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Number of the beast

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The Number of the Beast is mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the Christian Bible and is generally accepted to be 666. It is closely associated with the Mark of the Beast.

References from the Bible

In the King James Version, Revelation 13:18 reads:

Here is wisdom: let him who hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred three score and six.

In the Good News Bible, the same verse runs:

This calls for wisdom. Whoever is intelligent can figure out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for the name of someone. Its number is 666

In the Greek text of the New Testament it reads:

Ὧδε ἡ σοφία ἐστίν· ὁ ἔχων νοῦν ψηφισάτω τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ θηρίου, ἀριθμὸς γὰρ ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν· καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτοῦ ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ.
Hōde hē sophia estin; ho echōn noun psēphisatō ton arithmon tou thēriou, arithmos gar anthrōpou estin; kai ho arithmos autou hexakosioi hexēkonta hex.

And in the Vulgate:

Hic sapientia est. Qui habet intellectum, computet numerum bestiae. Numerus enim hominis est, et numerus eius est sescenti sexaginta sex.

The original Greek does not literally render the phrase as six-six-six (three Greek words for six in a row -- εξ εξ εξ or in Greek numerical form ςςς´) but six hundred and sixty-six (either spelled out as εξακοσιοι εξηκοντα εξ, six-hundred-sixty-six, or in numerical form χξς´). The Arabic form of the Beast has KFR on its forehead (see Beast)

In the Old Testament Books of Chronicles , II Chronicles 9:13 reads (KJV): "Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold..."

Variant Readings

Most manuscripts of the Bible read six-hundred-sixty-six or 666. However, there are a few variant readings for the Number of the Beast in verse 18. Codex C (5th century), Papyrus 115 (3rd or 4th century), and some copies of Irenaeus's works have 616.

Theological interpretations

There are various theories about the meaning of this verse, and there have been many attempts to show that a person is the Antichrist by relating his name to the number 666.

One interpretation is simply that 666 represents humankind in general because of the special significance that the number has in the Bible. Six is known as an "imperfect number" because it is one short of seven, the "perfect number" (seven days in the week, seven tongues of flame, seven spiritual gifts...). So three (the number of the Trinity) sixes is seen as extremely imperfect. Therefore, 666 represents imperfect man, while 777 represents God.

Another interpretation is that 666 is actually some kind of code based on the letters of someone's name. This sparks great public interest since it seems to provide some way to identify the antichrist. Numerologists like to devise clever ways of assigning numbers to letters so that the letters of a name will add up to this symbolic number. Probably the best-known scheme has A=100, B=101, and so on. With this code, the name "HITLER" adds up to 666. While these ideas are intriguing, they usually require many odd preconditions (you have to start with 100, you cannot include the first name) and work in a few languages only (in Spanish, for example, "HITLER" adds up to 668.) See also Vicarius Filii Dei.

For example, scholars who believe the Book of Revelation refers to real people and events argue that the number represents the value of Nero or Neron Caesar (נרון קסר, Nrwn Qsr*) in Hebrew letters, which also have numerical values (note that Hebrew is written from right to left): 

                r    S    q     n   w    r    n 
        666 = 200 + 60 + 100 + 50 + 6 + 200 + 50

As noted above, some early texts of the Book of Revelation use 616 instead, which would represent the alternative Hebrew spelling נרו קסר, Nrw Qsr (based on the Latin form "Nero Caesar"): 

                r    S    q    w    r    n 
        616 = 200 + 60 + 100 + 6 + 200 + 50
*Note: Hebrew נרון קסר, Nrwn Qsr = Greek Νερων Καισαρ, Nerôn Kaisar, though קסר, qSr, should strictly speaking be כסר, kSr.

See . ISBN 1-57863-110-6. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help), p. 145.

In Roman numerals 666 represents all the numbers from 1 to 500 in descending order, namely D (500) + C (100) + L (50) + X (10) + V (5) + I (1), or DCLXVI. Robert Graves suggests in his study of pagan symbolism The White Goddess that this is an acronym for the Latin sentence Domitianus Caesar Legatos Xti Violenter Interfecit, or "The Emperor Domitian violently killed the envoys of Christ".

Another reading in Roman numerals regards DCLXVI as an anagram of DIC LVX, which is then supposed to be an abbreviation of dicit lux, "the light speaks."

In an alternate style of Greek notation for numerals, 6 + 60 + 600 can be expressed as digamma koppa kappa which when superposed into a monogram, form the graffiti form of the labrys very common on roman walls of the time, which is interesting considering what some characterise as misogynist tendencies in the book.

Mathematics

Like all numbers, 666 has many mathematical properties, some more interesting than others.

See Six hundred sixty-six for more.

Culture and psychology

The number 666 retains a peculiar significance in the culture and psychology of Western societies. Just as many people try to avoid the "unlucky" number 13 (sometimes going to the extent of having a floor "12A" in multi-story buildings, or even to skip the 13th floor entirely so that a 20 story building will possess a 21st floor), so people find ways to avoid the "Devil's number", even in contexts that would seem on first sight to be far removed from superstition.

For example, when the giant CPU manufacturer Intel introduced the 666 MHz Pentium III in 1999, they chose to market it as the Pentium III 667 on the pretext that, since the actual clock speed was 666.666 MHz, 667 was the more accurate approximation—conveniently ignoring their own usual rounding practice: as examples, consider the earlier 66.666 MHz 486-66, the 466.666 MHz Celeron 466, or the later 866.666 MHz Pentium III 866.

In another instance, U.S. Highway 666 was renumbered in 2003 after controversy over the supposed reference to the Biblical beast. See [1].

While the association is not clearly Satanic in nature, and usually is not construed to promote Satanism, a reference to the number "666" may be the cause for the controversial assignment of the "Parental Advisory" designation to the HIM album Razorblade Romance, generally considered innocuous as it contains no profanity nor sexually explicit language.

Other speculations

Former U.S. president Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in his first, middle, and last name. He also lived, in California, in house number 666 on his block, until wife Nancy Reagan had it changed to 668.

In ancient Dacia, 666 was the number of those who returned to the right faith.

The first Apple Computer, the Apple I was sold for $666.66.

Stanley Kubrick (director of 2001: A Space Odyssey) died 666 days before January 1 2001.

0.666 is approximately two-thirds of one whole, one short of all three thirds. Because three is the number of the trinity, it may be that the number is meant to represent being in communion with God only in the mind and spirit (but not the body). The Catholic church believes that Satan generally attacks the body; a theme recurring throughout the latter chapters of Revelation.

A widespread conspiracy theory concerns the EAN or UPC bar codes, instituted in 1974, and found on most consumer products. The "control codes" in the left, middle, and right of the code appear on initial inspection to represent the number "6". Because of this, all EAN/UPC codes (so the theory goes) contain the number 666. One interpretation of the Book of Revelation indicates that the Number of the Beast is required for all business transactions — a role that the EAN/UPC code certainly fits. Also interesting are the facts, that the inventor of the UPC code, George J. Laurer, has six letters in his first, middle, and last name [2], and that, as of 2004, exactly 666 prefixes (out of possible 1000) are assigned in the EAN-13 namespace [3]. (Unfortunately, the control codes only appear to represent the number six if one is unaware that both the black bars and the spaces in between them are used to encode information.)

The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is "waw" (or "vav"). This is closest approximation of the English letter "w". Thus the ubiquitous acronym "www" could be the Number of the Beast.

Also, the number 6 in Roman numerals is represented as VI. 666= VIVIVI which has been suggested that visions from the past, mistook it for WWW.

Most recently, the development of RFIDs could eventually necessitate consumers to implant RFID-based credit or debit devices to purchase goods and services. RFIDs are already replacing UPCs in some products, and the use of RFIDs as a human tracking and identification instrument has begun.

As of January 14 2005, the IP address of the Python programming language web site, www.python.org, is 194.109.137.226. If you add up the 4 octets, you get 666. [4]

Joke

It is often quipped that 668 is "the Neighbor of the Beast"; there are at least two filk songs on this topic. Additional quips suggest that 1-888-666-6666 is "the Toll-Free Number of the Beast", $665.99 is "the Retail Price of the Beast", 00666 is "the ZIP Code of the Beast", 0.666 is "the Number of the Millibeast", 6.5913 is "the Natural Logarithm of the Beast", Route 666 is "the Highway of the Beast", etc.

See also

"6.66, One Hundredth of the Number of the Beast" is the name of the only song by the fictional Australian rock band Salmonhater. Adam Spencer and Wil Andersen, hosts of the Triple J breakfast show (radio), invented the band as a joke one morning. A fan of the show soon composed this song for the pretend band, and a video clip was also made later.

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