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Loading...As to the book of Revelation. And one of its best known mysteries, the Number of the Beast (the antiChrist figure), 666!
Many moons ago I posted on how people in the modern period have interpreted 666 to refer to someone/something in their own day. When I was in college, books were published to prove conclusively that it referred to Henry Kissinger, or the Pope; later there were books on it referring to Gorbachov. Normally the guesses — always wrong, need I point out — have been politicians or public figures that the guesser despises. But that doesn’t mean we can’t see them as rather humorous. (Well, OK, I see most things as humorous….)
I thought I’d repost the post, with the same caveat I made back then.
As you know (I hope) , I try to keep my personal politics out of the blog (and I have a policy of not post overtly political comments, on either/any side). I want the blog to be open and welcoming to all people, whatever their political views (or religious views) (or any other kinds of views). We can all be interested in early Christianity, and our politics don’t need to enter into it.
Still, I like good humor and get a good laugh out of jokes poked at views and people that I actually take very seriously. But it’s always good to laugh, even at ourselves.
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I read that the house the Reagan’s purchased had number 666 (St Cloud Road) which Nancy asked to have changed to 668, which it was! I also read that there were a number of ancient documents in which the number of the beast was given as 616 instead of 666. Apparently transliterating Nero’s title from Greek to Hebrew gives 666, while transliteration from Latin to Hebrew gives 616. So I think that makes for a pretty solid argument that Nero is the person referred to. This is well documented in wikipedia under “Number of the beast”. However it bothers me that Nero was long dead (AD68) by the time Revelation was written (~AD95). So why would the beast be long-dead Nero rather than say harsh Domitian?
Some scholars argue that the traditions of Revelation span several decades in the author’s life, or come from various sources. More plausibly, after Nero’s death there were rumors of “Nero Redivivus” — Nero coming back from the dead to rule again. These are rumors reported in (pagan) Roman sources. In fact, three figures came forward at different points *claiming* to be Nero. And so that tradition may underlie the passage.
It would of course spoil most of the fun to observe that any explanation that needs to refer to the digit ‘6’ and/or a sequence of three identical digits, cannot be right, because these suppose Arabic (actually Indian) numerals and a place-value system for the representation of numbers; neither of which were introduced until more than a millennium after Revelation was written. So I’ll not do that.
In fact, I find the standard explanation that the number describes Nero Caesar after transcribing into Hebrew suspect as well. Is there anything in the text to suggest the need to do that?
For fun, I will try to make this comment 666 characters long… nailed it!
Yes, plenty. I discuss it in my book Armageddon; this figure is described in terms that fit Nero closely and the ruler of Rome generally.
But Congrats on the 666 post!
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
In 1 Corinthians 15, the apperences of Jesus to the people is used as evidence for the ressurection and the empty tomb with women is not used. I think that is evidence that people did not think that the empty tomb was a thing that would be used to make new belivers. Therefore i think it makes a another case for why people would invent a women in the tomb story even when women were not trusted in the ancent world.
Notice that humans only have 2 eyes and real/genuine intelligence. “Artificial” intelligence, however, contains three i’s. Three “eyes.” Art👁️f👁️c👁️al That’s the number of perfection in seeing… The third eye belongs to the beast!
And each “i” is the 9th letter of the alphabet. 9 + 9 + 9 = 27. Divide 27 by the holy trinity (3) = 9. 9 is just 6 upside down.
Inverted trinity!
Google Bard, Meta AI, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity= five heads of the beast.
But Revelation says the beast has seven heads. Who are the other two?
Siri and Alexa. The dragon’s daughters.
Together they speak with one voice: “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” 🤣🤣
Very creative!
,,,and look forward to when you’re on your cruise next summer from Bergen to Svalbard and reach 66.6° N, the scenery turns beastly beautiful—a perfectly human moment, all synced to the ego (almost more)—until you go further north of this latitude toward 7, with a nearly divine awe !!
And the town of Bergen is clearly the woman who sitteth on 7 mountains of Revelation 17:9.
An urban legend started in the 70s that there is an enormous computer in EU HQ in Brussels called “The Beast” tracking the buying and selling activities of every person on earth by means of invisible tattoos on the forehead or back of the hand. The joke is that it originated in a fiction novel. Then fuel was added to the fire when people found 666 in bar codes and IBM came out with a bar code scanner with the number 3666 shown on every supermarket scanner. I’ll bet the people at IBM who chose this model number 3666 had a good laugh when their prank went viral!
I first heard about the 666 computer in a rural Baptist Church Sunday School.
The Number of the Beast is a pretty great Iron Maiden song. Does that count?
Why not!
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
Are there some honest and critical scholars (not like Gary Habermas) who really think there is extra odinary evidence that Jesus rose from the dead and did miracles?
Yes, absolutely. Dale Allison opened up that possibility in his talk at oiur New Insights into the New Testament conference a few weeks ago.
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman
Simcha Paull Raphael the author of the book called “Jewish Views Of The Afterlife” thinks that Saint Paul believed that the soul went immediately to heaven or hell at the moment of physical death.
Do you think Saunt Paul ever held those views?
Thanks.
I deal with this in my book Heaven and Hell. I still think you might like to read it. 🙂 There I argue that toward the end of his life he began to think that when he died he would have an interim existence with Christ in heaven BEFORE he (Paul) was bodily raised from the dead at the end, for an eternal life in the body, with everyone else. Paul did not believe in hell. Never talks about it. He held to the more common Jewish apocalyptic view of annihilation.
Dr. Ehrman, could you comment on your recent debate with Jonathan Sheffield about how the gospels got their names? He posted after the debate that you produced no documentation for your position (location, decisionmaker in naming, no one in the ancient world, not even an anonymous letter, actually saying the gospels were originally anonymous or that they weren’t otherwise properly attributable to the four apostles, etc.), and that “it was like a world of make believe.” He added you had no answer to natural custody, and that you even conceded that the Gnostics agreed with the naming of the gospels, which adds even more documented support for his position, aside from Eusebius, Jerome, Tertullian, etc. He then pointed to Gleaves, Porter, and other scholars who say that Jesus’s disciples could’ve written in Greek, and that Matthew, as a tax collector at the “pinnacle of his career,” could well have been fluent, and no one knows for sure anyway.
I’d be very interested to hear your post-mortem thoughts on this. Thanks a lot.
I guess I’s say that we covered all that in the debate and I showed (well, thoght I showed — apparently not to him) why those kinds of arguments are irrelevant to the question. They are not how we establish historically the authorship of books (that is, consistent reports that rely on each other starting centuries later are not very useful, for any book from antiquity) (demonstrably!). I assume that he didn’t respond to anything I actually said? In any event, watch it yourself and let me know what you think.
“Barney is the beast.” is the best !!!
Is the number of the beast 666 or 616?
Also, I had posted a question awhile back about Luke 12:5 in which it is claimed that Jesus taught people to fear God because God can both kill you and send you to hell. If Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew who didn’t believe in hell, why would he warn people about God sending them to hell? Thanks!
Some of the manuscripts (not many, but including our earliest) read 616. Almost certainly the original was 666 though. And I think I replied to your earlier query about Luke 12:5. The Greek word is not the word for “hell.” It’s “Gehenna,” the god-foresaken valley outside Jerusalem that had been desecrated by child sacrifice.
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over 20+ years ago, on Valentines day, In Shanghai, at the date, after discount- 666RMB, then exchange rate was $1-8.3
e666 is the Lithium Battery Beast?
This was fun. Sadly its goodbye after years of great learning, Thanks for all you do Bart; I enjoyed everything, most especially your values and outlook in real world, living human matters. I’m also 1955, I need to direct my limited charity here at home in Africa; I’m having to curb expenses, darn. Best wishes
I also thought the ‘no politics’ was Jesus’ complaint about the Church of Laodicaea – neither hot nor cold. Like supposedly in the Edgar Cayce readings, the Laodicaea teaching pair are Greco-Judaic diaspora that have have high Roman ties (not to Nero 666 lol). So they are diplomatic and trying to be a bridge and he’s tryna make waves.
(The invocation of the ‘morning light’ in Revelation was considered war deity ‘Athtar east of the Jordan.)
The Supreme Deity as far as I’m finding is always called The Living [God/One] or The Life, exalted by the ‘The’, from Ea, meaning ‘Living One’.
My mother in law name adds up to 666.
Just sayin
The Roman numerals adding up to 666. Intriguing!
It’s a fun game! Haha
Any Boston Red Sox fan will say that the Antichrist is BUCKY DENT
Drafted in June (SIX) 1970
Made MLB debut on June 1 (SIX) 1973
Was a shortstop (number SIX position on the field)
HA!!