NUMBER OF THE BEAST

The 'Number of the Beast' is a concept from the Book of Revelation of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The Number is 666 in modern texts, although 616 and 665 appear instead in at least one ancient source. This topic is a source of contention for many church groups and theologians.^[1]
Some scholars contend that the number is a code for the Roman Emperor Nero,^[2] a view that is supported by the Roman Catholic Church.^[3][4]

Contents

Bible

Old Testament

Interpretations

Name

Mark of commerce

Other interpretations

Culture and psychology

Mathematics

See also

Notes

Bible

The Number of the Beast is described in the Book of Revelation 13:18. From the King James translation:^[5]
In the Greek manuscripts, the Number is rendered in Greek numerical form as “χξς”,^[6]
or sometimes literally as “six hundred and sixty-six”, “”.^[7][8] [hexakosioi hexékonta hex, lit. six hundred sixty six]
The oldest known record of the verse, a fragment of an early manuscript of Revelation from the Oxyrhynchus site, Papyrus 115, gives a different number, 616, as “”.^[9]
666 can also refer to a Roman Emperor such as Nero^[10] (whose name, written in Aramaic, was valued at 666, using the Hebrew numerology of gematria, a manner of speaking against the emperor without the Roman authorities knowing).

Old Testament

The number 666 appears several times in the Old Testament, including in 1 Kings 10:14-22 as the number of talents of gold received by King Solomon in one year. "Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold".
Scholars such as Dr. Ellen Aitken, Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, have speculated that the reference to this passage was a way of speaking in code about then contemporary figures about whom it would have been politically dangerous to criticize openly.
According to the Bible, Solomon fell into apostasy and built altars to Chemosh, Moloch, and Ashtoreth, pagan gods to whom human sacrifices were made. (See 1 Kings 11:4-8.)

Interpretations

Name

'Figuratively'
One interpretation is that 666 encodes the letters of someone’s name or title, identifying the Antichrist.
To be convincing, interpretations invoke arguments other than mathematics to prove their point. For example, scholars who believe that the Book of Revelation refers to historical people and events argue that the number represents Nero. In Hebrew gematria, every letter has a corresponding number. Summing these numbers gives a numeric value to a word or name. In Hebrew, "Nero Caesar" is spelled “נרון קסר”, pronounced "Neron Qe[i]sar". Adding the corresponding values yields 666, as shown:

Resh	Samekh	Qoph	Nun	Vav	Resh	Nun
200	60	100	50	6	200	50

Removing the terminal נ (written as ן) makes the name "Nero" rather than "Neron", and makes the numeric value 616, which may explain that variation. The hypothesis that 666 is a code for a Roman emperor seems to have historical support. The emperors were noted for their oppression of both Jews and Christians. Both communities were known to use numerology, codes and symbols (such as the Ichthys) when living under Roman rule to avoid persecution.
The German Protestant theologian Ethelbert Stauffer, arguing that gematria had been the most popular form of numerology not only among Jews but also in the Graeco-Roman world (Pergamon, Pompeii)^[11], conceived a Greek gematrical procedure to explain the number 666. Judging from the precise information that the Book of Revelation gives about the person behind the number 666^[12], Stauffer concluded that the "beast" can in general only refer to a Roman emperor and argued that this Emperor must be Domitian, because he had reigned during the proposed time of origin of the Apocalypse and supposedly was called "The Beast" as a "secret derisive nickname" by Romans, Greek, Christians and Jews.^[13] Stauffer computed the Number of the Beast using the short form of Domitian's five titles and names ''A KAI ΔOMET ΣEB ΓE'', as derived from the abbreviations on coins and inscriptions.^[14]

Mark of commerce

Futurist Christian eschatology typically holds that the Mark of the Beast is one way in which the Antichrist will exercise power over the Earth during the period of Tribulation, because of the prophetic statement in Revelation 13:16-17 that "the Beast" (θηριον) will require all people to receive the mark (χάραγμα "branded mark or character) in their right hands or foreheads in order to buy or sell, making survival for those on the run much more difficult. A possible translation of the meaning of the number 666 may be: the number 666 will be the number that all currency will be based upon. Exact interpretations of this vary widely. For example:

★ Some Christians interpret the mark as a requirement for all commerce to mean that the mark might actually be an object with the function of a credit card (i.e. RFID).^[15]

★ Steven D. Miller proposes that the mark of the beast may refer to a social security number or card.^[16]

★ Terry Watkins supposes the mark to be a microchip and or barcode on the human body.^[17]
Some support this barcode theory through reference to the three elongated end and middle symbols found in some common barcode symbologies; they appear identical to the symbol used to represent the number six on the right hand segment of a barcode—666 is the template from which barcodes are read. This, however, is unreliable because the codes don't have enough information to represent a number.^[18]
Also, many barcodes are 'written' in a binary system. Each number—and the guardbars—are represented by the black and white spaces. When carefully comparing the codes, the number "6" is written in the code 1010000, seven units. The left and right guardbar are written in three units: 101. Finally, the middle guardbar is written in 5 units, 01010. This recurring "101" has led many to believe that the guardbars, in fact, read 666, though this is not the meaning of the symbology.
Alternatively, some who take a historical view of the Book of Revelation identify the Mark of the Beast with the stamped image of the emperor's head on every coin of the Roman empire: the stamp on the hand or in the mind of all, without which no-one could buy or sell.^[19]

Other interpretations

★ Seventh-day Adventists believe that the "mark of the beast" (but not the number 666) refers to a future, universal, legally enforced Sunday-worship. “Those who reject God’s memorial of creatorship — the Bible Sabbath — choosing to worship and honor Sunday in the full knowledge that it is not God’s appointed day of worship, will receive the ‘mark of the beast.’”^[20]

★ Irenaeus suggested that the number indicates that the beast is the sum of all apostasy committed over the course of six thousand years.^[21]

★ Robert Graves suggested that DCLXVI, 666 in Roman numerals, is an abbreviation for the Latin sentence “Domitianus Caesar Legatos Xti Violenter Interfecit”, or “The Emperor Domitian violently killed the envoys of Christ”.^[22]

★ The Roman numeral writing of 666, "DCLXVI" is also composed with the first six Roman numerals, written in descending order (I, V, X, L, C, D).

★ In Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), the number 666 may be considered mystical and holy and may represent the physical universe.^[23]

★ Martin Luther wrote in a footnote to Rev 13:15-18: "Spirit means / that it is active / and not a dead image / but that it has its rights and offices in its womb. These are six hundred and sixty and six years. So long the earthly papacy remains." Luther has many comments and theories against the papacy in the footnotes to his translation of the Book of Revelation.

★ Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the Beast for which 666 stands symbolizes many governments, harmonizing with the symbolic depiction of past governments (denoted as "kings") in the Book of Daniel as wild beasts. The Beast is said to have "a human number" in that the governments that the beast symbolizes are all of a human origin, they aren't made up of spirit or demon entities. The number 666 is also believed to be symbolic, standing for imperfection. The number seven is interpreted as being a "perfect" or "complete" number based on the fact that it is used frequently in the Bible to signify completeness, for example Psalm 12:6 and the Genesis creation week. Just as six is one short of seven, imperfection is short of perfection, and hence six is interpreted as symbolizing imperfection. Six is repeated three times for emphasis, producing the number 666. ^[24] (This is similar to Vines Expository Dictionary under "Sixty, Sixtyfold," which states: "The number is suggestive of the acme of the pride of fallen man, the fullest development of man under direct satanic control, and standing in contrast to 'seven' as the number of completeness and perfection.")

★ Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) claimed that he was the Beast prophesised in the Book of Revelation and took the name “Το μεγα θηριον” ("To Mega Therion"), Greek for “The Great Beast”, which adds up to 666 by isopsephy, the Greek form of gematria.^[25][26]

★ In Robert A. Heinlein's novel ''The Number of the Beast'', the main characters reinterpret the number to be 6^6^6, or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056. This corresponds to the number of possible universes in the story.

★ More simply, man being created on the sixth day makes the number 6 symbolize man, and the juxtaposition of three sixes can signify a trinity.

★ In his book "Secrets of the Freemasons", author Michael Bradley notes that the hexagram is known in Masonry as the Seal of Solomon: "...the hexagram is widely associated with the occult, and it is considered the most powerful of Satan's symbols, containing '666.' Actual occultists consider the hexagram to represent the highest form of the Divine.

★ Arnold Murray and followers of The Shepherd's Chapel believes that it refers to those who accept, or believe in a literal Rapture.

★ In the writings of the Bahá'í Faith, 'Abdu'l-Bahá states that the numerical value given to the beast referred to the year 666 A.D., when the Umayyad ruler Muawiyah I, who opposed the Imamate, arose.^[27]

★ Walid Shoebat, author of ''Why I Left Jihad'', does not believe the Greek letters χξς′ in Revelation 13:18 should be translated “666”. He proposes that if these were Arabic letters, the χ becomes the crossed swords of Islam, and ξς′ is Arabic for “in the name of Allah”.^[28]

★ Robert Winkler Burke of www.inthatdayteachings.com says "6" is a spiritual marking supposedly made by God's angels to those whose spirit,or soul or body is the number of man, meaning apart from God. He says those marked "666" cannot buy God's higher truths and erroneously believe escapology doctrines of Christianity.

★ Dr. Kim Riddlebarger, PhD in his book "The Man of Sin" (Baker Books, 2006) explains the number 666 to represent endless work without rest or "sabbath", and the number 616 to represent 6 days of work and one day of rest.

★ A series of coincidences involving former President Ronald Wilson Reagan, whose first, last and middle names are six letters apiece. Other coincidences involving Reagan include the winning three-digit lottery ticket being 666 in Maryland on the Sunday after his 1984 re-election.^[29]

Culture and psychology

Main articles: Number of the Beast (occurrence)

The number 666 retains a peculiar significance in the culture and psychology of Western societies, where some perceive it as “the Devil’s number”, even in contexts usually remote from superstition. The fear of the number 666 is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

Mathematics

★ An 'apocalypse number' is defined as any number having exactly 666 digits.

★ An '''apocalyptic''' 'number' is any number that follows the formula 2ⁿ and contains three sixes consecutively, such as 2¹⁵⁷, which is the first one of this kind.^[30]

★ 'Apocalypse primes' are given by the formula 10⁶⁶⁵+''n'' for n=123, 1837, 6409, 7329, 8569, 8967, 9663, ... The smallest apocalypse prime containing the digits 666 is 10^(665)+166657 (Rupinski).^[31]

See also

★ 666 (number)

★ U.S. Highway 666

★ A666 road

★ 666 (disambiguation)

Notes

1. The Other Number of the Beast
2. Revelation 13:18 and a Scroll from Murabba’at, , D. R., Hillers, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1963 ''Note: website requires subscription.''
3. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990. 1009
4. 666: The Number of the Beast
5. Revelation 13:18
6. Revelation 13:18
7. Revelation 13:18
8. Revelation 13:18
9. The early Church father Irenaeus knew several occurrences of the 616-variant but regarded them as a scribal error, although he didn't know the meaning of the number. Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus, , , , ,
10. Some Recently Published NT Papyri from Oxyrhynchus:
An Overview and Preliminary Assessment by Peter M. Head, Tyndale Bulletin 51 (2000), pp. 1-16 http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/NTOxyPap.htm#_ftn39
11. According to Stauffer (1947) the ''terminus technicus'' ψηφίζειν clearly emphasizes the gematrical interpretation. Gematria was also used in an "often-cited old-Christian Apocalypse that is doubtlessly connected with Apocalypse 13,18 and that probably goes back to a secret sign in Johannean times, ''Orac. Sibyll.'' I, 324-331."
12. 1. He has power over all nations, 2. his likeness is worshipped all over the world, 3. his name appears on official signatures, 4. he prosecutes Christianity for its denial to worship his likeness and accept the signing with his name.
13. E. Stauffer. ''Coniectanea Neotestamentica XI in honorem Antonii Fridrichsen sexagenarii''. Lund 1947.
14. Aυτοκράτωρ (A = 1); KAIσαρ (KAI = 20 + 1 + 10 = 31); ΔOMETιανός ( ΔOMET = 4 + 70 + 40 + 5 + 300 = 419); ΣEBαστός (ΣEB = 200 + 5 + 2 = 207); ΓEρμανικός (ΓE = 3 + 5 = 8). This results in A KAI ΔOMET ΣEB ΓE (''gematrially'': 1 + 31 + 419 + 207 + 8 = 666), making Domitian the Beast. In: E. Stauffer. ''Christus und die Caesaren. Historische Skizzen''. 6th extended edition. Hamburg 1964.
15. When Cash Is Only Skin Deep
16. Is your social security card the Mark of the Beast?
17. What about barcodes and 666: The Mark of the Beast?
18. George J. Laurer, ''George J. Laurer's personal web site; the inventor of the UPC barcode''
19. eg Tony Robinson, ''The Doomsday Code'', Channel 4, 16 September 2006
20. Seventh-day Adventists Believe (2nd ed), , , , Ministerial Association, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, ,
21. ''Adversus Haereses'', Irenaeus, , , , ,
22. The White Goddess, , Robert, Graves, , 1948,
23. Ask the Rabbi
24. Identifying the Wild Beast and Its Mark, , , , The Watchtower,
25. Carroll, Robert Todd (2003). ''The Skeptic's Dictionary'' (''Aleister Crowley''). Wiley. ISBN 0-471-27242-6
26. Crowley, Aleister. ''The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley (Tunisia 1923)'', Skinner, Stephan (editor). Samuel Weiser. ISBN 0-87728-856-9
27. Interpretation of Biblical Verses Research Department of the Universal House of Justice
28. Shoebat, Walid. ''Why I Left Jihad.'' ISBN-10: 0977102114
ISBN-13: 978-0977102112
29. Omens about Ronald Wilson Reagan
30. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ApocalypticNumber.html
31. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ApocalypseNumber.html