A somewhat awkward number got me thinking about LTR numbers in a RTL writing system, and what was used with Hebrew before the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. Obviously there's the alphabetic system, but from what I've found, the earliest examples of that go back to around 140 BC.

What was used for the several hundred years prior to that though?

I am currently learning the Biblical Hebrew numerals. As far as number 19, it was pretty easy, but then I got confused. At least, I don't find a match between what my textbook says and what I find in the Tanakh. For example, I find that, according to my textbook, 600 is שֵׁ֫שֶׁת מֵאוֹת, but that doesn't make sense, since מֵאָה is feminine. Indeed, if I look in the Tanakh I find שֵׁשׁ מְאוֹת, which makes sense.

Also, I was wondering if this example of my translation is correct:

9347 women

תִּשְׁאָה אֲלָפִים וְשֵׁה מֵאוֹת וְעַרְבָעִים וְשֶׁ֫בַע נָשִׁים

EDIT: thanks a lot to everyone! This part was quite unclear in my textbook (if not flat out wrong), but I think I'm starting to understand it!

I think Professor Haywire (Wildbow, for that matter) has been wrong about Hebrew numerals in Worm the whole time. The Wormverse world-cataloging system always assumed that Hebrew numerals work like the English one: the letters from Aleph to Taf each represent a number larger by one than the one before it.

But as a Hebrew speaker, I know it's not true. You can see here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_numerals) that beyond Yud, the tenth letter, every letter's value equals that of the last one plus ten. Beyond Tsadi, every letter's value equals that of the last one plus one hundred (As seen in the table in the Wikipedia page I linked). That means that the number 11 is represented not by the eleventh letter, Kaf, but a combination the tenth letter and the first: Yud-Aleph. If earth Shin is earth number 21, it's supposed to be called earth Kaf-Aleph. If not, it's earth number 300.

I hope I didn't confuse. If you have any questions, I'll answer the best as I could. This system isn't in common use, so I know it only in passing.

Preciate ya

Proverbs 30, Amos, and a few other places have structures that go like this:

> There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand

and then it lists exactly 4 things.

I was wondering if this has any special name. Also is this motif found in other ancient Hebrew literature?

Thanks.

Update:

Here's my post about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/biblereading/comments/ov6nui/proverbs_30_1533_july_31/ Feel free to comment.

It is well known that the Masorites counted verses, words and even letters in the Hebrew text. Most think it was just used for copying, but I have published a book which analyzes each Psalm, which shows that there is a word count pattern in the poetic structure of each Psalm. It has nothing to do with "gematria" - just word counts, verse counts, and parallel passages of duplicate texts. Using the method one can verify the stanza divisions in the Psalms, and in some cases validate the Masoretic against variant texts.

As this aspect would be of interest to academic scholars, posting a link to the book here on Amazon - http://a.co/7mYlPYj - its entitled "The Spiritual and Numerical Symbolism of the Psalms." It covers Psalms 1-41, subsequent volumes will cover the remaining Psalms shortly.

Also noticed this subreddit is interested in the book of Enoch, there are some interesting references to that work in this book as well.

The main scholarly work on this is "Cantos and Strophes in Hebrew Biblical Poetry" by Van der Lugt. Another book of interest which is a good introduction to the subject is "Numerical Secrets of the Bible" by Labuschagne.

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___

“Shin, I want to know.” Nineteen’s voice echoed in the impenetrable darkness, light and ephemeral. There was a hint of deep sorrow and desperation in his voice. “Did you create Bael?”

Then, a symbol — radiant white and blazing — appeared in the darkness. It looked like a W, with a flame upon each peak. It was the Hebrew letter shin.

The symbol pulsed once, then, and overwhelmed the darkness with a surging wave of brilliant light.

As the brilliance waned and receded, the blackness it left behind was not completely black, but a few luminous points remained. Four at first, but then another twelve blinked into existence. Then more, until there were twenty-three stars in total, sprawled out across the sky.

Twenty-three stars. Arnel had seen them before. In every vision of Mars, the sky would only have twenty-three stars. Even though there were twenty-four AGMI, one was always missing. And he knew, for whatever reason — call it intuition — that those stars represented the AGMI as guiding lights of civilization.

Then, suddenly, another star appeared in the sky — in the very center — and a flaming halo threw its bounds across the night sky, burning with a dark-orange flame. Then the vacant hollow within the halo became filled with fire and turned into a massive fireball that consumed all.

___

The stars smeared out across the blackness, their glaring, distorted hexagonal shapes glimmering with points of light.

A distant explosion rattled the ground, and dust fell off the nearby wall, visible in the shafts of light passing through the bullet-shaped holes in the wall.

“Nineteen…” a weak voice called to Arnel. “Nine…”

As Arnel stared at the yawning abyss overhead, and the colors returned to paint that sky a more malevolent red — rather than a pure black — he slowly became aware of his surroundings. The sky was red because of the flames in the distance. The rattling bass and swell of machine-gun fire intermittently broke the peaceful quiet. Sometimes, it was the electric hum and powerful blast of sound that overwhelmed all the other explosions and gunfire.

But at that moment, all Arnel could hear was that voice calling to him, and — more alarmingly — the distant singing that he heard

I was initially thinking on just doing this for subreddits like r/exchristian, but I'd be willing to post my journey here if people would be interested. This has been something I've wanted to do for years anyway, even when I still considered myself devoutly goes-to-church-every-Sunday-and-prays-every-night Catholic.

It's no secret that I have a lot of problems with the God of the Bible. Or rather gods of the Bible, since historically-speaking there were multiple i the transition from polytheism to henotheism to monotheism. But even the monotheistic stuff gives me problems.

But when I point these out, a lot of Christians seem to say "you only think that because you haven't read the Bible completely and seen the full picture of his word". So I'm going to do exactly that.

In truth, I think the vast majority of Christians haven't read the full Bible, and only are familiar with the watered-down passages read to them at church. But most don't want to admit that, so whenever anyone questions God, they say "read the Bible!" even though they haven't done that very thing despite claiming to stake their existence on it.

Regardless, I've wanted to read the Bible cover to cover for a while now, both for my own knowledge and to properly say "Actually, yes I have read the full Bible so I know what I'm talking about".

I do not intend to shy away from any historical context. Many times Christians say "the New explains the Old", applying New Testament meanings to Old Testament writings when the NT concepts did not exist in the OT. The Bible was not "revealed" over centuries, it was invented, and a group of men chose what was canon and what wasn't. I will not apply some meaning to a passage in the Old Testament with a commonly-tossed New Testament interpretation when such a thing did not exist. The Bible is not a single book, it's an anthology, and I will treat it as such.

Also, my writing comments will be snarky. If someone in the Bible acts like an immoral egotistical jerk, I will call them out for being an immoral egotistical jerk. No matter who they are.

That being said, there are plenty of Bible translations online, and it would be much easier to copy and paste everything I have a comment on rather than typing out everything I have a comment on myself (as my comments get long enough as it is). I cannot read Hebrew or Greek though part of me wishes I could, as a lot of points are lost in the English translations (such as replacing mentions of other gods wi

Hello r/academicbible. I was recently involved in a conversation concerning the inflated ages of people in Genesis. This person suggested that the Hebrews had a different numeric system prior to their slavery in Egypt, then adopted Egyptian numeric systems during their stay there. Is there any credibility to this idea? It was new to me.

I think there was something about it in Darren Aronofsky's "Pi" (I think that was the name)

The following elaboration will serve to display more plainly the fact that there is so much evidence that Strange Man is the devil himself that no other logical conclusion remains to be made.

This will be somewhat hard to bind together into one cohesive explanation, but I'll try my best. The intro will most definitely be boring to those who frequent this subreddit, so please bear with me.

Also, in order for the elaboration to remain consistent and easy to understand, certain parts of it will first be told accoring to the general perception, and expanded upon a lot more accurately later on.

Let's start with what is already commonly believed (not definitively proved):

In Strange Man's Bayou Nwa cabin, one of the inscribed messages says 'The moon will shine on in the darkness'. There is a character called Herbert Moon in Armadillo - the clerk in the general store. He is the only one who isn't stricken with cholera in the town.

Another inscription in the cabin states 'I offered you happiness or two generations, you made your choice', which is connected to the letter Herbert Moon received from his daughter, who is about to have a child (second generation).

The following conclusion is instrumental to the Braithwaite part of the theory:

So, Strange Man apparently offered a choice to Herbert, and Herbert made it. He chose particular personal gain (two generations) over happiness, and as a result, everything except that gain was taken from him.

Who's to say this happened only to Herbert Moon, and who's to say that his surname is the only thing referred to by 'moon' in the inscription?

There is, in fact, another, in some ways very similar story to be considered here.

Catherine's Deal

The following explanation is pure canon intertwined with the most logical possible events that took place between the canonical ones.

The Braithwaites had been a rich and powerful slaver family until their practice was abolished in 1865. Their rivals, the Grays, also suffered heavy financial losses, but they got a hold of Rhodes. They controlled the Rhodes Sheriff's office (the law) and saloon (alcohol distribution). The Braithwaites started producing moonshine, but couldn't actually sell it because the Grays controlled the local market. They tried expanding their zone of influence to make money selling it elsewhere, but were heavily outmatched by the uncontested moonshine producer and distributor Maggie Fike. At this point the B

I must disclose that I do not play tibia or have played tibia and what information I have gathered is from wiki and other sources. I am interested in the mysteries and lore of tibia its just kinda cool. I have not read all the lore but mainly just the stuff about 469. So I might be missing some context in places.

So I found a old post on reddit about the possibility of 469 being based on Hebrew numerals and it kind of lines up. Hebrew numerals does not use 0 and if you tell bonelord 0 he freaks out. Also that the company is founded in Germany so they might have some exposure or background with the Hebrew community.

here you can read about Hebrew numerals and how they work https://stevemorse.org/hebrew/hebrewnumerals.html

you can use this converter to convert the numbers into Hebrew numerals. https://stevemorse.org/hebrew/romanhebrew.html

Then take this Hebrew and plug it into a translator.

https://translate.google.com/?sl=iw&tl=en&text=%D7%AA%D7%A4%D7%95%E2%80%98%D7%AA%D7%A4%22%D7%95&op=translate

This one I think is a little better then google translate

https://www.webtran.eu/

It is important to note that you should have a " just before the last symbol at the last symbol because that tells it is a number and not a word. Hebrew is read from right to left. It is explains it in the link above about Hebrew numerals

469

תס"ט

community

in google though it comes out to be 1969 but if you remove the " it becomes

תסט

test

I am still unsure if the " is needed or not but it is hard to say it makes me think it is needed because when you punch in the bonelords name

486486

תפו‘תפ"ו

potato-google

Your potato-the other translator

A potentially important number that you could ask Mr. potato head is the number 15. In Hebrew the number when written out is the word for god. So I am interested in if he has any response to the number 15.

15

יה

god

Again I do not play the game so I can not just go to the bonelord and ask him 15 to see what his response is. If he has a interesting response then we are possibly on the right track.

online tools

https://stevemorse.org/hebrew/hebrewnumerals.html

https://stevemorse.org/hebrew/romanhebrew.html

https://www.webtran.eu/

https://translate.google.com/?sl=iw&tl=en&op=translate

They just don’t want to admit that Trump was wrong and that the vaccines are safe. It would be extremely embarrassing for them to pitch a fit in 2020 and then they look like a fool when they are proven wrong. They don’t want to be more embarrassed than they already are so they keep up with the lies.

Trump got vaccinated eventually. Now they are exploding their idol went against what he said. It’s all falling apart and they have no legs to stand on they will just have to admit that they where wrong. A lot of the COVID vaccines are approved by the FDA. When will they admit that they where wrong?

I meant gematria.

I don't know where else to ask, so I am wondering if anyone here can give me some input.

How common is it for an 8 letter word to render to the same number, 87, in both Hebrew and English alphabets?

This word is a shadow-name I received, I just started to look into the numbers associated with it and made this interesting discovery.

Also, it happens that 8 + 7 = 15 = 10 + 5

(10 Yod) (5 He)

So 10 + 5 = 15 , the sum of Yod and He. This is the first force, masculine, notice its addition.

Out of which produces:

15

1 + 5 = 6 - 1 = 5

(6 Vau) (5 He)

The first part here is an addition (masculine) of the sum of Yod and He broken into (feminine, dissolution) its basic units (numerals, quantized, material in nature) so it is a mixture of both forces. Feminine in essence, masculine in execution. The last section is pure feminine, being a subtraction. In this way we have the divine duad encoded into the arithmetic.

________________________________

Yod He Vau He = YHVH

The first part of the name produces the second.. Same as the metaphysics of creation.

Here 8 represents eternity, infinite, and a complete process. 7 represents the entirety of the occult forces, Spiritual Man. 10 is the 'perfect number' representing God and Man, the whole, 1 and 0. 5 represents Man incarnate. 1 represents Source, The All, God. 1 + 5 = 6, where 6 is the number of the physical Form of Man, also the Trinity plus its Physical aspects.

Firstly, this is yet another "Genshin and Honkai are connected!" theory, so apologies in advance. Regardless, after reading more of the 2.4 Datamined quests and books, I feel the evidence is even stronger.

Lets start off with so miHoYo-verse knowledge;

• "Honkai" is a metaphysical force in the miHoYo-verse that constantly tests civilisations of their ability to survive. To make the tests "fair", the tests get harder the more advanced a civilisation is. A primitive society might get hit by Honkai-induced earthquakes, while a futuristic society will get hit by world-destroying Honkai demigods and monsters

• 50,000 years ago, the Honkai beat the futuristic Honkai Impact 3 universe. Before losing, the survivors sent off 2 spaceships as part of "Project Ark" to colonise other planets. They travelled not just through space, but through "quantum holes" to other dimensions. All contact was eventually lost

• Project Ark's spaceships contained data on the entire human genome, and was presumably piloted by someone immortal; The only candidates are A.I, or members of the 13 "Flame-Chasers" (13 people who'd been fused with Honkai monster genes)

• During a Honkai dev video, miHoYo accidentally leaked an unrevealed Flame-Chaser named "K.K" who is infused with genes from a Brahma/Creator-class Honkai monster. Coincidentally, the Travellers's own quote on Genshin's websites are signed by "K.K", and mentions that the "Creator is yet to come"

• "Teyvat" means "Ark" in Hebrew

• In the modern day, a Honkai character observes Dvalin while he is researching travel to other dimensions. miHoYo confirmed this wasn't an easter egg, meaning at the very least, Genshin and Honkai share a multiverse if not the same universe.

• Enkanomiya Spoilers >!"Yes, that's precisely it. That's why I wanted to find this book. That way, we, the Abyss Order, would have proof. Proof that the gods and Celestia came from beyond this world."!<

&nbsp;

While not a completely new theory, my idea is that; The world of Genshin (Teyvat) is the remnants of one of the Project Ark spaceships after it landed and colonised another world. Phanes is an 50,000 year AI whose sole directive to preserve humanity has led it to repeatedly grow and destroy human civilisations to stop them advancing too far and get destroyed by the Honkai

&nbsp;

Now onto the Enkanomiya Creation Legends;

&

When I studied Arabic I was really good with the numbers, so I hope someone still uses them

View Poll

Possibly the most repeated claim I’ve seen on this subreddit is that the Palestinian’ have rejected every peace deal that has ever been offer. Now, this claim is almost true (I’ll get into the deals accepted by Palestinians later). However, this claim is then used to imply that the Palestinians don’t want peace, that they will settle for nothing less than the entirety of Historic Palestine. Obviously, this claim seems persuasive on the surface – Israel, America and Britain have offered a numerically large number of peace deals. In reality, though, almost every deal offered has been so generous to Israel and so ridiculously biased against Palestinians that it completely gimps any future State of Palestine so heavily that the future state would almost certainly be non-viable as a political entity. I’m actually going to split this up into two posts, considering how long this is actually going to be. This post is dedicated to the period before a true Palestinian national identity had formed. The next post will really be dedicated to the last 25 years, and the deals which had been proposed during that period. So, let’s get started.

1936 – The Peel Commision

The first deal offered suggesting partition of the two populations, this deal placed the north (approximately spanning from Ashkelon to Lebanon) and the east (approximately spanning from Haifa to Tulkarm) of Palestine in Jewish control, and the center (Jaffa to Bethlehem) of Palestine in British control.

Now, the biggest problem with this peace deal is that the deal would have required the population transfer of 225,000 Arabs from the soon to be Jewish State. The justification for this was that Israel would have had too large an Arab minority to function. The precedent was that the Turks and Greeks had a population exchange that had left the two countries with good relations. Of course, both Palestine and the Jewish state were intended to be completely homogenous, so 1,250 Jews in the West Bank were also intended to be “transferred” to the Jewish state.

Not to mention, a significant portion of the lands allocated to the Jewish state had no significant Jewish population. The entirety of the Galilee was allocated to the Jewish state, while it was overwhelmingly populated by Arabs. The Arabs did remain in control of the desert and the soon-to-be named West Bank, but thes

The Catholic Church, from at least the second century, has claimed that Christ was born on December 25. However, it is commonly alleged that our Lord Jesus Christ was not born on December 25. For the sake of simplicity, let us set out the usual objections to the date of December 25 and counter each of them. Objection 1: December 25 was chosen in order to replace the pagan Roman festival of Saturnalia. Saturnalia was a popular winter festival and so the Catholic Church prudently substituted Christmas in its place. Reply to Objection 1: Saturnalia commemorated the winter solstice. Yet the winter solstice falls on December 22. It is true that Saturnalia celebrations began as early as December 17 and extended till December 23. Still, the dates don’t match up. Objection 2: December 25 was chosen to replace the pagan Roman holiday Natalis Solis Invicti which means “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.” Reply to Objection 2: Let us examine first the cult of the Unconquered Sun. The Emperor Aurelian introduced the cult of the Sol Invictus or Unconquered Sunto Rome in A.D. 274. Aurelian found political traction with this cult, because his own name Aurelianderives from the Latin word aurora denoting “sunrise.” Coins reveal that Emperor Aurelian called himself the Pontifex Solis or Pontiff of the Sun. Thus, Aurelian simply accommodated a generic solar cult and identified his name with it at the end of the third century. Most importantly, there is no historical record for a celebration Natalis Sol Invictus on December 25 prior to A.D. 354. Within an illuminated manuscript for the year A.D. 354, there is an entry for December 25 reading “N INVICTI CM XXX.” Here N means “nativity.” INVICTI means “of the Unconquered.” CM signifies “circenses missus” or “games ordered.” The Roman numeral XXX equals thirty. Thus, the inscription means that thirty games were order for the nativity of the Unconquered for December 25th. Note that the word “sun” is not present. Moreover, the very same codex also lists “natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae” for the day of December 25. The phrase is translated as “birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea.”[i] The date of December 25th only became the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” under the Emperor Julian the Apostate. Julian the Apostate had been a Christian but who had apostatized and returned to Roman paganism. History reveals that it was the hateful former Christian Emperor that erected a pagan holiday on December 25. Think about that for a moment.

We all know about the 137mb bug. It's been weeks, months even, and no fix in sight. Strange right? How hard can fixing this bug be? Unless... it's not a bug.

Hear me out. In physics there's this thing called the fine structure constant, ever heard of it? In a nutshell it describes the strength of the electromagnetic force. You know, the thing that holds all matter together. The cool thing about this constant is that it's unitless, meaning it doesn't matter how we define a meter, a second, a kg, it will always come out the same. It's a pure number of nature. The strange thing is that it's value is almost exactly 1 over 137. This had physicist puzzeled, why is it so close to one over a full number? Maybe our reality has something to do with 137? Maybe othet realities have different numbers? You following me? Cus it gets deeper... so much deeper.

137 is a prime number. So what you ask, right? Well, did you know that many encryption systems are based on prime numbers? And do you know what breaks this very encryption system? That's right, quantum computers, which we are on the verge of producing on massive scales. Look it up! It's all real. What if our reality is hidden from outsiders by this 137 prime and we are now on the verge of breaking our own encryption? What happens then?

Well, if you have a large IQ, you probably watch Rick and Morty. But you probably think it's just another quirky show right? Did you ever notice what's the name of Rick's universe? I'll let you google that one for yourself, you can make your own conclusions.

If you think I'm done, you haven't been following the plot sheeple. Listen up. Kabbalah, ever heard of it? The secret practice set to unravle the very fabric of reality? Well, in Hebrew there's this system called gematria, which attaches numbers to letters to find secret patterns. Do you know what Kabbalah in gematria is? You guessed it - 137. The divine numerical value of the secret teaching of the universe is 137.

If you're following what's going on with World of Warcraft you probably know that the final boss of this expansion, Zuval, is trying to unmake reality. What if... he already did? If you know anything about quantum mechanics you must know energy, momentum, charge, everything comes in quantas - discrete bundles instead of continues values. Well, what about reality itself? What if to unmake reality, you must break it down bit by byte, quanta by quanta. Every time you take another piece of reality, another chunk of i

🎶 I call out to anyone studying gematria to offer their opinions.

What do you think it is?

What do you think is it's purpose?

Who is the messenger?

What is the message?

Do your worst!

II Chronicles 5
&nbsp;

>>>……………………………………………………………………………
&nbsp;

>>>“CONSECRATION OF THE TEMPLE (5:1-7:10)
&nbsp;

>“Important intricacies are here apparent. The parallel passages in Kings contain some late additions, so we cannot tell exactly what the Chronicler had before him. He probably related, as the grand climax, that Solomon summoned the Levites – priests, musicians, bearers – and that they duly carried the ark into the temple. But such a narrative left the men of later times in a quandary. On their view of the situation Solomon ought also solemnly to have fetched the Mosaic tabernacle from Gibeon… The legitimate altar at Gibeon he could not shift: they had to say that he made a new altar of brass for the temple, and to declare that it received divine approval by fire from heaven. In the Chronicler’s view the rightful altar already existed, being the altar built by David at Araunah’s threshing floor, on which the heavenly fire (see I Chr. [Chronicles] 21:26; 22:1) had then fallen. Probably the Chronicler’s original description is found in 5:1-5a, 6; 6:1-12, 14-42; 7:1, 3-5, and the revisers’ additions in 5:5b, 7-14; 6:13; 7:2, 6-10.” (Elmslie, 1954, p. III 452)
&nbsp;

Chapter Five
&nbsp;

-1. And was fulfilled all the activity which did, SheLoMoH ["His Peace", Solomon], to House YHVH,

and brought, SheLoMoH, [את, ’ehTh (indicator of direct object; no English equivalent)] holies of David, his father, and [את, ’ehTh] the silver, and [את, ’ehTh] the gold, and [את, ’ehTh] all the utensils he gave in[to the] treasuries [אצרות, ’oTsROTh] of the House [of] the Gods.
&nbsp;

>>>……………………………………………………………………………
&nbsp;

>>>The Entering of [the] ark of the Name [ה', Hah’] to [the] Sanctuary

>>>([compare with] מל''א [“First Kings”] 8:1-11)

>>>[verses 2 to end of chapter]
&nbsp;

-2. Then assembled [יקהיל, YeeQeHaYL], SheLoMoH, [את, ’ehTh] elders of YeeSRah-’ayL ["Strove God", Israel] and [את, ’ehTh] all [the] heads of the tribes [המטות, HahMahToTh], principles of the fathers to sons of YeeSRah-’ayL, unto Jerusalem, to ascend [את, ’ehTh] ark [of] [the] covenant [of] YHVH from City of David (she is TseeYON [Zion]).

-3. And assembled unto the king every man [of] YeeSRah-’ayL in pilgrimage (it is the new[-moon] the seventh).
&nbsp;

>“As in 3:2, the colorful month names

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

The following elaboration will serve to display more plainly the fact that there is so much evidence that Strange Man is the devil himself that no other logical conclusion remains to be made.

This will be somewhat hard to bind together into one cohesive explanation, but I'll try my best. The intro will most definitely be boring to those who frequent this subreddit, so please bear with me.

Also, in order for the elaboration to remain consistent and easy to understand, certain parts of it will first be told accoring to the general perception, and expanded upon a lot more accurately later on.

Let's start with what is already commonly believed (not definitively proved):

In Strange Man's Bayou Nwa cabin, one of the inscribed messages says 'The moon will shine on in the darkness'. There is a character called Herbert Moon in Armadillo - the clerk in the general store. He is the only one who isn't stricken with cholera in the town.

Another inscription in the cabin states 'I offered you happiness or two generations, you made your choice', which is connected to the letter Herbert Moon received from his daughter, who is about to have a child (second generation).

The following conclusion is instrumental to the Braithwaite part of the theory:

So, Strange Man apparently offered a choice to Herbert, and Herbert made it. He chose particular personal gain (two generations) over happiness, and as a result, everything except that gain was taken from him.

Who's to say this happened only to Herbert Moon, and who's to say that his surname is the only thing referred to by 'moon' in the inscription?

There is, in fact, another, in some ways very similar story to be considered here.

Catherine's Deal

The following explanation is pure canon intertwined with the most logical possible events that took place between the canonical ones.

The Braithwaites had been a rich and powerful slaver family until their practice was abolished in 1865. Their rivals, the Grays, also suffered heavy financial losses, but they got a hold of Rhodes. They controlled the Rhodes Sheriff's office (the law) and saloon (alcohol distribution). The Braithwaites started producing moonshine, but couldn't actually sell it because the Grays controlled the local market. They tried expanding their zone of influence to make money selling it elsewhere, but were heavily outmatched by the uncontested moonshine producer and distributor Maggie Fike. At this point the B