IN> Grigori Conjecture

[Landon W Schurtz]

> Said Flood would not have
> had to have been a
> global phenomenon in order to inspire myths and
> legends about a huge
> catastrophe that nearly wiped out humanity.

I think this pretty self-evident, given that (a) we do
in fact have just such a myth and (b) the details are
clearly implausible.

> ...the "fourty days" is a reference to
> how long the
> downpour lasted...

That brings up an interesting point.  A quantity or
duration of forty (years or days, depending on
context) shows up suspiciously often in the Bible
(among the appearances - Genesis 7:4; Genesis 50:2-3;
Exodus 2; Exodus 7:7; Exodus 16:35; Exodus 34:28;
Number 13:25; Judges 13:1; 1 Samuel 4:18; 1 Samuel
17:16; 2 Samuel 5:4; 1 Kings 11:42; Matthew 4:1-3).  

It is quite likely an idiom, a generic "large number,"
much in the same way the Chinese use "ten thousand"
and we use "a billion" ("There were like a billion
ants on your porch this morning.").  It's also similar
to how we say, "I feel like I've been working on this
thing for a year, now," even when we've only been
working on the project at hand for a week, say.  Or,
the converse, in such phrases as "give me a minute" or
"just a second," when we rarely mean that we will be
exactly one minute or one second.  These are generic
short amounts of time.  "Forty" was a generic "big"
number to the Hebrews.

A side note - definitive, rather than descriptive,
occurences of forty (such as the prohibition against
giving more than forty lashes to an offender, found in
Numbers) almost certainly *actually* mean forty, as
the limit was likely come up with by imagining a very
large number; in this case, the idiomatic large number
in their vernacular - forty.  

To wrench this back onto In Nomine, it would be
interesting if four and forty actually DID crop up a
lot in dealing with the forces of Heaven.  Perhaps the
numbers have some real significance, such as certain
things (like the formation of a Tether, or something)
taking exactly forty days (and forty nights). 
Alternately, perhaps it's just a habit of Heaven, a
"custom," if you will - the demons can count on the
local servitor of Dominic showing up in the area to
snoop around every forty days like clockwork.  Or the
angels of Laurence have a ritual they enact which
involves entering the Marches for forty days, in
rememberance of the Lord's time in the wilderness. 
Stuff like that.

Of course, echoes of "sacred numbers" already exist in
the game, as in the "trinity" in which Dominic's
angels often operate.  Perhaps interventions could
have slightly different effects or interpretations if
the principals involved are of a certain number,
giving Angels reason to try to cleave to the sacred
numerology of the Symphony.

LWS    

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