Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: !daly@ddtisvr.uucp (Kathy Daly) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Number 666 in Revelation Message-ID: Date: 14 Apr 91 06:32:24 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: DuPont Design Technologies Group Lines: 46 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Editing two previous postings I find the English translation favoured in this discussion: >Verse 18 gives us a clue to the fact that the symbol has coded information. > > Here is wisdom. Let him that has understanding count* the number of the > beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and > sixty six. >-- >Tom Albrecht > * calculate >----- >Robert W. Johnson But I remember another translation (from Scofield's KJV, i believe): "The name of the beast is a number, and the number of the beast is 666." I have my own pet theory. The author of Revelation was being shown a vision of the future. However the images reached his brain, they probably didn't come with footnotes. He literally saw the beast and his name in writing, possibly on a billboard or superimposed like on a TV show. (Humor me for a while.) But he was viewing it in a language that hadn't existed in his lifetime, so he interpreted the font into the closest looking characters he could come up with. It probably wasn't a name like any he ever heard, and maybe the series of pseudo-letters wasn't even pronouncable. So he records, "Look, it doesn't make sense that the beast is known by a number and not a name, but that's how it looked to me. The name of the beast IS a number." So, if we took all the characters in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and any other typeface the visionary would have recognized, and we maybe stylize the script or printing, would any of those glyphs resemble any modern language characters? And could you combine them to form what to us would read as a name or title? It's my own pet theory. I was wondering if anyone has approached the subject of prophetic visions from this angle. I did once read a book that supposed the prophets got a vision of helicopters and reported having seen giant locusts with human faces. (uh, I think the title was something about UFOs or flying saucers in the Bible.) just an exercise in lateral creative thinking. -- Kathy E.F.Daly -- "A bad .signature is better than no .signature at all" (technically) Camex,Inc. pays me, but I work for DuPont Design Technologies . . and neither is liable nor responsible for anything I say or do here. ## under construction ## hard hat required ## no loitering or spitting ##