Why Does the Number 7 Appear Everywhere in Religion?"
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 тра 2024
- Support us on Patreon!: / religionforbreakfast
The number seven appears everywhere in the Bible...and a bunch of religious traditions too. Why is the number seven sacred?
Bibliography:
Arvid Kapelrud, "The Number Seven in Ugaritic Texts," Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 18 (Oct 1968), 494-499.
Denise Flanders, "The Rhetorical Use of Numbers in the Deuteronomistic History," 2022.
Denise Flanders, "Saul has Killed His Thousands, David His Ten Thousands," dissertation, 2019.
James Pritchard (ed.), "Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament," Third Edition with Supplement, 1969
R.A. Kraft, "Philo's Treatment of the Number Seven in On Creation," in "Exploring the Scripturesque, (2009), p. 217-236.
Botterweck et. all. (ed.), "Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament," Vol. 14.
Laki, "On the Origin of the Sexagesimal Sytem," Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. 59, No 1/3 (Jan - March 1969).
Kazuo Muroi, "The Origin of the Mystical Number Seven in Mesopotamian Culture"
Adela Harbro Collins, "Cosmology and eschatology in jewish and Christian Apocalypticism," 1966.
Bendt Alster, "Early Dynastic Proverbs and other Contributions to the Study of Literary Texts from Abu Salabikh," Archiv für Orientforschunb (1991/1992), 1 - 51.
Leonid Zhmud, "From Number Symbolism to Arithmology," Zahlen- und Buchstabensysteme im Dienste religiöser Bildung. L. Schimmelpfennig (ed.).Tübingen: Seraphim, 2019. P. 25-45.
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images
00:00 Why so many 7s?
00:24 Near Eastern Context
5:03 Later Development of Sacred 7
5:59 Cross-cultural phenomenon?
7:18 Origin theories
10:46 Patreon
Celebrating 777,000 subscribers! Support us on Patreon here!: www.patreon.com/religionforbreakfast
🎉🎉
was just about to say, you've struck the jackpot with this video!
congrats! and great move to use this as a milestone 👍
here's to the path to 7,777,777 subscribers
I saw what you did there...
I read in a Tafsir that in Arabic there are singular, dual and plural number. In ancient Arabic 3 to 7 is plural. After that they start like eight and one more. I don't know whether its applicable to all the sematic languages.
'Misinformation in the Internet multiplies seven times.' - Gilgamesh
LOL
"This makes me cries seven times for seven years." -- Enkidu roommate
Mithros was born on July 7th
Once on X, once on Facebook, once on Instagram, once on TikTok, once on UA-cam, once on Reddit, and once on Telegram.
Normie
When I was 4 I confused the concepts of "seven" and "several", so it would make sense to 4 year old me that seven meant a lot.
Norse "9" is similar.
Every time 9 is used in Norse mythology, it's apparently not meaning a literal 9 things but "many."
So the 9 realms means many realms.
In ancient Chinese/Daoist/Confucian tradition it is likewise for 10,000. e.g. "The Ten Thousand Things" means everything
@@rainynight02 There are 9 realms listed with specific names in Norse mythology, so that's a pretty bad example.
it took a long time for me to accept that several doesn't specifically mean "seven or more". i would use "few" to describe 3 to 6 until i was like... 20
@@Tzizenorec
That is only because they used a base 10 system.
Use a base 7, and everything sums to 7 if starting from 1 , 8 if starting from 0.
Your channel, as well as Esoterica and Let's Talk Religion, were what got me to change my major to History. I graduated in December with my BA.
Congratulations!!
Yes, congrats! I am in my 50s and have had a life-long interest in history... and the great thing is that the more you age the more you learn so your best years are ahead of you. 😀.
Esoterica was accomplice to the Pearl High School massacre. He has a video about the Satanic panic where he gaslights his audience about it. Ironically, he was part of a satanic cult alongside the shooter. He’s also not Jewish. He just dresses that way for clout.
Congrats!!!
🎉🎉🎉🎉
I used to watch Esoterica, but I was banned for explaining why some of the content of the videos on that channel was inconsistent with the source materials (specifically that he was repeating the words of people presenting themselves as experts rather than doing his own research). Do yor own research before repeating anything said on that channel
Love how you posted this while you have 777k subscribers.
Amazing.
He mentions this in the video.
I think it was planed
And the length of the video is… 767 seconds
I am watching it at the time it has 77k views. Love the coincidence.
You're still that floppy haired grad student to most of us - thanks for all you do!
Henry inspired Dr. Sledge to create Esoterica..
Let's just ponder that for a second.
For all we know, free and open scholarly education of religious studies would never have been the same without him. He's a true legend.
@@zachery751
Heavens!
We owe him a debt.
I prefer the floppy hair to the non-floppy hair.
@@zachery751 really? I had no idea. I’ve been watching a lot of esoterica lately and have been loving Dr. Sledge Work.
I need to find a way to weasel into one of his DnD campaigns if he’s still DMing lol
I'd say his hair doo is more wavy than floppy
Patterns like these remind me that we are the continuation of thousands of years of thought and belief.
That’s deep 😮
Collective unconscious?
7 is also a very important number in traditional Cherokee religion and society. Thus the 7-pointed star on the crest and flag of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma territory.
Then its propably very very old concept.
7 days is a moon phase, the people that wrote the Bible used the lunar calendar, as did all ancient people initially because the ease of tracking the moon through its 4 phases of 7 days that we now call weeks of the moonth. This is why 7 comes up as an important number in alot of peoples myths
@@whatabouttheearth For the Cherokee, it's often tied to the Pleiades.
Seven clans, the seven directions (north, south, east, west, up, down, and within), seven pointed star….
even in our hinduism culture
Congratulations on 777,000 subscribers! I love your content.
77th like
Never heard the word seven so many times. The echo lives on in my head
Marketing studies show that a products name must be repeated at least 7 times in a commercial before it starts to sink in.
I dont know if thats serious or not, but funny it is :)
@@charlesrb3898
Does it echo seven times?
seven times seven@@zacharyh.9565
Seven
This was uploaded 7 hours ago. Awesome.
This comment has 7 likes.
7 days ago
and now it has 17 likes
I don’t know if this adds to anything but I learned in psych class that we generally can only remember 7 unrelated things for short term memory
If you add a moon in your head you can have three more seven set of memories. Derived from month, we call those memorith
Mentioned in the video :) around 8:17
Seven is also interesting from a linguistic perspective or rather it looks suspiciously similar in several Eurasian languages. You have the Indo-European septḿ̥ from which you got septem, saptan in Sanskrit and so on. Looks similar to Akkadian shabat and related Semitic words. There is also Prototurkic *žēti for seven. In Uralic languages, seven is the last "normal" number, while 8 and 9 are (ten-minus-one) and (ten-minus-two).
Why wouldn't it be similar though? Most of these languages are related or border each other.
@@hedgehog3180 Because none of the other numbers are an usually those numbers which are loaned are higher, like 1000 or 10000. Also they border each other, but over a vast geographic area. Maybe they borrowed each other close in the past. If it is connected, then it is a very ancient connection, but it might be none at all too. In any way it seems interesting. After all languages inherit words from ancestors instead of diffusing into each other via geographic proximity.
Semitic is likely not indigenous to Eurasia as all farming-related words seem to be borrowed. Afro-Asiatic is from the Horn of Africa and is more than twice as old as Indo-European is.
7 days is a moon phase, the people that wrote the Bible used the lunar calendar, as did all ancient people initially because the ease of tracking the moon through its 4 phases of 7 days that we now call weeks of the moonth. This is why 7 comes up as an important number in alot of peoples myths.
@@Flozone1 Of course the connection would be ancient, you're literally talking about Indo-European languages that are directly related and thus share a common ancestors. The only other languages you list are all surrounded by Indo-European languages and thus obviously had a ton of influence from them.
I can't commit to a Patreon subscription at the moment, but I have so appreciated finding this channel and learning so much from an expert in religious studies. There are so many great educational UA-cam channels, but yours is an underrepresented field. That is a shame, since it is an area where so much of what the average person knows are half-remembered myths. I hope to watch the second instalment of this video when you reach 7,777,777 subscribers!
In Damascus we still have a saying that someone has a tongue with seven tips about a cheeky or sharp-tongued person.
In Denmark if you want to say that you're definitely keeping a secret you'll say “my mouth is shut with seven seals”.
As usual, quality content! 7/7!
I have placed the 7th like on your comment, 7 hours after you have posted it!
@colimn.3419 and it’s 77 likes for me!
When you offered the answer that 7 means "to the max", like "cranking it up to 10," I can't have been the only person who thought of Spinal Tap. So it was delightful to see that possibly, given the sexagesimal number system, 7 *is* 11. Shows that finding answers is a bit of a crap shoot.
I also thought of "The magic number 7..." I don't think it's necessarily right to simply dismiss that idea as speculation, provided we stop trying to look for a single cause. Seven is the recurring, para-sacred, number, for whatever reason, and it means "completeness," let's say. If that's true, its use is reinforced by the apparent fact that, on average, a list of 7 items is pretty handy for humans to remember (and hence maybe??? the prevalence of lists of 7: the seven capital sins, the seven deadly virtues, the seven wonders of the world). Full explanations need not just "causes," but maybe causal feedback loops.
I'd say it symbolizes completion, but not just that; achievement. The magic of life. True livelihood, that one thing in life that is the basic unit of good that we cannot define. That simple fulfillment by existing, and the fulfillment of having done what was needed of you in your time on earth.
Avenged Sevenfold 🤘
7 is *not* 11 in a sexagesimal base (base 60). It is 11 in a seximal base (base 6). The mesopotamian sexagesimal base here though is actually not a pure sexagesimal system though. the sub-base was base 10.
@@succadick2424 Oh dear, yes. I never could resist a silly joke, though.
Wouldn't 11 in sexagesimal base be 61?
I enjoy watching religionforbreakfast because, paradoxically, it is so extremely scientific. Tidy and concise.
This is one of my favorite channels. Congrats on the 777k subscribers and keep up the great work!
Theology was my minor. I still study it on my own time and follow you because I know you will give knowledgeable, unbiased overviews. Keep up the great work
Man, you're one of the best channels out there, I could not be more happy to hear you say you'll double down on it.
I liked this video 7 times. Great work as usual!
I wonder if the number 7 was important for a similar reason many native american cultures appreciate the number 7 particularly in reference to generations: I might be lucky to meet my great-grandparent in person and they may have met their great-grandparent in person and been able to tell me about it. That's 7 generations, and represents the most number of generations that might be able to directly relate to each other (I can recall my great-grandfather telling me about time he spent with his great-grandfather, that is the extent of a direct connection).
Its possible to have direct comunication between more than 7 generations. Say they all had kids at 15..
My people in Africa use to count seven gen before marriage, if your sixth great grand dad f cked up, you ain't getting my lil daughter. Remember it's Cain's and Seth descendents that were punished not cain. Cain lived, multiplied and prospered even when he knew he f cked up
Nice timing: this appeared just in time for our 7th wedding anniversary :D
Seven ladies seven kids and infinite headache. What a great life
My phone is at 77% as I am watching this.
Thanks for the video, sir :)
I just looked up and the car parked in front of me has the license plate "777H777"
All these heptumnal coincidences were just fun facts to add to your engagement. Thanks again RFB team!
Mine is 69
now you have 7 likes on your comment!
Man your channel is one of my favorites on UA-cam. I always feel like I’m learning so much and your voice is very calming. Thanks so much for the great videos!
7 Chakras, 7 Colors, 7 Musical notes.... it goes on and on
There’s more than 7 musical notes and colours
@@shanekc3502 of course there is more than black and white, there are gray scales. Rainbow has 7 distictive colors even tho they transition from one another in a gradient. 7 Main musical notes taken as basis, aka chromatic scale. It is reduntant and obvious and my point is that WE like to cathegorize things in groups of 7 ... more examples, 7 days of the week, 7 visible celestial objects in our solar system, 7 archangles, 7 deadly sins, 7 virtues, 7 princes of hell, etc etc
@@Sacrengard yes but there’s 12 musical notes
@@shanekc3502 7 named notes: A, B, C, D, E, F, G (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si) the others are variations of those names, minors and Majors
@@Sacrengard sharps and flats names are just made up there are 12 notes on a piano. Minor and major is for keys and chords
I took a screenshot but then realized there is no way (that I can see) to post it in this comment. But, as I watch this video, you have 777k subscribers and this video has 77k views, which is excellent
Thank you for what you do, and I hope the support continues to grow.
combine three of the most important things to ancient people:
- 7 celestial bodies
- 7 stars connected to the North Star
- 364 days between solstices or equinoxes, 364 is divided evenly by 7, equaling 52 weeks, and 13 lunar cycles.
combine how absolutely important all of those things are to ancient people for everything from religious/cultural identity, to travel, to agriculture, and i think it's a pretty good bet that this is the best explanation for this phenomenon 🤔 but I'm no scholar so obviously I'm wrong 🤷♂️✌️😅
"but I'm no scholar so obviously I'm wrong"
Huh? Your first two point where already mentioned in the video as possible explanations brought up by scholars, so why should anyone say that you are wrong on this?!
The only thing which is not exactly right is the "364 days between solstices or equinoxes", but it's right to a quite good approximation.
The real reason why 7 is so profound and is considered the number of wholeness and completion is that God the Holy Spirit is actually Seven Spirits combined. In the book of Revelation, it is written that God has 7 Spirits, these seven are the Holy Spirit so God acts according to His nature.
And this is why, if you have not noticed, the number 7 is found outside religious texts, like the 7 main colors in the rainbow, or the 7 notes in music etc. So the number 7 is literally ingrained into the fabric of reality. because it represents God's nature.
@@nikokapanen82 It's precisely the other way round: Because 7 had already been considered to be a "holy" number, the author of revelations simply made up the assertion that "God has 7 Spirits". There is no evidence at all that this assertion actually is true.
The 7 main colors in the rainbow are just convention, one could also argue for fewer or more colors. This is not even the same number in all cultures! Same goes for the 7 notes in music etc.
"So the number 7 is literally ingrained into the fabric of reality."
Totally unproven assertion.
@@bjornfeuerbacher5514
Yes, to an atheist it is this way.
@@nikokapanen82 To any thinking person it's that way. Even most religious scholars will agree on that. Only the most fundamentalist, indoctrinated believers will argue otherwise.
This same subject popped up on NPR this last week. Seven was the “It” number for a lot of people. Love this deeper dive!
Modern people would be confused by this because we don't even look at the natural things in front of our faces.
7 days is a moon phase, the people that wrote the Bible used the lunar calendar, as did all ancient people initially because the ease of tracking the moon through its 4 phases of 7 days that we now call weeks of the moonth. This is why 7 comes up as an important number in alot of peoples myths. The lunar cycle is the most obvious trackable natural calendar system.
To be honest this channel is on my top 10 list , my UA-cam preferences have changed over the years but I always check any new video you upload .
dont you mean top 7 list?
@@WhichDoctor1did you check 7times?
I totally missed it @@WhichDoctor1
Why does the number 7 appear everywhere in religion?
Because 7 8 9, duh
Seven is the cannibal number.
SEVEN STRONGH
That cannibal
🤦♀️
If Yoda tells that joke it's because 6 7 8
Thank you for teaching Religionforbreakfast!! :D
Congratulations! 🎉 You're content is Awesome! Thank you, and your Team, for sharing with us. Great Work! 🙂
Saptrishis (7 Sages), it is said that they mastered 7 different dimensions of Yoga, together they cover all 112 ways or Tantra (techniques) in multiple of 7.
Thala for a reason 🤡🤥😬😆
I really like your content and will adhere to your Patreon.
i can’t wait for you to get 1 million! you deserve all the support!
Glad to have been here for the least two and a half years of it, great content as always 🎉
Great content, honestly the origins being with either the planet count or the hexa-base number system were both very compelling. The later reminds me about how we say someone or something is a "10" when they are perfect, ie "this pizza is a 10" is "this pizza is the best". It's a shame we lack the context for those early cultures, because for instance in United States I've observed people use "A" as a maximum since letter grades are common, instead of the 10 scale. I believe also that once you get such a powerful cultural snowball rolling, as with all that previous religious work, new writers are compelled to use this inherent association for flavour. If I wrote a book, for no reason other than the sensations it evokes, I'd use things in groups of 3 and 7 like "7 artifacts" or "7 enemies" etc.
I rather like the idea of a fictional culture that loves the number 4, and uses base-4 numbers, puts their metric prefixes at multiples of 1024 (4^5), likes squares and tetrahedrons, offers deals on 4 or 8-packs of goods, and defaults to using powers of four when they need to pick a number, so where we decimal users would pick 100, they'd pick 64 or 256.
You inspired me to pursue a minor in relgious studies, keep up the great work!
Thank god you said "in" religious studies" rather then *"for"* ......
(Im kidding of course...)
You must've choose English @@bugzyhardrada3168
I think this channel is so interesting and important, but I would really love to see captions added. That helps to open up the information to so many groups, including those who are Deaf/hearing impaired, but also people with a whole range of neurodiverse brains, English learners, etc. It would really help and I'd be super happy :)
Congrats! And thank you so much. I have learned much from you and look forward to more.
Glad to support your work. Just joined your Patreon. ❤
You've just connected some tangential dots for me. Gustav Holst's "Planet Suite" is pretty clearly an influence on Marty O'Donnell's original soundtrack for Destiny, but O'Donnell wrote pieces for Sol and Luna instead of Uranus and Neptune. Now I have a clue as to why. There are other musical choices related to a sort of classical numerology he makes - the vocal themes for certain sections seem to reference the old "Music of the Spheres" idea that, say, Earth's elliptical orbit corresponds to the variance in pitch between mi and fa in the solfege scale.
Thousands of years later, and we're still imparting significance to numbers in attempts to unify the whole.
Thanks for educating me, I really enjoyed this one.
congrats on the auspicious number of subscribers!
The Seven Classic Planets connection brings my mind to astro-theology; the theory that the first religion of humanity was the worship of stars, or that theology was a natural development from astrology.
wasn't human worshipped landmarks, flora and fauna first?
Mario’s religion.
Tell me you’re an Atheist without saying your an Atheist.
A. Do you think the ancients saw Saturn or Neptune? 🙄
B. Astro theology was not the first religion of humanity, I'd advise you to read 'Rivers of Life' by JGR Forlong for more of a hint that is not as based on modern anachronistic concepts as "Astro theology"
7 days is a moon phase, the people that wrote the Bible used the lunar calendar, as did all ancient people initially because the ease of tracking the moon through its 4 phases of 7 days that we now call weeks of the moonth. This is why 7 comes up as an important number in alot of peoples myths. The lunar cycle is the most obvious trackable natural calendar system.
Congrats on your sacred number of subs! Your content remains high-quality educational material that also entertains - which is so rare... :)
7 being a shorthand for "to the maximum" reminds me of how we use "turn it up to 11" as a way to go beyond the maximum.
Interesting coincidence that 11 is the next prime number after 7 as well 😛
Its over 9000!!!
Thank you so much for what you do!!! I love your videos.
Maybe it's a combination of factors. The lunar month would have been noticed very early on in human history, then when people started looking at the stars and saw the 7 "planets" or heavenly bodies, then someone started grouping the stars they saw according to what those groups looked like from their perspective and there were a few constellations that had seven stars. Then that Sumerian sexagesimal system and the number 7 being different from 1-6. It's a series of coincidences but I can see how they'd influence culture and religion in the Levant and surrounding areas and why it persists these days.
Do you think ancient people saw Saturn or Neptune? 🙄
7 days is a moon phase, the people that wrote the Bible used the lunar calendar, as did all ancient people initially because the ease of tracking the moon through its 4 phases of 7 days that we now call weeks of the moonth. This is why 7 comes up as an important number in alot of peoples myths. The lunar cycle is the most obvious trackable natural calendar system.
The ancients knew stars more than 99 percent of us now, they knew their geometry vary well but top leaders hid knowledge in order to continue leading. The Greeks even had a computing device for the sky
People nowadays assume to know better but we just have microscope and telescope. Most of us will never know the physical world(mother nature ) as they did.
Really enjoyed how this video dives into the mystery of the number seven across different cultures and religions. It's amazing to see how a simple number can hold so much meaning and connect so many beliefs throughout history. The part about the stars and planets making seven a special number was especially cool. It shows how people long ago looked up at the sky and found something sacred that we still talk about today. Thanks for sharing these fascinating insights and reminding us how connected our world is through numbers and stories. Keep up the great work on making complex religious topics easy to understand!
Great channel with useful information.
You’re the best. Keep going mate. Awesome content. Thanks.
I wouldn’t call that hair floppy. Screamo?
Thank you! May the seven be with you! 👏✨💐👍💗🌞🙏
There's a channel, theoria apophasis, where he rediscovered the Pythagorean/geometric basis of seven. Phi, and each of it's powers up to phi cubed and down to phi to the negative three, seven sections, all have metaphysical meanings, and with these seven sections all of reality is represented, and the 36-36-108 golden triangle can demonstrate this as a geometric symbol. The math and metaphysics are solid and you could read all further cultural references to seven as versions of this basic geometrical/metaphysical understanding.
Much better thumbnail. good work
Longtime viewer, first time commenter, can we get a video about the acts of Thomas? I just rewatched your videos on the subject because I went back and have read the Gospel of Thomas about 6 times now and just started the acts and was hoping you’d cover the subject sometime! Keep doing all you do, your channel has been a well of knowledge for me and all I share it with.
"Chunk" is a technical term in computing to refer to quantifiable collection of data.
The video is 12 minutes and 47 seconds long… 1+2+4 = 7… factor that with the additional 7 on the end and this cannot be considered a coincidence
Great stuff, as usual!
That was fantastic, and that's why i watch this channel ❤
In my country there is a symbolic sentence regarding the number 7.
"7 generations their wealth will not run out".
Usually this sentence is used to refer to families who have been very rich for generations
Sorry for my bad English
Your English was perfect, well done! Don't give up learning =)
You must be North Indian or Pakistani ?
@@sarfrazmh31 no, I'm from southeast Asia
@@experience741 Your ancestors naybe from North India or Pakistan then. Such beliefs are passed down from generations by idle talk at home.
@@sarfrazmh31 I don't know. But in past my country had trade relationship with ancient india so maybe this sentence was brought by ancient Indians merchants. I don't know if this sentence also in India and Pakistan
I just wanted to drop a few words of encouragement. Been watching for years and never miss an episode. What you do is amazing; personally, I've learned so much from your work here.
7 words of encouragement, perhaps?
@@GizzyDillespee 😀 Well played
This video was great! There's one theory relating to math / geometry you didn't mention: the radius of a circle wraps its circumference 6 times, then a 7th is needed to complete it, but with extra (taken from Mathieu Pageau).
This channel is great!
Thala for a reason!! We indians know 7 is reason behind everything since long time! You all should know about M.S dhoni
In the Arabic numeral system, 9 represents completeness, as it's the largest single number
base-10 counting systems predate arab
@@ZETA14.88 that's true, but why say it here? Nobody was asserting that the Arabs were the _first_ to use a base-10 system, just that 9 has special significance in Arabic culture _as a result_ of using a base-10 system.
It's also 7
If you're talking about Arab/Muslim culture, I'm both and I've never heard of 9 representing completeness, but we love to use 7, 70, 7000, etc. If you're talking about the whole base ten positional numeral system - a numeral system doesn't include numbers representing things?
@@ZETA14.88no it doesn't lol Arabs( desert people /tent people, nomadic people) predate base ten...they also next to India and the numbers are actually called Arabic lol
I have always valued this objective and research focused perspective on religion, something which is normally only covered in extremely emotional and argumentive sermons or hate pieces. Thank you for your dedication to education and knowledge.
I scrolled down, and I watched this 7 hours after publication. WooOoOo.
The fact that the Norse seem to have used 9 in a similar capacity does lend some credence to the 7 +/- 2 hypothesis. At the very lease, being odd numbers each with their own mathematical intrigue, I wouldn't be surprised if the true answer is "all of the above". The fact that 7 is vaguely around the limit of ideas you can juggle, the fact it is an early stand out in mathematical operations (especially base 60), and the fact that there were 7 wandering celestial bodies. 5 is half of 10, and the number of fingers on a hand. 9 is one less than 10, and is also 3x3, 3 being itself fairly special as being the first number to qualify as "many".
Having spent my life with numbers, either in music, or in physics, or in software, I can attest that different numbers have different feels. 5, 7, and 9 all have a vibe, while numbers like 4 and 8 feel quite dull (being "just" multiples of two). 6 feels a bit special, but in a comfortable way. It's nice because it combines 3 and 2, so you can look forward to a lot more tidy integer division. And 10 of course resets the counter in our base ten system, and has a lot of practical relevance to our interaction with the world.
I would argue 4 can be special if you look for it. 4 cardinal directions, 4 elements, 4 extremities, etc...
Honestly, as long as the number is not too big or weird you can pretty much find it everywhere. It just comes to what a culture holds as important.
Norse myth focuses on the 3 and 9 because in their culture, existence itself relates to the number 3 and 9. in their believe reality is woven by 3 women symbolizing the past, the present and the future. 3 goddesses weave 3 threads = 3 x 3 = 9, which stands for reality itself. you can also spot the number 3 in many of their runes.
@@Noqtis Small quibble, but there are more than 3 norns, it's just that only three are named. Those three are referred to as Jotnar, but the sources say that the Nornir came from many backgrounds, specifically including gods, elves, and dwarves.
I should note that the number eight plays a similar role in Japanese culture. For example, the term for all existing gods in Shinto is "yaoyorozu no kami", or "eight million gods". This is just one of many expressions in which this number symbolizes completeness. Sometimes it just means many: "yatsuzaki" means tearing someone apart, or into eight pieces.
a 7 day week is one phase of the moon. Also in many languages the days of the week are named after the 7 planets.
Any modern society accepts a week as 7.days which the 7th day is rest day. The fulfilling of Resting does effect an importance in having great respond.
Congratulations! In Japan, this is the year of the Seven Gods of Fortune, shichifukujin, which is another fun association to your milestone.
In a lunar cycle, the most reasonable division of time into smaller cycles is to quarter it. That leaves you with 7 days. As a prime, it is then I realistic to divide further, which would make 7 Complete
This is not quite true.
But it's approximately true.
I think this answer makes a lot of sense. Four 7-day weeks in a month -> 7 is the end of a week -> seven is complete -> seven is special. In fact, since the moon and sun are so visually different than the planets, it almost makes more sense to me that they were added to the other planets in astrology to add up to 7, which was already special.
The problem i have with this is that the lunar cycle is 29.5 days, not 28. Then, with 12 lunar months, thats 354 days, 11 days shorter than 365.25 days in a full year. Nothing about 7 fits with lunar cycles or the calendar
Side fun fact, the Islamic calendars uses lunar months, which is why for example, Ramadan occurs 11 days earlier each year, “moving around” the calendar. Additionally, since lunar month is 29.5 days, theres a 50% chance each month will be 29 or 30 days (it averages out through the whole year). Often the determination is based on local moon visibility, which is why certain holidays may be celebrated on different days in different areas
The lunar calendar feels like the biggest reason, given it’s importance in many cultures
Thank you. I would like to suggest a more mundane reason why people believed 7 represented completeness, art. Throughout many cultures, many people realized that you could draw six circles around a seventh of equal diameter. Could this be the "revelation" that led to 7 being viewed as a sign of completeness?
Love your channel. Would like to see more videos on how art, perhaps even more on sacred geometry, have influenced religious beliefs.
Just a small point but I love how you called it the Chinese correlative cosmology haha, bcs that’s exactly what it is (the interplay of the elements). It’s such an important system in daoist/general Chinese folk cultural thought and to hear it named so precisely was validating.
Thala for a reason
Bro 😂😂😂😂
in eastern Native American philosophy 7 is also kinda a big deal. it represents all space (north , south, east, west, up, down, and center.
This channel is the only one I have notifications turned on for.
"The magical number seven, plus or minus two" turned out to be about the length of the phonological loop vs. the pace at which a language is spoken. It's about 7 for English, but about 9 for Mandarin.
neat.
Thank you Andrew, as always, great content.
You forgot about the seven layers of heaven and earth in Islam.
If it were only one specific thing, people wouldn't have found it significant. But when people see a pattern over and over it makes, or can seem to make, a pattern.
So yes, I think it's the 7 planets-seen as 7 deities-which have been associated with the 7 days of the week since the Vedic peoples (that's also from where we get the associations). It's also important that ancient astronomy (which allowed for large scale farming) developed in tandem with mathematics and greater works of architecture. It's what allowed humanity to go from just dealing with the whims of fate to actually shaping one's own fate. Taking the fruits of the earth and forming them into things people could benefit from-and these benefits were rapid and noticeable.
So yes, 7 being a sort of mathematical oddity would have been a part of that. But something unmentioned that I think is important is geometry. 6 points for a 3D volume + 1 for temporal displacement. But that's also really 6 points in the first point of time and 6 in the second point in time: 6+6+1. This brings the other sacred number: 13. (It's only in the last century 13 has been seen as unlucky, btw.) Often 7 is represented as complete/whole/maximum in the form 6+1. We also see this with 13: 12+1. It's the larger number coming together and the last one completes the set. An example Westerners can latch onto is the 12 disciples + the 1 who leads them. The extra 1 is that metaphysical something that gives the rest of the bunch significance. It's what takes a nice divisible number like 6 and makes it esoteric. It's not just "completion" but the divine capstone upon the mundane multitude.
But, that's all just my opinion. The impression I've gotten from years of reading ancient religious & philosophical works. Nothing from formal papers. I have a lot more to say about it, but this message has gone on too long already.
great video man it felt like a movies
This basically explains the Faith of the Seven in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. I definitely think it's an intentional choice on GRRM's part based on the importance of the number seven in real-world religions.
Definitely.
He's also continuing a romantic literary tradition since his works are inspired by romantic era texts. In romantic literature the numbers 3,7 and 13 often showed up as a direct reference to the bible. A Song of Ice and Fire is both very much inspired by national romantic works like Ivanhoe but also something of a subversion of them so a lot of similar motiffs will show up.
I love that you have looked at a number of religions. It is so interesting. Really love your videos. Always learning new things.
Thanks much for this video.
Love the channel
777 subs 😂🎉❤
I have a set of twins and their birthday is 07.07.2007... kind of like completing my family❤
One of them is definitely going to be a wizzard lol
Lol I hope haha
It’s been 7 hours since you posted 😉
Congrats on the subscriber milestone!! Love this channel
When I was 15 years old, I had an incredible experience one evening whilst camping. It was so uniquely powerful that it can hardly be conveyed through words, but in the months following I learnt that it would be called a 'mystical experience.'
The reason I bring this up is because simply put, the overriding insight granted by this experience was that there are 7 layers to existence, all superimposed on one another, descending from the divine One, and while the material realm is only one of these layers, human consciousness can traverse beyond it.
At this time in my life, I had a very limited understanding of religion. I had a 'sunday school' level of thought about religion, mainly Christianity, and zero exposure to mysticism, numerology, esotericism etc. Besides knowing that the creation story of Genesis involved 7 days, I had no knowledge of the significance of the number 7 within religious history. The profundity of this experience motivated me to explore religious history in order to find some kind of precedent for what I had experienced, and I must confess that I was almost scared, yet somehow not surprised, at discovering just how completely widespread this notion of 'seven levels of heaven' and similar is throughout religious history.
This one experience, in which I was thrown into an altered state of consciousness for perhaps only a few minutes, sent me on a path of discovery that I never would have gone down otherwise. It is ultimately because of this experience that I eventually started watching youtube channels like Religion for Breakfast, Esoterica, Let's Talk Religion and so on. That years later you would make a video on the topic of the spiritual significance of '7' is therefore quite poetic to me, and I thus felt the need to write this comment.
In the time since this experience, I have studied neo-Platonism, Merkavah, Gnosticism, Catholic and Orthodox mysticism (Dante, Teresa of Ávila, Meister Eckhart, Seraphim Rose, Pseudo-Dionysius etc), Sufism, Hindu cosmology and spirituality, the Dream of Scipio, the Mithras liturgy and so much more. In reading about these topics I am endlessly blown away by the cross-cultural parallels that exist between my personal mystical experience and the mystical experiences of numerous other individuals across space and time. It's true that my interest in them began with the fact they contain insights that paralleled my own, but that these parallels exist at all is remarkable to me and suggests shared acquaintance with the same spiritual phenomena.
For myself, this process of discovery has not really been about 'learning' new religious teachings, but rather about finding external confirmation for what I 'learnt' in this one mystical experience, and I must say that it is remarkable how much external validation there is historically for what at first glance would appear to be quite a bizarre idea. Really, this whole journey, which still continues, has just been a long process of 'working back from' and unpacking the huge amount of spiritual insight I gained in this one overwhelming mystical experience. That I could find such an astonishing number of precedents for these insights (which seemed to come to me out of nowhere) tells me I am certainly not the first one to have had a mystical experience of this specific nature.
I cannot explain this experience, and have never experienced anything remotely close to it before or since, yet it truly felt like I was being momentarily granted some insight from the divine. Looking back, it was probably the single most profound experience of my life, and it has been burnt into my brain ever since.
Thank you for sharing this. It helped me understand something that happened recently
I always wondered about the 7 in the bible. But never bothered to research for myself, and that's why I love your channel, altought I shouldn't let those doubts not answered
Great job!
The best explanation I've heard for the number seven being special has to do with the relationship between the radius and circumference of a circle. If you tie a string to a pole and draw a cirlce in the sand, which is how people drew circles back then, you'll notice that the circumference of the drawn circle is bout six times the lenght of the string. That way you can divide the cricle into six equal sections, leaving a smaller, seventh one. This would be the seventh day, which stands for rest, completion, perfection and also the ineffable, since the relationship between this section and the radius is irrational.
The number 7 has always fascinated me. I was born on the 7th day of the 7th month
Congratulations! July the 7th is Tanabata/Star Festival in Japan.