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| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 1982 Registered: 6-2006  |
This was on Hank Hanegraaff's facebook page this morning. Thought it was interesting. I tend to believe the Nero theory as well. What is the meaning of 666? Multitudes today assume that 666 is a number representing a modern-day beast about to be revealed. Placing the beast in the twenty-first century, however, may well pose insurmountable difficulties. First, John, the author of Revelation, told a first-century audience that with “wisdom” and “insight” they would be able to “calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666” (Revelation 13:18). Obviously no amount of wisdom and insight would have enabled a first-century audience to calculate the number of a twenty-first-century beast. It would have been cruel and dangerously misleading for John to suggest to first-century Christians that they could identify the beast if, in fact, the beast was a twenty-first-century individual or institution. Furthermore, unlike today, transforming names into numbers (gematria) was common in antiquity. For example, in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars Roman historian Suetonius identifies Nero by a numerical designation equal to a nefarious deed. This numerical equality (isopsephism) is encapsulated in the phrase: “Count the numerical values of the letters in Nero’s name, and in ‘murdered his own mother’ and you will find their sum is the same.” In Greek the numerical value of the letters in Nero’s name (Greek: Nevrwn, English transliteration: Neron) totaled 1,005, as did the numbers in the phrase murdered his own mother. This ancient numerical cryptogram reflected the widespread knowledge that Nero had killed his own mother. Finally, while “Nero” in Greek totaled 1,005, the reader of John’s letter familiar with the Hebrew language could recognize that the Greek spelling of “Nero Caesar” transliterated into Hebrew equals 666. Moreover, the presence in some ancient manuscripts of a variation in which 666 is rendered 616 lends further credence to Nero as the intended referent. The Hebrew transliteration of the Latin spelling of “Nero Caesar” totals 616, just as the Hebrew transliteration of the Greek, which includes an additional letter (Greek: “n”=50, English transliteration: “n”=50), renders 666. Thus, two seemingly unrelated numbers lead you to the same doorstep—that of a beast named Nero Caesar. Twenty-first-century believers, like their first-century counterparts, can be absolutely certain that 666 is the number of Nero’s name and that Nero is the beast who ravaged the bride of Christ in a historical milieu that included three and a half years of persecution. In the end, Peter and Paul themselves were persecuted and put to death at the hands of this Beast. Indeed this was the only epoch in human history in which the Beast could directly assail the foundation of the Christian Church of which Christ himself was the cornerstone. For further study, see Hank Hanegraaff, The Apocalypse Code (Nashville, W Publishing Group, 2007) Revelation 13:8 “This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.” | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 866 Registered: 8-2008 |
This puts him in the partial preterst camp, I take it. I am not dis-inclined to that worldview. | ||
| Jackob Registered user Username: Jackob Post Number: 635 Registered: 7-2005 |
Daniel B. Wallace talked about number 666 when he debated Bart Ehrman on textual transmission. When I see people writing books attempting to identify the beast through its number, I remember the following funny comment of Wallace:
I like it, I cannot help but like it. Gabriel | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 867 Registered: 8-2008 |
 Funny. |
