A fragment of the original Book of Revelation, written in Greek and dating back to the third century, has been deciphered using a revolutionary technique (SN reported) and has found that the number of the beast is not 666 but is in fact 616.

Refering to the writing, Professor David Parker, of the University of Birmingham says "This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names."

"Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula." he added. The number 666 is often refered to in sermons by fundamentalist Christians concerning the apocalypse.

SOURCE: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=634679

Fascinating stuff. Caligula was one bad mother.

Some stupid girl told me I believed in "the 666" or something because I listen to Marilyn Manson (who she calls "Marlon Mason" 'cause she's a fucking idiot).

"This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula."

What does this statement mean, is there some relation between Caligula's name and the number 616?

"Newly discovered?" I read the same thing in this article (http://www.atheists.org/christianity/realbible.html) by Frank R. Zindler which dates back to May 1986.

While we are discussing the Book of Revelation — the book beloved of President Reagan and the gematriasts (biblical numerologists; the word rhymes with "pederasts") who advise him — we should note that "the number of the name of the beast" [Rev. 13: 18] may not be 666 after all. In some very ancient sources the number is 616! Doubtless to the dismay of the gematriasts, who seek to guide American nuclear foreign policy on the basis of biblical clues, neither singly nor in combination do the names "Madalyn," "Murray," or "O'Hair" total to 616 or 666 when written in the Greek alphabet. At 651, "Murray" comes closest to 666: close, but no cigar!

Christian apologetic historians don't listen to the evidence, they listen to what they want to hear. Don't expect the figure to change anytime soon.

Oh, by the way, I do realize that that's a new manuscript, it's just that the evidence seemed to already indicate what they just found.

Interesting stuff about Caligula, too.

so what's new?

any decent bible has always footnoted that the number of the beast may be 616.

and scholars have debated this point ad vomitum for centuries.

quote:Originally posted by jackketch:

so what's new?

any decent bible has always footnoted that the number of the beast may be 616.

and scholars have debated this point ad vomitum for centuries.

*sighs*

*starts humming the chorus from U2's 40*

Why do we always have to get caught up in trivial shit like this.... no wonder so many people find christianity to be a joke.

Man, Iron Maiden are gonna be pissed.

Maybe, it is and maybe it isn't because if the technique ppl use to translate the bible in numbers which are letters , For example 1=a

Then this wouldn't work because there were no copiers back then so they would have to copy it by hand, and so they made mistakes but the mistakes are very minor like for example:centre and center they are spelled diferently right?

but very minor.

But if it is numbers(since numbers used to make words, at least in the hebrew bible, which is the language used to make write the first bible) the difference is very big like 554 and 1554 they are a very diffrent numbers so we shoudln't completely depend on this system.Which make completely different words.

like if 554 meant yes and 1=L

then the word is written mistakenly and translated would be lyes.

[This message has been edited by stiffo (edited 05-05-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by bodomised:

Man, Iron Maiden are gonna be pissed.

Nah, it will always be 666, Irons...