Beast's real mark devalued to '616'

[kjohnson]

I thought I would search google for my team number and see what kind of stuff came up - Boy was I in for a surprise. These have just been posted since the beginning of May.

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11134

Where more conventional versions of the Bible give 666 as the "number of the beast," or the sign of the anti-Christ whose coming is predicted in the book's apocalyptic verses, the older version uses the Greek letters signifying 616.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...p?story=634679

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.

Has anyone else heard about this?

[Lil' Lavery]

Your flaming 616 logo seems to be all too appropriate.

[JoeXIII'007]

I heard about this a week ago on National Public Radio's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" gig. After hearing about it, I immediately grabbed a calculator to see if 616 could be divided, multiplied, rooted, or squared into something interesting. The only math that was really odd was that 616/8 = 77. 7 is thought to be a 'lucky' number, and thus it seemed odd to me that the new beast number could have such a relation.

Oh yeah, another oddball fact: 616 is the area code to Grand Rapids, Michigan according to that same NPR show.(no offense to anyone who lives there.)

-Joe

[Billfred]

So does this mean that it'll no longer be weird to call FIRST, whose local numbers start with 666?

(Seriously, they do.)

[KenWittlief]

The 'fragments' that are attributed to being the oldest sometimes are not

and the new testiment was written in greek

BTW, if you take the ascii code for these letters, with proper upper and lower case:

TheUnitedNations

and ask a computer for a checksum (the sum of the numbers in hex), well Ill give you one guess!

and strangely, I guess we are given a choice in life, because the ascii codes for following letters add up to 666 in base 10:

HOLYBIBLE

go figure?!

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by nukemknight

I thought I would search google for my team number and see what kind of stuff came up - Boy was I in for a surprise. These have just been posted since the beginning of May.

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11134

This article describes the fragment as being from a pile of "previously illegible manuscripts" pulled out of a garbage dump. Think about this--why was it in the dump? Suppose you copied an important document incorrectly, then threw it away. Would people digging in your trash 2,000 years later be getting the right information from your copy??

The Bible is arguably the most controversial book on earth, and people love to come up with new twists on it. Moreover, the book of Revelation is probably No. 1 on the list of books people love to interpret according to their own whims. (If you've never read it, it's a lot of fun--and I guarantee you won't be able to figure it out.) The article describes the book of Revelation as a "political tract." This is an idea which I find strange. It does not square with my own readings of the book, or with the usual Christian interpretations of it.

Be suspicious any time you hear of scholars coming up with a "new" Biblical interpretation that is held by "the majority" of scholars, or that claims to solve a long-standing debate. Watch out for lines such as, "Dr. Aitken said, however, that scholars now believe..." Only two scholars are quoted in the article, and I am sure that there are thousands of Bible scholars who do NOT think that Revelation is essentially political, or that this fragment is important enough to warrant changing the standard biblical texts. Remember, there are no universally recognized certifications for being a "Bible scholar"--and that's a good thing!

So, I wouldn't go worrying about your beloved team number just yet! And, Billfred, I wouldn't worry about FIRST's local phone numbers either, because they all have 7 digits.