Transcription
What is the mark of the beast and how do we recognize it when it shows up? Now, I want your take on this, but I want to read the passage so people just can hear it. This is Revelation 13:16-18. It says, "Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is the name of the beast or the number of its name." This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.
Yeah. Dr. Hberg, I want your take on this, but maybe tell me maybe one or two or three common ways that people will interpret this passage.
Yeah, I'll say a real common way that people interpret this passage is to assume the number is 666.
Okay. Uh, it is not 666. There's there's actually two variations in uh the manuscript tradition or in in in Christian tradition uh from ancient times: uh 666 or 616. So the mark of the beast is not a series of three sixes. Okay? So it's not the barcode that has a series of three units of six or, you know, Ronald Wilson Reagan or something like that. Okay.
Um, it it says in the text um that it's the the name of the beast or the number of his name. And uh in both Jewish and Greor Roman culture in the first century, there was a practice of um uh calculating the numerical value of people's names, um called gematria. Um, the uh, you know, the the Greek uh world and the and the Latin world and and the um, the Jewish world, they didn't have Arabic numerals like we have, okay? They didn't have the numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Rather, they used uh the letters of the alphabet as numbers. So, okay, alpha would be one and beta would be two, like that. So you could take anything, uh, take the spelling of that thing and uh, using arithmetic of one means or another, usually just adding things up, you could calculate somebody's name. And and we have lots of examples of that sort of a thing from the first century, graffiti where somebody will say, um, you know, I love number 68 or something like that. Uh, and it was a way of proclaiming something without revealing it entirely. So that's what John is talking about when he says you can calculate the number of his name.
Now uh there have been a lot of attempts to try to calculate various options for a name of the beast. Probably in my opinion the most likely is uh Nero Caesar. Um, it works in uh, you have to do this in Hebrew characters or in Greek characters without explaining how to do it. Yeah. Um, uh, you can come up with the sums either 616 or 666. And in Revelation um, the beast is a, again in my opinion, a reincarnation of some sort, a manifestation of some sort of uh Caesar Nero as the first persecutor of the church. And so John is is warning his readers of an imperial persecutor, an image that comes out of the book of Daniel, which is why it's called the beast. It's from Daniel 7. Uh, who is um, another manifestation of imperial persecution of the church.
Okay. So 666 or 616, the debate is the text, the original text that we have. That's right. Is there a major tradition that you hold or is there just always been some debate about that?
There's always been debate. So even in the church fathers um in the second century, for instance, Irenaeus mentions two numbers of the beast. Um, he says, we have always understood it to be 666, but there are some who say 616. And in fact, the oldest manuscript of Revelation that we have, it's actually a fragment from chapter 13, um, has the number 616 in it. And so there are there are two ancient long-standing variations of the number. Most, I think most scholars believe the original reading was 666, but uh, it could be one or the other.
So, the mere fact that Nero's name could be added up to be 616 or 666 kind of gives me pause thinking we have confidence in any interpretation if there's enough ways to kind of jerryrig it. Or am I being too skeptical?
I uh, I think you're being too skeptical. Um, more than likely, if let's suppose 666 was the original and there was a tradition already understood that that that is the number for Caesar Nero, which is easy to, it's easy to calculate that, um, there may be others uh in the early church who, you because one relies on the Greek spelling of the of the the the letters, one relies on the Hebrew spelling, um, there may, there was probably others in the church who understood it was Caesar Nero but said that doesn't work out to 666, it works out to 616. And so both traditions then arise.
So how confident are you that it would be Nero, like 55%, 85%, like it's best, what level of confidence do you have in that?
Um, I I would say 67.83%, 83%. Um, no, I I am not absolutely certain.
Fair enough. Um, and there's scholarly pushback on on identifying Caesar Nero as the as the name. Um, but I am pretty certain, not just because it works with 616 and 666, so it accounts for the manuscript tradition, but um, it fits with other things in the book of Revelation that identify uh, the beast or identify the the system that the beast belongs to. So, for instance, in chapter 17, John sees the beast a second time. So you read from chapter 13, chapter 17, John sees the beast a second time. Uh, it has seven heads and 10 horns and a prostitute is riding on the beast. And he identifies the prostitute uh as um the great city that reigns over the kings of the earth. And for John's audience, there's no other city that they would conclude that to be except for the city of Rome. And uh, and Rome was known as the city on seven hills. Um, and he, he, this angel identifies the heads of the beast as seven hills on which the woman sits. And in fact, there in Roman iconography, the um, the goddess Roma, who represents the city of Rome, is depicted as a woman sitting on seven hills. And so, um, the imagery would have been familiar to John's readers. Uh, and then he says, "And the ten horns, u, I'm sorry, and the the hills are also seven kings." Um, and then he uh says, um, five have fallen, one is, and one is about to come uh and remain for a short time. And then the eighth is the beast. Well, if we start with uh Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, uh, the first, the the fifth emperor of Rome uh was Nero. And then John says, we're I'm in the day of the sixth emperor. The the sixth head is or the sixth king is, the seventh is going to remain a short time. Well, the the king that replaced Nero uh was um um Vespasian, the the general that had uh prosecuted the war against the Jews. When he died, his son Titus became emperor. He was only emperor for not even quite two years. And then the next persecuting emperor, the eighth, was Domitian. And um, so it suggests to me that John, and he says, uh, the the beast was one of the original five kings. And so um, Nero was the first persecuting emperor. He's among the original five kings. Uh, Domitian reincarnates Nero in his persecution of the church. And so John is anticipating uh the the the rise of Domitian and a second persecution against his church.
So, if I'm trying with you, the mark of the beast is not some number we're going to have put on us. We shouldn't try to interpret it that way. This is a figure from the past.
Yes and no. And now that depends on how you understand what is going on in the book of Revelation in terms of prediction. Uh, so, in my opinion, and we can talk about that question if if you want to, but >> in my opinion, um, the beast, the beast reappears throughout history. Mhm. Um, the the image comes from the the book of Daniel. And in Daniel, Daniel anticipates uh an eschatological beast, an end-time imperial persecutor of the of the people of God. But he also anticipates a historical, if I can put it that way, beast in the person of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who's a 2nd century BC persecutor of the church. Comes from the Macedonians or the Greek Empire. And and so John establishes a typology between historical persecutors and the final persecutor. And so he can understand that Nero was a historical persecutor. Even Domitian could be a historical persecutor. Of course, John doesn't know if he's the final beast or not. Uh, but ultimately, the final beast will also appear. So I would think in the future we will be required to take some kind of a mark.
Oh. Um, but uh, and that it has something to do with the name of the beast. Uh, but exactly what that mark is is is pretty hard to tell. It's associated, by the way, with the worship of the beast. M. Um, it's not just an economic uh thing, which is says in Revelation 13, you can't buy or sell without the mark, but you you've you're given the mark when you agree to worship the beast. M. Um, and so um, you know, when people today are confronted with the possibility of uh, you know, having a microchip implanted when they take their co-virus vaccine or something like that, unless there's somebody out there saying, and you've got to worship me as God, I I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Really helpful. Now you teach a full class on Revelation at Talbot that people interested could take, but this is helpful. Thanks for breaking down the mark of the beast.
Sure.