06-06-06
Evidently I am hung up on easy dates to remember. I know that this date happens only once every hundred years so most people come across one only once in their lifetime. If they live to see two, they may not be seeing very well at all.
I don't know why it has the perceived relationship to the devil, but the movie industry is launching a remake of The Omen today.
Jay Leno said he heard that some people were placing bets that the world would end on today's 06-06-06. He pointed out that he'd gladly take that bet because if they are right, he won't have to pay up. (Again, why they thought that this special one meant doom when none of the others has, is beyond me.) I guess I shouldn't have worked so hard in the yard yesteday, in case they are right, but it was a beautiful next-to-last day if they are right.
(The newspapers had articles on the topic of 666 today. Click on "Comments" below if you want to read them.)
I don't know why it has the perceived relationship to the devil, but the movie industry is launching a remake of The Omen today.
Jay Leno said he heard that some people were placing bets that the world would end on today's 06-06-06. He pointed out that he'd gladly take that bet because if they are right, he won't have to pay up. (Again, why they thought that this special one meant doom when none of the others has, is beyond me.) I guess I shouldn't have worked so hard in the yard yesteday, in case they are right, but it was a beautiful next-to-last day if they are right.
(The newspapers had articles on the topic of 666 today. Click on "Comments" below if you want to read them.)
posted by Connie @ Tuesday, June 06, 2006
2 Comments:
At 3:19 PM,
Connie said…
A Date With Destiny or Just Another Day?
For some, today's date evokes 666, a number linked to Apocalypse. JUNE 6 CLIPS
By K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer
June 6, 2006
Today is the sixth day of the sixth month, six years into the second millennium, and for some people that adds up to Apocalypse.
For others, 666 — the mark of the beast in the New Testament — is a marketing opportunity. Hollywood today is releasing a remake of "The Omen," a 1976 thriller about a family raising a child, born on June 6, 1966, who is destined to become the antichrist.
The publisher of the popular "Left Behind" series, Christian novels about the End Times that have sold tens of millions of copies, is issuing yet another book, "The Rapture." And http://www.BetUS.com , an online gaming site, posted 10-1 odds that there will be an apocalypse today.
The Church of Satan was scheduled to hold a high satanic Mass today in Hollywood, and some heavy metal bands are releasing compact disks.
So what's the meaning of the dreaded 666?
"It is a great conundrum," said David M. Scholer, professor of the New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and an authority on the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. "Scholars have debated this throughout the history of the church."
The number comes from Revelation 13:18, credited to John:
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.
In "The Omen," the image is literal, a birthmark of three sixes on the boy's head.
Scholer says the current theory held by most scholars is that 666 is a cryptogram for Nero, the Roman emperor who persecuted Christians with unspeakable cruelty.
Though Revelation is written in Greek, the cryptogram relates to Caesar Nero in Hebrew, pronounced KEser NEron. Hebrew did not have signs for numbers and instead assigned numerical values to letters in the alphabet.
Scholer said that adding up the value of the Hebrew letters in Nero's name — 100, 60, 200, 50, 200, 6 and 50 — one gets 666.
Revelation — apocalypse in Greek — was probably written between AD 81 and 96, during a time when many believed that Nero might come back to life.
In AD 68, Nero killed himself by slitting his throat. That wound, and the fear of Nero's return, apparently accounts for Revelation 13:3: One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.
This hasn't stopped some interpreters from identifying various people as the beast of Revelation — various popes, Martin Luther, Napoleon, Saddam Hussein and Prince Charles.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was also suggested because each of his names had six letters. (After the president and Nancy Reagan moved into their new home in Bel-Air, she had the address changed from 666 to 668.)
John P. Crossley Jr., director of USC's School of Religion, says adding to the confusion is that some manuscripts use 616.
Revelation, a letter circulated to seven churches in what is today Turkey, is like no other book in the Bible because it is in the genre of Jewish apocalyptic literature, full of symbolism.
This genre, Scholer said, sought to confront deep and disturbing questions, including: Why do God's faithful people suffer at the hands of the wicked oppressors? Will there ever be vindication for the faithful?
Even for regular Bible readers, Revelation is considered difficult to understand because the symbolism is sometimes violent and dramatic, with references to angels and strange beasts.
At 3:30 PM,
Connie said…
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Zeroing in on 6-6-06
Is today's date just a number? Many believe not. Then again, the talk could be hype whipped up for a new movie.
By KATHERINE NGUYEN
The Orange County Register
Even among the biblically ignorant, the number 666 can evoke an ominous prickle of fear.
The cursed digits are notorious as the mark of the beast or Antichrist in the Book of Revelation, which some interpret as signifying the beginning of the end of the world:
"He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."
So you can bet that somewhere today, on 06/06/06, superstition or religion is leaving some with the heebie-jeebies and others talking of the apocalypse.
And expectant moms? At least some are asking themselves: "Do I really want to have my water break right now?"
In London, The Sun newspaper reported that a pregnant woman was angling to have her labor induced out of fear of giving birth to the devil.
That kind of reaction is precisely what savvy marketers are banking on, what with the convenient launch of Twentieth Century Fox's remake of "The Omen" and Ann Coulter's book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," both out today.
Another book making a timely debut is "The Rapture," the next installment in the best-selling Christian book series "Left Behind," which is a collection of novels about the apocalypse
Not to be left out, BetUS.com, an online gaming site, posted 10-1 odds that the apocalypse would occur today.
Not that the masses are actually buying into the 666 phenomenon, right?
"It's just crafty advertising," said biblical scholar Mark Hitchcock, who's authored 14 nonfiction books relating to end-times Bible prophecy. "The date today has no real significance. The 666 reference has to do with the name of the future Antichrist, not the date."
Some, like Murray Quirk of Dana Point, pointed out that D-Day also shares the date. And since everyone else seems to be trying to capitalize on today's date, why not do something, too?
"I was thinking maybe everyone could wear their crosses out today, of all days. As a sign of solidarity among Christians and their faith," said Quirk, 55. "Kinda like wearing green on St. Patty's Day."
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