What does the “666” really mean?

Here we present another astounding paradigm shift. It is likely that only very recently, more than nineteen centuries after the Book of Revelation was written, the “mark of the Beast” has finally been decoded.

The notorious number “666” is deeply ingrained in the religious folklore of Christendom. Even atheists and agnostics have notions about the symbolism of “666,” a number that our collective consciousness considers synonymous with all that is malevolent, demonic, and cursed.

Although almost everyone knows that “666” is somehow correlated with the future Antichrist, the solution to this has, thus far, eluded us. No one has been able – definitively – to state that they have discovered the true meaning of this symbol.

Some have pursued the idea that the sum of the letters of the Antichrist’s name will make up the numerical total of 666. This method of word analysis is called gematria, or “Hebrew numerology,” in which a numerical value is ascribed to each of the letters that compose any word, thus obtaining a result from its sum. This method of gematria has been used since the early days of Christianity, and one of the earliest antichrists to be supposedly detected in this way by Christians was the Roman emperor Nero. Indeed, many have argued that the apostle John referred to Nero when he recorded the alleged “666” but when John wrote the Book of Revelation Nero was already deceased about thirty years ago. Through this method, from that day to this, far too many students of prophecy have been churning out candidates for the title Antichrist and every one of them, without exception, has been wrong.

Currently in vogue is the idea that computer technology has brought the “666” into our lives in the form of the computerized bar code, since the Bible says that at the “end days” only those who bear the mark of the Beast will be able to “buy or sell.” That theory was later given an upgrade when a chip was invented that could be inserted under the skin and could function as an identifier and credit card, thus conforming to something reminiscent of the idea of “a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads.”[1] A symbol indicative of those seduced by the Beast, the ones she would spare from death, as only the chip-holders would be able to buy, sell, and therefore survive. Whoever did not have the chip would be out of the market, as a second-rate citizen and subject to being annihilated.

However, in spite of all this speculation, no one has been really sure of what the “666” is – until now. If the reader goes to Wikipedia, as of today, August 2017, all the theories described there do not include the one I will reveal to you here, which to me is the one that makes the most sense. I highlight this point so that the reader might grasp the significance of the paradigm shift being proposed.

In addition to being the theory that has the most rational foundation, explaining something that was pure mystery and making it understandable, reasonable, and logical, it also fully fits the paradigm I have been advocating in this book: that the main villains of the “end times” all emerge from the world of fundamentalist Islam.

Do you remember how this book started? How I explained that God is the only being that knows, what is for us, the future? Do you remember my assertion that Deity transcends time, that all time is open to His gaze? That for Him the sequentiality of past, present, and future does not exist because “He inhabits the circle of eternity. […] To God there is no past, present, or future; all time is present at any given moment”?[2] Therefore Deity is able to act from a super-temporal framework and that is what I believe occurred when John received this prophecy. I shall explain this to you.

Suppose that in the impossibility of recognizing something which he had never seen, and which did not even exist in his time, prophet John was presented with an image, a sort of “photo” of a thing that would exist in the future. Suppose, also, that he had not been given words for this, because it was something he could not describe in words. Furthermore, suppose that, for reasons that far transcend human ability to comprehend, it was essential and inevitable that this detail of the prophecy – the so-called “666” – remain obscure at least until we were close to the “last days,” a condition of uncertainty that persists to this day, by the way. Consequently, scholars would be giving hints and pursuing explanations, but always blind to something that was before their eyes all the time, which the Spirit would not let them see it, because the hour had not arrive yet.

You may wonder why the doubt to the end. I can imagine two great reasons for that. First, it is that, like with all good prophecy, the total and unequivocal proof will occur only when we are confronted with incontrovertible evidence (often only recognized in hindsight) but in the meantime our faith is exercised, and speculation and consequent study make us more and more spiritually and psychologically prepared to face the arduous events of the end of the dispensation and to properly value the divine reward of eternal life. Secondly, it is also a perfect way for God to show us that our human reasoning, however brilliant it may be, depends entirely on divine revelation, even to finally see what was so clear, but was escaping us all along. This is a perfect method that God uses to reveal our total dependence on Him.

So, what would have been that “photo” the Angel showed to John? Note the image below, which was obtained from one of the oldest surviving copies of the Bible, Codex Vaticanus from the year 350 AD. It is ancient Greek, which reads from left to right, like all Western languages. Its conventional translation is “666,” since Chi has the value of 600; Xi, 60; and Stigma, 6.

And the following image is a phrase in Arabic, a language that reads from right to left, unlike Greek. The first two elements mean “Bismillah,” which translates to “In the name of Allah.” The third element on the right is two crossed swords, symbol of the Islamic jihad.

Now see the two overlapping images:

What do you think of the similarities of the two images? Impressive, is it not?

The original scroll of the Book of Revelation, the one directly handled by the apostle John, was never found. The earliest examples of the New Testament so far discovered are from the 4th century.

Now imagine a scenario in which John actually depicted in the original text the Arabic “Bismillah” (“In the name of Allah”) and also the crossed swords symbolizing Islamic jihad, because that would have been the “photo” that the revealing Angel would have shown to John. Whenever it became necessary to reproduce copies to spread throughout the churches, or before the physical degradation of the first copies over time, the copyists were faced with a text that was written in the popular Greek of that time. Now, it is not to be expected that the scribes would suspect that these three symbols were not Greek, let alone being read from right to left, unlike the entire text of the Book of Revelation. Therefore, with each new copy, the copyists would insist on writing the Greek letters Chi Xi Stigma, meaning 666, extremely similar to the original sketch. With the disappearance of John’s original text and his own death, would also disappear any trace that the three symbols were a “photo” shown by the Angel to the apostle of something that would arise only five centuries later, rather than simply Greek letters.

A very interesting detail of the “photo” seen by John is the second element, which means “Allah.” John saw this Arabic word aligned vertically. It is common for Muslims to use this vertical position of this word in religious and political symbols.

Let us remember what the Book of Revelation speaks of this mark of the Beast:

16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads,

17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.[3]

The reader will, no doubt, remember how the Nazis forced the Jews to wear an armband that had bore a yellow star of David. That was the “mark of shame.” This referred back to medieval times, when Jews were forced to wear clothing that differentiated them from Christians and Muslims. This was a way not only of humiliating but of controlling the Jews.

At the “end time,” something similar to the “mark of shame” of the Jews under the Nazis will be done, but in an inverted fashion. The “mark of the beast” will be a source of pride, synonymous with supremacy, the insignia of the elite. It is the absence of this emblem that will identify the ‘underclass’ – those who have no rights, not even the right to life. At some point, the caliph, the Antichrist, supreme leader of the radical Muslims, will decree that only those who submit to Islam, who confess that Allah is the only god and Muhammad his messenger, will be the rightful citizens of the empire. Only those who bear the mark will be authorized to “buy or sell,” as it says in verse 17. (In verse 16, where you read “right hands,” this corresponds to the word “dexius” in the Greek original, which may mean “right arms.”). These will use a band, whether on the arm or forehead, with an inscription saying “Bismillah” (“In the name of Allah”). This will be the hallmark of the followers of the Beast. Here is how this can be established among the jihadists:

Do not forget that the “last war” events described in the Bible refer to Jerusalem and Israel, and that those who will attack them are the specific Islamic nations of the Middle East and North Africa listed in the Bible, not the nations all over the planet, as in the misleading conventional interpretation of the prophecies.

It will therefore be relatively easy for an invading radical Islamic military force to impose its rule on the land of Israel and Jerusalem, to control and distinguish those who submit to Islam and those who reject it. This antichristian government will most likely demand its citizens to display this armband as an indicator of loyalty to radical Islam and the ‘new order’ to determine who is a true Muslim and who is not. It is easy to see that radical Muslims will do this willingly and proudly. But for those who want to deceive this Beast government, do you think it will be easy for them to live according to the sharia of Islam or to worship Allah side by side with the radical Muslims? No genuine believer of another faith will be able to live this way. The true Jew or Christian could never live or worship as these fanatics.

Another clue that who will participate in this assault at the end of the dispensation to Israel is essentially the Islamic world and not the whole world, is the following passage in the Book of Revelation:

I looked, and there before me was a [green] horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.[4]

Notice the synchronicity of the various elements of this passage with other portions of the Book of Revelation and the correlations that are evident in the reality of the facts:

a) The horse and the rider were given power. The reader must remember that it was the Dragon (the Devil, Satan) who gave authority to the Beast (the horse) and the Antichrist (the rider).

b) The horse is green. The original Greek uses the word “chloros,” which is obviously green, not yellow or pale, as we read in the classic translations of the Bible. Know that green is the color that essentially represents global Islam. The flag of Islam is green.

c) And finally, a surprising fact: the Islamic population in the world today is practically a quarter of the world population. Note how authority is given to the green horse (Islam, the Beast) and the rider (the Islamic Antichrist, the caliph) “over a fourth of the earth” (over the Islamic population that will be subjected to a caliph) to spread death, hunger, and disease (chemical and biological attacks), and how we find in this a correlation with the current demographic reality.

Some interpreters of the prophecies think that in this passage it is said that the green horse and the knight would kill a fourth of mankind. This is wrong. What the text is saying is that it is “given power” to the green horse (Islam) and its rider (the caliph) “over a fourth” of humanity (the Islamic world) to kill by various means. In 2010, there were about 1.6 billion Muslims in a global population of nearly seven billion people, roughly a fourth of the world’s population. As Muslim birth rates are the highest on the planet, the current numbers for 2017 certainly allow us to affirm that a fourth of the world’s population is Muslim.[5]

If “666” is, after all, the slogan “In the name of Allah” along with the pair of swords symbolizing Islamic jihad, then what would be the proper translation of this passage 13:16-18 from the Book of Revelation? It would be something like this:

16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right arms or on their foreheads,

17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight reckon the multitude of the beast, for it is the multitude of a man [Muhammad]. That multitude is in the name of Allah [Bismillah].

Note the mention of “free and slave” people in verse 16. Islam is the only religion today that determines that the captives of jihad can be enslaved, especially women and children, as a rule after the murder of their husbands and fathers who are not willing to submit to Islam or pay the infidel’s tax. This is still being practiced now by Islamic terrorist groups. It is also well known that there is a market for sex slaves, of both sexes, enjoyed by extremely wealthy men from the Arabian Peninsula. Islamism was the greatest promoter of the slave market in history. Saudi Arabia was the second last nation to officially banish slavery in the 1960s but the practice continues to this day, in 2017.

[1] Revelation 13:17.

[2] The Urantia Book, Document 2, “The Nature of God”; Section 1, “The Infinity of God”; paragraph 5.

[3] Revelation 13:16-18.

[4] Revelation 6:8.

[5] Information obtained from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the most reputed statistical institution worldwide for data on the Islamic religion and Muslims in the world.