My wife and I had been toying for months with the romantic idea of selling our house, most of our stuff and living aboard a houseboat when we found the boat. Designed and built by an engineer who'd emphasized functionality over looks, she was not pretty, but she was spacious above and below, had the structural integrity of a tugboat and possessed a waste recycling system that was "as good as you'd find in most small towns." I was in love.
She seemed to have her own intelligence, and I suppose I'd projected that same evaluation onto Fred, the current owner, who did not disappoint -- that is, until the tour was done and the price haggling had given way to small talk and a complaint about his recent troubles with the utility company. Having received a notice that he'd underpaid, he was asked to please remit payment, by check or money order, in the amount of $16.66. He'd phoned to say that, no, he absolutely would not. He would, however, send a check for $16.67, or come by and pay $16.67 in cash, provided they issued a cash receipt in that amount, but no way would he pay a bill for $16.66 because the number contained "the Mark of the Beast."
Numbers are language, and John of Patmos, author of The Revelation of John, loved numbers. Sixes, obviously, in triplicate, a few 10s, and sevens -- especially sevens: Seven messages to seven communities, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls. It is the author's "single most insistent motif," writes Jonathan Kirsch. Adele Yarbro Collins calls it "an organizing principle" of the whole of the work." But why sevens? Why not twos, eights or nines? Collins tells us that the late Pythagoreans as well as Philo of Alexandria, Jewish biblical interpreter and philosopher, agreed that "all reality is ordered and that order is expressed in patterns of seven ... [because] ... [t]he symbolic significance of this number is cosmic." And, as Kirsch points out, it was God's resting on the seventh day that signified creation's completion, making seven a "symbol of divine wholeness in Judaism."
All this would have made sense to the seven communities John had in mind and as he took up his pen, around the year 95 C.E., he was writing to them, not to us, and in a language of symbol and imagery that were as current and familiar to them as it is ancient and weird to us. Which brings me back to Fred, an obviously bright fellow, yet whose assumption about the meaning of 666 is characteristic of the inevitable flattening-out that results when ancient, complicated texts are read as if they are stories from old newspapers.
Where seven typically represents completion, six represents incompletion. But why three sixes? Think cryptology, John writing in code to those in the know. Craig R. Koester tells us that the author employed gematria, a system of Kabbalistic numerology. In fact, in the third chapter of Revelation, verse 18, it seems obvious that John assumes his audience will be familiar with the system: "Here is the key, and anyone who has the intelligence may work out the number of the beast. The number represents a man's name, and the numerical value of its letters is six hundred and sixty six." The numbers, Koester says, point to Nero, Emperor of Rome from 54-68 C.E., as the likeliest candidate.
But why the code? Why didn't John just name Nero? After all, Domitian now sat on the throne. And yes, Nero was five emperors back, 30 years dead and a ruler so vile that Rome had proclaimed him an enemy of the state. But he had been Emperor, a Caesar and Rome had decided that its Emperors were Gods, which was less about theology than state unity. To acknowledge the divinity of the Emperor, though as a God, not the God -- the Romans were polytheists -- was a way of saying "I'm for Rome," rather than "I'm against Rome." The slightest accommodation would have been enough, explained Kirsch in an interview with Beliefnet, "nothing more than casting a pinch of incense on a little brazier of hot coals set up in front of an image of a dead emperor." But the Christians (and the Jews) refused even to do that much. Already Domitian didn't like them, so for John to have named Nero as the third beast, he may as well have spit in the Emperor's eye and declared to his face that he was the Beast, too, sort of. Which he did, sort of, but in code and on the page, copies of which went to cities on the far eastern edge of the Empire. John, however strange he may seem, was not stupid.
Finally, a bit of fun. "With a little ingenuity," says Koester, "people in every generation seem capable of finding an adversary who can in some way be linked to the numbers." Of today's candidates, one may surprise you. Drawing from The New Millennium Manual, A Once And Future Guide, Koester writes the following: "Start with 'Cute Purple Dinosaur,' then change the U's to V's [as in formal Latin inscriptions] and extract all the Roman numerals in the phrase (CVVLDIV). Convert these to Arabic numerals (100 5 5 50 500 1 5) and add them up." Yes, it's Barney. There is a precedent in pop-culture, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, who became the vessel for the evil Gozer. Whether his numbers put him in Barney's class, I can't say.
Follow John R. Coats on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnrcoats
Richard T. Hughes: Revelation, Revolutions, and the Tyrannical New World Order
Frank Schaeffer: "End Times" -- Election Results Reflect Biblical Republican Paranoia
Book of Revelation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE | PBS
Revelation 1 - Passage Lookup - New International Version, ©2011 ...
[[
1 Bible names often say something about the bearer's traits or life, as in the case of Abraham, Jesus, and many others. Likewise, the beast's number-name encodes its characteristics.
2 In the Bible book of Daniel, the various beasts represent successive human kingdoms, or empires. The composite beast of Revelation 13:1, 2 symbolizes the worldwide political system, empowered and controlled by Satan.
3 The beast's having "a man's number," or "a human number," indicates that it is a human entity, not a demon. Hence, it reflects human failings resulting from sin and imperfection.
4 In God's eyes, the number six, being short of the Biblically complete, or perfect, seven, points to imperfection. The mark 666 emphasizes that deficiency by repeating the number three times.
]]
Full article with Bible scriptures referenced so you can see for yourself...
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20040401/article_01.htm
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/SAQ/saq-11.html
The short version? The beast was an usurper of the leadership of Islam from the legitimate commander of the faithful, Ali. The year 666 is when this usurper rose to power.
So relax, people. The whole 666 thing went down a dozen centuries ago.
χ-ς =Χριστός (sometimes Χ-ΣΤ) i.e. Ch_St Christ [a common abbreviation found on icons and manuscripts a bit like text messaging shortcuts] and the ξ or Ξ in its capital form. is in the middle of this.. that is a pictogram of the name of Christ scribbled out i.e. the anti-Christ.
What have Roman numerals got to do with anything?
216 [2+1+6=9] North Park Avenue had previously been a Victoria's Secret and in the far end where padded bras had once hung had now become a temporary shrine of unending love of a father for his son.
I was captivated by one in particular titled "Sheep Meadowing" in which sheep had levitated into the sky and had morphed into clouds above the heads of sheep meadowing.
After a time of timelessness cogitating upon those sheep, I reluctantly pulled my head back through the clouds to continue on to the second Gathering of Women for Peace, where sisters of every color and creed gathered in harmony at the Mosque in East Orlando.
All day long in my inner ear I did hear "Revolution 9" from the White Album tuned in so very clear and with a few new lyrics:
Number 9 Number 9 Number 9....Let all who are little come in here, Wisdom has built her house; come eat her food and drink her wine and walk in the ways of understanding [Proverbs 9]...I'm so very small; within the heart of every atom yet extend Beyond the Universe and connect...
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1062&Itemid=211
them.. Many of these systems. Church of Light, Course on Miricles, Seth Right Use of Will 2nd vol + are somewhere in between mythology and a post and fence to science and mechanics. They are deep but accessible. The value of astrology is distinguishing a relationship between your personal days. Other people born on your birthday. Important events that happened on that day. It sets your memory up to cleave a connection of an image of progression made by a series situation analysis. Sorry I really get projects made. Objective energy is hard to describe. oversimplification and understatements perpetuate ignorance.
The reason the number seven was held in antiquity to be a "cosmic" number was that there were seven "planets", held to be the seven principle gods, i.e., Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. The rest of the planets in the solar system were never, or virtually never, visible to the naked eye.
But religion was a creation of mankind to control mankind and to tolerate the most hideous injustices for the many for the benefit of the few.
Religion is a knowledge system that allows the few to dominate and exploit the work and accomplishments of the many and make the many like it.
The only gods in the universe are humans as a species. Why? Becaus we are the only anything that has consciousness and the curiousity and ingenuity to uncover what makes the universe work for ourselves.
Only gods can bring meaning to an otherwise meaningless nature.
It's the beginning symbols suggest some other place. Rome IS on the west of the "Great Sea" but I can't fit the 7 heads [leading nations], 10 horns [waring nations] and 10 crowns [passive nations] there. I can't find one leading nation [head] in Rome wounded by the sword like the USA's Civil War, the dragon [world's collective consciousness] giving it reign for 42 months [presidents' reigns, Bush was 43rd] nor Rome being worshiped.
Verse 10 suggests it's destroyed by a used sword and the USA is the only nation to use nuclear weapons in war which could make this land "the abomination made desolate."
In verse 11 we're to look back on the land, east across the sea, for the union of two horns [waring nations] to reestablish what happened in the USA or Rome. There is one leader of the USA who was also wounded and healed which amazed the world because of his age, Ronald=6 Wilson=6 Reagan=6 letters each. In counting the letters in that name's three parts we get 666.
In my opinion, it would be something just that obvious, John was describing, which most people would overlook in searching for it to be hidden. Since "no interpretation of scripture are of private interpretation," I believe it wold be something so easily overlooked.
People who love the number patterns throughout the Bible feel the same - they are a fascinating way to read the story within the story. Try tracking the number 40 (the product of 5 (grace, teaching) and 8 (new beginnings)) through the Bible - in every instance, it speaks of being tested. Once we have identified the pattern, the next time we see 40 anything, we know what scripture is talking about, whatever the surface story.
Of course, if you don't believe the Bible has anything to say to you, then Bible numbers won't either, but for those of us who do, the numbers add immensely to the depth of the message!