Great Question. There are two basic reasons why I don’t think it refers to Islam.

1) The original audience is said to be able to understand what 666 refers to. Yet, Islam did not come onto the scene for another 600 years itself. John certainly could have referred to a future religious movement if he wanted, but we don’t see any clues to that in the text. I don’t think he would have indicated something so radically unknown as mentioning Allah, a name that no one had used yet- unless they were referring to the God of Israel/Christianity. Also, the long version of 666 in Greek is ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ, so I ‘m not sure how that resembles “Bismillah.”

2) The second reason is that John makes it awfully clear that the number is “the number of a man” (ἀριθμὸς γὰρ ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν).
In order for it to be an entire belief system (which I agree with you, in terms of John’s epistles, it is Anti-Christ) is to ignore the fact that John tells us it is a man. Of course, the man stands for a a group, but I don’t think the group he stands for (the first beast) religious, but political. I don’t think we can deny that it is Rome. So the task here is that you would have to show that the number refers a group instead of a man that leads a group, and that the group some how has ties to first century Rome. By this I mean that they were exercising authority in Rome in the first century. Islam does not fit any of these.

It’s not that I don’t think God just left out Islam for no reason, I just don’t think that it was pertinent to the purpose of the New Testament- the coming of the Kingdom in Christ, its spread throughout the nation via preaching, His return, the consummation of the Kingdom, and eternity in the new heavens and new earth. Sure, Islam can be seen in some of the warning passages about those who would kill Christians, and the antichrist passages of John, but that’s because they were generic.

About your third question, there are a couple things to remember. Just because the key was “lost” doesn’t mean it couldn’t be found again. Just because we disagree with a church father doesn’t mean we cannot be confident. I disagree with Irenaeus on several things, including a future millennium. Ire probably knew of the Nero designation, but because he rejected a past fulfillment, he would have rejected the “key” as such. He didn’t offer a definite answer, but a few guesses. This is expected considering his futuristic view. His premillennial view doesn’t persuade me from my amillennial view either. Also, Ire has been shown to just simply be wrong sometimes, including the age of Jesus (~50 years old).

On the quote by Mounce, it is confusing because he is a late date advocate. I quoted him from Gentry to show how much weight the original audience is to understanding the text. I.E. even a futurist understands the importance of the understanding of the original audience! As for the close associates, I understood it as meaning his audience. I think it was a poor word choice on Mounce’s part. Either way I believe the “key” would have been known by a wider audience, and not just a close circle of friends. I agree it was written for more than John’s inner circle, but the church as a whole going through the persecution. It’s the same as many of the OT prophecies of Christ, they were for a specific audience, but it is also for a wider audience, and beneficial to the church for all time.

God bless, and thanks for the interaction!

I understand what you are saying about interpreting the book based on its context and understanding it as it was intended to be understood by the original audience. I also understand that (at least as far as prophecy is concerned) most of the book is irrelevant today, if the preterist position is correct (As far as I’m go, i lean towards the pertial-preterist position right now). Maybe I didn’t state what I meant very clearly, but my reservation was not with the timing of events, but with the quote by Mounce that made it sound like John wrote the letter to only a few of his close friends. It seems clear that it was written to the 7 churches. Or maybe that is what Mounce intended to say, but I just misinterpreted it.

Thanks for the info about the Gematria. I’ll h\ave to read more about it.

It is interesting to me, now that you have pointed it out, how John included both a greek and hebrew audince in his writing. That clears up one of my issues with this, since the early church undoubtedly had a large number of hellenistic jewish people.

The reason I commented on Iraneus not figuring it out, is that if he was that close to the events, and it was to be easily understood by the original audience, I find it hard to believe that what the 666 meant couldn’t have made it through 1 generation. That also leads to my reservation about us today having so much confidence that we’ve figured it out when hundreds of generations have now passed.

Thanks for the help though, you have put part of my reservations at ease!

Dave <

PS Just curious, are you a full or partial preterist?