Years ago I worked summers on a farm in Michigan, near a fundamentalist Christian community. This behavior came from a fear of having anything to do with the number , which some Christians have connected to Satan and see as a symbol of evil.
One wonders where all the fear about the sinister comes from, because the author provided some pretty good clues about its meaning right in the passage. Second, it stands for a real person, a specific historical figure. Unfortunately some Christians have forgotten the original historical context of the number.
This secret-code school of reading Revelation and other biblical prophetic books does get one thing right. Regardless of whether it refers to any historical entity, came to stand for the personification of evil over the centuries, thanks to the apocalyptic visions of the Book of Revelations. Some avoid the number out of fear of its evil associations, but others playfully revel in it.
The number evokes strong feelings in many people. Some Christians, for instance, might go out of their way to avoid the number. Others may use the number to evoke an air of darkness or find amusement in coincidental appearances of the number in popular culture or everyday occurrences. For Chinese gamers, has an altogether different meaning. Rock and heavy metal bands have also adopted the number. In , Deep Purple listed the play time of one of the songs on their album The Book of Taliesyn as , though the track is actually seven minutes and six seconds long.
Hence, each letter stood for a number. The problem is that no clear identification can be made linking with any particular ancient historical name. Attempts have been made to alter spellings and incorporate titles to try to make a multitude of names fit, but nothing conclusive has emerged. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to identify the number with other Roman emperors, or combinations of emperors. More than names were proposed in Britain between and Last century the names of Kaiser and Hitler, among others, have also been calculated to equal None of the many proposed solutions using the literal gematria form of calculation is ultimately satisfactory because there are so many names, ancient and modern, which could equal the number.
The reason for so many proposals, as one commentator says, is that it is easy to turn a name into a number, but complicated to deduce the right name from a number. If the number were intended to be identified with some ruler by means of such a literal calculation, it would be a rare exception from the way numbers are employed elsewhere in the book.
Numbers throughout Revelation have figurative significance and symbolize some spiritual reality. Does Satan Influence World Leaders? Why would Jesus need to be baptized? February When were dinosaurs created and are they mentioned in Scripture? March Why did Jesus tell those whom He healed to not to tell anyone about what He did?
Are there guardian angels? Who were on Golgotha during the crucifixion of Jesus? Did Jesus go to Hell before His physical resurrection? April What was written on the sign on the cross?
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