666 vs 616: Which is true?

In recent years, it has come to light that a fragment from Papyrus 115 from the Oxyrhynchus archaeological site, known to be the oldest copy of the Book of Revelation, shows that the Number of the Beast is 616, rather than 666. This has led some scholars to believe that 616 is the true Number of the Beast. Others, convinced that God would not allow his Word to be altered by mere men, insist that the authors got it right the first time, and that 666 is the true Satanic number. Which view is true?

Let us begin with a very safe assumption. The Antichrist, whomever he may be, will not wish his presence to be revealed in an obvious way. He would do all he could, even at a very early time, to conceal his true identity, and being associated with the number 666 would be a dead giveaway to the Lord's faithful. But how could he conceal who he is?

Could he truly interfere with scripture in order to accomplish this?

Let us remember that Satan is the Lord of this world until our Savior returns. That means that all that is upon it, even books, are within his control.

Even the Bible?

Well, not quite. The Lord has his hedge of protection upon the Scriptures, of course. But all one needs to do is pick up two different versions of the Bible, the King James and the New International Version, say, to see that the interpretations vary widely. The Bible is God speaking to Man, and it is then that flawed humans are capable of making mistakes. God's word is immutable. But Man is susceptible to temptation. For Satan to change the Bible, all he had to do was trick mankind into changing it for him! Yes! It seems blasphemous to admit, but God's hedge of protection upon the Bible is only absolute when it pertains to the main message of Jesus' salvation. Everything else is able to be twisted by Satan to his own ends - by tempting the human scholars who copy and distribute it. And this is why denominations are fragmented all over Christianity, unable to agree on anything except the main message of Jesus' sacrifice to redeem mankind. They are confused on every point, except that Jesus death and resurrection saved us all.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

Now, that's a radical shift for most people to accept, I realize! Biblical literalism is the biggest and most powerful golden calf within Christianity, and has been ever since Martin Luther first forged it. Kicking over that particular sacred cow will enrage some. But in order to understand Biblical prophecy, it is necessary to untangle the confusing mess which is caused by different versions of such prophecy, and that means facing the hard truth that it really is a mess. We might wish God had left us with a nice, clean trail to follow. But that was clearly not in His plan.

Those who are willing to accept this may read on. Those who are not may stop here. Decide right here and now if you wish to know God's most colorful mysteries, or if you would rather retreat to the safety of black and white. It is your choice.

And now, I am assuming because you are continuing to read this, that you have chosen to journey down the rabbit hole with me. Good! Because what this blog will reveal is truly magnificent, and the Lord meant such truths to be revealed only at this time, the very Last Days!

Yes, Satan did interfere with the number associated with the Mark of the Beast. That number was, in fact, 616, and it identified the Antichrist who was contemporary with John the Revelator. That man was, of course, Caligula.

During Caligula's reign as Caesar, he instituted many programs to have his own image replace those of the gods worshiped at various temples. He referred to himself as Jupiter (or Jove). And yes, he set himself as the God of the Jews as well. To the early Christians, he presented himself as the incarnation of their Jesus. Truly, the Antichrist, if there ever was one! The man who pretended to be the Christian God!

Let's check the math. Using Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic letters to check who Caligula was, numerically, we get the following:

First, Aramaic/Hebrew:

G	S		Q	L	G	S		Q	S	R
3	60		100	30	3	60		100	60	200		Total: 616

Not bad. Now let's try it in Greek:

G	A	I	O	S		K	A	I	S	A	R
3	1	10	70	200		20	1	10	200	1	100		Total: 616

Bingo! It works either way!

But Satan is crafty. As earlier stated, he could fool humans into altering the Bible for him by tempting them to do so. And that's exactly what he did! After the death of Caligula, Claudius became Emperor, and following Claudius, came Nero. Now, Nero wanted to built a new coliseum, but the poor housing districts were in the way. By deliberately starting a fire which burned those dilapidated buildings to the ground, and blaming the Christians for it, he cleared the way for his new building project. Christians were systematically arrested and, on occasion, killed for sport. Although it is a matter of conjecture just how common it was to see Christians thrown to the lions, if at all, the Christians were certainly persecuted by Nero.

So could he have been the Antichrist? The early Christians certainly thought so! And so they changed the text of their scriptures to reflect that Nero was the Antichrist after all. Certainly, they knew about the "telescoping effect" of prophecy, where the same prophecy foretells two similar events at two different times, much as two mountain peaks can appear close together in the view of a telescope, when in reality one mountain peak is much farther away than the other one. They may have thought this meant that the second Antichrist (whom we are now waiting to witness) may have even appeared! As such, their redaction was not so much altering as it was merely updating! So popular was this view, that years later, Irenaus, writing in the second century, affirmed that 666 was the true Number of the Beast, and that the 616 version was a copying error. To this day, some theologians still insist that this is true, even though the papyrus fragment showing 616 is much older than any other known copy of Revelation.

The Devil's trickery worked.

Consider, Nero, for all his persecution of Christians, never himself claimed to be the Christian God in the way that Caligula had. He punished Christians for being Christian, but never himself tried to usurp God's own title. He therefore, for all his evils, could not have been the Antichrist. Therefore, the number 666, which is what Nero's name adds up to, is simply not the correct number.

When the Antichrist comes, he will attempt to call himself God. It is the one characteristic that defines him. And we will see in later blog posts how the number 616, and the Roman Emperor Caligula, play important roles in discerning who that person is. Be sure to read future blog posts to learn more about who that may be, because the Lord has revealed this person to me, and I only wait one last sign before I feel confident in revealing his identity to all of you!


JDE

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