Where is 666

This article appeared in the October issue of U. Catholic Vol. Ask us at editors uscatholic. Where there is pain, there is God. About the author. Joel Schorn Joel Schorn is an editor and writer in Chicago. You may also like. Was the first Thanksgiving Catholic? Damian Costello. This text was originally written in ancient Greek, where numbers are written as letters, as they are in Hebrew - the other main language of the original Biblical texts.

For small numbers, the first letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha, beta, gamma, represent 1, 2, and 3. Then like in Roman numerals, when you want to form big numbers like , 1,, 1,,, they're represented by their own special combination of letters.

Keep that in mind. So back to the Bible, where in Chapter 13 of The Book of Revelation, it reads: "Let the one with understanding reckon the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is As the video explains, the English word "reckon" comes from the Greek word for "calculate" or "solve".

This is one of the most debated verses in the entire Book of Revelation because of widespread disagreement over the identification and meaning of the number The most common line of interpretation is that of gematria : in the ancient world, letters of the alphabet often substituted for numerals our numerical system derives from the later Arabic mathematicians.

Hence, each letter stood for a number. The problem is that no clear identification can be made linking with any particular ancient historical name. Attempts have been made to alter spellings and incorporate titles to try to make a multitude of names fit, but nothing conclusive has emerged. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to identify the number with other Roman emperors, or combinations of emperors.

More than names were proposed in Britain between and Last century the names of Kaiser and Hitler, among others, have also been calculated to equal None of the many proposed solutions using the literal gematria form of calculation is ultimately satisfactory because there are so many names, ancient and modern, which could equal the number. The reason for so many proposals, as one commentator says, is that it is easy to turn a name into a number, but complicated to deduce the right name from a number.

If the number were intended to be identified with some ruler by means of such a literal calculation, it would be a rare exception from the way numbers are employed elsewhere in the book. Numbers throughout Revelation have figurative significance and symbolize some spiritual reality.

None involves any kind of literal gematria calculation: for example, 24 elders, 7 seals, ,, 3. In addition, the word number Greek arithmos is always used figuratively to connote an un-countable multitude ; [, standing symbolically for all the saved]; [in verbal form]; [2x];