666616?
That’s a question some folks are asking themselves right now. Actually, they’ve been asking that question for a while, but they just started asking it more insistently. Lemme ‘splain why:
Y’know those Oxyrhynchus manuscripts they’ve been reading lately? Well,
Of course, the press is already getting the story wrong. The above link, for example, goes to a story headlined:
Revelation! 666 is not the number of the beast (it’s a devilish 616)
I’m sorry, but we just can’t say this with that kind of certainty.
Y’see . . .
The discovery of a manuscript with the number 616 isn’t exactly news.
Over yonder to the left, for example, is a photo of manuscript P115 (sorry I can’t do the fancy Germanic P)–also found at Oxyrhynchus, incidentally–which also gives the number of the beast as 616–only we’ve had it for a long time.
What’s why if you look in the footnotes for Revelation 13 in your Bible (assuming it’s a modern translation), you’ll see a note saying that the number may be 616 instead of 666.
So all they’ve turned up now is yet another manuscript saying this. But if the evidence we had wasn’t decisive, adding one more manuscript to the pile won’t settle things.
Especially when the new manuscript is reportedly from the late 3rd century.
So it’s still undecided what the number originally was.
A favorite conjecture (though only a conjecture) is that the origin of the discrepancy has to do with the spelling of Nero’s name. The Emperor Nero fits the description of the beast really well, and it happens that his name adds up to 666 in Aramaic if you spell it NRWN QSR, which is one of the ways it was historically spelled. But it was also speled NRW QSR, which adds up to . . . you guessed it! 616. (N = 50 in Aramaic numbering.)
I am intrigued by something the Independent article mentions, though.
Y’see, there’s more than one Roman emperor who fits the description of the beast really well. The other is Gaius Caesar, better known to the world as Caligula.
Caligula did all kinds of beast-like things: He wanted people to worship him as a god, he tried to have a image of him put in the Jewish Temple, he had a "head wound" (blazingly intense headaches coupled with what may have been a nervous breakdown) from which he recovered and came back mad as a hatter, he slaughtered tons of people, etc., etc., etc.
He then was followed by the similarly beast-like Nero (with the milder Claudius in between them).
Many scholars, putting the book of Revelation in the A.D. 90s (which is much too late in my opinion) have looked at the revival of the beast and thought it’s based on the "Nero Revividus" rumors that circulated in the late first century. These were the ancient equivalent of the "Hitler ain’t dead" rumors that were found in the mid 20th century. According to Nero Revividus, Nero really didn’t die but was in hiding, waiting for his chance to come back and persecute everybody all over again.
Since I place Revelation earlier than that, before A.D. 70 (since it speaks as if the Jewish Temple is still standing), I’ve wondered whether the the revival of the beast isn’t something else. Caligula fits the beast so well–in some ways better than Nero–that I’ve wondered whether Revelation means us to understand that Nero is or will become a revived Caligula, or that there is an emperor yet to be elected (Nero, possibly Domitian) who will be a revived Caligula. In any event, I’ve wondered for some time whether Caligula isn’t much more central to the beast than interpreters generally credit.
So here’s the interesting thing that the Independent mentions:
The number 616 was applied to Caligula.
I did some checking, and folks have found a couple of ways that his name might equal 616. In Hebrew (and therefore Aramaic, which uses the same alphabet and numbering system), "Gaius Caligula Caesar" appears to equal 616. Also in Greek "Gaius Caesar" equals 616. Here’s the math:
ARAMAIC:
Gamal = 3
Simkath = 60
Qop = 100
Lamed = 30
Gamal = 3
Simkath = 60
Qop = 100
Simkath = 60
Resh = 200
Total = 616
GREEK:
Gamma = 3
Alpha = 1
Iota = 10
Omicron = 70
Sigma = 200
Kappa = 20
Alpha = 1
Iota = 10
Sigma = 200
Alpha = 1
Rho = 100
Total = 616
Interesting!
(Incidentally, I also thought the comment by satanist guy in the Observer article was also refreshingly honest.)
Oh, one other thing: Last go-round some folks asked what if the Oxyrhynchus papyri turned up different versions of existing books of Scripture? Would the Church accept them? As manuscript evidence, yes, as the case of P115 illustrates. As definitive replacements, no–the Observer’s attempt to canonize the new manuscript notwithstanding.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)
