The Mark Of 666

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. Some scholars contend that the number is a code for the Roman Emperor Nero, a view that is supported by the Roman Catholic Church
Bible Oxyrhynchus Papyri Fragment P115The Number of the Beast is described in the Book of Revelation 13:18. From the King James translation:
“ Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ”
In the Greek manuscripts, the Number is rendered in Greek numerical form as “χξς”, or sometimes literally as “six hundred and sixty-six”, “ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἑξι”. [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 “χιϛ”.
666 can also refer to a Roman Emperor such as Nero[9] (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 TestamentThe 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.)
[edit] Interpretations
[edit] NameFiguratively
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), 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, 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. Stauffer computed the Number of the Beast using the short form of Domitian's five titles and names A KAI ִOMET ׃EB ֳE, as derived from the abbreviations on coins and inscriptions.
Mark of commerceFuturist 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" (טחסיןם) will require all people to receive the mark (קסבדלב "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).Steven D. Miller proposes that the mark of the beast may refer to a social security number or card.Terry Watkins supposes the mark to be a microchip and or barcode on the human body.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.
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.