Did you get the number of that Beast?

#58: “Did you get the number of that Beast?” by Brendon Wahlberg
Last time, we talked about apocalypses in general, learning about which features are shared by all apocalyptic writings. This month, I thought it might be interesting to consider one of the most famous details from the most famous of apocalypses: the “Number of the Beast” from the Revelation of John.
“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names.” (Revelation 13:1) “Then I saw another beast that rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed. It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of all; and by the signs that it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, it deceives the inhabitants of earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived; and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” (Revelation 13:11-18)
This is a typical apocalyptic passage, full of symbolism and weird visions. But what makes this passage so famous is that cryptic number of the beast. 666 has entered into modern popular culture, inspiring everything from the name of an Iron Maiden album to a literal number mark on the head of horror movie character “Damien” in The Omen. Damien’s “666” birthmark in the movie is a good example of how the number of the beast has been misinterpreted in rather silly ways. But if 666 is not a birthmark on the son of the devil, what is the real meaning of the number, and how does one figure it out?
Apocalyptic writings were meant to reassure the faithful that although they were suffering, God was soon to intervene in history and bring about the defeat of the enemies of God’s people. For John of Patmos, the writer of Revelation, the enemy was Rome, and God’s people were the followers of Jesus. But to reassure the faithful, copies of John’s book had to be passed around. And if the enemy found a copy, then it was probably unwise for that copy to contain unambiguous and treasonous denunciations of the Roman Emperor. Instead, the book was better off describing Rome’s evil in symbolic terms, terms that the Christian reader would understand, but which a Roman official or soldier might not.
That’s why the passage above says, “This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number…” The wise, the ones with understanding, were the suffering Christian readers who needed the message the most. But the symbolism allowed the writer to stop just short of openly attacking Rome in writing. For example, in Revelation 17, the city of Rome itself is described in symbolic terms as “a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads…” Furthermore, it says that “on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.’” The book goes on to say again that the symbolism has to be understood correctly by the faithful. “‘This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated…” The Roman capital stood on seven hills. Babylon was a great city which had historically caused great suffering for Israel, as described in scripture, and Rome was doing the same thing in John’s time, so it follows that this passage is really talking about Rome.
If the passage about the mystery of Babylon was supposed to be easy to interpret, then what about the number of the beast? John says that 666 is the number of a person, and that it should be “calculated”. What does that mean? Although this sounds confusing, it is probably a reference to “Gematria,” the practice of assigning numerical values to letters of the alphabet. This has been done with the Hebrew language since antiquity. There are several systems which have been used. One of them, the Mispar Gadol, is shown in the following chart.


Aleph 1 Yod 10 Qoph 100
Beth 2 Kaph 20 Resh 200
Gimel 3 Lamed 30 Shin 300
Daleth 4 Mem 40 Tav 400
He 5 Nun 50
Vav 6 Samech 60
Zayin 7 Ayin 70
Heth 8 Pe 80
Teth 9 Tsadi 90

As you can see, if each letter has a number value, then a person’s name can be turned into a number, by adding up the values of each letter. And likewise, a number can be turned into a name, by figuring out which letters add up to the total number. It is easy to calculate a number from a name, but hard to come up with just one name from a number! When you think about it, there are so many names that could add up to the same number. But John expected his readers to guess which name had letters with values that added up to 666. It was harder than it looked! Maybe that is why John also gave several other clues to the identity of the person who was such a beast to the Christians. The reader could use the other clues to guess who it was, and then check their math with gematria, just to be sure. But a Roman reading the apocalypse would be left scratching his head.
The most widely held theory is that 666 refers to the infamous Emperor Nero Caesar (54-68CE). After a huge fire in Rome, Nero blamed Christians and persecuted and tortured Jesus’ followers. Peter and Paul died under Nero. How does Nero’s name fit with the 666 puzzle? I checked good old Wikipedia to see how it added up. Here’s what they had to say: The Greek spelling, "Nerōn Kaisar", transliterates into Hebrew as "נרון קסר" or nrwn qsr. Adding the corresponding values yields 666, as shown (remember, Hebrew is written from right to left):
Resh (ר) Samech (ס) Qoph (ק) Nun (נ) Vav (ו) Resh (ר) Nun (נ)
200 60 100 50 6 200 50 = 666
So far, so good, right? However, not all ancient copies of Revelation have the number 666 in them. Remember, we don’t have any original manuscripts of any book of the Bible. We have a large number of later copies, and among these copies, there are some differences. A good study Bible will note where these ancient manuscripts differ. In short, a minority of texts has the number 616 instead of 666. Can Nero still be the beast if the number is 616? Maybe. It turns out that in Hebrew, the final “n” in “Neron” is optional. It could have been written as Nero or Neron, either way. And if you take away the value of a “nun” (see the chart above), you get 666 – 50 = 616. Voila. Nero can fit both numbers.
But if Nero was the beast of Revelation, how does the passage fit with what we know about Nero from history? As the passage says, Nero Caesar used the power and authority of Rome to force people to worship the Emperor as a living god and “cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.” The passage also says that the beast “was wounded by the sword and yet lived”. It is unclear whether this can refer to Nero. Nero really died by the sword, committing suicide when faced with assassination. Of course, even though the villain Nero died, there were other Emperors who came after him. Most scholars think that Revelation was written around 95CE, after Nero died. That would date the book to the reign of Emperor Domitian, another infamous Emperor who persecuted Christians. Maybe Domitian was the beast, or maybe both Nero and Domitian were sort of combined and together represented by the beast. That is to say, Nero was the infamous, archetypical agent of Satan, and Domitian was his latest incarnation when John of Patmos was writing. And naturally, if you work at it, you can fit the name and titles of Domitian to the number 666 using Gematria.
The puzzles included in apocalypses sometimes cannot be solved for sure. It is that ambiguity that tempts people into taking the number of the beast and applying it to whoever is hated in the present day. But that may be a waste of effort. The ambiguity was not an invitation for us to guess “who is the beast” in our own time, but instead it was a way for the original author to avoid putting something in writing that could get him or others killed. An apocalypse was not meant to be a prediction of who would be an evil person in the distant future. It was meant to reassure the people reading it that, in their own time, the oppressors who threatened them were going to be defeated. Now, things may not have worked out exactly according to John’s vision, but consider this: a few hundred years later, Rome became a Christian Empire. The Lamb was victorious.