why is 666 the marking of the beast?

Answer 1

It was a numeric equivalent for the letters of the name of the Emperor Nero.

I see Wikipedia has an article on this, but it's pretty technical. In brief, Nero had persecuted Christians big time during the era leading up to the compostion of Revelations. He's thus the Beast, a sign that the end times were on their way. In Hebrew, each letter has a number that goes with it, and the letters of the Hebrew phrase "Nero Ceasar" add up to 666.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast
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Answer 2

A third clue to the meaning of 666 lies in its being "a man's number," or as The Amplified Bible puts it, "a human number." This expression could not refer to an individual human, for Satan—not any man—has authority over the beast. (Luke 4:5, 6; 1 John 5:19; Revelation 13:2, 18) Rather, the beast's having "a human number," or mark, suggests that it is a human entity, not spirit or demon, and that it therefore manifests certain human traits. What might they be? The Bible answers, saying: "All [humans] have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) The beast's having "a human number," therefore, indicates that governments reflect the fallen human condition, the mark of sin and imperfection.

Answer 3

Maybe it's because you posted something (that was not a question) about what jerks the atheists were - and then said you were closing your account and never returning to Yahoo! Answers - but then you came back under a new name. Maybe that's why.

And guess what - I DO know you. You are the person I described above. And you used to have a name that was something like Kar_Kar.

I think maybe that's why 666 is the mark of the beast.

Answer 4

Where does the number 666 come from? Many have read of it in the Bible or even heard of it from various sources, but very few know where it actually comes from or why the book of Revelation speaks about this number with such negative connotations. Here is a brief overview of the history of the number 666, where it comes from, and why the book of Revelation speaks so negatively of this number.

The number 666 comes directly from the worship practices of the city of Babylon about the time of the Bible prophet Daniel. The people of Babylon worshiped gods that were associated with the sun, moon, visible planets of our solar system, and certain of the stars involved with the practice of astrology. The Babylonians were the principle developers of astrology, as we know it today. In their worship system, they had 37 supreme gods, and one of these, the god associated with the sun, was supreme over all the other gods. These people believed that numbers in some way had power over the gods they worshiped. However, they had to create numbers that they could assign to the gods so that they could have power over them. To do this, they counted their gods and assigned a count number to each of the 36 lesser supreme gods, and then added up all of these numbers (from one to 36) and assigned the sum to the sun god. The first god they counted got the number one assigned to it, and the second god they counted got the number two assigned to it, and so on up to all 36 lesser supreme gods. Now, if you have not guessed it by now, the sum of the numbers from one to 36 totals 666, which they assigned to the god associated with the sun. They did the calculation like this:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12
+ 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22
+ 23 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28 + 29 + 30 + 31 + 32
+ 33 + 34 + 35 + 36 = 666

However, they went further. They feared these gods and worried that one of them might strike them down sometime, so they made amulets with a 6 x 6 matrix of the numbers one through 36 on them. Today we call these numeric matrixes magic squares. The design of the amulets was to achieve a magic purpose, and they evidently believed that wearing a particular god's number would protect one from a specific god striking them down using his power of magic. Now, the amulets had to be as powerful as possible, so in order to increase its power, they arranged these numbers in such a way that the sum of any given row, column, or diagonal is 111, and therefore the sum of all six rows or all six columns was 666. This was supposed to provide extra protection, including from the god associated with the sun, since this god's sum was present on the amulet.

Below is an example of one such arrangement of numbers in a 6x6 matrix of numbers. Note that any given column, row, or diagonal adds up to 111. The ancient Babylonians wrote these numbers out on a small clay tablet, and after drying and baking it to make the writing permanent, they would hang it on a support and wear it around their neck. As long as they carried the amulet with them, they thought that the amulet provided protection.

Answer 5

Lot's of people are writing that 666 is the number of the humans, but the devil, remember he was an angel... His name was Luserfer, (I don't know how to spell it) he was thee 666th angel. So when he was thrown in Hell, God gave him the number 666 as the marking of the beast. Hope this helped. To be honest, if it was me I would read the Bible. You can never go wrong there. Any more questions e-mail me at [e-mail]

Answer 6

It's not.

Look carefully at the actual text, and you will note that John did not write “666 (“six hundred threescore and six”) is the mark of the beast, nor did he say “666” is the number of the beast. He specifically and purposefully wrote that the number “666 corresponded to” the “number of the beast, which is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred threescore and six.”

Neither did John say: “is the number of man (as in ‘mankind’),” but he specifically wrote: “is the number of a man,” meaning a particular man.

That particular man to whom John was pointing those who “hath understanding,” is Solomon. “His number” corresponds to “money,” as in the amount of “gold” he received in a one-year period:

Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold. (I Kings 10:14)

So the number 666 represents nothing more or less than money. You can learn about its relationship to "the beast" in the book at the site below. It is free.

Answer 7

The number 6 in Biblical numerology stands for man or incompletion. Therefore, three "sixes" in one person (the Antichrist) would come to stand for the Satanic imitation of God and Satan's "unholy trinity" Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. The one thing that really makes Satan's day is to get the same kind of worship and respect that God does. But since we're told, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me", Satan has to yet again take on his role as the ultimate deceiver of man and create a system of worship that closely IMITATES the way we worship God. This is why Revelation talks about the way the Antichrist's "miracles" and etc. will be "...able to deceive the very elect (best and brightest of those who are left behind after the Rapture)"

Answer 8

Because the #6 means imperfect, the number of man (whereas #7 is perfection, completion and is the number for The Lord). So, the antichrist (the beast) will be a man who will be indwelt by satan and be the political leader of this earth during the Tribulation period and eventually claim to be God. Hope this helps.

Answer 9

Well, because God deemed it necessary.
Beyond that, a valid answer is difficult.
I would think that because 7 is a number symbolizing completion, and perfection, Man is below it, therefore ,making him "666". And since Satan, or "the beast", is the manifestation of the Fall of Man, the number is placed on his head.

Answer 10

6 stands for imperfect, 3 stands for perfect; so three 6s means perfectly imperfect.

Many numbers have symbolic meaning. For example, 7 also means perfect, 40 means a long time or one generation, 12 means God's authority. I've listed a site that has a pretty basic summary. Whenever the Bible mentions a number, it's usually symbolically important.