The noun λιτρα (litra) is a commercial unit both of weight (about 330 grams) and volume (about 250 cc or milliliter). It's the origin of the English word "liter", which is not a unit of weight and only of volume, (namely 1000 cc, which conveniently weights precisely 1 kilogram in the case of water). So, that means that the Greek λιτρα (litra) is not at all the same as the English liter. Our word occurs in John 12:3 and 19:39 only, both times as a verbal chord within a dazzling symphony of brilliant wordplay.

To start with, the "custom of the Jews" that prompted Mary and Nicodemus to pour a fortune worth of costly oil upon Jesus has nothing to do with embalming. Jews barely touched a dead body (Numbers 19:11), let alone embalm it, and instead wrapped the deceased in linen (οθονιον, othonion) to prevent any mourners from touching the body as it was carried to the grave. Instead, the custom that involved fragrant oils involved the first night of a newly wedded couple. The family would sprinkle the bed with a few drops of myrrh (מור, mor), so that the whole neighborhood would be engulfed in the smell of love and jubilation. Mary's entire litra and Nicodemus' whopping hundred litrai were not subtle gestures. They were torrential outbursts of joy (Joel 2:28, Jude 1:24) because of the consummation of the greatest marriage ever: that between Creator and humankind (and see this further discussed in our article on Stephen).

Our noun λιτρα (litra) comes with a rollercoaster etymology. It appears to have started out as something like "lipra" or "lidra" meaning ingot, from a very early European verb meaning to pour, whose remnants still appear (or seem to do so) in several European languages (in the verb to libate, for instance). Then, in Italy, either this word for ingot or else its parent verb to pour, produced the word libra, which described (1) a balance or pair of scales, and (2) a unit of weight, namely twelve times a Roman uncia, which literally meant a "unit" (from "unus", meaning one; hence our word "ounce"). The Roman system of measurements was predominantly duodecimal, or 12-base, so the word uncia came to denote any twelfth part of anything (but mostly inheritances or interests of measures of any kind) and subsequently anything proverbially small: a trifle, a bit.

The Roman libra was equal to about 330 grams and became the standard unit in which gold was measured. This is where the "lb" for "pound" comes from: it's short for libra. Still, a modern pound equals 0.45 kilograms, which is more than a Roman pound. The British pound sterling derives from the tower pound (in silver), which is about 350 grams, roughly the same as a Roman pound. Until the modern age, standards were very difficult to maintain, as masses of anything could only be compared to other weights, by using the scale, or libra, and a reference weight that was hopefully not tampered with (Proverbs 16:11).

Languages are to people what anthills are to ants: the whole hill comes from nowhere else than the ants, but no single ant decides on the design of the hill or can even comprehend why its many rooms and corridors come to look like they do. The hill simply grows out of the whole hustle and bustle and ideas and interactions of all the individual ants (Proverbs 6:6). Words likewise follow only the sense of reality that exists in the deepest subconscious of many people at once, and settle on forms that seem agreeable to all individual speakers. And so, our noun libra came to look like it has to do with the noun liber — the genitive plural of libra is actually liber — and the noun liber describes anything freely moving, as if the whole Latin conversation wanted to say that anything that gets poured flows freely, that scales must move freely and that money must move freely.

Still, our word liber is thought to stem from the Proto-Indo-European word "hlewd", which means to grow (when used as verb) and people (when used as noun; hence the German Leute). Our word liber also came to denote the free or loose bark of a tree. Such strips of loose bark came to be used to write on, which is why our word liber also came to mean "book" (from which English gets its word "library"). But all this expresses the understanding that books, or at least the contents of books, must flow as freely through society as language itself does. This is also the thought behind the statement that "The waters which you saw [...] are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues" (Revelation 17:15, also see 19:6). Likewise, the many scenes in the Bible that involve mists and clouds — Genesis 2:6, 7:11, 9:13, Exodus 13:21, 1 Kings 18:44, 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Hebrews 12:1 — are about language and ideas that form in society long before they are formally expressed (see our articles on the noun νεφελη, nephele, cloud, and the name Tigris).

An important Greek word that stems from this same PIE word "hlewd", meaning people, is ελευθερια (eleutheria), freedom-by-law, which explains that freedom does not come from an absence of rules but rather from a mastery of them, and a mastery of rules only comes from submitting to them first. There is no freedom of speech without first mastering the rules of language, and there's no mastering these rules without submitting to them first. That too is the idea of marriage: a covenant that unlocks one's economic, intellectual and biological fertility (Luke 7:35). It perhaps goes against modern sensitivities but formal marriage is where property rights began and modern society could only arise when rulers began to respect anybody's claim to his own (see our article on γαμος, gamos, marriage).

On the island of Sicily, meanwhile, our word for a whole ingot, "libra", became attached to a mere snippet of one, namely a silver coin: the λιτρα (litra), of a relatively small denomination. That coin began to circulate around the wider world, and extended its name into Greek (the lingua franca of the time), where it came to denote (1) a measure of volume of about 250 cc, and (2) a unit of weight, equal to twelve times a Roman uncia and thus the same as the Latin unit of weight called the libra, the unit of weight predominantly of gold.

One ounce of gold, or 1/12 libra, would be the equivalent of about 300 dinarii — and one δηναριον (denarion) was what a worker would get for a day's work — which seems to indicate that the λιτρα (litra) of oil that Mary poured onto the feet of Jesus, which cost 300 dinarii, was a liquid-litra of about 250 cc, which was worth 1/12 of a weight-litra of gold. Mary's litra was worth about a year of a man's working life, which was also roughly the purchasing price of a slave — and note that back then there was no such thing as "freedom" as we know it today, and that "slavery" was pretty much the same thing as being employed today.

In the classical world, one was either (1) an estate holder, or (2) someone who lived and worked on someone else's estate, or (3) so old, sick or worthless that nobody wanted to keep you alive. Someone who lived and worked on someone else's estate was in legal fact a part of that estate: as much a landlord's property as his own wife and children and animals were. It was very unusual for any man to want to destroy or harm his own property (Ephesians 5:29) but if he wished, he could do so. And any malfunctioning machine, or biting dog or disappointing slave, indeed, could be disposed of without license or any further legal repercussion. Our point, however, is that a man's labor could be bought with 1/12 libra, but his liberty additionally required land to grow his food on, and to build a house for him and his family to live in. It's never stated in so many words, but the suggestion seems to be that 1/12 libra would buy a man into slavery, but one whole libra would buy him into freedom. The verb εξαγοραζω (exagorazo), literally meaning to out-purchase, describes not merely to pay someone's purchasing price but rather to pay for their sustained liberty: land and all (Matthew 5:5).

Paul wrote: "Christ redeemed [exagorazo] us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree'". That latter part comes from the Torah, namely Deuteronomy 21:23, but just as much as Moses' wicker basket among the Nile's reeds, and Israel's crossing of the Sea of Reeds, rather obviously also refers to the Egyptian literary tradition, so "hanging from a tree" also refers to the Latin literary tradition: as it was written on liber, bark that hung loose from trees — see our articles on βιβλος (biblos), paper, and the name Aeneas.

As noted above, one twelfth of a libra, or an uncia, was considered proverbially small: a trifle. But because the libra became the preferred unit of weight for gold, and an uncia of gold was still worth a year worth of labor, a need for smaller units arose. What exactly happened isn't clear (beyond inflation due to a failing government) but somehow the 12 proverbial units of a libra made way for 72 of them. This was formalized in the 4th century AD, during the reign of Constantine — meaning that any libra of gold would yield 72 standard gold coins. A famous 4th century AD Greek epigram by Palladas speaks of "having lived a litra of years", by which he meant 72 years. But earlier than that, the word uncia was also applied to 1/12 of a bronze coin called as, and a sextula was 1/6 uncia and 1/72 as. The word sextula literally means "sixling", and the Hebrew word for "sixling", namely שש (shesh) is also the word for alabaster, so no, Mary's alabaster jar is no coincidence: see our article on αλαβαστρον (alabastron).

Without succumbing to numerology, it's safe to say that in antiquity, the number 72 (= 6 x 12) was enormously important. The zodiac had its twelve signs, the year had twelve months and the day had twelve hours (John 11:9), and the term Great Year described the time it took for the earth's tilting axis to describe a circle along the zodiac: about 25,920 solar years, which comes down to one degree per 72 years (360 x 72 = 25,920). That means that 72 associates to the greatest circle of the κοσμος (kosmos), which in turn brings to mind the Divine Council (see Psalm 82:1-8 and John 10:34-35). But ultimately, the number 72 has to do with world governance, which also helps to explain why Jesus sent out 72 disciples (Luke 10:1-17, and see Genesis 8:9-12).

The Great Year is also known as the Astrological Age and the Platonic Year, because Plato had all kinds of wisdoms to share about world governance. Plato is generally celebrated as being so very rational, but he was precisely the opposite. The Hebrew idea of world governance is one of a global conversation, in which every voice helps to shape whatever the anthill of mankind will turn out to be. Plato, contrarily, believed that his voice was much better than anybody else's, and that everybody should just shut up and do as they're told, and everything would work out fine. The Hebrew way became known as the Hebrew Republic, which is the only Republic in history that's truly republic (save, perhaps, for the modern Internet), whereas every other form of government is some version of the Platonic Republic, which isn't a republic but a tyranny. The Hebrew Republic is also the only republic that has remained stable for 3,000 years while all other "republics" inevitably destabilize and collapse. The Hebrew Republic includes everybody whom God has given breath, whereas the Platonic Republic persecutes whomever doesn't quite fit in. For more on the Hebrew Republic, see our article on Gog and Magog. For more on the Platonic Republic, remember the words of Jesus: "For wide is the gate and πλατυς (platus), broad, is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it" (Matthew 7:13).

The Platonic Republic (the broad road) is based on doctrine and creed and obedience and conformity. The Hebrew Republic (the narrow gate) is based on conversation, which in turn is based on language and freedom of speech. And that has to do with the Hebrew language, which has certain qualities that no other language has. The Platonic Republic is based on doctrine and instructions, whereas the Hebrew Republic is the societal equivalent of a single brain, whose mind is a vast and dynamic interference pattern of waves without beginning or end. Translations of the Bible would have you believe that the Bible is Platonic, but no, the Bible is Hebrew and runs on wordplay and associations between words that spin thoughts that are entirely up to the beholder (for some examples of this, see our article on the name Theudas).

In first century Judea, a battle raged between people who understood the crucial importance of Hebrew and those who didn't, and who figured that the Scriptures are dogmatic and that its dogmas can be translated into any language. The authors of the gospel of Jesus Christ were clearly of the former camp (see this further discussed in our article on the name Jesus) but also realized that the Greek translation could function as a kind of outer court to the inner court that was Hebrew. Anybody who had been born in the outer darkness of polytheism, could be introduced to the unimaginable miracle that is the Torah, by first reading the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures).

The Septuagint had been produced out of Platonic considerations — as per legend, in 72 days by 72 translators — and was given the name Seventy by those who understood what a terrible mistake that was. Still in the Aramaic period, the prophet Ezekiel had witnessed seventy elders of Israel committing abominations in the darkness, each in front of his own idol (Ezekiel 8:12), which is the core idea of Platonism: that any man's individual voice could be superior to the global conversation. But still, the authors of the New Testament appear to have understood that because of translations of the Bible in any of the world's ever shifting languages, many seekers eventually arrive at the Rock that is Hebrew (Matthew 7:24-27; see Acts 17:22-30, Philippians 1:18, Exodus 18:11; also see our article on θεος, theos, God).

There's no language as baffling as Hebrew: Hebrew words are linked to all other words like neurons in a brain, and wordplay in Hebrew has no bottom and goes on forever (John 21:25). All languages are miracles of living human spirit, but Hebrew has always been the world's shepherd, gathering all other languages under its wings, and especially forming the Greek language into its shepherd dog (see our article on the many Hebrew roots of Greek). Hence Greek is exceptionally intelligent compared to languages other than Hebrew (and especially English; for a meditation on the quality of English, see our article on Mesopotamia). And to illustrate this: note the accidental similarity between our noun λιτρα (litra), and λιθαριον (litharion), a diminutive of the familiar noun λιθος (lithos), meaning stone. A synonym of that latter noun λιθος (lithos), stone, is λαας (laas), also meaning stone, whose genitive, namely λαος (laos), "of stone" closely resembles the noun λαος (laos), meaning people, λεον (leon), lion, and the adjective ιλαος (hilaos), to be kindly favored toward (mostly speaking of gods toward men). The noun λιτρον (litron) is either a variant of our noun λιτρα (litra), or it is a variant of the noun νιτρον (nitron), sodium carbonate, a kind of salt (αλς, hals) that was both consumed as condiment and used as an ingredient for soap (υσσωπος, hussopos).

And speaking of freely flowing: the Hebrew verb for to clean, purify or sift is ברר (barar). Verb באר (b'ar) means to write. Noun ברית (berit) means covenant. Combined with the common prefix ל (le), meaning to or in order to, the compound לבר (lebar), occurs in Ecclesiastes 3:18: "God may sift them, and that they may see that they themselves are but as beasts."

None of these associations mean anything on a Platonic stage, but in the subconscious back of the minds of anybody with a creative sense of humor, these associations weave into worlds that are illuminated by an intuition that carries the entire unified voice of everybody who ever partook in the great human discourse. Rationalism started out seeking single reasons or causes of events, or single motivations for any behavior, but in the modern age, we have begun to see that rarely ever things happen for single reasons, including our behavior. Our behavior is rarely ever prompted by a clearly defined motivation and almost always the result of a whole cloud of conscious and subconscious data that combines in ways that are always unique and hardly ever predictable. The big difference between human rationality and artificial intelligence is that artificial intelligence knows that its decision are the result of millions of data points, whereas human rationality continues to forget the "waters under the earth" (the subconscious), and that it usually doesn't know what caused it to think in the way it does (Romans 7:15-16).

Plato (and Aristotle after him) believed that rationality would ultimately solve all problems and reveal all mysteries, but Paul understood that rationality, though extremely useful, has a boundary and is limited, so that there is something beyond it (Ephesians 3:19, Philippians 4:7). In modern times, Russel's paradox, Gödel's incompleteness theorem(s) and Turing's halting problem have begun to identify this boundary of rationality, and have confirmed that Platonists have an irrational faith in rationality, and can only come to ruin. If humanity has a future, it lies beyond the boundary of rationality, and beyond the edge of reason. Whatever is destined for resurrection, resurrects there. And that is the burial custom of the Jews.