The perspective of scale

In today's fast paced society the world has become a much smaller place than it was in Biblical times.  That is not to say that the world has actually decreased in size but our perspective has changed and the scale at which we measure things has changed.  Having studied geology in college I tend to have a different perspective on time than many people.  Most people think of 4000 years, roughly the commonly recognized time people have existed on earth, as a very long time.  When you compare it to the average lifespan of a person it is a long time, but if you compare it to the billions of years that there are of geological records of time 4000 years is just a short time.

"as far as the east is from the west, so far He has removed our transgressions from us" Psalms 103:12
From the frame of reference of the people at that time the distance from the east to the west was likely only a few thousand miles, but that is a distance that would take weeks or even months to traverse and would cost so much that it was an inconceivable distance to travel.  Today we have an airplane that can circumnavigate the globe in under 2 hours.  Than kind of makes the distance from the east to the west seem insignificant.  We must remember though God was using a scale that was significant to them to say "when I forgive you your sins are gone and beyond anyone's reach to bring them back to you".  Perhaps we should even consider rewriting this scripture to say "as far as from here to Alpha Centauri A so far He has removed our transgressions from us"

"For all the animals of the forest are Mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills." Psalms 50:10

This one I have always struggled with.  Growing up in farming communities the cattle on a thousand hills is a lot, but it is a conceivable number.  Lets say there are 100 cows on a hill, so God owns 100,000 cows?  At roughly $2000 a cow in today's market that is $200 million.  Yeah, that's a bunch of money, but when you compare it to the net worth of someone like Bill Gates whose net worth is something like $81 billion that is an insignificant number.  So to understand this we need to understand from the perspective of those who were around in bible times 100,000 cows might as well have been a gazillion it was so much. God was not saying I only own 100,000 cows, he was saying ALL things are Mine and I am not in need.

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Matthew 18:21-22

70X7=490  That was easy, did it in my head, that's a math problem we expect 12 year olds to be able to solve with ease.  And forgive someone 490 times? Okay, I know people that would only take 2 weeks to achieve.  I thought this being a christian thing was going to be a challenge.  Yup, I missed the point again.  I really doubt Jesus was saying "No, 7 times is not enough but you can stop forgiving at 490 times".  I think instead he was throwing out a large difficult to reach number in order to say do not keep a record of forgiveness keep forgiving.  But mathematical concepts have advanced to the point that 70 times 7 is not a difficult enough concept for us, perhaps we should think 7 to the 70th power when we read this scripture....