The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

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Joseph D. L.
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by Joseph D. L. »

davidmartin wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 5:06 pm One key point here...

Everyone has this focus on Revelation? sure, because it got accepted into canonical scripture and is a dramatic, powerful scripture. that's obvious maybe, but also as obvious is how it evidently represents only one wing or branch of the broader early Christian movement
I'd argue it represents quite a narrow branch, given it's difficulty being accepted
I can't disagree with this more. You can say the same with the Gospels--each were relegated to marginal Christian sects, i.e. Matthew to the Ebionites, Luke to the Marcionites, John to the Nicolatians, and Mark is unspecified but tradition gives it an especial place in Alexandria and the Carpocratians. But all of this is to say that all of our canonical scriptures were at one point region locked within their own narrow branches of Christianity.

But even that aside, given how the text shows evidence of numerous additions and redactions over a period of 150+ years gives the impression that this text was HIGHLY valued to those who used it.
So any hypothesis or theory that bases itself on revelation also must confess and, even better, seek to explain it's limited/narrow scope in representing the movement as a whole (which the work is self-aware of i'd argue)
That's absurd. Again the same argument applies to all of our canonical texts.
figuring out who Mr 666 was in itself wouldn't really solve anything without the context of the entire document also mapped out and explained and just ignores one of the most basic fundamental questions
It would solve when certain portions of the text was written and why it was written in the first place. If 666 is referring to Hadrian then everything is done. It explains the similarities between Revelation 14:14-20 and and Gittin 57-they're both about the bar Kochba revolt's end; it reveals who the False Prophet is: Aquila/Marcion; it identifies the antichrist: Hadrian; it identifies the Rider on the White Horse of Revelation 19:11-21: Simon bar Kochba; and lastly, it explains the forces at play that gave rise to Christianity.

So I'd say it's pretty damn significant.
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by Ben C. Smith »

rakovsky wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 3:29 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:23 pm
rakovsky wrote: Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:12 pm Revelation 13:18 literally says:
18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
It does not actually say that it is the number of "a man" like it is often translated.
This is misleading. There is no indefinite article in Greek. Therefore, "of man" and "of a man" come out exactly the same in Greek.

The passage specifically says that the number is the number of the name of the beast.
Ben,

Your knowledge of Greek is impressive and you are saying that here it has "a man" or "man" because there is no definite article. I read that Greek has an indefinite article, but I take it based on your reply that this is probably just modern Greek (https://langintro.com/greek/grammar/article2.html)
Yes, that is modern Greek, which simply took the various words for "one" and turned them into indefinite articles. "Greek, like Latin, has no indefinite article." (Link.)

The word can be either specific or generic. Your quote from Wallace explores the possibility that it is generic. The grammar itself does not resolve the issue, since it can go either way.
Last edited by Ben C. Smith on Thu Mar 05, 2020 5:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by rakovsky »

+1
:goodmorning: :arrow:
Good commentary.

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Joseph D. L.
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by Joseph D. L. »

rakovsky wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 5:30 pm Sure. My theory is that it refers to both the gematrial number of a particular man, like you said, and it also refers to the number of Man, that is, it has a spiritual or allegorical meaning as well, as D. Wallace theorizes.
But your argument is entirely lopped sided. You're arguing that only obscure translations give it correctly, but that this doesn't effect the overall meaning of the passage when it does.

You want to eat your cake and have it to.
I see the use of 666 in Revelation 13 as related to 666 in the story of Solomon building the Temple. I see the 666 in the story of Solomon as having a symbolic meaning that carries over into its use in the story of Revelation 13.
Okay. Explain that. From what I've read most just consider the two a coincidence. 666 in Revelation 13:18 is specifically the name of the Beast. The 666 in 1 Kings 10:14 is referring to the talents of gold Solomon had in a year's time. I fail to see the deeper connection, spiritually or otherwise.
These by the way are both common interpretations by Bible scholars. We are dealing with a visionary genre where something like a number can have numerous meanings and usages.
Most scholars consider it a coincidence. These same scholars who interpret Revelation 13:18 as being "a man".

Again, you want to have it both ways.
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by rakovsky »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 5:45 pm
rakovsky wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 5:30 pm Sure. My theory is that it refers to both the gematrial number of a particular man, like you said, and it also refers to the number of Man, that is, it has a spiritual or allegorical meaning as well, as D. Wallace theorizes.
But your argument is entirely lopped sided. You're arguing that only obscure translations give it correctly, but that this doesn't effect the overall meaning of the passage when it does.

You want to eat your cake and have it to.
Most scholars consider it a coincidence. These same scholars who interpret Revelation 13:18 as being "a man".

Again, you want to have it both ways.
Joseph,
Yes, I want to eat my cake and have it two/too.
So I am interpreting both meanings as in the text.
Revelation uses alot of OT images and figures, like the commander Magog at Armageddon being a commander in the apocalyptic battle in the Book of Ezekiel.
So John was familiar with the TaNaKh and did not just see the 666 as a pure coincidence. After all, supposing, as likely is the case, that he was thinking of Nero, why not say Nero instead of "Caesar Nero", which is the one that adds up to 666 in Gematria?

It's kind of like the 144 issue. I think that it is not just a coincidence that 144 is used to refer to a holy community in two different places in Revelation - one place being the 144,000 righteous Israelites and the other place being the 144 cubits of the heavenly city. I think that John was aware of these coincidences.

In Rabbinical understanding of Bible verses, there are actually 4 levels of interpretation of a verse. One is the plain meaning, another is the allegorical meaning, and there are two more besides.

Also, there is alot of ambiguity in Greek Christian writing.
Take for instance the Nicene teaching that we believe that Christ rose on the Third Day according to the Scriptures.
It's ambiguous. Certainly it means that the rising was according to the Scriptures, but does the statement also mean that the rising specifically on the third day was according to the scriptures. In other words, according to the Scriptures, is the rising to be on the third day?
That's kind of like "Man/ a man" in Revelation. If you say that according to the Scriptures He is supposed to rise on the third day, then where exactly does it say that? Hosea 6 is the only place where it's specific, and Psalm 16 probably applies because it demands a 1st-3rd day resurrection implicitly. But the place where a rising on the third day is specified in the NT is apparently the story of Jonah, which in a plain reading doesn't mention anything about the Messiah or a third day resurrection. You are stuck reading passages and terms as having more than one meaning I think. Even if the Tanakh writers didn't intend these things (eg. Jonah's story as pointing to the Messiah), the NT writers like the author of Revelation did think in these terms of dual meanings.

So what we are considering here is:
Is there a connection between the number of talents of gold brought to Solomon for the Temple's construction (666) being the same as the number of the beast or AntiChrist in Revelation?

In describing the building of the Temple, Josephus says: "The weight of the gold that was brought to Soiomon him was six hundred and sixty-six talents, not including what was brought by the merchants or the gifts which the governors and the kings of Arabia sent to him."(Book VIII)

Similarly, 1 Kings 10 says:
14. Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold,
15. Beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffick of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country.
Revelation 13:17-18 says,
"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. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six."
So whereas Solomon received 666 gold talents annually, in the prophecy of Revelation, in order to buy or sell, a person would need to have the number of the beast's name, 666.

JTaum on Hermeneutics Stack Exchange theorizes:
If we look back at the law for kings in Deuteronomy 17, It prohibits the king from multiplying horses and chariots, wives, and wealth. This is exactly what Solomon is doing in 1 Kings 10-11. Chapter ten begins by commending his great wisdom, but then steps through his decline - that is, he begins violating the rules for kings by multiplying gold (666 talents a year), multiplying horses and chariots, and finally multiplying wives who turn his heart away from following YHWH. He sets up centers of false worship for all the foreign gods of his wives. So, the number 666 is associated with Solomon in his fall, his abuse of power, and his turning away from true worship of YHWH.
Julian Farrington theorized on the Quora website:
The link with Solomon, I believe is that Solomon was accounted as the wisest man on Earth, yet Jesus said ‘the Queen of Sheba traveled from the uttermost part of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and yet ONE GREATER than Solomon is here”. It’s in the same passage that Jesus was referring to the Queen of Sheba’s travels, that we learn Solomon was paid 666 talents of Gold in a year. It’s pretty likely that some of that would have come from Sheba for hearing his wisdom. Jesus also said that ‘The flowers of the field don’t work for money or make their own clothes, but that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these”.

Solomon has wisdom, but he ended up using his wisdom to make money, and that (according to Jesus) is NOT wisdom. Jesus taught that we should not work for money, but work for God (Matthew 6:24), and if we do this, God will feed and clothes us (Matthew 6:25–34). The mark of the beast relates directly to this, we’re either going to work for God, and live by faith, or we’re going to (as Solomon did), place our faith in money, and take the mark.
So the idea in the Gospels is that Christ has greater wisdom than Solomon, who was famous for his wisdom and who multiplied his gold in violation of Deuteronomy 17 by getting gold annually in the amount of 666 talents. It's no coincidence in my view that Revelation 13:18 calls for "wisdom" when it demands understanding the number 666.

The Wikipedia article on "666" notes that "In the Bible, 666 is the number of Adonikam's descendants who return to Jerusalem and Judah from the Babylonian exile (see Ezra 2:13)." Elilabs' article on "Adonikam" notes:
Ne 7:18 The children of Adonikam, six hundred threescore and seven.

The discrepancy [between the numbers in Ezra 2:13 and Ne 7:18] is that the number reported this time [in Ne 7] is 667, not 666. This is not really a discrepancy after all, as this second number is just counting Adonikam along with his descendants.
Adonikam was a noble under Artaxerxes sent from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. He is thus analogous to the craftsmen under Hiram in the time of Solomon.
So in both cases the TaNakh was connecting 666 with the building of the Temple. Under Solomon when Solomon was building the Temple, 666 talents of gold arrived, and during the rebuilding of the second temple, Adonikam arrived, and in his wake 666 of his descendants arrived.

More evidence that 666 is treated as having a dual meaning shows up conceptually, as well as in Irenaeus' dual use of the number.

Conceptually, man and beast are both associated with the number 6, since they were made on the 6th day.
Genesis 1 has:
24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness
Further, the idea that 666, as a threesome or trinity, would symbolize mankind or a man, deifying himself, setting himself up as God, would go along with the Roman emperor depicting himself as an emperor-god.

Evert Jan Hempenius writes in his outline, "Revelation 13:11-18 -Who is afraid of the number 666? Be wise": "For it is man's number." Hempenus notes that in Revelation the AntiChrist portrays himself as divine, and he notes about the Antichrist setting himself up as god in the Temple in the NT:
The first beast wore blasphemous names, like “god,” “lord,” and “saviour.” It is about a man who wants to be like god, to be God himself. It is the root of all sins that man wants to be like god.
▪ When we look back at the first encounter with the serpent and dragon in Genesis 3, we read: “The serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). Read also 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4: “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.”
This connection between the AntiChrist and the temple would go along with the two other usages of 666 in the Bible, associated with the First and Second Temples.

In his essay "Demystifying the number of the beast in the book of revelation: examples of ancient cryptology and the interpretation of the “666” conundrum", M G. Michael does a good job reviewing what he calls the symbolic-theological interpretation of 666, seeing it as symbolizing man's number in a bad way. He quotes St. Irenaeus who holds a symbolic view of 666 as well as modern writers. Irenaeus was from Asia Minor and was writing about 75 years after the apostle John, who was on the Island of Patmos next to Asia Minor, so Irenaeus has some value as an authority on Revelation. Supposedly Polycarp was a colleague of John, the author of Revelation and was also a teacher of Irenaeus, which creates a link of teaching between Irenaeus and John.

M.G. Michael quotes Irenaeus as seeing 666 as the "sum" of Noah's 600 years of age before the flood, the 60 cubit height of Nebudchadnezzar's statue and the 6 cubit width of the statue's base, thus pointing to the number as a symbol of wickedness and apostasy. Michael also noted that Irenaeus also related 666 to people's names, not just to symbols of wickedness.

So Irenaeus saw 666 as having both a symbolic meaning and as referring to specific persons' names.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by davidmartin »

I can't disagree with this more. You can say the same with the Gospels--each were relegated to marginal Christian sects, i.e. Matthew to the Ebionites, Luke to the Marcionites, John to the Nicolatians, and Mark is unspecified but tradition gives it an especial place in Alexandria and the Carpocratians. But all of this is to say that all of our canonical scriptures were at one point region locked within their own narrow branches of Christianity.

But even that aside, given how the text shows evidence of numerous additions and redactions over a period of 150+ years gives the impression that this text was HIGHLY valued to those who used it.
I will reply to this, not by completely disagreeing and trying to see your point
sure you can say the same with the gospels why not?
yes it was highly valued and the redactions point to changes but also to origins in different pieces of the earlier movement so its highly significant in this, eg tree of life symbolism confirmed as a key early feature found also in gnostic texts and Jewish apocrypha and the Hebrew bible.
That's absurd. Again the same argument applies to all of our canonical texts.
Absurd? Climate change level absurd i don't think so?
some start talking about neo-physics while others are flat earthers who exist all around the planet standing on top of each other. yet the mass mediam is in between the two. hence Revelation can't be representative of the whole any more than posters on this forum
It would solve when certain portions of the text was written and why it was written in the first place. If 666 is referring to Hadrian then everything is done. It explains the similarities between Revelation 14:14-20 and and Gittin 57-they're both about the bar Kochba revolt's end; it reveals who the False Prophet is: Aquila/Marcion; it identifies the antichrist: Hadrian; it identifies the Rider on the White Horse of Revelation 19:11-21: Simon bar Kochba; and lastly, it explains the forces at play that gave rise to Christianity.
Yes it does provide the base point for many theories, so can be compared to the mount everest base camp given how this is not a dead work, its like the gospel of thomas, has an active community. it's thriving
The association of Revelation with all that stuff you mentioned dates it to that time, but as to why it's written i don't think we will ever know that. there's so many permutations of possibilities. there are clues

like how Jezebel looks like Mary Magdalene or the beast the apostle Paul or Nero or something about a time period we don't know anything about. Why else does Revelation mention angels as heads of the churches if not to represent the different leaders of the early church? there's a ton of them and most are probably lost we only know the main ones and often the sources are garbled. A lot of crazy shit went down. So this means revelation has to 'float' above the scene mysteriously as any essentially mystic source not in linear fashion but in cycles of evolution and required cyclical thinking which is actually the original type of thinking, and Revelation is non-linear the cycles in it repeat and it tells you to view the work in cycles not a linear path of development. no, it wont be like that its crazy cycles that spur the next progress on . but trying to look back in time through that level of craziness is nothing compared to having a time machine and actually going there and seeing it for yourself which permits time travel only in time but not in physical matter
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by Joseph D. L. »

rakovsky wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:52 pm Yes, I want to eat my cake and have it two/too.
So I am interpreting both meanings as in the text.
One meaning is sufficient.
Revelation uses alot of OT images and figures, like the commander Magog at Armageddon being a commander in the apocalyptic battle in the Book of Ezekiel.
So John was familiar with the TaNaKh and did not just see the 666 as a pure coincidence. After all, supposing, as likely is the case, that he was thinking of Nero, why not say Nero instead of "Caesar Nero", which is the one that adds up to 666 in Gematria?
Because Neron Caesar is what he chose? Because Nero is only a name, while Caesar denotes his status as a power. And thanks to Ben, I know that Trajanus Hadrinus can add to 666 also, and rabbinical traditions held Hadrian as Nero redivivus.
It's kind of like the 144 issue. I think that it is not just a coincidence that 144 is used to refer to a holy community in two different places in Revelation - one place being the 144,000 righteous Israelites and the other place being the 144 cubits of the heavenly city. I think that John was aware of these coincidences.
Okay?
In Rabbinical understanding of Bible verses, there are actually 4 levels of interpretation of a verse. One is the plain meaning, another is the allegorical meaning, and there are two more besides.
Okay?
Also, there is alot of ambiguity in Greek Christian writing.
Take for instance the Nicene teaching that we believe that Christ rose on the Third Day according to the Scriptures.
It's ambiguous. Certainly it means that the rising was according to the Scriptures, but does the statement also mean that the rising specifically on the third day was according to the scriptures. In other words, according to the Scriptures, is the rising to be on the third day?
That's a problem with the beliefs. Not the language.

I don't think it's that hard to understand.
That's kind of like "Man/ a man" in Revelation. If you say that according to the Scriptures He is supposed to rise on the third day, then where exactly does it say that? Hosea 6 is the only place where it's specific, and Psalm 16 probably applies because it demands a 1st-3rd day resurrection implicitly. But the place where a rising on the third day is specified in the NT is apparently the story of Jonah, which in a plain reading doesn't mention anything about the Messiah or a third day resurrection. You are stuck reading passages and terms as having more than one meaning I think. Even if the Tanakh writers didn't intend these things (eg. Jonah's story as pointing to the Messiah), the NT writers like the author of Revelation did think in these terms of dual meanings.
Typology and pescher are not about literal similarities you know?
So what we are considering here is:
Is there a connection between the number of talents of gold brought to Solomon for the Temple's construction (666) being the same as the number of the beast or AntiChrist in Revelation?
You would need to explain what the meaning is, which you haven't yet.
In describing the building of the Temple, Josephus says: "The weight of the gold that was brought to Soiomon him was six hundred and sixty-six talents, not including what was brought by the merchants or the gifts which the governors and the kings of Arabia sent to him."(Book VIII)
Okay?
Similarly, 1 Kings 10 says:
14. Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold,
15. Beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffick of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country.
Okay?
Revelation 13:17-18 says,
"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. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six."
So whereas Solomon received 666 gold talents annually, in the prophecy of Revelation, in order to buy or sell, a person would need to have the number of the beast's name, 666.
Image
JTaum on Hermeneutics Stack Exchange theorizes:
If we look back at the law for kings in Deuteronomy 17, It prohibits the king from multiplying horses and chariots, wives, and wealth. This is exactly what Solomon is doing in 1 Kings 10-11. Chapter ten begins by commending his great wisdom, but then steps through his decline - that is, he begins violating the rules for kings by multiplying gold (666 talents a year), multiplying horses and chariots, and finally multiplying wives who turn his heart away from following YHWH. He sets up centers of false worship for all the foreign gods of his wives. So, the number 666 is associated with Solomon in his fall, his abuse of power, and his turning away from true worship of YHWH.


Julian Farrington theorized on the Quora website:
The link with Solomon, I believe is that Solomon was accounted as the wisest man on Earth, yet Jesus said ‘the Queen of Sheba traveled from the uttermost part of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and yet ONE GREATER than Solomon is here”. It’s in the same passage that Jesus was referring to the Queen of Sheba’s travels, that we learn Solomon was paid 666 talents of Gold in a year. It’s pretty likely that some of that would have come from Sheba for hearing his wisdom. Jesus also said that ‘The flowers of the field don’t work for money or make their own clothes, but that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these”.

Solomon has wisdom, but he ended up using his wisdom to make money, and that (according to Jesus) is NOT wisdom. Jesus taught that we should not work for money, but work for God (Matthew 6:24), and if we do this, God will feed and clothes us (Matthew 6:25–34). The mark of the beast relates directly to this, we’re either going to work for God, and live by faith, or we’re going to (as Solomon did), place our faith in money, and take the mark.
Revelation 13:18 tells you exactly what the formula being used in deducing the Beast's name is. Gametria. 666 in 1 Kings 10:14 is just a number without further consequence other than denoting wealth. Do you see the difference? One is specific, the other is not.

And I really don't care what these two people have to say.
So the idea in the Gospels is that Christ has greater wisdom than Solomon, who was famous for his wisdom and who multiplied his gold in violation of Deuteronomy 17 by getting gold annually in the amount of 666 talents. It's no coincidence in my view that Revelation 13:18 calls for "wisdom" when it demands understanding the number 666.
Whatever you say jeffe.
The Wikipedia article on "666" notes that "In the Bible, 666 is the number of Adonikam's descendants who return to Jerusalem and Judah from the Babylonian exile (see Ezra 2:13)." Elilabs' article on "Adonikam" notes:
Ne 7:18 The children of Adonikam, six hundred threescore and seven.

The discrepancy [between the numbers in Ezra 2:13 and Ne 7:18] is that the number reported this time [in Ne 7] is 667, not 666. This is not really a discrepancy after all, as this second number is just counting Adonikam along with his descendants.
Adonikam was a noble under Artaxerxes sent from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. He is thus analogous to the craftsmen under Hiram in the time of Solomon.
So in both cases the TaNakh was connecting 666 with the building of the Temple. Under Solomon when Solomon was building the Temple, 666 talents of gold arrived, and during the rebuilding of the second temple, Adonikam arrived, and in his wake 666 of his descendants arrived.
None of which has anything to do with Revelation 13:18
More evidence that 666 is treated as having a dual meaning shows up conceptually, as well as in Irenaeus' dual use of the number.

Conceptually, man and beast are both associated with the number 6, since they were made on the 6th day.
Genesis 1 has:
24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness
Further, the idea that 666, as a threesome or trinity, would symbolize mankind or a man, deifying himself, setting himself up as God, would go along with the Roman emperor depicting himself as an emperor-god.

Evert Jan Hempenius writes in his outline, "Revelation 13:11-18 -Who is afraid of the number 666? Be wise": "For it is man's number." Hempenus notes that in Revelation the AntiChrist portrays himself as divine, and he notes about the Antichrist setting himself up as god in the Temple in the NT:
The first beast wore blasphemous names, like “god,” “lord,” and “saviour.” It is about a man who wants to be like god, to be God himself. It is the root of all sins that man wants to be like god.
▪ When we look back at the first encounter with the serpent and dragon in Genesis 3, we read: “The serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). Read also 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4: “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.”
This connection between the AntiChrist and the temple would go along with the two other usages of 666 in the Bible, associated with the First and Second Temples.

In his essay "Demystifying the number of the beast in the book of revelation: examples of ancient cryptology and the interpretation of the “666” conundrum", M G. Michael does a good job reviewing what he calls the symbolic-theological interpretation of 666, seeing it as symbolizing man's number in a bad way. He quotes St. Irenaeus who holds a symbolic view of 666 as well as modern writers. Irenaeus was from Asia Minor and was writing about 75 years after the apostle John, who was on the Island of Patmos next to Asia Minor, so Irenaeus has some value as an authority on Revelation. Supposedly Polycarp was a colleague of John, the author of Revelation and was also a teacher of Irenaeus, which creates a link of teaching between Irenaeus and John.

M.G. Michael quotes Irenaeus as seeing 666 as the "sum" of Noah's 600 years of age before the flood, the 60 cubit height of Nebudchadnezzar's statue and the 6 cubit width of the statue's base, thus pointing to the number as a symbol of wickedness and apostasy. Michael also noted that Irenaeus also related 666 to people's names, not just to symbols of wickedness.

So Irenaeus saw 666 as having both a symbolic meaning and as referring to specific persons' names.
[/quote]

I really don't care to discuss this further with you to be blunt.
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by rakovsky »

No problem, Joseph.
It was nice writing with you. FYI, the conversation made me more skeptical of Wallace's idea that it refers to the number of man. But I still think that John was likely alluding to the use of the same number in Solomon's story, along with Nero's name.
I think it would be pretty cool to go back in time and find out what meanings the ancient writers were putting into their symbolic prose.
Peace.

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rakovsky
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by rakovsky »

I've been reading through the early writings, dealing with these kinds of questions for the last few years, and I found that alot of them amount to adding up different factors and making an evaluation of what is the "most likely".
So one of the questions that I considered was:
"Is there a connection between the number of talents of gold brought to Solomon for the Temple's construction (666) being the same as the number of the beast or AntiChrist in Revelation? Maybe there is some underlying meaning in the number 666 that is shared between the two usages?"

We don't have any explicit connection that the author of Revelation gives between chapter 13 and the story of Solomon. We only have indirect circumstantial evidence that the author saw a connection.

For instance:
1. K. Lewis made a thread about his book on Revelation:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5035&hilit=revelation
He has studied the book so much that he might have an answer to our discussion. In his careful analysis of Revelation, Lewis found that the author relied on piecing together stories and motifs from the Old Testament, like Daniel and Ezekiel. This makes it plausible that the author also thought of an Old Testament theme such as Solomon's gold when he put together the story of the beast requiring one to have the number 666 to do any trading.

2. Irenaeus, a student of Polycarp who was an alleged student of John saw the number 666 as both the name of a specific man and also a symbol of different kinds of wickedness. This in turn shows that 666 in the text can be both a reference to a specific person (Nero) and also hold a deeper significance, like being a number signifying man deifying himself.

(etc.)

So I can make a list of circumstantial evidence pointing to the number having an added significance besides just Nero's name, and it's enough to persuade me, but you can also argue against each piece of evidence, so that it's not fully proven either way.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
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Re: The mystery of the mark of the Beast, 666/616, is solved and it proves I am right about Hadrian

Post by DCHindley »

I'm at lunch at work and have no resourced available here, but my opinion is that Irenaeus was just making wild guesses as to the word that should be associated with "666."

Since he is the first early Christian author to cite Revelation (IIRC),and even he was unsure what it symbolized, this suggests that by the time Polycarp was publishing his collections of Christian works (which Irenaeus was using as his corpus of sacred texts) the significance of the statement had long before been obscured by time.

Perhaps it was the lone example of a revered text preserved among "Jewish Christians." Christians who held a high Christology seem to have not used Revelation, maybe because it was so anti-Roman (Rome burning).

DCH
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