[sammysaurusrex]

I'm doing an imagery project on A Tale of Two Cities for my honors english class and my topic is biblical references. My teacher said that a lot of the numbers used in the book are related to Bible stories... but I'm having trouble figuring them out. Some numbers are 8, 2, 4, 22, and 500. Where can I find this information?

[tickle]

I don't know what she means. Tale of Two Cities is about the French Revolution and I have never noticed anything within the story line that indicates biblical references. The numbers she has given you don't indicate any verses in the bible. They would be references to the book of the bible, the verse and the line. These numbers don't mean anything to lead you to bible reference.

Tick

[amccun]

I assume that your teacher meant Biblical references in the sense of Biblical allusions, where the book mentions something from the Bible, rather than Biblical references in the sense of citations, giving the book, chapter and verse of a text in the Bible.

I'm afraid I haven't read Tale of Two Cities, but it wouldn't be surprising for ens to refer to biblical events or characters. I'm not sure about the numbers you referenced. The most important numbers in the Bible are:
1: one God, one faith, one baptism
3: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
6: man created on the sixth day of creation, man's number
7: the day of rest, God's number
12: the sons of Jacob, the tribes of Israel, the disciples of Jesus

A Google search of the text of the Tale of Two Cities shows me that the number seven is repeated several times at the end of chapter 21, though at first glance it seems to be a rather ironic reference to the Bible, since the only "rest" there is the rest of death. The numbers one, three, six and twelve appear numerous times, though it's not likely that all of these will be significant.

[amccun]

The system seems to be overenthusiastic about editing posts. The "ens" in my previous answer was supposed to be (Charles) Dic-kens.

[Fr_Chuck]

Yes, far too often people try or want to find a "bibical" connection between things that really don't have any. One can twist and make numbers be or mean what ever you want almost.

[funsize7]

You can find some in chapter 9. Onene of them refers to Sydney Carton and his life changing. It talks about how Sydney is walking in Lucie's shoe (god) referring to Psalms 23. The 2nd is the bible verse used at Sydney fathers funeral "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
Which is similar to John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."
Now here is what I know you can find more

[funsize7]

You can find some in chapter 9. Onene of them refers to Sydney Carton and his life changing. It talks about how Sydney is walking in Lucie's shoe (god) referring to Psalms 23. The 2nd is the bible verse used at Sydney fathers funeral "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
Which is similar to John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."
Now here is what I know you can find more

[Wondergirl]

If you Google "Bible allusions in tale of two cities" (without quote marks), you will bring up a bunch of web sites that offer all sorts of interesting helps for you.

Here's an example:

A few from http://ens.stanford.edu/tale/issue13_allusions.html --

…and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death's dominion.

“Death's dominion” here echoes Romans 6:9, which reads, in part, “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.” The passage as a whole recommends that every individual emulate Christ and avoid sin. Paris, which Carton observes at the height of the Terror, is not only given over to the dominion of Death (in the form of the guillotine), but also to a religious infidelity which – the biblical echo suggests – is more fatal still.

There could have been no such Revolution, if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not first been so monstrously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to scatter them all to the winds.

The scattering to the winds echoes Ezekiel 17:21 – part of a set of prophetic verses in which the Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy that He will avenge Himself upon those who break his covenant or disdain his commands:

Therefore thus saith the Lord God; As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head. And I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon, and will plead with him there for his trespass that he hath trespassed against me. And all his fugitives with all his bands shall fall by the sword, and they that remain shall be scattered toward all winds: and ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken it. (17:19-21)

In A Tale of Two Cities, the echo of this biblical passage suggests that the “suicidal vengeance” of the Revolution was in a sense the inevitable consequence of bad faith.

I'll bet SparkNotes has references to allusions too.

[rstella]

I don't know about the numbers thing, but there are certainly biblical references in A Tale of Two Cities. He references the Bible in Chapter 2 - the part about the mirror is an allusion to Revelations 20:13.