Posted on 05/06/2005 9:22:56 AM PDT by KidGlock
Beast's real mark devalued to '616'
Revelation fragment
Chris Wattie National Post
May 4, 2005
Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all.
A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist.
Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, said the discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil's prime number.
"This is a very nice piece to find," Dr. Aitken said. "Scholars have argued for a long time over this, and it now seems that 616 was the original number of the beast."
The tiny fragment of 1,500-year-old papyrus is written in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, and contains a key passage from the Book of Revelation.
Where more conventional versions of the Bible give 666 as the "number of the beast," or the sign of the anti-Christ whose coming is predicted in the book's apocalyptic verses, the older version uses the Greek letters signifying 616.
"This is very early confirmation of that number, earlier than any other text we've found of that passage," Dr. Aitken said. "It's probably about 100 years before any other version."
The fragment was part of a hoard of previously illegible manuscripts discovered in an ancient garbage dump outside the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus. Although the papyrus was first excavated in 1895, it was badly discoloured and damaged. Classics scholars at Oxford University were only recently able to read it using new advanced imaging techniques.
Elijah Dann, a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Toronto, said the new number is unlikely to make a dent in the popularity of 666.
"Otherwise, a lot of sermons would have to be changed and a lot of movies rewritten," he said with a laugh. "There's always someone with an active imagination who can put another interpretation on it.
"It just shows you that when you study something as cryptic and mystic as the Book of Revelation there's an almost unlimited number of interpretations."
The book is thought to have been written by the disciple John and according to the King James Bible, the traditional translation of the passage reads: "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."
But Dr. Aitken said that translation was drawn from much later versions of the New Testament than the fragment found in Oxyrhynchus. "When we're talking about the early biblical texts, we're always talking about copies and they are copies made, at best, 150 to 200 years after [the original] was written," she said.
"They can have mistakes in the copying, changes for political or theological reasons ... it's like a detective story piecing it all together."
Dr. Aitken said, however, that scholars now believe the number in question has very little to do the devil. It was actually a complicated numerical riddle in Greek, meant to represent someone's name, she said.
"It's a number puzzle -- the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero."
Revelation was actually a thinly disguised political tract, with the names of those being criticized changed to numbers to protect the authors and early Christians from reprisals. "It's a very political document," Dr. Aitken said. "It's a critique of the politics and society of the Roman empire, but it's written in coded language and riddles."
Second or third time this story has been picked up by another news source and posted...It has an interesting staying power...
Dang. I'm going to have a heck of a time removing this tattoo from my forehead.
The folks in Grand Rapid, Michigan are going to be upset when they hear about this.
Wow, this guy must be a lot more perceptive than me!
Well, that's a relief.
My college ID # ended in 666.
Talk about giving a person a complex!
Odd that I couldn't find it with search either...
No kidding.
That's my area code.
Why?
Was the manuscript discovered at Wal-mart and marked down?
Damn, I should have shorted that...
I guess the city of San Marcos, Texas can relax, too. Their zip code is 78666, which made some in the city council nervous. BTW, my church's PO box comes close: 665.:)
It's Bush's fault.
What if the correct translation of the 10 commandments says Thou SHALT steal?
The Church of Scientology's headquarters in LA have a 666 prefix on their phone numbers...
All those poor satanists now have to change their propaganda. Maybe they will all move to area code 616 in Michigan.
666 - 616 = 50
50! As in the rap artist .50 cent!
So, the rap artist .50 cent is the anti-Christ!
As an interesting aside, if you convert 666 to its binary equivilent, it is an anti-pallindrome, exactly opposite front to back. If you convert the ancient Hebrew name of God to binary (a =1, b=2..etc, then add up the value of the letters) you get a pallindrome. There are a surprising number of these coincidences in the Old Testament.
The article is an excellent example of the spirit of anti-Christ.
I have relatives in Portage (next to Kalamazoo) and a tiny town called Hopkins (between GR & Allegan). Guess I won't be calling them anymore...
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