The Number Of The Beast

[AletheiaRivers]

The National Post

 

At first I thought this was an "Onion-esqe" satirical piece, but it appears to be legit.

[sterrettc]

I agree, it does sound Onionesque. I think that it might have been the Onion, or maybe it was bbspot, that reported a poll in which they asked what the root of all evil was. The majority of responder said that it was 25.80697580. I guess they will have to change that to 24.81934729.

 

The article that you refer to says the following:

 

"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."

 

It should be clear that neither 666 or 616 can be the devil's prime number, if they are in base 10. Perhaps the Devil uses a different base than 10. However, 666 is divisible by 6 in every base. 616, however, would be prime in bases 7, 11, 13, 23, 29, 41, 49, 55, 71, 85, 91, 95, etc.

[AletheiaRivers]

LOL! I could be wrong, but I don't think she meant prime as in 3, 5, 7 ... Perhaps she meant it more along these lines: Dictionary.com

[des]

Of course, maybe the devil doesn't use whole numbers as bases, you know maybe it could be 3.13 or something. I mean this is the devil we are talking about? So logically speaking the devil would use a devilishly complex base system. BTW, did you actually work out that 666 wouldn't be a prime in any other base? Did you actually work that one out? :-)

 

 

BTW, reminds me of the one where Bill Gates goes to heaven and comes into a huge room surrounded by Macs. He asks, "isn't there a a Windows OS anywhere?" And St. Peter says, "This is heaven-- so of course there are Macs only, the other OS is in hell." :-)

 

OS of the Beast, Windows XP666.

 

 

--des

[Cynthia]

very progressive article... don't y'think?

 

"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."

 

 

As far as reminds me of...

 

Monk goes to ancient monastary... copying documents from copies.... where are the originals? We've always done it this way say the leaders.... then an old monk is convinced to visit the vault with the originals.... no one has been there for hundreds of years - to protect t he original documents. He doesn't come back... later found crying... we forgot the "r"... we forgot the "r". :>

 

 

OR

 

All the jokes about the veracity of the translation of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for Muslim martyrs....

 

I hope the finding gets some press!

[cunninglily]

"Gematria is the study of numbers and Hebrew letters, their meanings and how they apply to our lives. Within the original language (Hebrew) every letter, word and phrase equals a number. Words or phrases that equal the same number mystically are related to either the good or evil of that special number. Through Hebrew Gematria one can observe secrets, insights, and unique connections."

 

Interesting in this context that the number 616 is also the number of the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses and the Law. The most famous Gematria connection is between "Messiah" and "Satan", which share the same number.

 

Aleister Crowley must be turning in his grave about now. His claim to have been "the Beast, who's number is 666" , is, well, wrong. lol

 

 

lily

[cunninglily]

The most famous Gematria connection is between "Messiah" and "Satan", which share the same number. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

...actually, that would be "messiah" and "lucifer"....not satan. sorry about that.

 

 

lily

[des]

Cindy says:

>very progressive article... don't y'think?

"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."

 

I thought it was very progressive. The interpretation of Revelation as really being about ancient Rome and not some "far off future event" -- very progressive, though my understanding pretty much of what Biblical scholarship (quite moderate to progressive) says.

 

 

>Monk goes to ancient monastary... copying documents from copies.... where are the originals? We've always done it this way say the leaders.... then an old monk is convinced to visit the vault with the originals.... no one has been there for hundreds of years - to protect t he original documents. He doesn't come back... later found crying... we forgot the "r"... we forgot the "r". :>

 

Hah! Well that would be an issue. These were hand copied. Unless God was supposedly involved in the dictation and copying as well.

 

>All the jokes about the veracity of the translation of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for Muslim martyrs....

 

You know that reminds me, kind of OT, but I saw a thing on Larry King Live and he had a moderate Islamic scholar. This guy said there was NO mention of the 72 virgins in the Q'uarn-- you could go look and you wouldn't find it. He said it was some literalist interpretation, perhaps of some semi-obscure revelationish document. Of course if it were there I suppose you could find it. He also said that suicide was considered a great evil. And that jihad was more of a fight against oneself vs a fight against societies.

 

Religion is such a good excuse for war...

 

 

--des

[FredP]

I thought it was very progressive. The interpretation of Revelation as really being about ancient Rome and not some "far off future event" -- very progressive, though my understanding pretty much of what Biblical scholarship (quite moderate to progressive) says.

Actually, unless you happen to be attending Bob Jones University or some such, even most evangelical scholarship agrees that Revelation is thoroughly symbolic, and deals with Rome ~70 CE. I learned that one at Wheaton College, home of the infamous Billy Graham Center. (By the way, Billy Graham attended Wheaton for one semester, in 1943, and his theological views are very much not representative of the college as a whole. Yet, say Wheaton to most people, and the first thing that pops into their head is, "Oh yeah, that's that Billy Graham school. Do you guys have lots of revivals?")

[AletheiaRivers]

actually, that would be "messiah" and "lucifer"....not satan. sorry about that

 

So many things popped into my head when I read that.

 

It reminded me of Zukav's comment in Seat of the Soul when he brought out that temptation is not always a bad thing. Temptation successfully "battled" brings growth.

 

I'm not sure, but don't some Christians believe that Satan and Lucifer are two seperate beings? Does the word Satan even appear in the OT? I'm thinking of Job and wondering if it was Satan there or Lucifer?

 

Lucifer = Light Bearer

 

I know most Jews don't read "Satan" as being the serpent in the garden of Eden.

 

Mormons believe Satan is Jesus' and Adam's brother, and that he volunteered to be the catalyst for human growth. They have a very different view as to why humans are on earth. They don't view humans as "fallen" so much as "learning".

 

Stream of thought stuff ...

[FredP]

I'm not sure, but don't some Christians believe that Satan and Lucifer are two seperate beings? Does the word Satan even appear in the OT? I'm thinking of Job and wondering if it was Satan there or Lucifer?

I thought of C. S. Lewis' quote, to the effect that Satan is a nothing but a hammer in the hands of a benevolent and severe God. Severe might sound, well, severe, but I take it in the sense that God will stop at nothing to destroy everything that holds us back from growing into the fullness of Christ... including hacking off chunks of ourselves that are hindering us if necessary. (Shades of, "If they right hand offend thee, chop it off...") I think that's more or less what you're talking about... Satan being the catalyst for growth.

 

I think you're right about Lucifer... Lucifer figures in some of the oldest OT mythology (Job), but is definitely not the serpent of Genesis. Then there is the NT figure of the "Accuser" -- which is, interestingly, "categoron" in Greek, from which we get the English "categorize." The Accuser traps us in boxes so we can't see the whole truth.

[sterrettc]

Yes the word satan appear 27 times in the Hebrew Scriptures.

 

The first one is in Numbers 22.22. Balak is striving against the Children of Israel and he sent messengers to the priest Balaam asking him to come curse them. But the LORD speaks to Balaam and says not to do it and not to go with the messengers. Balak sends a second set of messengers, and the LORD speaks to Balaam again saying he can go with the messengers, but should not curse the Children of Israel. When Balaam does go, this happens.

 

“But God's anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as his adversary. Now he was riding on the ass, and his two servants were with him.”

 

The word translated as adversary here is satan. It would have been valid to translate this verse in this way

 

“But God's anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as Satan. Now he was riding on the ass, and his two servants were with him.”

 

In the following verses, Balaam’s donkey sees the adversary and refuses to go, and Balaam beats the donkey. After a time, the LORD enables the donkey to speak to Balaam, and then he allows Balaam to see the adversary, and Balaam realizes that his donkey was being more faithful than he.

 

The thing to notice is that the adversary, or satan, is clearly a servant of the LORD. It is not until the writings that date from the deportation to Babylon that the adversary is represented as clearly working against the interest of the Lord.

 

The first occurrence in which the word is translated into English (RSV and KJV at least) as a proper noun, Satan, is 1 Ch 21.1, and to my reading it could have been translated as “an adversary” just as easily. This is the ninth occurrence of the word.

 

It occurs 14 times in Job and is translated as the proper noun “Satan” every time. I looked at the first three, and they could have been translated as the improper noun “an adversary” just as well.

 

There is an occurrence in Ps 109 which could be translated as “an adversary.”

 

There are two occurrences in Zec which are usually translated as the proper noun.

 

There is a related verb which occurs six times, but it is always translated as “to be an adversary.”

[AletheiaRivers]

In my "Lucifer, Satan, Samael, Samhazai, Azael" search over the past couple of hours, I found the coolest sight! I actually found the link on the Wikepedia article about lucifer. It was listed at the bottom of the page under "Outside Sources":

 

This is a link about lucifer

 

Once I read that one I thought "OK, now I'm confused. Is it "lucifer" in Job or not? So I searched the same sight for "Job" and found this:

 

This is a link about the satan in Job

 

However, the author of Job is not really interested in communicating to us about the heavenly council or angels. Only one member of the heavenly court is of interest in this scene, that being the Satan.

 

To capitalize Satan is a step of interpretation already. The Hebrew word satan literally means adversary or accuser. The article (the) appears here in Job indicating that the term is not a personal name, i.e. Satan, but a title, the Accuser or the Adversary.

 

The Accuser appears with the heavenly court. Some scholars believe that this Accuser had the responsibility of prosecuting attorney for the heavenly council. It was his job to seek out human sin and to bring charges to the heavenly court against sinners. Such a view is consistent with the statement that he was going back and forth over the earth – presumably to find sinners.

 

Whether the prosecuting attorney image is correct or not one thing is clear. The picture of the satan here in Job is not the same as the picture of Satan as the rulers of demons and evil that is found in the New Testament. One may debate whether the satan of Job is an early step in the development of the doctrine of Satan that would emerge between the testaments or simply a literary figure opposing Job. In either case the satan, the Accuser appears only in Job 1-2 as the test of Job is being set up.

[AletheiaRivers]

Uh oh. Seems the number 616 has been known all along (brought out by a poster at bnet). Irenaeus wrote about both numbers in "Against Heresies", but he preferred the number 666. Seems Crowley might have been the beast after all.

 

1. Such, then, being the state of the case, and this number being

found in all the most approved and ancient copies(3) [of the

Apocalypse], and those men who saw John face to face bearing their

testimony [to it]; while reason also leads us to conclude that the

number of the name of the beast, [if reckoned] according to the Greek

mode of calculation by the [value of] the letters contained in it,

will amount to six hundred and sixty and six; that is, the number of

tens shall be equal to that of the hundreds, and the number of

hundreds equal to that of the units (for that number which [expresses]

the digit six being adhered to throughout, indicates the

recapitulations of that apostasy, taken in its full extent, which

occurred at the beginning, during the intermediate periods, and which

shall take place at the end),--

 

I do not know how it is that some have

erred following the ordinary mode of speech, and have vitiated the

middle number in the name, deducting the amount of fifty from it, so

that instead of six decads they will have it that there is but one. [i

am inclined to think that this occurred through the fault of the

copyists, as is wont to happen, since numbers also are expressed by

letters; so that the Greek letter which expresses the number sixty was

easily expanded into the letter Iota of the Greeks.]

 

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