The Independent

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616.

The new fragment from the Book of Revelation, written in ancient Greek and dating from the late third century, is part of a hoard of previously unintelligible manuscripts discovered in historic dumps outside Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Now a team of expert classicists, using new photographic techniques, are finally deciphering the original writing.

Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, thinks that 616, although less memorable than 666, is the original. He said: 'This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula.'

The Book of Revelation is traditionally considered to be written by John, a disciple of Jesus; it identifies 666 as the mark of the Antichrist. In America, the fundamentalist Christian right often use the number in sermons about the coming Apocalypse.

They and satanists responded coolly to the new 'Revelation'. Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: 'By using 666 we're using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we'll start using that.'

Is Satan up to his old tricks or do we have to change?

The actual number was really much smaller. It was 3.14159265358979323846.

Tom

?

/Thomas

Since God does not change I would say that Satan is up to his old tricks.

Ronnie,

Is the opening post of your's from some sort of article? If so, could you inform us the source of that article?

It is interesting that in the only EGW reference we have on this number, she seems to refer to it as the number of the image beast.

“I saw all that ‘would not receive the mark of the Beast, and of his Image, in their foreheads or in their hands,’ could not buy or sell. I saw that the number (666) of the Image Beast was made up; and that it was the beast that changed the Sabbath, and the Image Beast had followed on after, and kept the Pope's, and not God's Sabbath. And all we were required to do, was to give up God's Sabbath, and keep the Pope's, and then we should have the mark of the Beast, and of his Image.” {Broadside3, April 7, 1847 par. 5}

Anyway, the true meaning of this number will only be known when the prophecy is fulfilled.

3.14159265358979323846 is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle, or pi

So Tom, mind if you share with the whole class about this Pi thing of yours...hmmmm?

It was admittedly an obscure comment. Go ahead. I'm anxious to see if you got it.

But why 3.14159265358979323846? Why not 42 or 999 or...?

/Thomas

pi doesn't really have an end to the number.... it keeps going on & on & on....... now, whenever I did any math problems in school, I hated that number. You can never get an exact number by using pi because in order to use it, you need to shorten the decimal number. Some people use tenths, some use hundredths, etc. Any way you look at it, it is inaccurate.

When I saw Tom's comment, I almost laughed, because just about any math student I have ever known thinks of that number as "evil" hehe.