A biblical pyramid of fishes, souls and a man

A fascination with the pyramid of the Great Seal on the reverse of the US one-dollar bill is universal. Generally, anything suggesting symbolism will interest a broad audience. What would be revealed by building a biblical pyramid?

Any smartphone calculator should work. Add 1+2+3 … +15+16+17, then make a note of the total. After erasing the first sum, continue and repeat this at the 23rd level and 36th level (six sixes) and you may be amazed at what is revealed by the final calculation.

Fishes in a net. Souls on a ship. The number of a man.

John 21:11, Acts 27:37 and Revelation 13:18 contain numbers of things. Three pyramid levels making these numbers are the seventh prime (17), the ninth prime (23), and the twenty-fifth non-prime (36).

In the Greek, we have nine words and they are 100 50 3; 200 70 6; and 600 60 6. What does each part mean?

Mark 6:40 describes hundreds and fifties by ranks in companies.

Luke 10:17 says that "the seventy returned with joy" and he is the only author to use this number five times in his two books.

Revelation is the only book that twice uses 600;* 60 occurs nine times in the books and three times in the last book (period of 1000 200 60 days at 11:3 and 12:6). [*The Latin word "cohort" is used seven times in the books and is defined thus: "an ancient Roman military unit, comprising six centuries, equal to one tenth of a legion."]

Clearly, John 21:11 must be groups of men in a rank of a hundred and a rank of 50. Similarly in Acts 27:37 when compared to Acts 23:23 where two centurions assemble 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen. Either soldiers or spearmen would be represented in Acts 27:37 but most likely soldiers and horsemen due to ranking. (The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are the four evangelists.) Six being the number of mankind, that man would be as important as the one in Revelation 13:18. Just as the jury foreman speaks for twelve as one, a tally of 276 is not a head-count, but the identification of three specific individuals. Who were they?

Thirteen times the noun "soldiers" appears in Acts. Thirteen times the verb "to be saved" is used. The synoptic gospels each have an apparently rhetorical question: "Who [τίς] can be saved." Mark 10:26 reads καὶ τίς δύναται σωθῆναι; Luke 18:26 καὶ τίς δύναται σωθῆναι; and Matthew 19:25 varies slightly: τίς ἄρα δύναται σωθῆναι. Both Mark 10:26 and Luke 18:26 use identical words and place in identical verses (Matthew writes "perhaps"). Twenty-six is double-thirteen.

Perhaps Luke is the seventy (one man); after all, it is exclusively his number, and the Who that is saved, may be the soldiers (one man). The man represented by the only common word-number (six) is suggested by the presence of the LORD word in three quarters of Luke's book and the absence in the last quarter of Acts of the Apostles.