The Mark of the Beast

Today I look at the number 666, the so-called Mark of the Beast. The first half of this post is serious and scholarly.  But the second half is not....

The Greek Numeral System

The single number, 666, appearing in Revelation 13:18, has stimulated untold attempts to specifically link an individual to The Antichrist (or "beast") of Revelation. Although the NIV footnotes say that the Greek text allows this number to be assigned to "mankind", not necessarily to a particular "man", for two thousand years people have attempted to identify this number.

There is some mathematical history behind all of this.  The Greeks used the letters of their alphabet as their number system, so that the first letter, alpha (α) stood for 1, the second letter, beta (β), stood for 2, and so on, up through iota (ι) which stood for 10.  After that, the values of the letters jumped by ten, so that the next letter after iota, kappa (κ) was assigned the value 20, lambda (λ) was 30 and so on, until reaching 100 with the letter rho (ρ). At this point, the numerical values of the individual letters jumped again, increasing by one hundred each time, going from sigma (σ), equal to 200, to omega (ω) equal to 800.  To make all this work, the Greeks dug up some ancient letters so that san (ϡ) represented 900. To count past 1000, the Greeks re-used the letters with additional markings (see here.)

In the passage in Revelation, the Greek number is the three letters, χξϛ, which is translated into English as 666.

One of the effects of the alphabet also playing the role of the numerical system is that every word then has a numerical value. (Replace each letter by the equivalent numeral and then add them up. This is isopsephy.) So the Greeks often played a game, replacing one's name with the associated number. Friends shared their numbers with each other and did computations to see if they were compatible. (See amicable numbers, for example.) When a boy was infatuated with a girl, he might scribble his loved one's number on his slate or in the dirt.  Scrawled in the ruins of Pompeii is a Greek sentence that translates as "I love her whose number is 545."

In this way, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Jesus (Yeshua, Joshua), written as

ι η σ ο υ σ

(iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma),

had value 10+8+200+70+400+200 = 888. If the number 7 represented perfection (for example, according to Genesis 1, the world was created in 7 days), then 8 was even greater and the number 888 represented one beyond perfection (777).

If this seems strange to us, the number 8 in Chinese numerology represents good luck and the number 888 represents triple fortune.  Google "888" and you will find a list of Chinese restaurants and take-outs! (There is one near you....)

So if Jesus is 888 and if 7 (or 777) represents perfection, then 6 represented falling short of perfection and so represents failure and evil. Therefore 666 is triply evil!

Apparently the Hebrew version of the Greek name, Caesar Nero, added up to 666, but to get that count, one had to translate the Greek into Hebrew and then use an equivalent number system in Hebrew. And this also required that one use an unusual spelling of Caesar and go from Greek to Hebrew to reach the Greek number  χξϛ. (Merrill Tenney, Interpreting Revelation, p. 19.) For some of us (including Merrill Tenney) this is a bit of a stretch.

If English were Greek

We can play this game in English. The Greeks used their alphabet as the number system. If the modern alphabet were also used as our number system, in the same manner that the Greeks did, here is how it would be used:

A=1

B=2

C=3

...

I=9

J=10 

(now we begin to jump by ten at each letter)

K=20

...

R=90

S=100 

(now we begin to jump by one hundred at each letter)

T=200

U=300

...

Y=700

Z=800

We would write numbers using the various letters, writing 666 as xof. (We might write the year 2016 using a capital letters to represent multiples of 1000, so that 2016 is B (2000) + j (10) + f (6); thus 2016 = Bjf. Similarly 2017 = Bjg.)

But since letters have a second function as numerals, each English word could then be assigned a number, the sum of the numbers associated with the letters of the word. For example, my name, Ken Smith, would be (20+5+50)+(100+40+9+200+8) = 432. So, if my students wanted to grumble about me secretly, they might say, "Old 4-3-2 gave a hard exam, didn't he?" (Still, I am not the beast!  Even if I use my full name, Kenneth Smith, it comes out to 695.)

We could play this game with English names, hunting for a name adding up to 666.  But I have been unsuccessful in making this work. Pick your villain, none of the names add up to 666.  Adolph Hitler is 443, Ronald Reagan is 389, Barack Obama is 231, Donald Trump is 814.

Of course, 666 could be interpreted differently.  For example, Ronald Wilson Reagan has 6,6,6 letters in each name. But evangelicals Christians in the 1980s seemed to want to view Kissinger (339), not Reagan, as the antichrist!

Of course, maybe this is just making the problem too complicated.  If xof represents 666, then so does fox.  So Fox is the beast!

You heard it first here!!  The beast that helps the antichrist is (drumroll)

Fox News!

:-)