Waggles said in post #126:
And in the Latin alphabet the various titles of the Pope add up to 666, for he is a man.
"Vicarius Filii Dei", a title of the pope, only equals 666 when by mistake people use the Roman-numeral method of counting the number of a name:
V = 5
I = 1
C = 100
A
R
I = 1
U = 5 (because under this method U is the same as V)
S
F
I = 1
L = 50
I = 1
I = 1
D = 500
E
I = 1
Total = 666
This doesn't mean the pope is the Antichrist. It just means the Roman-numeral method gives false positives. For example:
E
L = 50
L = 50
E
N
G
O
U = 5
L = 50
D = 500
W = 10 (because W = double U = UU = VV)
H
I = 1
T
E
Total = 666
This doesn't mean the most important early leader of the SDA view is the Antichrist. It just means the SDA view (or any other view) shouldn't employ the Roman-numeral method of counting the number of a name, instead of the Bible's own method, which is gematria.
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That is, the 666 in Revelation 13:17c-18 refers to the number six hundred and sixty-six, the "number of the name" of the individual man who is the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of Revelation's "beast"). And the number of a name (Revelation 13:17c-18, Revelation 15:2) is determined by employing the ancient method of gematria, by which numerical values are assigned to the letters of any alphabet as follows: The first nine letters are 1 through 9, the next nine letters are 10 through 90 (counting by tens), and the rest of the letters are 100, 200, 300, etc., to the end of the alphabet. In Revelation 13:18, the "counting", the adding up, of the gematrial number of the Antichrist's name should be done in the same way the gematrial numerical values of the three Greek letters (Chi, Xi, and Stigma) at the end of Revelation 13:18 (in the original Greek Textus Receptus) are added up to arrive at the number six hundred and sixty-six.
The numerical values of the letters of the ancient Greek alphabet (including the three obsolete letters of Stigma, Qoppa, and Sampi) were as follows: Alpha = 1, Beta = 2, Gamma = 3, Delta = 4, Epsilon = 5,
Stigma = 6, Zeta = 7, Eta = 8, Theta = 9, Iota = 10, Kappa = 20, Lambda = 30, Mu = 40, Nu = 50,
Xi = 60, Omikron = 70, Pi = 80, Qoppa = 90, Rho = 100, Sigma = 200, Tau = 300, Upsilon = 400, Phi = 500,
Chi = 600, Psi = 700, Omega = 800, Sampi = 900.
Just as the numerical values of Chi, Xi, and Stigma at the end of Revelation 13:18 (in the Textus Receptus) add up to 666, so the numerical values of the letters in the future Antichrist's name will add up to 666 (Revelation 13:17c-18). The apostle John used the Greek alphabet because it was the most common one used by Christians when the book of Revelation was written. Today, the English alphabet is the most common one used by Christians, insofar as English is the current lingua franca of the world. So the future Antichrist's name will most likely add up to 666 in the English alphabet. The purpose of Revelation 13:17c-18 is to facilitate for Christians, not to make difficult for them, the identification of a certain man as possibly being the Antichrist. If the letters in his name had to be transliterated into the Greek alphabet, this would vitiate this purpose, for almost all Christians today wouldn't know how to properly perform this transliteration, and so different Christians would come up with different transliterations, and so would come up with different gematrial numbers for the name of the man in question.
If Christians think someone is the Antichrist, they need to check and make sure his name adds up to 666 in gematria (Revelation 13:17c-18). If it doesn't, then he isn't the Antichrist. If it does, then he could be, and they need to be especially wary of him and not be taken in by any deceptive charisma, intelligence or amazing deeds he might display. But even if someone's name does add up to 666, this doesn't mean he's definitely the Antichrist. For just by chance there could be more than one person in the world whose name adds up to 666. The Antichrist also has to come from a country the territory of which used to be part of one of the four Diadochian Greek kingdoms which succeeded Alexander the Great (Daniel 8:8-9,21-25). These kingdoms stretched from Greece over to Iran, and down into Egypt. So the Antichrist could come from the Middle East. He could be an Arab who will come from Lebanon, from the modern city of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:4), and have a name like (for example) "Nabil Abdullah Falakal al-Hakim", which adds up to 666.
But if a man from the Middle East has a name which adds up to 666, even this doesn't assure he's the Antichrist. For he also has to sit (at least one time) in a future, 3rd Jewish temple in Jerusalem and proclaim himself God (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Daniel 11:31,36, Matthew 24:15, Revelation 11:1-2). Once he does that, there won't be any more room for doubt over whether or not he's the Antichrist. His identity will have been definitely revealed (2 Thessalonians 2:3b-4).
The gematrial numerical values of the letters of the English alphabet are: A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6, G=7, H=8, I=9, J=10, K=20, L=30, M=40, N=50, O=60, P=70, Q=80, R=90, S=100, T=200, U=300, V=400, W=500, X=600, Y=700, Z=800. The way the gematrial number of a name is "counted" (Revelation 13:17c-18), is added up, is simply by adding up the gematrial numerical values of all the letters in that name. So, for example, the number of the name "John Mark Smith" is 636, because: J=10, O=60, H=8, N=50, M=40, A=1, R=90, K=20, S=100, M=40, I=9, T=200, H=8. Total = 636. The future Antichrist's name will add up to 666 (Revelation 13:17c-18).
