the book of revelation is widely misunderstood. > judea was occupied by rome during the advent of christianity in the 1st century. > those jews who resisted roman rule were killed while those who gave in where spared. > slaves were marked on the hands and condemned men were marked on the head by roman authorities - which is where the idea of the "mark of the beast (nero)" comes from. nero is the beast (satan) of revelation. > when you actually look at the original text, you'll see that in this passage, the letters of 666 are actually written in hebrew, which places a higher significance on numbers meaning words and words meaning numbers than ancient greek. the writer was very clearly trying to tell us something. > and sure enough, if you translate the hebrew spelling of 666, you actually spell out neron kesar - the hebrew spelling of nero caesar. > even if you take the alternative spelling of the number of the beast, which has been found in several early biblical texts as being written 616, you can translate that out as being nero cesar. it could only be a coincidence if just 666 or 616 could be translated out to nero's name, but not both.
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