The Number of The Beast
616 is believed by some to have been the original Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible. Different early versions of the Book of Revelation gave different numbers, and 666 had been widely accepted as the original number. In 2005, however, a fragment of papyrus 115 was revealed, containing the earliest known version of that part of the Book of Revelation discussing the Number of the Beast. It gave the number as 616, suggesting that this may have been the original. Apparently the two different numbers reflect two different spellings of Emperor Nero/Neron's name, for which this number is believed to be a code.
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Famous quotes containing the words number and/or beast:
“While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced.”
—J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)
“Dialect words—those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)