666

Timtofly said:

The name of the man is Adam. Because Adam means mankind. The number belongs to all of humanity and is an expiration stamp like you place on goods that are no longer acceptable past a certain date. The sounding of the 7th Trumpet is the end of time for mankind to be redeemed.

"And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets."

God places this time stamp on all those humans on earth as they are blotted out of the Lamb's book of Life. The mark means their time of redemption has expired. This is not about one single human. This is about all mankind after a certain point in time, the sounding of the 7th Trumpet.

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Interpretation, interpretation, interpretation...

Lost4words said:

Revelation was written earlier than most think! St John was writing about Nero, secretly, as with many things in those times, one had to write with hidden meanings.

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I don't have any disagreement with the dating of Revelation being during Nero's reign. And that Nero persecuted Christians.

But Nero did not promote the 666 as a requirement to buy or sell.

The beast-king of Revelation 13 will be cast alive into the lake of fire at Jesus's Second Coming.

Nero was exceedingly wicked, but he is not the beast-king of Revelation 13.

The Liturgist said:

It’s strictly based on Hebrew numerology, which St. John the Beloved would have known. But I was thinking more from a theological perspective.

Also I would assume that you would concur that the idea that 666 refers to the word “Allah” is absurd, since Arabic speaking Christians use that word to refer to our true God, who became incarnate by the Virgin Mary as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (who is himself referred to as Masih, I might be spelling the word for Messiah in Arabic wrong, but frequently I find Coptic and Syria Christians with names such as Abd-Allah and Abd-al-Masih meaning Servant Of God and Servant Of Christ, whereas Muslims tend to have names that refer to various Islamic figures.

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Yes, of course. "Allah" existed as a word and Arabic-speaking Christians as a community both long before Islam. It's been a while since I've read them, but I'm fairly certain that some of the people interviewed by HG Simeon of Beth Arsham in his writings concerning Christianity in Yemen at the time (6th century, so before Islam had begun; recall that Muhammad was not born until 570, and did not begin receiving his 'messages' until 610) had theophoric names with "Allah" in them. There is nothing wrong with "Allah" as a word or a concept; the problem lies with Islam's false theology and the conflation of everything in the Arabic language with Islam in the minds of those who likely do not speak the language (and of course some who do, for their own reasons).

The Liturgist said:

It is common for scripture to have multiple meanings - it can refer to Nero and then use Nero as a type for the future anti-Christ. We see this so often in Scripture, for example, the priest-king Melchizedek was a type of Christ, Jerusalem is a type of Heaven, Babylon represents the world, but these also represent themselves. This is particularly so in the case of prophecy.

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I do not know of any NT verse saying there will be some "more final Antichrist" after Nero. Sure, we can use the word in its broader sense for anybody who persecute Christians and is against Christianity, but thats something else. In the meaning of biblical eschatology, Nero was the Antichrist and the first century was the end of the old age.

myst33 said:

I do not know of any NT verse saying there will be some "more final Antichrist" after Nero. Sure, we can use the word in its broader sense for anybody who persecute Christians and is against Christianity, but thats something else. In the meaning of biblical eschatology, Nero was the Antichrist and the first century was the end of the old age.

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What I am saying is with regards to scripture, frequently words in scripture refer to multiple things. There is quite a lot to indicate that Revelation is talking about the Apocalypse, hence its actual name, the Apocalypse of St. John, and thus the Beast is likely an apocalyptic prophecy that is typified by Nero, so it will be someone of the world who will charm the world and then turn on the Christians to the surprise and bewildered horror of some, for many men since Nero have followed in his Anti-Christian footsteps, so I would say the prophecy has already shown there to be multiple anti-Christs in the type of Nero, with the ultimate anti-Christ implied to be the devil or a human who has gone over to the devil utterly.

dzheremi said:

Yes, of course. "Allah" existed as a word and Arabic-speaking Christians as a community both long before Islam. It's been a while since I've read them, but I'm fairly certain that some of the people interviewed by HG Simeon of Beth Arsham in his writings concerning Christianity in Yemen at the time (6th century, so before Islam had begun; recall that Muhammad was not born until 570, and did not begin receiving his 'messages' until 610) had theophoric names with "Allah" in them. There is nothing wrong with "Allah" as a word or a concept; the problem lies with Islam's false theology and the conflation of everything in the Arabic language with Islam in the minds of those who likely do not speak the language (and of course some who do, for their own reasons).

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Exactly, and thus when people try to decode 666 to Allah it infuriates me as slander against all Arabic speaking Christians, who comprise together with their Aramaic speaking brethren (and many Aramaic speaking Christians, probably most, also speak some Arabic of necessity), are the most persecuted Christians on Earth and have been since at least 1915, if not 1215 or so, when the first genocide under Tamerlane began, if not since the Ummayad Caliphate or the Fatimid Caliphate, when there were diabolical rulers in Egypt like Al-Hakim, who was mad and forced Christians to wear chains, and who the Druze in Lebanon believe was a manifestation of God apparently (I say apparently because we don’t know for sure what they believe, because the Druze are extremely secretive and endogamous, but the idea of Hakim being worshipped by them as a false God seems credible, since so many have Hakim as their last name. I have a Druze friend who deals in crystals named H.S.L. Hakim).

That's weird. I never knew that about the Druze and Al-Hakim, since I don't really know much about the Druze to begin with beyond modern figures like the Jumblatts of Lebanon or the Al-Atrache of Syria (e.g., singers Farid and his sister Asmahan, born Amal al-Atrache). Esoteric sects of Islam like them and the Alawites are really odd. Regular Islam is weird enough, but then you throw in these sects that kept vestiges of Christianity (like the Alawites sometimes having Christian names, and celebrating a secretive form of 'liturgy' which includes the consecration of bread and wine) or whatever else they had previously believed in, and it just gets really bonkers.

dzheremi said:

That's weird. I never knew that about the Druze and Al-Hakim, since I don't really know much about the Druze to begin with beyond modern figures like the Jumblatts of Lebanon or the Al-Atrache of Syria (e.g., singers Farid and his sister Asmahan, born Amal al-Atrache). Esoteric sects of Islam like them and the Alawites are really odd. Regular Islam is weird enough, but then you throw in these sects that kept vestiges of Christianity (like the Alawites sometimes having Christian names, and celebrating a secretive form of 'liturgy' which includes the consecration of bread and wine) or whatever else they had previously believed in, and it just gets really bonkers.

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Also the Alevis and the Bektasis; the Alevis are supposed to be related to the Alawis, but on closer inspection I think they are distinct, but the Alevis and Bektasis are extremely crypto-Christian. Bektasis even have monasteries.

Then there are also the Yazidis and Yarsanis who seem related to Syrian Gnosticism; Yazidis even apparently practice baptism and a form of the Eucharist, and when Yazidi couples get married they stop to ask the blessing of the priest at any Christian church they pass by, and their religious leader Baba Sheikh wears attire vaguely reminiscent of Assyrian and Chaldean bishops in some respects.

And you are right, it is bonkers, but Sufi-ism and also other Middle Eastern minority religions tends to be bonkers even when they are fully Islamic and not crypto-Christian as in the case of the Alevis and Bektasis. For example, the Mevlevis are fairly devour Muslims but they are also the famed whirling dervishes. Also they historically opposed persecuting Christians. A common thread with most of these groups is they are more tolerant of Christianity than mainstream Islam, with some exceptions, for example the Ansari, who still regard Muhammed Ahmed al Mahdi, who killed everyone in Khartoum, as being the Mahdi. Although who knows, these days the Ansaris might be pro-Christian.

However the Druze were definitely not pro-Christian historically; during the history of Lebanon they and the Maronite Catholics frequently made war upon each other, since both groups depended on the mountains of Lebanon to survive, although now the Druze, the regular Muslims and the Christians coexist in relative peace and tranquility in Lebanon.

Although interestingly there is also a Druze minority in Israel that is politically separate from the Druze in Lebanon, and they have often held high ranks in the IDF.

The Liturgist said:

There is quite a lot to indicate that Revelation is talking about the Apocalypse, hence its actual name, the Apocalypse of St. John, and thus the Beast is likely an apocalyptic prophecy that is typified by Nero, so it will be someone of the world who will charm the world

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Well, I still do not understand your logical leaps, for example from "Revelation is about Apocalypse" to "beast is likely... someone who will..." [future tense].

Veni said:

Numbers (0-9) 10 symbols
Alphabet (A-Z) 26 symbols

Total 36 symbols

Add all the numbers from 1 to 36 you get 666.

The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.

(Alphabet & number speak to men)

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Beni you must have read some Babylonian history. They made a medallion with the numbers 1-36 they added them up to 666 which they also posted the numbers 666 onto it. It represented the number of false idols they worshiped. Now Babylonian empire was the first to be represented within the beast that had seven kings. At the time John received the revelation five kings had already ruled the sixth king was in power. That would be the Roman Empire. One was yet to come making all seven ruling at their appointed time. But an eighth king would come having an allegiance with ten kings. It is written the number of the beast is 666. Once you understand who the beast is and what it represents then you will begin how the number 666 is applied. The number truly is the number of a man. It’s origin is from man and is applied to the beast.