Mark of the Beast

[InLove]

Is it so hard to understand that the star I see is the star of Bethlehem? Is it so hard to see that I relate it to the star of David? There is nothing having to do with either of these that I can see as evil. Maybe you want me to, and I am not opposed to listening for a while. And I am a good listener. Are you?

InPeace,
InLove

[InLove]

Hi, Peace to All Here--

OOPs! I did it again. Sorry. You were having an intelligent discussion, and it should continue. I really need to stay away from subjects like this.

Please do continue--(think I belong in the lounge)

InPeace, (really)
InLove

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by InLove

Hi, Peace to All Here--

OOPs! I did it again. Sorry. You were having an intelligent discussion, and it should continue. I really need to stay away from subjects like this.

Please do continue--(think I belong in the lounge)

InPeace, (really)
InLove

You belong here just fine, InLove.
lunamoth

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

Yes, I love this passage from Isaiah. Seems to me though that you are putting a rather fine literal point on the line about the increase of his government. It sounds to me like Isaiah is using the poetic language of praise, love and devotion to his Almighty God here, rather than predicting that the establishment of God's Kingdom will be a long slow process. Nevertheless, I agree that God's Kingdom is growing here on this earth.

Which even the mustard seed analogy refers to as well - growing, and starting remarkly small.

I agree about the poetic language, yet that doesn't mean vague. Poets can be very exact, even concrete about the seriousness of the word choice, and of course in this case we're not just reading poetry here.

Certainly I picked out a tiny section - to me the section speaks of a vision, over time, and across peoples and places and how things become.

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by BlaznFattyz

the Jewish Star... contains a six, within a six, within a six: 666.

I wonder if anyone has compiled all the derivations of 666 that people have come up with. I wonder if there can be any end to the complexities discovered and assembled.

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by smkolins

I wonder if anyone has compiled all the derivations of 666 that people have come up with. I wonder if there can be any end to the complexities discovered and assembled.

To hint at the possibilities I found this compilation of derivations of 666 - check from about the middle of the page down. Specifically it starts at note 6....

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by smkolins

To hint at the possibilities I found this compilation of derivations of 666 - check from about the middle of the page down. Specifically it starts at note 6....

But new scholarship plus the discovery of a new very early fragment of scroll indicates that the number is 616, not 666.

lunamoth

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

But new scholarship plus the discovery of a new very early fragment of scroll indicates that the number is 616, not 666.

lunamoth

Always an adventure awaiting....

However this seems an elusive twist...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_...8numerology%29 (I read several web pages about the topic and this one seems to me to be the most specific about the details.)

"While most manuscripts of the Bible read six-hundred-sixty-six or 666 for the Number of the Beast in Revelation 13:18, some early manuscripts contain 616 instead. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (5th century) and Papyrus 115 (3rd or 4th century). Irenaeus knew about the reading 616, but according to Metzger, Bruce M. (1971). A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. New York: United Bible Societies. ISBN 3-438-06010-8., p. 751, Irenaeus "says that 666 'is found in all good and ancient copies,' and is 'attested by those who had themselves seen John face to face.'" The minuscule manuscript 2344 (11th century) identifies the Number of the Beast as 665.
In May 2005 it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques had been able to read previously illegible portions of an early (third century) version of the Book of Revelation, part of its Oxyrhynchus collection of papyri. The fragment gives the Number of the Beast as 616...."

So while intreaging as part of the history of the Bible it seems unconvincing that it's 616 -

btw, further down the page are still more derivations of 666

"Computer-related
The octal number 666 is widely used in setting up authorizations in the Unix Operating System. It offers limited access (read and write) as opposed to the all privilege granted by number 777 (read write and execute). This matches the Revelation ('13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the Mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. ') in that this could be a way to allow or disallow people to buy anything (the Mark of the Beast as a personal body mark easily readable by automated cashiers in a cashless society).
There are many speculations of that Microsoft and Bill Gates are evil (eg [8]). Bill Gates, evaluated in ASCII, sums up to 663, that added with 3 (his complete name is William Henry Gates III) becomes 666. Counting the space as one, Windows 95 sums up to 666 too.
The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is "waw" (or "vav"). This is the 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.
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. [9]
The internet access provider firm Demon Internet http://www.demon.net/ has many telephone numbers (voice, and computer dialup) that contain 666, and sometimes sequences of three copies of other digits.
Another speculation is that computer=666. If we encode the English alphabet where every letter is a multiple of 6: a=6, b=12, c=18, ..., z=156 then we have "computer" = 666 = (3*6)+(15*6)+(13*6)+(16*6)+(21*6)+(20*6)+(5*6)+(18 *6). Since "beasts" such as oxen, horses and donkeys were used as machines in ancient times, one can infer “beast” in modern times meaning "machine" or "computer". Since computers were developed by English speaking people it is plausible that the numerical decoding should be via English, such that one interprets “leading the development” as “riding the head of the beast”."

[lunamoth]

This is the article I saw at beliefnet:

616

lunamoth

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

This is the article I saw at beliefnet:

616

lunamoth

Ah - so I see. The article I referenced mentions much the same detail.

Simply the fact that it is the oldest reference doesn't seem too convincing to me - if it had come out of nowhere perhaps but since there isn't an original Bible to consult, and I'm sure there were dozens or hundreds of Christian Bibles through the first few hundred years it doesn't surprise me there would be some variation among them as there was little centralized control of the scripture.

But inparticular since "616" was a known issue even in the early hundreds AD and Irenaeus knew about it and felt clear enough to state a position I am comfortable with his statement until more evidence arises.

Imagine a first scripture surfacing and it had a typo saying "Sesus is Lord" and was a record thrown away because of the mistake but turned out to be the one that survived thousands of years....

[lunamoth]

Hi Steven,

I understand that many people use numerology as a way to deepen their faith in the Scriptures and even as a "thin place" where one can be closer to God. In my opinion, though, when we move from mystical to literal understanding we also are in danger of moving from sacred understanding to superstition. I see where above you have argued that 666 refers not to a person but to the number of years to the arising of the Umyyad Dynasty, which you correlate with the end of true Islam. I agree that as an issue of faith this is an apporpriate interpretation for a Baha'i. Actually, I think all interpretation of scripture, including prophecy is more an issue of faith, rather than fact. Not being a student of numerology, I found this part of the Wiki article interesting:

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 specific preconditions, like having to start with 100, numbering the surname only, etc. (even though in this special case, you can also number a=1, b=2, and so on and decode his initials 'A' and 'H' as 18, which of course equals 6+6+6.) By adapting the rules however, it is possible to connect most if not all names to the evil number. See also Vicarius Filii Dei. More convincing interpretations invoke more than mathematics to prove their point. (Wiki link from above)

So, it apprears that by playing around with different codes 666 or 616 could be made to mean just about anything one wants it to mean. Likewise with saying that it refers to a number of years. All one needs to do is carefully (or creatively) pick two dates 666 years apart that coincide with big events in religous history. Sure, this can only be stretched to a point, but nonetheless it remains unconvincing to the previously unconvinced.

Here is the part of the article that talks about 616:

In May 2005 it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques had been able to read previously illegible portions of an early (third century) version of the Book of Revelation, part of its Oxyrhynchus collection of papyri. The fragment gives the Number of the Beast as 616. Scholars now believe the number in question has very little to do with the devil. It was actually a complicated numerical riddle in Greek, meant to represent someone's name. "It's a number puzzle -- the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero." [2](Wiki link from above)

So, 666 or 616, I actually do not think that it is important that we know which number is more "original." (for the record I opened my Bible to check a reference just after writing this sentence and my fingers did not get scorched). I believe that the Bible is God-inspired and God-protected, but I also believe that the living God still reveals Himself to us, and that may sometimes be through archeology and Bible scholarship. Does that mean I think that this prophecy is unimportant or irrevalent? No! I think, as is a common interpretation, that this number, the number of a man, is referring in some code to a person who was an enemy of Christians at the time of the writing of Revelation. It represents the archetype of the enemy of Christ. I think that different figures fitting that archetype have and will continue to arise in the world, and I am open to the idea that there may be a specific manifestation of the archteype of the AntiChrist at the endtime, but I don't think that trying to figure out who this might be should be a focus of our attention. Indeed, it is a distraction and could even be disasterous should we create a sefl-fulfilling prophecy by our conspiracy theories and false expectations. So really, perhpas you and I are not so very far apart in our thinking.

I think that prophecy is meant to comfort, exhort and warn, rather than predict the future. Once one has faith in a particular interpretation then it often follows that all the specific details can be viewed to fit the prophecy. However, it's not terribly convincing to those who believe differently, unless one preys upon superstitions and fear. For example, you are probably aware that the number 616 figures predominately in Baha'i Scripture as the number associated with the forerunner of the Baha'i Faith, the Bab.

172. the "Six" raised up by virtue of this "Upright
Alif" # 157

In his writings, Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i placed great
emphasis on the Arabic letter "Vav". In The Dawn-Breakers,
Nabil states that this letter "symbolized for the Báb the
advent of a new cycle of Divine Revelation, and has since
been alluded to by Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas in such
passages as 'the mystery of the Great Reversal' and 'the Sign of the
Sovereign'".
The name for the letter "Vav" consists of three letters:
Vav, Alif, Vav. According to the abjad reckoning, the
numerical value of each of these letters is 6, 1 and 6
respectively. Shoghi Effendi in a letter written on his behalf
to one of the believers in the East provides an interpretation
of this verse of the Aqdas. He states that the "Upright Alif"
refers to the advent of the Báb. The first letter with its value
of six, which comes before the Alif, is a symbol of earlier
Dispensations and Manifestations which predate the Báb,
while the third letter, which also has a numerical value of
six, stands for Bahá'u'lláh's supreme Revelation which was
made manifest after the Alif.

(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 240)

As a Baha'i I read quite a bit (not extensively, but a bit) about Bible prophecy and the Baha'i Faith as it was emphasized as part of the campaign to teach Christians. I actually always was impressed with how Baha'u'llah ended up in the Holy Land through no apparent doing of His own, and some other events recorded in Baha'i histroy (Dawn Breakers, God Passes By). However, I must say that my blood ran cold when I read the above passage from the Most Holy Book. Admittedly, I read it at a time when my faith in Baha'u'llah's claim had already begun to crumble, but that's another story. In the end, the only thing I could do was write this off as coincidence and my fear as superstition.

In summation, interpretting numbers in the Bible and trying to find literal interpretations of prophecy can be distracting at best, dangerous at worst. No doubt Satan is involved in all the energy misdirected into trying to decipher Bible code.

peace,
lunamoth

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

Hi Steven,

I understand that many people use numerology as a way to deepen their faith in the Scriptures and even as a "thin place" where one can be closer to God. In my opinion, though, when we move from mystical to literal understanding we also are in danger of moving from sacred understanding to superstition. I see where above you have argued that 666 refers not to a person but to the number of years to the arising of the Umyyad Dynasty, which you correlate with the end of true Islam....

In summation, interpretting numbers in the Bible and trying to find literal interpretations of prophecy can be distracting at best, dangerous at worst. No doubt Satan is involved in all the energy misdirected into trying to decipher Bible code.

peace,
lunamoth

I agree it is easy to get lost in possibilities. I don't personally spend much time on prophetic interpritation of such obscure issues today. But others things these issues are alive and well and sought to contribute to the discussion in a novel way.

If you check the very first post of mine in this thread I said:
"I know of Baha'i references that make all this more or less ancient history, especially about early Islam and the way it split. Recall that Baha'is do not view the religions as simply independent/unrelated. Islam was the natural successor to Christianity in that day, but Islam suffered a cataclysm which today lives on as the Sunni/Shi split. Thus these prophecies in Christianity are actually about early Islam - a direction regretably the west is not likely to look at. At the core of the split is the story of the Ummayyad clan and Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, and his succession of sons. The metaphorical beasts are, in Baha'i sources, the Ummayyad clan leaders several of whom became Caliphs and implimented Islam in deplorable ways which ultimately became the basis of the Shi split.

As an example of the issue I offer these calculations. It is widely known Jesus was not born at 0AD - more likely just before 4BC. If He was born 5 BC then 661 AD is 666 - yes, the number of the beast - AD. This is the year Islam suffered irreperable schism in a civil war that is supposed to be impossible."

For the sake of completeness I note I also later noted Islams contributions to the progress of civilization, not wishing to begin a round of bashing Islam, albeit I was then accused more or less of believing Islam to be evil. <sigh>.

Interesting that the Return of Jesus and the appearance of the anti-Christ are about the same time - as differentiated from the appearance of the Beast(s). That 616 might signalize His return and 666 the Beast....

In fact, isn't it interesting that live and evil are backwards - and that an arabic word saying evil to english eyes is infact live if one were to note the writing direction of arabic....

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by smkolins

Interesting that the Return of Jesus and the appearance of the anti-Christ are about the same time - as differentiated from the appearance of the Beast(s). That 616 might signalize His return and 666 the Beast....

Interesting, I'd never thought of it that way. I've never seen 616 referring to the return of Christ except in the Baha'i writings.

In fact, isn't it interesting that live and evil are backwards - and that an arabic word saying evil to english eyes is infact live if one were to note the writing direction of arabic....

I think I know what you re referring to here. Actually, I never noticed that until it was pointed out to me and it is one of the things I wish I could "unsee." I've always thought of the calligraphy of the Most Great Name as very beautiful. But, it's one of those cultural things. The swastica is also a profound religious symbol, but now it is associated with Nazis. And the five pointed star is considered sacred by some religions but symbolic of evil in others. Even the naked cross vs. the cross with Christ crucificed is debated by some. In some churches any symbols are considered idolatry. Perhaps numerology is also a cultural thing. I really don't know much about it.

peace,
lunamoth

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

The swastica is also a profound religious symbol, but now it is associated with Nazis. And the five pointed star is considered sacred by some religions but symbolic of evil in others.

All cases of reversals too, noting even the use of the swastika shape among the Hopi - again reversed from the Nazi form.

[BlaznFattyz]

of course there are many many variations of the mark... but the more stuff we through out there and the closer we get to end times, the more stuff starts making sense and falling into place. just a theory now, but consider this possibility...

Jesus raptures the christian church, arab nations surround israel and Jesus strikes the nation of islam down for good. now that 2 main religions are out of the picture this is now a nation of israel (that constantly abandons their god) and the european union headed by Rome and the Pope, all which makes way for the possibility of the AntiChrist. Another possiblity is that the major religion is now catholicism an it worships the madonna after several miracles are done through her image. during sometime, like it happened already with Hitler, Jews are made to wear a mark, which is their star, or they cannot buy anything and the madonna or popes image is put into the temple of jerusalem.