Loading...Yesterday’s post was meant as background to this brief discussion about the meaning of the “number of the beast” in the book of Revelation. Remember: I’m talking about “gematria” as a way of interpreting words by understanding their letters as numbers. Yesterday I tried to explain the symbolism of the beast in Rev. 17. To make best sense of what I have to say now, it would probably help to see that post. But it’s not required reading and will not be on the Final Exam.
Four chapters earlier are given a description of another beast, one which in fact bears a remarkable resemblance to the one that shows up in ch. 17. According to chap. 13, this other beast arises from the sea and has ten horns and many heads. One of its heads receives a mortal wound that is then healed. The entire world follows this beast, which is empowered by the dragon (i.e., the Devil, 12:9). The beast makes war on the saints and conquers them (13:7). It has power over all the nations of earth (13:7-8), exploiting the nations of the world economically (13:17) and demanding to be worshiped (13:15). The author concludes his description of this mortal enemy of God with a final identifying mark, given for those “with understanding.” The number of the beast is 666 (13:18).
Interpreters have offered numerous conjectures over the years to explain this number (probably more than six hundred and sixty-six of them). Most of these interpreters have been concerned to show that the beast had finally arisen in their own day. Rarely are these interpretations put forth as conjectures, of course, but almost always with the confidence of those who have the “inside scoop.” Just since the middle of the past century, for example, Christian preachers, televangelists, and authors over the years have suggested such tantalizing and diverse candidates as …
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“exploited their native populations”
Would that have been a concern for the original writer?
Yes, the writer was very concerned about how Rome was dictating the lives of those living in its provinces and ignoring their ancestral traditions.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was also accused of being the 666. Each name has 6 letters, though that’s not how The ancients did the math.
yes, I used to point that out when I started teaching in the 80s. 🙂
Since I consider the Book of Revelation to be an anagogic / symbolic book about the transformation / ascension of the soul (s), events, churches, candels, heads, powers, places, animals, etc. are only forces that exist within ourselves. Some even claim that these descriptions are multi-layered stories, so perhaps this anagogic / symbolic view is one of them.
In that relationship, the number 6 is and can be translated as “number of man”, or perhaps the fallen nature of man / humanity and also work 6 days a week, man’s work, so this can fit into the Judeo christian tradition.
On the premise of a more spiritual interpretation of Revelation (soul(s) ascend back to oneness?), that the number 666 is a human number, or a human state of mind / activity, the beast in that sense would have been “the lowest achievement of man/humanity without the consciousness of God.
So if I live at number 668, does that make me the Neighbor of the Beast?
You are two better than him.
I worked for a fast food place in a Kansas City suburb in the mid-’80s. Often times an order would total $6.66, which usually resulted in a hurried addition of an apple pie or an upgrade in french fries, anything to make the total amount not be 666. They were serious about not having anything to do with that number!
Bingo! Yes. So it’s Hebrew spellings that come up with Caesar Neron? Somehow i thought it was Aramaic.
Question: if YOU were trying to reconstruct the autograph of the book, would you use 616 or 666. You MAY elect to justify your position, but if not, just this once… I’ll take your word for it either way ?
666. Definitely. Much better manuscript support. And better symbolic signiciance (since 6 is the number of humans, one less than God). And it has such a much nicer ring to it….
And btw I am still waiting, for a man of perdition historical critical method interpretation. Make it a post ?
“As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God.”
2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 NRSV
Of course I say, this ain’t “the antichrist” either, at least not one to come in the 21st C. The Bible says nothing of the sort. It was someone or someones contemporary to the writer. What do you think?
Waiting for a post on 666? Do a word search on the blog — I’ve done it a few times! As to 2 Thess., it’s not clear to me if he is referring to a past figure or future (he’s writing pseudonymously)
Oh Dr E, I know you can’t walk on water, nor can you know EVERYTHING about every passage of scripture, but you gotta have a theory about this person of lawlessnessness/sin character. Your best historical critical method GUESS is more valuable to me than 10,000 snake handlers “revelation” about the passage. Take a stab at it, I have no clue who or what it’s in reference to.
Yes, I was pointing to posts where I talk about it. It almost certainly was referring to the emperor Nero.
An (admittedly amateur) text-critical question concerning Rev 13:18, if I may.
Several commenters I’ve read have tried to dismiss the differences between the Number(s) of the Beast as being “just a scribal error”. That is, one (or more) scribes simply miscopied “[666]” as “[616]”.
However, the problem is that most of these commenters appear to assume that the scribes were working from a Greek text that read something like “[666]”. Consequently, in this line of argument, the error would be a simple single-character error.
However this seems unlikely since, in all(?) manuscripts, the numbers are written out “in full”; I.e. as “[six-hundred sixty and six]” and “[six-hundred and sixteen]”. In which case a simply scribal stumble seems much less likely.
So the question is: Is there any (text-critical) reason to believe that the change can be attributed to anything like a mere “scribal error”. (Or, more to the point, as anything other than a deliberate, intentional alteration by the scribe?)
What matters for the interpretation is the number itself, not how it was expressed (with numerals or written out). The differences between 616 and 666, in other words, is not about the expression of the number but of how the name Kaiser Nero was spelled.
Another (amateur) text-critical question:
If I’m reading my critical apparatus for Rev 13:18 correctly, in addition to the readings “[666]” and “[616]”, there are also variant readings of “[614]” and “[615]” (that appear in single(?) manuscripts each).
Any thoughts about what might be going on here?
(If you’d prefer not to spend time on this here, a simple pointer to an accessible discussion elsewhere would be appreciated. Thanks.)
Scribes who can’t add? OK, seriously Some mss do of course give the number with numerals instead of written out (this should be part of my first answer to the other question you ask); in those cases the change of a single letter would create the difference, so that may be what caused it.
Forty years ago, there were those who claimed that President Reagan was 666!
RONALD (6) WILSON (6) REAGAN (6).
Yup, I mentioned that to my undergraduate class in the 80s….
When Reagan left office in 1988 they bought a house for him and Nancy in Bel Air, California. Only problem was the street address: 666 St. Cloud Road. Out of concern that the number could be construed as reference to Satan it was officially changed to 668.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-19-mn-360-story.html
It’s just a bother when people try to misapply Revelation to modern times, but downright worrisome that some people want their interpretation of it to influence American foreign policy. Or actually take action to “make” things happen as they expect from their reading of Revelation.
Yup. As I guess you know, that’s my next book. If you have examples you like in particular, let me know.
I believe that the consensus is that Revelation was written during the reign of Domitian. Revelation apparently refers to a persecution of Christians during his reign. How severe was that persecution?
Most Roman and early Christian historians today don’t think there was a persecution then.
Are the numbers in the third to last paragraph backwards? Should it be 616 for Caesar Nero and 666 for Caesar Neron?
Yup!
Side effect: US highways use a numbering system: Single or double digits for major routes, triple digits for offshoots from the major ones and based on the main number. US 6 runs from Provincetown MA to Bishop CA, and US 66 is of course famous from the TV show Route 66, from Chicago to Arizona. There used to be a US 666 in western Colorado, but so many people were freaked out (a technical description) by the Revelation number that it was changed to US 491.
>> “[…] Some mss do of course give the number with numerals instead of written out ”
Thank you for the correction.
So to grasp the meaning, a reader needed to know both Greek and Hebrew. Greek to read the text and Hebrew to understand the gematria that equates Caesar Nero to 666. Interesting feat for a religion founded by illiterate peasants who spoke only Aramaic.
My hunch is that most people simply had it explained to them, without knowing Hebrew themselves.
In other news, I just learned that the carbon atom (6 protons, 6 neutrons, 6 electrons) is actually the real number of the beast, and that since all life is carbon-based this means that transhumanism is what is predicted in the book of Revelation. I don’t know who came up with this, but I hope he gets help.
The Greek word θηρίον (= beast), when transliterated into Hebrew תריון gives value 666 (400+200+10+6+50). In Rev 13:18 the case used is θηρίου; in transliterated Hebrew this means the omission of letter nun with value 50, resulting in 616. Maybe the scribes of Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus and Papyrus 115 were simply redoing the math on the actual word being used. See Michael Oberweis, ‘Die Bedeutung der neutestamentlichen “Rätselzahlen”’.
Of course this doesn’t rule out the Ceasar Nero(n) interpretation, but it seems to me a much simpler solution. Or perhaps both explanations are valid.
YOu lost me on the nun. θηριου may have lost a nu but it gained an upsilon.
It’s not about Greek letters like nu or upsilon, but about the letters in the Hebrew transliteration. I’m talking about the Hebrew letter nun, not the Greek letter nu.
(Ha, it appears your understanding of my post, nu vs. nun, also misses an ‘n’ …)
Yes, I thought you were referring to the Hebrew nun, but I didn’t understand how you got θηριου to equal 616 without presupposing a nu that was lost.
Bart, where does the notion come from that the Beast mentioned in Revelation is the Antichrist? I only can find the term antichrist in the epistles of John, and they seem to be referring to people in the existing churches that the author writes about, unless I have that wrong. Is it just being used as a generic term – the Beast could certainly be thought of as “anti Christ” – or is there some connection to the epistles?
Anti-Christ obviously simply means “One opposed to Christ,” and teh Beast was always thout of as “THE One opposed to Christ.” So it just become common to call the Beast the antichrist.
Vicarivs- VICIV- 112
filii- ILII- 53
dei- DI- 501
I was told this is a Latin title for the Pope. Vicar of the son of God.
My Latin is quite weak, and my Catholicism more so.
If Revelation was written in Greek, why the concern with Hebrew numbers?
It helps promote the mystique of it.
Hi Dr. Ehrman. Does gammatria work similarly in Greek as it does in Hebrew? Or does it work some other way?
Yup, works the same way.
Hi Dr. Ehrman, if the Book of Revelation is written in Greek, how is it that 666 is Hebrew? Would 666 be Nero in Greek gammatria as well?
It’s to create a greater mystery about the number. No, in Greek it doesn’t work.
So just to be clear in the text 666 is written in Hebrew hence gammatria works to show 666 as referring to Nero?
No, six hundred sixty-six is written in Greek. The key to the mystery is to realize what he means by it, as teh “number of a man” who is conneced with Roman rule.