball
- Start date
Have you read this paper, it may tickle your fancy: http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/biblical-masonic-solomon-temple.html
That's not intended as an answer by the way just some extra
dfreybur
Premium Member
On numbers and numeral systems -
Until the introduction of the Hindu-Arabic numbering system there was no uniform system for specifying numbers. The building of KST and other stories in our degrees predate the introduction of the Hindu-Arabic numbering system by millennia. That's a very long time. It's such a long time that translation is needed to understand the same language. The meaning of numbers gets confused without the H-A system. For all we can tell there's some word we don't understand so it got interpreted as a number using its letters as numbers not sounds. Trying to figure out where the numbers come from thus becomes a combination of glottochronology and numerology.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glottochronology
For an example of material in the same language that is so old it needs translation, try reading Beowulf in the original poetry. It's in English but it's a thousand year old poem that's in Old English. The Hebrew texts of the Old Testament are supposed to have even older dates so they should have even greater problems of numerical accuracy. Worse, the texts of the Old Testament were transmitted by oral tradition for an extremely long time before they were written down. Stories evolve across the generations in oral traditions.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pilaster
When I first heard the lectures I had no idea what a pilaster is, so I looked it up. It's a column that is embedded in a wall. In modern buildings we call them "studs" and they are invisible, we we have them strictly for decoration. Back in ancient times they would have been load bearing columns with walls built between them.
Until the introduction of the Hindu-Arabic numbering system there was no uniform system for specifying numbers. The building of KST and other stories in our degrees predate the introduction of the Hindu-Arabic numbering system by millennia. That's a very long time. It's such a long time that translation is needed to understand the same language. The meaning of numbers gets confused without the H-A system. For all we can tell there's some word we don't understand so it got interpreted as a number using its letters as numbers not sounds. Trying to figure out where the numbers come from thus becomes a combination of glottochronology and numerology.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glottochronology
For an example of material in the same language that is so old it needs translation, try reading Beowulf in the original poetry. It's in English but it's a thousand year old poem that's in Old English. The Hebrew texts of the Old Testament are supposed to have even older dates so they should have even greater problems of numerical accuracy. Worse, the texts of the Old Testament were transmitted by oral tradition for an extremely long time before they were written down. Stories evolve across the generations in oral traditions.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pilaster
When I first heard the lectures I had no idea what a pilaster is, so I looked it up. It's a column that is embedded in a wall. In modern buildings we call them "studs" and they are invisible, we we have them strictly for decoration. Back in ancient times they would have been load bearing columns with walls built between them.
Warrior1256
Site Benefactor
Thanks for the information brother. I think that all of the Masonic information on the forum is great. I am having a great time interacting with all of the brothers here.