Is there any other number (in lower decimals - none. Maybe "666" comes close - none other) that comes even remotely close to rivaling the sheer ominous aura of the number 13...? Of course not! On the "good side" there is 7... The Orient attaches nearly as bad an influence (if not worse) to the number 4 - but we, foolish Caucasians, know better than that: number 4 is... Bobby Orr! The greatest player to ever play the game of ice hockey! Okay, his career was cut short and of the, ah, 4 championships he assuredly should have collected, he only got half of them... But that is nothing compared to the horrors many imput upon the number 13 - so leave number 4 out of this here, will you...?

E.W. Bullinger writes:
"As to the significance of thirteen, all are aware that it has come down to us as a number of ill-omen. Many superstitions cluster around it, and various explanations are current concerning them. "Unfortunately, those who go backwards to find a reason seldom go back far enough. The popular explanations do not, so far as we are aware, go further back than the Apostles. But we must go back to the first occurrence of the number thirteen in order to discover the key to its significance. It occurs first in Gen. xiv. 4, where we read 'Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and the thirteenth year they REBELLED.' "Hence every occurrence of the number thirteen, and likewise of every multiple of it, stamps that with which it stands in connection with rebellion, apostasy, defection, corruption, disintegration, revolution, or some kindred idea." (Bullinger, E.W. Number in Scripture, Kregel Publications, (c)1967, p. 205).

Bullinger makes a compelling case -with The Word as support, no less- but really now; some rebellions are actually not only necessary but WHOLESOMELY GOOD! And rebellion, revolution and even defection are not always synonymous with corruption or disintegration - au contraire, they lead to new beginnings! Still, apostasy is not a good thing at all; abandoning a "system" is not always akin to abandonment of true Faith though. After all, what earthly system, political or economical, can claim to be perfect? Actual apostasy is abandoning the Perfect Plan Set by God Almighty - and that leads straight to ruin, certainly. But what is the link here to the number 13...?!? The comparison to Chedorlaomer...? He was not God! Neither were Che Guevara or any other great leader figure you can think of that might have been abandoned by a good chunk of their once-ultra-faithful followers - so, case closed! But enough about Bullinger's bull...

On many a site out there the number 13 is given worse than a bad rep - it is made out to be the surefire sign of ill omens, impending doom and disaster just waiting to happen! (No wonder Space: The Imagination Station, always at the beck and call of its rabid fans, chose to premiere "Land of the Dead" on their Friday the 13th edition of "Friday Frightmare" - so named because "Fright Night" was already taken I suppose... A whole night of scary movies - what an original concept. Not just once in a while, but every single Friday night! And, coincidentally, just the preceding week, to satisfy the particular tastes of the aforementioned rabid fans that love the undead, they had shown the Canadian un-classic per excellence (?) "Rabid" again - but that was just a coincidence, surely... And I am digressing again, also...)

The truth is another one entirely - the number 13 has some powerful resonance (just like the combination of "9" and "11" now does) but the power it has is only "bad" if you make it out to be...! It can be a significant date on the calendar and in history - but only a finite number of times per its occurrences! Ultimately ANY NUMBER AND ANY DATE are equal harbingers of the same things - ask Jim Carrey, he had a thing about the number "23" quite recently too...!

And it isn't true either that the 13th one on that table was the traitor - the Last Supper scene and the Gospels don't indicate this. Judas wasn't the last recruit of the Original Apostles! And if anybody should be counted 13th, it's JESUS Himself, Who Said that He Had Come to SERVE - and proved it by washing His apostles feet and then DYING FOR THEM ALL (AND US ALL) ON THAT CROSS...! You can chose hence to count Him as 1st or 13th - either way, Judas wasn't either...!

The 13 Apostles + Christ "gang" are a GOOD THING as Martha Stewart would say - the BEST thing that ever was! The Apostles spread the Good News - and Christ supplied our salvation! Nothing bad about that number 13 combination! Nothing bad about Judas either - for I tend to espouse the notion that, his "betrayal" actually reeks of awesome faith and Christ was HELPED OUT by it in order to go through that excruciatingly painful process that NEEDED TO BE... So you see - even if he was "number 13" - he was really not that bad and helped out, truly in a CRUCIAL WAY!

In brief, hence, ENOUGH ABOUT NUMBER 13 NONSENSE!

The only ones who dread it must be the actually "bad" ones - I knew a man once who claimed to be highly superstitious about it, and he turned out to be EVIL INCARNATE... I suppose he dreaded all the good connotations the number 13 has - "secret" connotations that, like that silly "Da Vinci code" fictional crap, are all under our noses - we have but to see them and acknowledge them for THESE are NOT fictional in any way.

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