Number of the Beast: Encyclopedia - Number of the Beast

Number of the Beast

The Number of the Beast is mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the Christian New Testament and has long been accepted to be 666. In some interpretations of Christian eschatology the "Beast" is believed to refer to an Antichrist.

The number 666 has many mathematical properties, some more interesting than others.

Number of the Beast - References from the book of Revelation

• Mark of the Beast

• Number of the Beast

The Greek manuscripts (actually copies of the prototype were written in Greek, although others argue the originals were written in Hebrew) do not literally render the phrase as six-six-six (three Greek words for six in a row -- εξ εξ εξ) but as χξϛ´ (it is 666 in Greek numerical form) or sometimes six hundred sixty-six (Greek: ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ):

The Greek text of Codex Alexandrinus of the New Testament reads:

In the New American Bible, Revelation 13:18 reads:

In the King James Version, we see:

In the Good News Bible, the same verse runs:

The Vulgate also spells out the Number of the Beast:

Number of the Beast - Mentions outside the book of Revelation

The number 666 is also seen in the Old Testament book of II Chronicles; verse 9:13 reads (KJV) and in its parallel (1Ki 10:14):

The number is also in the genealogy (Ezr 2:13, see also Neh 7:18):

Number of the Beast - Alternative numbers

While most manuscripts of the Bible read six-hundred-sixty-six or 666 for the Number of the Beast in Revelation 13:18, some early manuscripts contain 616 instead. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (5th century) and Papyrus 115 (3rd or 4th century). Irenaeus knew about the reading 616, but according to Metzger, Bruce M. (1971). A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, New York: United Bible Societies. ISBN 3-438-06010-8., p. 751, Irenaeus "says that 666 'is found in all good and ancient copies,' and is 'attested by those who had themselves seen John face to face.'" The minuscule manuscript 2344 (11th century) identifies the Number of the Beast as 665.

In May 2005 it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques had been able to read previously illegible portions of an early (third century) version of the Book of Revelation, part of its Oxyrhynchus collection of papyri. The fragment gives the Number of the Beast as 616. Scholars now believe the number in question has very little to do with the devil. It was actually a complicated numerical riddle in Greek, meant to represent someone's name. "It's a number puzzle — the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero." Alternative spellings of his name, Neron and Nero, can explain the presence of both 666 and 616 in the records, since dropping the last 'n' changes its numerical value from 666 to 616 ('n' representing 50).

Number of the Beast - Theological interpretations

• First Interpretation (Regarding both of Number and Mark)

Thus the total of the word = 5 + 1=6   = ϛ  
                                   +                            
                             30+30=60  = ξ
                                   +
                                   600 = χ = χξϛ = (600)(60)(6)=666.    

                             Sword figure. 

   Image of the Beast which had the wound by a sword, and did live.    

• Second Interpretation (Regarding the Number of the Beast)

• Third Interpretation (Regarding the Number of the Beast)

                r    S    q     n   w    r    n 
        666 = 200 + 60 + 100 + 50 + 6 + 200 + 50

                r    S    q    w    r    n 
        616 = 200 + 60 + 100 + 6 + 200 + 50

• Fourth Interpretation (Regarding the Mark of Beast)

Number of the Beast - Jewish view

Number of the Beast - Culture and psychology

The number 666 retains a peculiar significance in the culture and psychology of Western societies. Just as many people try to avoid the "unlucky" number 13 (a fear of which is called "triskaidekaphobia"), so people find ways to avoid the "Devil's number", even in contexts that would seem on first sight to be far removed from superstition. The fear of the number 666 is known as "Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia".

For example, when the giant CPU manufacturer Intel introduced the 666 MHz Pentium III in 1999, they chose to market it as the Pentium III 667 on the pretext that, since the actual clock speed was 666.666 MHz, 667 was the more accurate approximation—conveniently ignoring their own usual rounding practice: as examples, consider the earlier 66.666 MHz 486-66, the 466.666 MHz Celeron 466, or the later 866.666 MHz Pentium III 866.

In another instance, U.S. Highway 666, "the Highway of the Beast," was renumbered in 2003 after controversy over the supposed reference to the Biblical beast. See [1].

Number of the Beast - In popular culture

The Left Behind series uses various representations of 666 to identify people who have pledged allegiance to the Antichrist. For example, Carpathia ordered the number 216 (6 x 6 x 6) for his office suite, for the aircraft model of Global Community One, and for the loyalty mark region number for the United Carpathian States. His relative, Viv Ivins, has a "666" name, since VI VI VI is Roman for three individual 6s.

In the short film The Backpack, 666 is used as the lock combination to contain the evils of the backpack.

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange visually represented Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as the Beast during a scene where he is accosted by two police officers who are identified as 665 and 667.

Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" features a briefcase that is opened by the passcode 666. The retrieval of the briefcase is one of the major plots of the movie and belongs to Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), who is portrayed as a souless, evil man.

SLC Punk contains a scene in which the main character reveals the number "666" tattooed on his buttocks to a pair of fundamentalist Christians conversing about the end of times.

End of Days, directed by Peter Hyams, supposes as a plot point that the number represented in Revelation was actually seen upside down in a dream and should have actually been 999. This ignores the reality that Hindu-Arabic numerals were probably not invented until ca. 400 AD, and only reached the Middle East by 670 AD, whereas Revelation is considered to have been written in the first century AD.

The Omen and its sequels (a series of horror films about the Antichrist) have the Mark Of The Beast found under the hair as an apparent birthmark on the scalp of the character Damien Thorn. The 666 was explained to mean the Unholy Trinity: The Devil, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. The movie was released on 6 June 1976—the sixth day of the sixth month, that is.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose, directed by Scott Derrickson, has many references to the number "666". Emily, who is supposedly possessed by demons, counts to six several times, "One, Two, Three, Four, Five, SIX!!!!". The demons inside her claim that they dwelled also within "Nero" who is presumed to be Nero Caesar.

Pi, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is about a character who is faced with a choice to sell his mathematical mind to Wall Street or to a group of Hasidic Jews, illustrating themes of materialism, numerology, and mysticism. With his elaborate home computer setup and complex algorithm the protagonist decipers a predictable pattern in the stock market, and the computer spits out a 216 digit number each time before the system crashes, in recurring epiphanic moments of Icarus-like masochism. As the character falls into madness and before he gives himself a lobotomy, he says again and again "it's not the number; it's what's inside the number." 216 is the cube of 6, or 216 = 6*6*6. The golden ratio is discussed in the movie. The golden ratio's graphical representation is a spiral spun over time with a growing radius, similar to the appearance of the number 6, if the ratio's curve is represented in a single segmented curl.

The Phantom of the Opera musical, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, opens with an auction, in which the lot number of the restored chandelier is 666.

The Heretic Anthem, by hard rock band, Slipknot, features the lyric "If you are 555, then I am 666." In this case, 555 refers to man as 777 refers to God. It is not meant to be satanic but a denial of being a part of mankind.

While the association is not clearly Satanic in nature, and usually is not construed to promote Satanism, a reference to the number "666" may be the cause for the controversial assignment of the "Parental Advisory" designation to the HIM album Razorblade Romance, generally considered innocuous as it contains no profanity or sexually explicit language yet contains a song called "Your Sweet 666".

In Robert A. Heinlein's book Number of the Beast, "666" is actually six to the sixth to the sixth power, which in the novel is the number of possible dimensions/universes that may be reached in one step using the main inventor's device.

The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden have made an album titled The Number of the Beast. The title track quotes from the Bible and the lyrics refer to "six six six - the number of the beast". Flotsam and Jetsam made a song called "6 Six VI". The Australian black metal band Deströyer 666 also used Satanic imagery and lyrics, though in somewhat of a tongue-and-cheek way. Entombed have made an album called DCLXVI - To ride straight and speak the Truth (DCLXVI is the Roman numeral for 666).

The Greek progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child made a concept album 666 based on the Book of Revelation.

The gothic metal band Saviour Machine created the Legend album series about the end of times, in which numerous references occur in both lyrics and background vocals (such as readings from the Bible). The fifth track of the album Legend part II is particularly named "Mark of The Beast".

Industrial rock band Marilyn Manson released its album Antichrist Superstar on June 6, 1996 (the 6th day of the 6th month).

ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and Yahoo! give the Slovakian-born ice hockey player Miroslav Šatan the ID number of 666 in their databases, likely as a joke about his last name, which is similar to Satan.

The relatively popular, and controversial Xenosaga video game series thus far features three characters named Albedo, Rubedo (Jr.), and Nigredo (Gaignun), and as U.R.T.V. are the 667th, 666th, and 669th clones of Dmitri Yuriev respectively.

It is often quipped that 667 is "the Neighbour of the Beast" although this is possibly country-dependent as 668 (and 664) would be next property on the same side of the street in most, but not all, countries (assuming that the neighbours referred to are next-door neighbours). There are also at least two filk songs on this topic. Additional quips suggest that 1-888-666-6666 is "the Toll-Free Number of the Beast", $665.99 is "the Retail Price of the Beast", 00666 is "the ZIP Code of the Beast", 0.666 is "the Number of the Millibeast", Route 666 is "the highway of the Beast", 6.5013 is "the natural logarithm of the Beast", 333 is a devil doing a half-assed job, the root of all evil being √666 = 25.8068, etc

6.66, One Hundredth of the Number of the Beast is the name of the only song by the fictional Australian rock band Salmon Hater. Adam Spencer and Wil Anderson, then hosts of the Triple J [2] radio breakfast show, invented the band as a joke one morning. A fan of the show soon composed this song for the pretend band, and a video clip was also made later. Now with the speculation that the number 616 is the real number of the beast, it has come to light that 616 used to be the country number and area code of Canberra, the Capital of Australia, and home to the nation's Government. However the area code was changed from 6 to 2 in 1997. 666 AM is the frequency for ABC local radio in Canberra. Comedian Andrew Denton once noted on The Money or the Gun that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's contact address (GPO Box 9994), when turned upside down read "666... and some kind of upside-down cross." The GPO Box number was actually named so as a tribute to Don Bradman who retired with a career average of 99.94.

The third and final book in the Before They Were Left Behind series is scheduled to be released on June 6, 2006, or the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year.

In The Pixies song "Monkey Gone To Heaven" the lyrics state that "If man is 5...then the devil is 6...then God is 7" suggesting that man is represented as 555, the devil as 666, and God as 777.

In the role-playing game In Nomine, rolling three dice in one go and getting a six on each one produces a result that is favourable for a demon character and detrimental to an angel character. Some Christian organizations and persons who viewed Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy RPGs as harmful games (see RPG controversy) objected to any rules where rolling 6+6+6=18 on three six-sided dice lead to the most benefical results. (For example, classic D&D uses 3d6 for rolling ability scores, and 18 is the best possible score.)

-2·Sin(666°) evaluates to (√5 + 1)/2 which is the Golden Ratio.

New Zealand pizza company Hell Pizza plays on the number of the beast for its phone number, which is then followed by a 111, which is the emergency phone number in New Zealand. It is commonly quipped that the number means "go to hell for an emergency."

In John Carpenter's Escape From L.A., the code that will shut down the world's power and in the end civilization is "666".

WARNING: Plot spoilers follow

The American TV series 'Seven Days' is about a government-based team who can go back in time by one week only. In the episode 'Revelation' they encounter a man claiming to be their successor from seven years in the future. This distant time-traveller (Major Michael McGrath, played by Robert Picardo), has a time-traveller's barcode barcode tattooed in his arm -- the number 666. McGrath has come to assassinate an outspoken Muslim peace activist in an effort to spark World War 3.

Number of the Beast - Speculation and trivia

Former U.S. president Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in his first, middle, and last name. He also lived in Bel-Air California, in house number 666 on his block, until wife Nancy Reagan had it changed to 668. Another interesting numerological oddity regarding Reagan, is that the sum of the enumerated phrase "Ronald Reagan President and Chief Executive of the United States of America" equals 666. Some Rastafarians and others believed he was the Beast. Other Christian groups led by Herb Peters and Constance E. Cumbey point the finger at Javier Solana. Coincidentally, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran referred to Reagan, and the U.S. in general, as "the Great Satan."

Nelson Mandela's Robben Island prisoner number was 46664.

Javier Solana was appointed High Representative of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy, by joint action number 666 by the European Council.

The first Apple Computer, the Apple I was sold for $666.66.

The numbers on a roulette table (1 to 36) sum to 666.

Stanley Kubrick (director of 2001: A Space Odyssey) died 666 days before January 1, 2001.

0.666 is approximately two-thirds of one whole, one short of all three thirds. Because three is the number of the trinity, it may be that the number is meant to represent being in communion with God only in the mind and spirit (but not the body). A recurring theme in most Christian Bible versions of the latter chapters of Revelation is Satan's attacks upon the human body. Then again, it must also be considered that two out of three is not bad.

A widespread conspiracy theory concerns the EAN or UPC bar codes, instituted in 1974, and found on most consumer products. The "control codes" in the left, middle, and right of the code appear on initial inspection to represent the number "6". Because of this, all EAN/UPC codes (so the theory goes) contain the number 666. One interpretation of the Book of Revelation indicates that the Number of the Beast is required for all business transactions — a role that the EAN/UPC code certainly fits. Also the inventor of the UPC code, George J. Laurer, has six letters in his first, middle, and last name [3], and, as of 2004, exactly 666 prefixes (out of possible 1000) are assigned in the EAN-13 namespace [4]. (Unfortunately, the control codes only appear to represent the number six if one is unaware that both the black bars and the spaces in between them are used to encode information.)

The anti-impotence drug Viagra has a molecular weight of 666.7 g/mol.

All Garda (police) station phone numbers in Dublin, Ireland start with 666. [5]

The A666 is a main road from Pendlebury to Langho in England. In the 1980's that prompted CB radio users to codename it "The Devil's Highway".

In the Dutch translation of Dan Brown's best-selling novel Angels and Demons (translated title Het Bernini Mysterie), the discussion of 666 is on page 333. 333 is 666 divided by 2. The numbers 2 and 5 have special significance to the Illuminati, a group that is pivotal to the novel's plot.

In Marvel Comics, parallel universes are represented by numbers. The main Marvel Universe (which is also supposed to be the same universe as ours) is known as Universe 616.

The bassist of the animated band Gorillaz, Murdoc Niccals, was born June 6th, 1966 (jokingly referring to his membership in the Church of Satan).

In Japan, the yen comes in coins of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500. If you have one of each coin, you have 666 yen.

The code for the mysterious briefcase in Pulp Fiction is 666.

Many phone numbers in Hsinchu, Taiwan begin with "666."

In Canada, dialing the seven digit number "666-6666" with the area code of "604" will give you a non-working branch of the Canadian government.

In Mexico, local phone numbers were updated from an 8-digit format with variable-length area code/number combinations to a standard 12-digit fixed combination (3-digit area codes, 7-digit phone numbers except for Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.) The City of Tijuana ended up with area code 666, but after various protests from the local townspeople it was changed to 664. Ironically, because of high drug-related crime rate, the city is known as the Mexican Sin City'.

On 06/06/06 the sun will be between the horns of Zodic sign, Taurus.

The octal number 666 is used in setting up authorizations in the Unix Operating System. It offers read and write access to all users, and is only limited by the permissions of directories above or different permission schemes, e.g. ACLs. This matches the Revelation ('13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the Mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. ') in that this could be a way to allow or disallow people to buy anything (the Mark of the Beast as a personal body mark easily readable by automated cashiers in a cashless society).

This also leads to speculations that software manufacturer Microsoft, and its founder, Bill Gates, are evil [6], as Bill Gates, evaluated in ASCII, sums up to 663, which, when added with 3 (his complete name is William Henry Gates III,) becomes 666. Counting the space as one, Windows 95 also sums to 666.

The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is "waw" (or "vav"). This is the closest approximation of the English letter "w". Also in the Hollerith Card (sometimes called an IBM Punch-Card) a zero zone punch and a six numeric punch in a column signified the letter W. Thus the ubiquitous acronym "www" could be the Number of the Beast. Also, the number 6 in Roman numerals is represented as VI. 666 = VIVIVI, and it has been suggested that visions from the past mistook WWW for it.

A known one-liner refers to the editor vi: VIVIVI, the Editor of the Beast.

The internet access provider firm Demon Internet http://www.demon.net/ has many telephone numbers (voice, and computer dialup) that contain 666, and sometimes sequences of three copies of other digits.

Another speculation is that computer=666. If we encode the English alphabet where every letter is a multiple of 6: a=6, b=12, c=18, ..., z=156 then we have "computer" = 666 = (3*6)+(15*6)+(13*6)+(16*6)+(21*6)+(20*6)+(5*6)+(18*6). Since "beasts" such as oxen, horses and donkeys were used as machines in ancient times, one can infer “beast” in modern times meaning "machine" or "computer". Since computers were developed by English speaking people it is plausible that the numerical decoding should be via English, such that one interprets “leading the development” as “riding the head of the beast”.

TCP/IP port 666 is officially registered to ID Software, the publishers of the Doom series of games, for multiplayer game communication across a network; this is obviously a gimmick. Port 616 is officially registered to SCO System Administration Server, much to the amusement of SCO's critics.

See also

• Antichrist
• Bible Code
• Numerology
• 2012: Appointment With Marduk (A book proposing a Sumerian source for the number 666)
• Endtime Ministries
• RFID (see Google)
• Dispensationalism
• Covenantalism
• Futurism
• Left Behind
• Christian right
• Summary of Christian eschatological differences

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Number of the Beast", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast, used and available under the GNU Free Documentation License.