666, Revelation, and preterism

Richard_I

On reddit, there's a post about how 666 is mistranslated as 616 in Revelation (thread). However, someone posted this very interesting comment which I thought I would share here:

666 and 616 are both correct. If you read into revelations, very little is presented as actual prophecy- it's an analogous tale to describe the roman empire during their persecution of Christianity.

666 and 616 come from the Hebrew tradition of converting words into numerical values. The Roman emporer, Nero, can either be written as נרון קסר (Neron Kaiser), or נרו קסר (Nero Caeser), which numerically represent 666 and 616 respectively.

This becomes more evident as you read the description of the beast;

And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

The 7 kings are the emporer's of rome, Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius are the kings who have fallen, Nero is the one who is being described, and Galba was to succeed him (remember, this was a retelling, not a prophecy.

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies

Which is likely a reference to the roman emperor worship, and how Nero called himself the sun god Apollo

and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

As Nero's campaign against christianity began in 64 AD and ended 3 and a half years later.

and the final line makes it obvious that the number was made to that end:

Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

ie, if you know how our system works, it should be obvious what we're talking about.

tl;dr, there's a large school of thought that the revelations section of the new testament is not a description of a coming apocalypse, but a teaching of the origins of Christianity, and their struggle with roman persecution.

You can see the comment here. I have never heard of this, and it is apparantly the preterism view of Revelation. IMO it makes a lot of sense viewing Revelation from this point of view. Just thought I'd share the comment.

Crazyguy

I used to think preterism had some major points and now I am certain of it. The Flavius family were the ones that really shaped christianity and the Jesus like messiah a pacifist against Rome and violence which is contrary to what the Jewish messiah was to be. The Flaviouses were not fans of the previous roman ruling family that of Julius Caesar which included Nero. They set up the timeline of Jesus and his travels to coincide with that of Titus and his campaign against the jewish rebels. There are several (40) parallels between the historical writings of Josephus traveling with Titus and that of Jesus. And the fall of Jerusalem is a telling of Titus destroying the city. Titus is the real Jesus.. Joseph Atwell lays this all out in his book which I'm going to buy. Anyway the Flavious family are the ones responsible for the rise of christianity.

Cold Steel

Preterism is a way of looking at scripture and de-eschatologizing it. It's very popular among European theologians who want to rid scripture of its miraculous properties and replace it with, to them, more "reasonable" exegesis. Alas, it's like the guy who took apart a computer and, when he reassembled it had done such a good job that he had some parts left over. When one examines the scripture in its whole context and sees references to Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah and others, he has parts left over that are difficult to explain. For example, the invasion of Israel prophesied in the scriptures in many ways is similar to the invasion of Palestine by the Romans. But the scripture portends an entirely different ending. The Jews, in fact, believed that they would be delivered from the Romans by their Messiah because of the scriptures that already existed. But instead, God delivered the Jews to the Romans and he let the temple go. John, however, spoke of the day in which Judah would not be abandoned and the temple would not be destroyed; but that they would be saved in that day when the Messiah would come, and his feet would stand upon the Mount of Olives and that he would destroy the Beast and his military machine and save the Jews and rededicate the temple. So these are the parts left over. Where were the two prophets of Revelation 11? And their resurrection? And the destruction of the Beast? And the return of the Savior in the clouds of Heaven? All these are the remaining pieces which are not taken into account by Preterism.

RayPublisher

Fascinating OP- another piece of the puzzle IMO. I believe this is why most (if not all) fundamentalist Christians are off on their theology of some future arrival of Christ to swoop in and fix the world's woes.

Doug Mason

The Hebrews did not "convert" letters into numbers. Each of the 22 letters of the alphabet is assigned a number, so that a number is a sequence of letters, regardless of the order they are placed. This makes calculation impossible, as with Roman the numeral system.

It took until the recent Middle Ages before the current numbering system and consequent mathematics was introduced into Europe from North Africa (name of the guy responsible is on the tip of my brain but refuses to emerge from the depths). European science (especially astronomical calculations and observations) was dragged from mythology into genuine enquiry through its contact with the scientists and mathematicians of the Islamic world.

But getting back to the Hebrews and their fascination between numbers and words - search for: Gematria.

Many Jews were/are similarly interested in the esoteric. Search for Kabbalah and Kabbalistic.

Doug

Island Man

Here's a video that is in line with the OP:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkZqFtYtqaI