Number of the Beast undergoes deflation

[chelidon]

Well heck. Just when you think there's some constant in the universe, something else fundamental changes:

Beast's real mark devalued to '616'

What can you depend on if not the infallibility of the Bible? Gosh.

In all seriousness, this is just one among what are sure to be many fascinating discoveries from this exciting new source of classical information.

And it makes you wonder how many more interesting mistranslations there are to be found... ;>

Comments

[eeedge.livejournal.com]

I always enjoy the fact that Moses had horns for a long time due to a mistranslation.

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

OK, now I'll have to go and redo the gematria for the number of the Beast. Sheesh!

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

I'm no expert, but I seem to remember that the whole cult of the "Virgin" Mary comes from a mistranslation of the Hebrew "almah" (maiden, unmarried woman) to the Greek "parthenos" (virgin). The appropriate Hebrew word would be "bethulah" if it was intended to explicitly specify virginity. Traditional biblical scholars try to justify the use of "almah" as implying virginity, but that's a pretty weak case on which to base a huge part of your theology..

For me, I think it just goes to show the inherent weakness of doctrines based on biblical literalism -- not only is every word even within a single language subject to interpretation, reinterpretation and misinterpretation, based largely on the context and agenda from which any particular interpreter is coming, but repeated translations across various diverse languages pretty much guarantees significant errors in meaning and emphasis.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Annoying, indeed.

[eeedge.livejournal.com]

B told me the other day about a church that believes in the King James edition of the Bible specifically as being the literal word of God. Does that mean that Christians before King James weren't really Christians?

(Of course, the church itself doesn't believe in anything, being a building. I trust you know what I really mean.)

[morrigandaughtr.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. I wonder what all those people with 666 tattoos are going to do?

Revelation was actually a thinly disguised political tract, with the names of those being criticized changed to numbers to protect the authors and early Christians from reprisals. "It's a very political document," Dr. Aitken said. "It's a critique of the politics and society of the Roman empire, but it's written in coded language and riddles."< /i>

This is also very cool; I didn't know this before. Thanks.

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

This is apparently old news (as in people started talking about it some 1,700 years ago), and has been kicked back and forth since Irenaeus' time. Not really sure how anyone gets 616 out of έξακόσιοι έξήκόντα έξ -- 'exakosioi 'exekonta 'ex -- (pardon my transliteration) which is clearly 600 + 60 + 6. Apparently the debate comes down to whether it's a diatribe against Nero or Caligula.

As for me, I'm not really a metalhead myself, except when it comes to Tool.

[mystfemme.livejournal.com]

666 tattoos
LOL that was my first thought, too!

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

I know there's been eternal debate on the subject, but the linked article seemed to indicate a genuinely different Greek text than the standard version you mention -- presumably, it was written prior to a copying error introduced into later versions. I haven't seen any source which describes the "new" (actually, older) text, but the possibility is exciting... I'm hoping to hear all kinds of interesting things from those fragments as they're analyzed and translated.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't be so bad if it was in Roman numerals, could just turn the "L" into a vine or a pair of goat's horns or something (DCLXVI --> DCXVI)... ;>

And yeah, Revelations is one weird text, but a lot of it was apparantly intended to refer to current events when it was written, which makes the latter-day convolutions of folks trying to force-fit the text to modern day circumstances all the more silly.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

B told me the other day about a church that believes in the King James edition of the Bible specifically as being the literal word of God. Does that mean that Christians before King James weren't really Christians?

But of course... Oi. That's one of the most favorite, tried-and-true ways to rally the faithful -- tell them that all those "other" folks who call themselves the same thing as you do aren't real [insert name of arbitrary religion here]...that your particular Flavor of the Day, and whatever bits of minutae and trivia that you alone profess make you the only True faith. Nothing like telling people that they're the elite, the few, the proud (and of course, the unjustly persecuted), the One and Only Chosen People of God, in order to build brand loyalty (and fill the collection plates). Whoops, who let that student of human nature organized religion cynic out of the box? Shoo, shoo! ;>

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

In high school, we had a "PSI Study Group" sponsored by a faculty member's wife (I went to a pretty cool school), and we used to have guest speakers come in from time to time. One in particular claimed to be a channeller, and was supposedly in contact with the spirit of Jesus, who was apparently orbiting somewhere near the Lunar Sphere. And you could tell it was Jesus, because he spoke in really bad pseudo-KJ English.

You can't imagine how much I wished right then that I could speak Aramaic.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

You can't imagine how much I wished right then that I could speak Aramaic.

lol...Classic.