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Number 3 and Cultural Mentions of Three
- African Tribe - Ashanti People (The Ashanti live in central Ghana in western Africa approximately 300km. away from the coast): The Moon goddess is three people, two black,
and one white.
- Arabian, in Pre-Islamic Arabic Culture (Before the rise of Islam in the 630s): The Manant is a threefold goddess representing the 3 Holy Virgins, Al-Itab, Al-Uzza, and Al-Manat. They
are depicted as aniconic stelae, stones or pillars, or as pillars surmounted by doves.
- Buddhist Culture and History: Tradition the theme of 3 is represented by, The Tri-Ratna, The Three Precious Jewels, and the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.
- Chinese World (Shinto): Sanctity; the auspicious number; the first odd, yang number….The moon toad, or bird, is three-legged.
- Celtic Pre-Christian Society: Bridgit is threefold; there are the Three Blessed Ladies and innumerable Triads, often a threefold aspect of the same divinity.
- Egyptians and Ancient Egypt: Hermetic tradition, Thoth is the Thrice Great, ‘Trismegistus’. The
Supreme Power.
- The Greco-Roman World, Greco-Roman Culture: Fate, the Moirai, who are three-in-one as Moira; Hecate is three-fold; the Erinyes are three-in-one as Erinys, as are the Gorgons as Medusa. There are three charities, graces. There are 3 sirens, Horae, Hesperides, Graiai. Cerberus is a triple-headed and Scylla has a 3 bitch tail. The Chimera has a three part body. Three, four and their sum, seven are sacred to Aphrodite/Venus as queen of the three worlds and four elements. Orphic symbols has the triad of Being, Life, Intelligence.
- Hebrew, Judaism and Jew Culture: Three is symbolized by Limitless Light; sanctifying intelligence. In the Kaballah three represents understanding and the trinity of male, female
and uniting intelligence.
- Hinduism Religion and Culture: The Trimurti, the triple power of creation, destruction, preservation, of unfolding, maintaining and concluding. There are various trinities of gods.
The moon chariot has three wheels.
- Japan and Japanese Beliefs: The Three Treasures are, Mirror, Sword and Jewel–that being Truth, Courage and Compassion.
- Maori Culture (New Zealand, Polynesia): the Great Spirit, the Divine Creator, is a trinity of sun, moon, earth, the god of nature, of past, present, and future. It is mind, character,
physique symbolized by three raised fingers.
- Mexican Ancestors - the Olmecs, Maya, and Aztec: the Trinity is represented by three crosses, one large, two smaller.
- Scandinavia, Medieval Empire: Fate as the Three Norns, Mani, Nyi and Nithi, who denote the full, new, and waning moon.
- Slavic and BalticPeople: The moon god is triple-headed.
- Taoist Beliefs (It is basically indefinable. It has to be experienced): The Great Triad is Heaven-Man (Human)-Earth. Three is the strong number in Taoist symbolism because it is the center point of equilibrium.
- Teutonic Mythology of Northern People: the moon is Fate, and Holda, the lunar goddess, is trine with her two daughters. Thor is sometimes depicted with three heads and the
triskele is a symbol of Odin/Woden. Three is the number of good fortune. In
Carthage, the Great Goddess, as lunar, is represented by three aniconic pillars.
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Holy Trinity by Andrey Rublev
Unknown Author, Holy Trinity Icon
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God comes into this world as me, as you, as everyone since He created everyone, thus God manifests as people. The process through which that is accomplished can be seen through the difficult metaphor and principle of the trinity. Church fathers battled for cenuries over exactly how there could be just ONE God and yet say there are THREE Gods. It was not an easy conclusion to draw and an even more difficult one to explain.
But, try this practical outworking of the trinity on for size. If it doesn’t fit, don’t force it.
God-Father-Consciousness-Creator-Guide is THOUGHT, the originator of ALL. He (no gender intended) is the architect of all life and existence. And guess what, His THOUGHTS are not our thoughts because we’ve been inculturated by this world. God’s thoughts come from an unconditioned consciousness whereas our thought come from a human “conditioned consciousness.”
The Son is the WORD. Who will disagree with that? Few I would suspect. It is the WORD that creates everything that has been THOUGHT. Here is where FAITH enters in. It is “by faith” that the WORD is spoken (from the THOUGHTS that have been HEARD) that builds the bridge from the invisible, that which is NOT, to the visible (which is only temporal).
The Spirit then manifests, is the action, that brings to live and sight what was thought and spoken. Life is that simple and yet that difficult. It’s difficult because our THOUGHTS are most often not God’s. All of God’s thoughts are loved-laced, full of forgiveness, totally inclusive, tolerant, and non judgmental. Tell me who you know that lives like that!
So, in the end God comes as ME!
God lives life through you, me, and people. See people and you’re seeing a manifestation of God. The real journey of lfie isn’t about obeying this rule or that, but listening to the thoughts of God, speaking what you have heard, and then seeing such come into exietence. as Phil. 2:13 says, ” For God is working in you, He is as you, dwelling within us, giving us the desire to be AS him and thus the power to do what pleases him and transforms the world (Ernie’s paraphrase version- EPV).
The metaphor of the trinity transforms NOTHING when presented in religious garb, but it transforms all, everything of life, when viewed as the process through which we are to live life!
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Mind-body-spirit, id-ego-superego, father-son-holy ghost, mind-matter-ether, body-mind-soul. Whatever you choose to call it people from all different types of background; academic, philosophical even new age all tend to agree that there consists three dimensions to ourselves. The implications for positive thinking are huge and indeed it is not until all these aspects are bought into line that a person can really harness the power of positive thinking and make dramatic progress…sometimes even miraculous progress towards their goals.
So has anyone alive gotten their three dimensions into line I hear you ask?
Well, yes certainly. Take a look at any successful person and the chances are they will have achieved some degree of alignment within their dimensions. I happen to have just watched a clip of tennis player Roger Fedderrer collecting yet another trophy. He certainly has addressed all of these aspects and it has been a major reason for his success. His competitive mindset, focussed attitude, and persistent rigorous training all align his three dimensions adequately.
Let me just say here that my preferred way of phrasing these dimensions of ourselves is that of: thought-word-action. I find using this phrase makes it abundantly clear what needs to be done.
First your thoughts have to be of clarity and purpose. You have to know what you want, you need to have some sort of plan, believe you can achieve it and have the ability to drop negative thoughts from your mind. This is particularly important in the case of thoughts regarding fear. Once you can consistently control your thoughts and keep them channelled towards your goal then you have the first of the three dimensions under your control.
Secondly your words have to match your thoughts. There is no point thinking one things and saying another. Words are very powerful. They can be used to re-affirm to yourself what your intentions are, they can be used to pass on your thoughts to others so they to may assist you and they can also effect the actions of others in the future.
Thirdly your actions must also match your thoughts and words. What is the point of thinking and speaking in a certain way and then when it comes to the crunch not actually following through with these intentions. It is said that a decision has never been made until it has been acted upon. This is very true as regards your actions. No one can make you do anything…only you can take the correct actions to help you achieve your goals.
Now take a look at your own life goals at the moment. If you are not making the progress you would like examine your own dimensions. Do your actions really match up with your thoughts? Do you speak confidently about achieving your goals with others? Do you let fear run free in your mind and interfere with your positive thoughts? If any of these occurences ring a bell then maybe it is time to be honest and acknowlegde that your progress is going to be slow until you get these three aspects in to line.
The good news however is that with a bit of time and practise these dimensions can all be put into alignment with eachother and you can make significant progress. Indeed there is nothing you cannot be do or have should you choose to follow this approach. Go ahead now, believe in yourself and create a fantastic life.
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God comes into this world as me, as you, as everyone since He created everyone, thus God manifests as people. The process through which that is accomplished can be seen through the difficult metaphor and principle of the trinity. Church fathers battled for centuries over exactly how there could be just ONE God and yet say there are THREE Gods. It was not an easy conclusion to draw and an even more difficult one to explain.
But, try this practical outworking of the trinity on for size. If it doesn’t fit, don’t force it.
God-Father-Consciousness-Creator-Guide is THOUGHT, the originator of ALL. He (no gender intended) is the architect of all life and existence. And guess what, His THOUGHTS are not our thoughts because we’ve been inculturated by this world. God’s thoughts come from an unconditioned consciousness whereas our thought come from a human “conditioned consciousness.”
The Son is the WORD. Who will disagree with that? Few I would suspect. It is the WORD that creates everything that has been THOUGHT. Here is where FAITH enters in. It is “by faith” that the WORD is spoken (from the THOUGHTS that have been HEARD) that builds the bridge from the invisible, that which is NOT, to the visible (which is only temporal).
The Spirit then manifests, is the action, that brings to live and sight what was thought and spoken. Life is that simple and yet that difficult. It’s difficult because our THOUGHTS are most often not God’s. All of God’s thoughts are loved-laced, full of forgiveness, totally inclusive, tolerant, and non judgmental. Tell me who you know that lives like that!
So, in the end God comes as ME!
God lives life through you, me, and people. See people and you’re seeing a manifestation of God. The real journey of life isn’t about obeying this rule or that, but listening to the thoughts of God, speaking what you have heard, and then seeing such come into existence. as Phil. 2:13 says, ” For God is working in you, He is as you, dwelling within us, giving us the desire to be AS him and thus the power to do what pleases him and transforms the world (Ernie’s paraphrase version- EPV).
The metaphor of the trinity transforms NOTHING when presented in religious garb, but it transforms all, everything of life, when viewed as the process through which we are to live life!
By admin
THE THIRD ANNUAL interfaith Passover Seder meal at University Congregational Church in Seattle was a “bring your own wine” event. Tables for 300 guests were impeccably set with goblets and fresh flowers; two kinds of charoset (a pasty blend of fruit and nuts prepared according to both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic styles); two kinds of horseradish (raw and sauced); and baskets of matzo. The tables buzzed with lively conversation.
Rabbi Ted Falcon stood at the front with a guitar player and two singers. He is a trim, white-bearded man who is constantly making jokes, but he also has an air of underlying seriousness, intensity, even melancholy.
“OK,” he said. “We’ll begin on page 22 of your handout.” After two days of watching Falcon lead services, I had learned that he never begins on page one. He is likely to start on page 22, continue on page 11 and move on to page two.
“The Haggadah takes us on a spiritual journey,” he says. “We learn to be freed from our inner pharaohs, travel in our wilderness and form our own dreams of the Promised Land.”
The participants at this event–which sold out three weeks before–were Jews, Christians and Muslims. Many came from Bet Alef, Falcon’s “meditative synagogue” that meets in one of Seattle’s suburbs. Some belonged to University Congregational Church, which was led by Pastor Don Mackenzie until his retirement in June. Others belonged to an experimental congregation led by Sufi Muslim teacher Jamal Rahman and known as the Interfaith Community Church. (Rahman calls it a church, he says, for “lack of a better term”; it’s for people who meet on Sundays to explore their “spiritual paths” together, he explains.)
Falcon not only invited members of these three congregations to the Seder but asked Mackenzie and Rahman to speak. And Falcon didn’t want generic spirituality talk from them; he wanted Mackenzie to mention Jesus or Paul and Rahman to refer to Muhammad and the Qur’an.
This kind of interfaith gathering is an increasingly common phenomenon across the U.S. Interaction between people of different faiths is hardly new, but a qualitative shift occurred after September 11, 2001, says Kathryn Lohre, assistant director of Harvard University’s Pluralism Project. “There was a strong interfaith resurgence, driven by the desire of many people, perhaps Christians especially, to get to know their religious neighbors.”
Lohre says grassroots efforts have sprung up in many places. The old-style interfaith roundtables in which academics or religious leaders gathered to discuss their theological differences in formal meetings have given way to more informal efforts. These are often led or developed by laypeople, as in the case of the Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago, the Faith House in Manhattan, Women Transcending Boundaries in Syracuse and Daughters of Abraham in Detroit. People meet to take part in service projects, talk about family, share holiday celebrations or eat ethnic food.
For Rabbi Ted Falcon, Pastor Don Mackenzie and Brother Jamal Rahman, formal and informal meetings have led to deep friendships. They call themselves the Three Interfaith Amigos. The three men host the Interfaith Talk Radio show in Seattle, meet weekly for mutual spiritual direction and have embarked on writing a book together. Not only has their friendship grown over the years, but their congregations have become closer. A member of Falcon’s synagogue leads the Gregorian chant group at Rahman’s congregation. A meeting at any of the three congregations will likely include members of the other two.
“When we first started, the three of us were like three circles touching,” Falcon says. “But over time, our circles have become more interlocked. We are still distinct circles, but we share more and more together.”
In Seattle, the work of the Three Amigos has spawned the Northwest Interfaith Community Outreach, led by business executive John Hale. This organization helps to sponsor interfaith events and encourages what it calls interspiritual communication. Hale has a salesperson’s easy smile and ready handshake–he seems like a man who would be comfortable in a corporate boardroom. So it was a little surprising and even unsettling to hear him speak the language of contemporary spirituality. Raised as a Presbyterian, Hale says that his upbringing “lacked nourishment,” a nourishment he didn’t find until he converted to Catholicism and discovered interfaith work.
For Hale, interfaith work involves both a conversation and a way of life. “It is heart work,” he says, “not head work.” The image that Hale likes–adapted from Meister Eckhart–is that each faith is a house with a basement. Deep in the basement is a trap door. If you go deep enough, you fall through the trap door into the shared river that flows beneath all faiths, the source of them all.
Hale’s assertion of oneness would likely make Lohre at the Pluralism Project cringe. Many people, she notes, think interfaith conversation means “moving toward relativism.” But “the assertion that ‘at root all religions are the same’ just isn’t true. If you do any kind of careful comparative religion, you understand just how different religious traditions are.” People do not need to adopt the rhetoric of “oneness” in order to care about their religious neighbors, Lohre argues. Relying on that approach misses the complexities of the various religions.
The Three Amigos would in some ways accept and in other ways reject Lohre’s point. “The question of boundaries is absolutely essential,” Falcon insists. “I must find a way to connect with another faith without taking on its identity. What we are doing is acknowledging other faiths as legitimate paths to a shared universal.” The three recently discussed a newspaper editorial that criticized Christian groups for holding Seders in their churches–as if the Seder is a tradition possessed by Christians. The three agreed with the critique. Their own interfaith Seder, they noted, is a Jewish celebration, led by a Jewish rabbi, but with interfaith elements.
The three are also dissatisfied with the kind of interfaith service in which participants try to find a lowest common denominator of faith. Far more intriguing and satisfying to them is offering hospitality to one another in their respective congregations and working with one another on common projects. When they speak at one another’s events, they speak from their own Jewish, Christian or Muslim tradition. They cite their own sacred texts and tell stories from their own traditions.
Nevertheless, the Three Amigos also tend to blur the boundaries. For example, Mackenzie has asked Rahman and Falcon to help him serve the elements of communion at a service at University Congregational. For him, it is deeply meaningful to have Rahman and Falcon holding the baskets of bread as the congregation comes forward to share in this central Christian ritual. It links the three men and the three faiths together. It is important to note that the UCC has a tradition of open-table fellowship at communion and that at University Congregational the elements are called “the bread of life” and “the cup of blessing.” This communion service does not focus on the christological distinctives of the meal the way that many other Christian services would.
Falcon said that, for him, being part of a Christian communion service at the church felt like being on sacred ground. Sharing bread and wine is very much a part of Jewish culture, and he has himself hosted the sharing of bread and wine with his two friends in many other contexts, including the moment of entrance into the celebration of Shabbat. He said that though he would not hold a communion service in his synagogue, he believed he could participate in communion without taking on a Christian identity. Falcon likens faith and faith traditions to vehicles–when he is in Mackenzie’s church, he is temporarily riding in that vehicle. That doesn’t mean the vehicle becomes his, but he can ride along in it for a while without compromising his own. Likewise, he can invite others to ride in his vehicle.
Mackenzie observes, “I think Christians have misunderstood the Great Commission. When Jesus says, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations,’ we think he means go and make Christians of all nations. But he doesn’t say that. To be a disciple of God means to be a disciple of love. Maybe he means that we are called to help people find the way of love.” Mackenzie, who was a Presbyterian minister before serving at .University Congregational, cherishes the theological and ecclesial freedom he finds in the UCC and believes that it has helped to foster the deep interfaith relationship he has with Falcon and Rahman.
The Three Amigos also emphasize that they are all members of Abrahamic traditions. Their shared ancestor makes possible a conversation about oneness or about what Rahman calls their “large and dysfunctional family” that would be more difficult to conduct with those outside the Abrahamic faiths. The three are in conversation with Hindus and Buddhists, but “for now,” Rahman says, “we have a lot of work to do to heal the rifts in our own family.”
The Three Amigos have not shied away from difficult conversations. The height of personal conflict came in the still-unfinished process of writing a book together. “There was,” says Falcon, “a line written by Jamal about which I said, ‘If that line is in the book, then I am not in the book.’” As Rahman recalls it, the line was about the security wall built by Israel: “The wall may keep out suicide bombers, but it cannot keep out the cries of oppression and injustice that could break through a thousand walls.” For Falcon, who grew up in a passionately Zionist family, and who remembers that his grandfather planted a tree for him in Israel every year on his birthday, that particular sentence was too one-sided–it failed to recognize the suffering on both sides that is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The two resolved the issue by agreeing never to sign onesided statements issued by their communities. Whenever a request comes to sign a petition or a public letter, they refuse if the issues are presented in a way that takes into account only one side of the story.
Rahman is a slight Bangladeshi man, a third-generation Sufi teacher with an infectious, musical laugh. He teaches about Islam primarily through stories, humor and quotations from the Qur’an and the poet Rumi. He is a Sunni Muslim who believes that he is called to serve Seattle’s unchurched. While not hawkish, he does highlight the suffering of Palestinians and issues a strong condemnation of Israel’s policies. “What kept us talking, what allowed us to wander into this territory and stay while we tried to understand each other better, was that we were already longtime friends,” says Falcon. “We had a lot invested in our relationship.”
The Three Amigos’ experience is emblematic of a larger reality in the U.S. today, says Haim Beliak, a Reform rabbi who is a member of several interfaith associations and a board member for the Progressive Jewish Alliance in the Los Angeles area. Because Christians and Jews in particular have been in conversation now for many decades, a level of trust has been built. Serious conversations about Israel and Palestine can take place between them because they have a history that is distinct from the tradition of Christian anti-Semitism. The challenge now is to include Muslims in such discussions and thereby resist what Beliak sees as a tendency in some quarters for Jews and Christians to pit themselves against Muslims by emphasizing a “Judeo-Christian” tradition. “When I hear that phrase,” Beliak says, “I feel as if I were being speared by the hyphen.”
Recently, Mackenzie, Falcon and Rahman reflected on who was showing up at interfaith events and who wasn’t. They acknowledged that it is often easier to communicate across the lines of faith than to communicate with members of their own traditions who are suspicious of interfaith work. Falcon is ordained in the Reform tradition, but his synagogue is unaffiliated; he invented the term “meditative Reform” to describe the kind of Judaism he practices. Rahman designates himself a Sufi teacher, which places him to a certain degree outside conventional Muslim structures–though those structures are comparatively loose.
On the Christian side, the three acknowledged that they have their own biases against conservative Christians, whom they tend to see as narrow-minded and prejudiced against Muslims. In response, the Amigos decided to attend together a service at Christian Faith Center, a megachurch with two campuses in Seattle, led by pastor Casey Treat.
During his sermon on the day the Three Amigos visited,Treat remarked that “Christians and Jews share the same God, but Allah is a different matter.” Mackenzie and Falcon both gasped. After the service, Rahman, Mackenzie and Falcon were invited to Treat’s office. Rahman used the occasion to say to him, “I don’t think Jesus would have said what you did about Muslims.”
Rahman, Falcon and Mackenzie later worked with members of Treat’s congregation on a Habitat for Humanity project for a local Muslim family. One important lesson from the experience, Rahman says, was the recognition that while he, as a Muslim, feels wounded by the behavior of many Americans, he is not alone in that feeling: many Christians also carry wounds. By understanding this mutual woundedness, the Three Amigos say, they have become much more patient when they confront people who disagree with their interfaith work. Instead of responding with anger or accusation, they try to ask more questions.
They used this insight when Rahman was asked by the director of Camp Brotherhood, an interfaith retreat center with a long history in Seattle, to donate a copy of the Qur’an that would be placed in the center’s chapel alongside the Bible and the Torah. The proposal turned out to be controversial among the camp’s board members, so the idea was dropped–and the board ended up removing all holy books from the chapel, something the three were not happy about. But instead of responding angrily and forgoing their association with Camp Brotherhood, the three have continued to try to meet with the board members to find a mutually agreeable solution.
Lohre of Harvard is convinced that informal interfaith efforts like that of the Three Amigos will continue to grow. If such efforts had been merely a reaction to September 11, they would have faded long ago. But because so many people are now involved in interfaith friendships and because so many interfaith activities have involved young people, interfaith work is not likely to vanish–and the relationships can only deepen. The most successful groups, Lohre says, provide acts of service and hospitality as well as activities for people of different generations.
Not everyone is prepared to applaud such encounters. Anxiety about the loss of “shared values” is heard from many corners, leading some people to turn inward. And interfaith conversations are clearly in their early stages–they have not yet been a force in stopping wars, nor have they succeeded in shutting the doors of Guantanamo or in healing the wounds in the Middle East. But thousands of people have had concrete encounters with neighbors who belong to a different religious faith.
One often hears quoted in interfaith circles these words of God from the Qur’an: “O humankind, we have created you out of a single pair of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you might come to know one another.” At this point in history, coming to know one another remains a critical task.
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The Threes Reversed
The Threes are about new growth, a time of stability, of something finally finding a direction and moving in that direction. They are the baby or birth of a baby, if you will, a third added to the two to create a very solid triangle. Reversed….
Three of Swords
Upright is one of those dreaded cards as it speaks of betrayal, of hurtful things said. In this case, our third is a third wheel and the other two are not being nice to it. Often a card suggesting that the querent is being cheated on–and will find out about it. Painfully. So is it better reversed?
Alas, no. This is a good card for the “upside-down” interpretation. Right side up, the blood (or poison) drains out of the pierced heart. But turn it over and there is no draining out. The Heart sinks down on those swords, firmly embedded, no relief.
What’s important about the Three of Swords is not just the pain - but that something is finally out in the open. Those other two swords are not your friends, the card tells you. But turn it upside-down and the friendship continues. The querent suffers and suffers, but gets no relief. What has come out into the open, what has been said, changes nothing. I liken this to “Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf” type-people who keep hurting each other. They yell and insult and humiliate and nothing is ever resolved. They just inflict pain.
Three of Wands
Waiting for ships to come in, this card promises the payoff for that initial investment of energy. Your good choice brings rewards. Reversed, however, and you get, I think, a blocked interpretation. A delay in the pay off, or, if really opposite, the ships have sunk. The anticipated reward is not or cannot come your way.
Three of Cups
Celebration, sisterhood, joy. Reverse this and our dancing ladies loose all the liquid in their cups. I read this as a celebration gone sour. Sisters bitching at each other, jealous or hurtful rather than loving. vRemember also that one of the most negative things about cups is that they can stand for indulgence in sloth, food, liquor or drugs. So this could suggest a party where things go wrong because people drink too much or take drugs.
Three of Pentacles
The craftsman shows off his work to an interested patron. Hard work, craftsmanship, creating an interest in a business, investments. Reversed however, the card would indicate that there is a block - no one is interested, or the economy is such that none can afford to invest.
The reversed card might also be a warning to the craftsman himself, a suggestion that his work has been sloppy, not up to the high standards that would win him investors. There might be some question as to whether he is putting a true effort into this business. Likewise, if the card stands for health - this could indicate a person who is not giving a real effort to an exercise program and this is why he’s not seeing any real results.
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THREE THINGS PREDICATED OF GOD (in John’s Gospel and Epistles)
• “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16). We are therefore to “Walk in love” (Eph 5:2).
• “God is spirit” (John 4:24, RV, margin). We are exhorted to “Walk in the spirit” (Gal 5:16).
• “God is light” (1 John 1:5). We are to “Walk in the light” (Eph 5:8).
This threeness or triad, has always been considered sacred–like oneness, duality, and all numbers – by virtue of its very properties and particular attributes. These properties and attributes are manifested in its threefold nature, which of itself is the inevitable expression of a principle, an archetypal fact, that solidifies in a series, as a representation of ideas and energies that materialize in magical, mysterious fashion while obeying precise, universal laws, which the numerical codes and their geometrical correspondences symbolize.
The triad or trinity is a symbol of the unity of body, mind and spirit. The symbol is of universal significance - it is found throughout history and all over the world. It was popularized early in this century by the Russian-born artist, philosopher and scientist Nicholas Roerich. It can be interpreted in many different senses: spirit/mind/body in a circle of synthesis; past/present/future enclosed in the ring of eternity; art/science/religion bound in a circle of culture.
God’s attributes are three: omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. There are three great divisions completing time–past, present, and future.
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Jews and the Talmud has many references, among other numbers, to the number three.
The Rabbis say that there were three things Moses asked of God
1. That the Shekinah might rest on Israel.
2. That it might rest on none but Israel.
3. That God’s ways might be known to him. (Beracheth, fol. 7, col. 1).
Three precious gifts were given to Israel
1. The Law.
2. The Land.
3. The World to come (i.e., the Heavenly Calling).
Three men handed down the ancient wisdom and Divine secrets, viz., Adam, Seth, and Enoch.
Whatever may be thought of these, there can be no doubt that in the invariable employment of the number three in the Word of God, we have that which signifies Divine perfection.
God had not only good cause to delay the giving of the Torah until after the departure of Jethro, but the time He chose for bestowing it was also chosen for a good reason. Just as a female proselyte, or a woman freed from captivity, or an emancipated slave, may not enter wedlock before she has for three months lived as a free Jewess, so God also waited three months after the deliverance of Israel from the bondage and the slavery of Egypt, before His union with Israel on Mount Sinai. God furthermore treated His bride as did that king who went to the marriage ceremony only after he had overwhelmed his chosen bride with many gifts…
The third month was chosen for the revelation, because everything that is closely connected with the Torah and with Israel is triple in number. The Torah consists of three parts, the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa; similarly the oral law consists of Midrash, Halakah, and Haggadah. The communications between God and Israel were carried on by three, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Israel also is divided into three divisions, priests, Levites, and laymen; and they are, furthermore, the descendants of the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For God has a preference for “the third”: It was the third of Adam’s sons, Seth, who became the ancestor of humanity, and so too it was the third among Noah’s sons, Shem, who attained high station. Among the Jewish kings, too, it was the third, Solomon, whom God distinguished before all others. The number three plays a particularly important part in the life of Moses. He belonged to the tribe of Levi, which is not only the third of the tribes, but has a name consisting of three letters. He himself was the third of the children of the family; his own name consists of three letters; in his infancy he had been concealed by his mother throughout three months; and in the third month of the year, after a preparation of three days, did he receive the Torah on a mountain, the name of which consists of three letters.
(Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg, Book 3)
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These are some well-known theological information about number 3 and/or with the number 3:
- The Holy Trinity in Christianity is God as a single being and 3 persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
- There are 3 Indian Gods: Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara (Shiva)
- Ancient Greece had 3 Greek gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades
- Roman Empire recognized 3 Roman gods: Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto
- In Muslim devotional rites, certain formulas are repeated 3 times, and others 33 times
