Meatros

Okay, I've read a few different places that revelation was meant to be a coded message of hope about the immediate future of the Christian church. Ie, 666 = Nero, and that the dragon represents Rome.

Does anyone know of any comprehensive books that examine this view? Or websites?

My problem is that it seems I'm piecemeiling the information from several different sources.

storytime

If John was bringing his readers up to date on the circumstances of the Jews, then maybe he was indicating a past episode of Jews in Babylon and bringing them into the days of Christ.

The number 666, wisdom, a man, seems to correspond to Solomon and his receiving 666 talents of gold for conscripting Israelites to King Hiriam of Tyre. Selling Israelites into slavery was forbidden. Solomon also set himself up as a god in the temple he built and brought other people's gods in for worship, to please his many wives.

I don't see the story as having anything to do with Rome, but the past and present day that John was in, and whereof he hailed Christ and the New Jerusalem as a sealed kingdom.

show_no_mercy

666 (six hundred and sixty six, not "six six six") is using gematria to signal out Nero in Revelation. Evidence for this is due to the existence of another version of Revelation that has 616 instead of 666. Both of these - under the premise of gematria - spell out both versions of Nero's name: "Neron Caesar" (six hundred and sixty six) and "Nero Caesar" (six hundred sixteen).

sharrock

There may be something here... http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/so...pol_piso01.htm but personally, I've never quite understood it.

Toto

A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization (or via: amazon.co.uk)

You can also search for "number of the beast" in this forum - here or here, for example.

storytime

Well, you might want to rule out the Pope as being the anti-christ as Paul said there were already many anti-christs playing havoc with the churches in his day. Paul was most likely indicting "certain of the Jews" and Pharisees who had taken a vow to kill him. Seems that everywhere Paul went preaching his gospel, there were certain of the Jews right behind him confusing the gospel he had preached.

Keep in mind that Romans were not trying to infiltrate the churches of Paul in attempt to confuse Pauls gospel.

bacht

Jewish apocalyptic used numerology and fantastic imagery too. A lot of John's book can be traced to references like Daniel, Zechariah etc.

I think the assumption of severe Roman persecution of Christians around the end of the 1st C has been questioned (?)