In this post I want to summarize the series and give you a list of sources that I used. Also, in a series on the number 666, I couldn’t help by have 6 posts. Ok, it wasn’t really planned that way, but it certainly did work out.
In the first post, I looked at the context of the book of Revelation. I pointed out that John was writing to be understood by his original audience. This is seen in Revelation 1.1 and throughout. He was writing during a time of persecution, and wanted to give them a call to endurance and hope. If John was writing to be understood, then the enigma behind the number 666 is expected to be something that could be understood by his audience in the first century. This removes quite a bit of sensationalistic thinking as we approach our study.
In the second post, I looked at the first beast from Revelation 13. Using the symbolism of Revelation 13, and and interpretation given to John by an angel in Revelation 17, I showed that the first beast is a political entity that can be understood generically as the Roman Empire, and particularly as Nero. Revelation also gave us a clue as to the date of writing in Revelation 17, which was during the reign of the 6th King, Nero, as supported by contemporary leasts of Caesers.
In the third post, I took a brief look at the second beast from Revelation 13. This was a brief look because the identity of the first beast is not contingent on the identity of the second beast, but is obviously connected. From the context of the chapter and from the Gospels and Acts, we can see that he second best (from the land) is most likely the apostate Jewish leaders, who were aligned with Rome.
In the fourth post, we looked at the resurrection of the first beast. I briefly mentioned the Nero redivivus myth, and attempted to show that this myth does not necessarily have anything to do the resurrection mentioned in Revelation 13. Instead, the idea of the resurrection is best understood in terms of the Roman Empire. The wound certainly corresponds to both Rome and Nero, as Nero’s suicide brought an end to the Julio-Claudian lineage of Caesars and threw Rome into civil wars that seemed to be the end of the Empire. Yet, after a quick succession of Emperors, the Flavian family took the throne under Vespasian, restoring stability to the empire, thus the “mortal wound was healed.”
In the fifth post, I finally got down to the meat of the number 666, with the context of Revelation and chapter 13 as a solid foundation. I looked at how John plainly tells us that the number refers to the name of a man, and that the man is the personification of the first beast, the Roman Empire. We looked at how the use of gematria, the use of letters as their numerical equivalents, was used by John to point out that he was talking about Nero. Nero’s name is equal to 666 in Hebrew, which John thinks in while writing Greek. I then mentioned that there is a textual variant, 616, which further strengthens the case that Nero was in mind because Nero’s name in latin, transliterated into Hebrew, equals 616. The textual variant appears early enough to be significant, and probably an intentional change made by a copyist.
After taking in all the internal and external evidence, it seems clear to me that John used the number 666 to refer to Nero, the Roman Caesar.
Sources used:
The main source that I used was:
Gentry, Kenneth. Before Jerusalem Fell.
Other Sources:
Chilton, David. Days of Vengence: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation
DeMar, Gary. The Mark of the Beast– 666 or 616?
Gentry, Kenneth. The Beast of Revelation Identified (Essentially a slimmed down article based off of chapters in Before Jerusalem Fell)
Sproul, R.C. The Last Days According to Jesus. (Used sporadically)
.
RSS/XML Feed:
Email:
