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152 to note that of the two space-related sites, only Jerusalem was retained by the followers of Yahweh. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Torah (“The Teachings”), cover the story from Creation, Adam, and Noah to the Patriarchs and Joseph in Genesis. The other four books—Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—tell the story of the Exodus on the one hand, and on the other hand enumerate the rules and regulations of the new reli- gion of Yahweh. That a new religion encompassing a new, a “priestly” way of life was promulgated is explicitly made clear: “You shall neither do what is done in the land of Egypt, where you had dwelt, nor as is wont in the Land of Canaan whence I am bringing you; you shall neither behave like them nor follow their statutes” (Leviticus 18: 2-3). Having established the basics of the faith (“You shall have no other God before me’) and its moral and ethical code in just Ten Commandments, there follow page after page of detailed dietary requirements, rules for priestly rites and vestments, medical teachings, agricultural directives, architectural instructions, family and sexual conduct regu- lations, property and criminal laws, and so on. They reveal extraordinary knowledge in virtually every scientific disci- pline, expertise in metals and textiles, acquaintance with legal systems and societal issues, familiarity with the lands, history, customs, and gods of other nations—and certain numerological preferences. The theme of twe/ve—as in the twelve tribes of Israel or in the twelve-month year—is obvious. Obvious, too, is the pre- dilection for seven, most prominently in the realm of festi- vals and rituals, and in establishing a week of seven days and consecrating the seventh day as the Sabbath. Forty is a spe- cial number, as in the forty days and forty nights that Moses spent upon Mount Sinai, or the forty years decreed for the Israelite wandering in the Sinai wilderness. These are num- bers familiar to us from the Sumerian tales—the twelve of the solar system and the twelve-month calendar of Nippur; the seven as the planetary number of the Earth (when the THE END OF DAYS