David Brisbin Podcast

In baseball, you count absolutely everything. Gets pretty obsessive, but if you love baseball, you learn to love counting too. Who knew it’s the same with religion? The “people of the book,” the ancient Hebrews who wrote the scriptures Christians cherish as well, counted everything. But their numbers didn’t have to be accurate to be true. Literal accuracy was not the point. Hebrew numbers, like their letters, carried meaning, and Hebrew letters were also numbered, so words had numbers that had meaning, and counts of time, people, things, had meaning too. It was a complex system for conveying meaning encoded into our scripture, and if we are to understand original intent, we need to pay attention to the counting. We just finished counting the forty days of Lent—meaning a time of trial and testing into rebirth. Now with Easter passed, Jesus risen, seems we should be done counting. But Easter Sunday started a new count, one built on the Hebrew counting between their ancient barley and wheat harvests, Passover