Jacob & The Man In Black

Warning: if you are one of those people that hates spoilers, I have only this to say to you: Soylent Green is PEOPLE!

With that out of the way, I have been obsessed with Lost since last night's Season 6 premier episode, and I need to share my obsession.

I loved the wrinkle of Jacob and his "friend" (the "Man in Black" as the interweb is calling him, and left in the picture above) in the Season 5 finale, and have been feverishly anticipating this season for months. I have been speculating for some time now that Jacob is a reference to the biblical "Jacob's Ladder," the ladder to heaven envisioned by Jacob (son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham) in Genesis. At the end of Season 5, and with the introduction of the "Man in Black," I felt encouraged in my thinking and supposed that this new character might represent Esau, brother of Jacob.

But this thinking has led me to weird places. I began to look at the numbers sequence (4-8-15-16-23-42) and their relevance to verses in Genesis. I began to read up on Josephus, a Pharisee whose name I recognize from his import with early-Christian history, and who is somehow connected to a 'lucky' number sequence. This sequence is called the "Flavius-Josephus sieve," and is defined by the algorithm: a(n) is the smallest number such that twice the number of divisors of (a(n)-n)/3 gives the n-th term in the first differences of the sequence. I began to read up on the Bible Code that propagates through both the Kabbalah (based only on my memories from the 1998 Darren Aronofsky film Pi) and modern-day number theory concerning the Bible.

This is not the first of such bouts of curiosity I have felt at the hands of Lost. I recall investigating the Valenzetti equation, the Hanso/Dharma word etymology, and even the smoke monster (I recalled an eerie similarity to the nano-creature from Michael Crichton's lousy 2002 novel, Prey).

Needless to say, I'm a bit flamboozled these days... But in a good way. 

A couple more prognostications (general, sweeping variety), though, for the record, and a few questions:

• People on the island (as a result of the plane crash only) seem to die when they are at peace or have made some sort of amends (i.e. ascend Jacob's ladder) - Boone, Charlie, Eko, Ana Lucia, Michael. 
• The Man in Black (or Esau, if you will) can only take the form of people who are dead (and possibly on the island) - Yemi (Eko's brother who came via drug plane), Christian (Jack's dad who came via the Oceanic flight), Locke (who came via the Ajira flight). This does not explain the other people who have appeared on the island: Walt, Dave (Hurley's maybe-imaginary friend). 
• What happened to Walt? Why is he special (remember the dead birds and such)? Where's his tie-in? Is he just being avoided because his hormones kicked in, and he's a liability to the timeline?
• What about the military people from the H-bomb era? How did they end up there? Where's Widmore's tie-in at the end of this? I don't believe they've ever explained how the military ended up there, and why they left (although I could be mistaken)...
• Is there a current of parents and children running through the island? Jack &Christian, Claire & Christian, Old Con-Man Sawyer & Locke, Hawking & Faraday, Penny & Widmore... Are there more parent-child connections coming? Do they date back to the Blackrock? Are all the characters descendants of other inhabitants?
• Richard Alpert is likely a slave from the Blackrock, but what is his deal? Did Ben get dipped in the spring inside the temple (to save his life when Sayid shot him)?

This is very rambling, I admit. I may revisit this to clean up/expound. I am thankful for the confusion, though. All this makes for interesting television. I am truly awed by the plot construction of Messrs. Abrams, Cuse, and Lindelof. Good TV is a nice change of pace, isn't it?