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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (36204)	1/5/2004 10:13:36 PM
From: Jamey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

So OK. I'll tell you! We should start with the fact that the early Church suffered greatly under the famous Nero Caesar himself (and his seeming "reincarnations" in the form of other persecuting emperors) and the fact that Revelation speaks of the sufferings of Christians, who are being given hope to endure them. Since Revelation 13:18 speaks of a person as having the number 666, many people have offered guesses as to who this might represent. They have come up with different possibilities by using different languages and the "values" of the letters of the alphabets (e.g., Latin letters equating to Roman numerals). I'll continue now with quote [annotated by me] from a commentator named Robert N. Cramer, who helps us see why Nero is believed by some people to be linked to 666: "The Hebrew transliteration (without vowels) [-- Nrwn Qsr --] of Nero's [name in Greek], Neron Caesar [is "Nrwn Qsr". This] adds up to 666 [as follows:] "N = 50 ([numerical value of the Hebrew letter/number] nun) r = 200 (resh) w = 6 (waw) n = 50 (nun) Q = 100 (kaph) s = 60 (samech) r = 200 (resh) "The significance of the number 666 was obviously understood by the original Christian communities from which and to which the Revelation was sent. Bratcher and Hatton (A Handbook on the Revelation to John, New York: United Bible Societies [not Catholic], 1993, pages 204-205) provide a good summary of current conclusions: "'There are many interpretations of the name represented by the number 666. The most widely accepted one is that it stands for the Roman Emperor Nero. Written in Hebrew letters, the numerical value of the letters of the ... name "Neron Caesar" adds up to 666. Some commentators are of the opinion that no one specific person was in the writer's mind, but that by 666 the writer meant total imperfection. Number six is one short of the perfect seven, and three indicates completeness, so the imperfect number six given three times symbolizes "complete imperfection." But the way in which the writer states the matter makes it quite probable that he had some historical person in mind ... As the RSV (Revised Standard Version) footnote shows, one Greek manuscript and a few ancient versions have 616, but 666 is the better attested text.' [And this fits with the fact that the Latin name of the emperor (Nero Caesar) has one less "n" than the Greek -- losing a "nun" value of 50 from the 666.] "It might be worth noting that though Revelation was written in Greek, the author was very familiar with the the commerce, economy, and geography of Jerusalem and the surrounding region. Werner Georg Kummel (Introduction to the New Testament, Revised Edition, translated by Howard Clark Kee, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975, page 465) quotes J. Schmid, who wrote: 'The author [of Revelation] thought in Hebrew but wrote in Greek.'"