|
The account in Genesis cannot be literal but it obviously has many deep metaphorical meanings which testify to its inspiration, and it may even be symbolic of the beginning of a specific age. Nineteenth-century Christian interpreters failed to consider the possibility that biblical chronology, as it actually appears in the sacred texts, was intended to be more a prophetic time scale than an accurate record of literal history. Although biblical chronology is established to be historically accurate in many cases, anyone who examines the occurrences and corresponding significance of certain numbers, such as the 'forty days' so frequently mentioned in Scripture, will quickly detect a symbolic numerology and a type of 'sacred arithmetic'. But where actual history and symbol diverge and converge is not always clear, for in our own time when history is clearer, these numbers continue to unfold in the same pattern. Even Baha'u'llah's ministry, if calculated from His imprisonment in the Siyah-Chal, encompassed forty years in true biblical fashion.
(190:1)
|