In the immortal words of Granny Weatherwax... I ATEN'T DEAD!
Don't worry, I haven't converted to numerology - but the three numbers in the title of this post all have a certain significance. Firstly, 666... If it were written in hex, then its value would be 1638. But, it seems, there's a lot more to it than that (so people think). From BBC News: BBC NEWS | Have Your Say: Superstitious date: 06/06/06 ...
Hmm... 666... the Number of the Beast... the anti-Christ child... the end of the world... and Vladimir Putin, apparently. Where does this come from, what does the Bible actually say, and what does it all mean? All worthy questions, IMO.
Firstly, 666. This occurs (in fact) four times in the Bible (NIV at least) - twice referring to the amount of gold King Solomon received in a year; 666 exiles from Adonikam in Ezra 2:13; and the famous "number of the beast" verse in Revelation. Let's build some context here. John is having a vision. He sees "a beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon... He also forced everyone... to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead...which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." (from Revelation 13 vv11-16) Then comes the famous bit, I'll quote it here in full: "This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the
number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
And... that's it. (Well, obviously the book goes on for another few chapters yet, but that's as far as the whole beast thing goes.) If you haven't looked at this before, you might be slightly disappointed. Where's this little brattish kid that's supposed to be destroying the world? etc. But this is what's actually there in Revelation.
What of this 666? There are two main (sensible) theories about this. For more see the IVP New Testament commentary from BibleGateway.com, from which I will paraphrase briefly.
One theory runs: The number "666" (programmers will hate me for citing it like that!) is a numbers game in which each letter of the alphabet is assigned a numerical value. The number, then, is the sum of the values that make up a person's name. Trouble is, with a little bit of fudging the figures, it can work for quite a few names (including Adolf Hitler, whom I'm sure John didn't have in mind).
Another theory, and the one that I prefer: The number 7 is regarded in Revelation as the number of God, of perfection. Thus, 666 falls short of the magic seven three times over. The beast falls short of God's power, His majesty, His wisdom, His strength, everything - "Failure upon failure upon failure". At any rate, it's usually safe to consider that the minor details of apocalyptic writing can be secondary to the main themes that are portrayed. The main themes of Revelation? "God is powerful. Jesus Christ reigns forever. Those who suffer for Christ will ultimately share his victory." (from the Youth Bible)
And what of this "anti-Christ"? The media tends to jump on the bandwagon of showing the antichrist as a person, inevitably an American brat called Damien, and with "666" somehow adorning his body. This doesn't come from Revelation at all - in fact, it comes a couple of chapters before (not necessarily chronologically) in 1 and 2 John. Who is the antichrist? In John's words: "Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the
flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver
and the antichrist." (2 John 1 v7). Even if they're not called Damien.
That's 666 down. Now, 6.06.
Dapper Drake - Kubuntu 6.06! - was released on the 1st June. It is no coincidence that my last blog post was on the 31st May. Suffice to say, the upgrade wasn't as simple as all the instructions suggested. After three failed attempts to upgrade packages, I was left with an X that wouldn't load and a kernel that wouldn't boot. I managed to scrape back to a loosely-functioning GUI and regrouped to #CompSci (there's another story in there, but that's for another - distant - time. If you're reading this, Claire - I'm still sorry...) where we agreed the easiest course of action would be for me to back up as much as I could to Alex's computer, repartition and reinstall. And it was easy... until I realised a few crucial little things that I'd forgotten. Like a website I'd spent about 90 hours working on. And all my E-mail. Apart from that, things are now looking very rosy - and in the next few days I'm hoping to take delivery of a nice 12" TFT monitor I found on eBay. Just right for watching TV while I'm working on the other screen. I've always fancied a dual-monitor setup, ever since we got one at church.
The last of these mysterious numbers - 158. That's greater than the number of hours I have left to my first exam.
Eep.
Don't worry, I haven't converted to numerology - but the three numbers in the title of this post all have a certain significance. Firstly, 666... If it were written in hex, then its value would be 1638. But, it seems, there's a lot more to it than that (so people think). From BBC News: BBC NEWS | Have Your Say: Superstitious date: 06/06/06 ...
Hmm... 666... the Number of the Beast... the anti-Christ child... the end of the world... and Vladimir Putin, apparently. Where does this come from, what does the Bible actually say, and what does it all mean? All worthy questions, IMO.
Firstly, 666. This occurs (in fact) four times in the Bible (NIV at least) - twice referring to the amount of gold King Solomon received in a year; 666 exiles from Adonikam in Ezra 2:13; and the famous "number of the beast" verse in Revelation. Let's build some context here. John is having a vision. He sees "a beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon... He also forced everyone... to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead...which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." (from Revelation 13 vv11-16) Then comes the famous bit, I'll quote it here in full: "This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the
number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
And... that's it. (Well, obviously the book goes on for another few chapters yet, but that's as far as the whole beast thing goes.) If you haven't looked at this before, you might be slightly disappointed. Where's this little brattish kid that's supposed to be destroying the world? etc. But this is what's actually there in Revelation.
What of this 666? There are two main (sensible) theories about this. For more see the IVP New Testament commentary from BibleGateway.com, from which I will paraphrase briefly.
One theory runs: The number "666" (programmers will hate me for citing it like that!) is a numbers game in which each letter of the alphabet is assigned a numerical value. The number, then, is the sum of the values that make up a person's name. Trouble is, with a little bit of fudging the figures, it can work for quite a few names (including Adolf Hitler, whom I'm sure John didn't have in mind).
Another theory, and the one that I prefer: The number 7 is regarded in Revelation as the number of God, of perfection. Thus, 666 falls short of the magic seven three times over. The beast falls short of God's power, His majesty, His wisdom, His strength, everything - "Failure upon failure upon failure". At any rate, it's usually safe to consider that the minor details of apocalyptic writing can be secondary to the main themes that are portrayed. The main themes of Revelation? "God is powerful. Jesus Christ reigns forever. Those who suffer for Christ will ultimately share his victory." (from the Youth Bible)
And what of this "anti-Christ"? The media tends to jump on the bandwagon of showing the antichrist as a person, inevitably an American brat called Damien, and with "666" somehow adorning his body. This doesn't come from Revelation at all - in fact, it comes a couple of chapters before (not necessarily chronologically) in 1 and 2 John. Who is the antichrist? In John's words: "Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the
flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver
and the antichrist." (2 John 1 v7). Even if they're not called Damien.
That's 666 down. Now, 6.06.
Dapper Drake - Kubuntu 6.06! - was released on the 1st June. It is no coincidence that my last blog post was on the 31st May. Suffice to say, the upgrade wasn't as simple as all the instructions suggested. After three failed attempts to upgrade packages, I was left with an X that wouldn't load and a kernel that wouldn't boot. I managed to scrape back to a loosely-functioning GUI and regrouped to #CompSci (there's another story in there, but that's for another - distant - time. If you're reading this, Claire - I'm still sorry...) where we agreed the easiest course of action would be for me to back up as much as I could to Alex's computer, repartition and reinstall. And it was easy... until I realised a few crucial little things that I'd forgotten. Like a website I'd spent about 90 hours working on. And all my E-mail. Apart from that, things are now looking very rosy - and in the next few days I'm hoping to take delivery of a nice 12" TFT monitor I found on eBay. Just right for watching TV while I'm working on the other screen. I've always fancied a dual-monitor setup, ever since we got one at church.
The last of these mysterious numbers - 158. That's greater than the number of hours I have left to my first exam.
Eep.
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