ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 12, 1996 TAG: 9602130093
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SANTA ANA, CALIF.
SOURCE: ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
It's a popular misconception that 666 refers to the devil, many biblical scholars say. They believe that the number referred to in Revelation 13:18 was a code name for Nero, the Roman emperor who persecuted early Christians.
``Calling Nero a beast, an enemy of saints as is outlined in the Scriptures, was certainly not a positive image. So they wanted to use a code,'' explained Marianne Meye Thompson, New Testament professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. ``Christians of that era would have known to whom it referred.''
Thompson, who teaches a class on Revelation at the Pasadena school, says that a particular Hebrew acronym of Nero's name equals 666.
Another passage, Revelation 13:12, refers to the beast as one whose ``deadly wound was healed.'' That is thought to be a reference to Nero's suicide. Nero killed himself in A.D. 68, but legend had it that he fled to the east and would return.
She notes that latter-day pundits have had their own version of 666.
``There were some stories circulating on campus during the Vietnam War that [former Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger's name added up to 666, as did some leaders of the Soviet Union,'' she said. ``And they used to say that Ronald Wilson Reagan adds up to 666, since each name has six letters.
``But of course, that's not the way it's done. The early Christians didn't just count letters. They assigned numerical values to each letter of a name or acronym to get the code name.''
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