For those of you who are unclear on the "number of the Beast" thing

[xiphias]

[This isn't a humor post, or a political post. This is a history/theology geeking post. Just so's y'all know what to expect.]

First off, as you all know, the Number of the Beast is "616", not "666" -- the whole "666" thing is a transcription error. The earliest versions of the Book of Revelations have "616".

Second, as you all know, in Hebrew, every letter also has an associated numerical value, and Hebrew numerology is based around the numerical values of words.

Hebrew Letter	Value	Name	English Approximation of Sound
א	1	Aleph	Silent
ב	2	Bet	B or V
ג	3	Gimmel	G (historically, also could sound as j)
ד	4	Dalet	D (historically, could also sound as djz)
ה	5	Hay	H
ו	6	Vav	V, or oo, or oh (historically, sounded as "w", "oo", or "oh", and was called "waw")
ז	7	Zayin	Z
ח	8	Chet	kh (as in "Bach")
ט	9	Tet	T
י	10	Yod	Y
כ	20	Kaf	K or kh
ל	30	Lamed	L
מ	40	Mem	M
נ	50	Nun	N
ס	60	Samekh	S
ע	70	Ayin	Silent, basically
פ	80	Pay	P or F
צ	90	Tzade	ts, as in "pizza"
ק	100	Kuf	K or Q (a little more gutteral than K)
ר	200	Resh	R, more or less
ש	300	Shin	Sh or S
ת	400	Tav	T, T or S in some dialects, T or Th historically

As an aside, I find it interesting that, historically, the following letters had two sounds:
Bet, B and V (no English equivalent of which I know)
Gimmel, G and J (the English letter "g" maintains both sounds)
Dalet, D and djz as in the French "gendarme" (no English equivalent that I know of)
Kof, K and Kh
Pay, P and Ph
Shin, S and Sh
Tav, T and Th

So, a fair number of the Hebrew two-sound letters made it into English. . .

Anyway, that's not what I'm posting about.

The Book of Revelations is clear that "616" refers to a person's name. So you need to find a name, or name and title, which adds up to 616.

How about קסר נרו ? That's 50+200+6 + 100+60+200 = 616. What are the English equivalents of those letters? NRV QSR. Of course, that "V" may be a "W", a "U" or an "O", and we need to add vowels.

NRO QSR. NeRO CaeSaR.

Hard to argue with that one. Emperor Nero pretty much deserved the title of "the Beast", and, for that matter, was the Emperor when the Book of Revelations was written.

So, my point is to just plain relax about the Book of Revelations. We KNOW what the "number of the Beast" is, and who it refers to, and why. It's not a great End-Times Mystery or anything.

Comments

[redbird]

I realize the answer to this may be "no", but do you know--does anyone know--why a language that didn't generally write vowels (and thus didn't need to separate them in writing) has (had?) two silent letters? Or one and a half, since I'd gather that "silent, basically" means that ayin has some effect on pronunciation.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's because it doesn't write vowels that it needs silent letters.

Every letter in Hebrew has an associated vowel. Any word which starts with a vowel sound MUST start with a silent letter. Because it it started with a NON-silent letter, it would start with that consonant sound.

Similarly, if a sylable starts with a vowel sound, that sylable must start with a silent letter.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Similar to ancient Egyptian? Actually, some of the sounds are extremely similar... given the history of the Hebrews in Egypt, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

And yes, I knew that about Nero. Saw a very interesting show about it on the History channel (I believe), which explained that pretty much the entire book of Revelations corresponded directly with events that were taking place at the time it was written. The End Times came and went long ago...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The Phonecians seem to have taken the basic forms from the Egyptians, simplified them, and spread them to a whole bunch of other cultures, including the Hebrews. Incidentaly, another name for the Phonecians is the "Caananites". Yup, my ancestors brutally slaughtered the advanced civilization which invented writing and long-distance trade.

[sethg]

Aleph was, once upon a time, a non-silent letter (some kind of glottal stop, but different from ayin). I have heard (although I couldn't give you a page citation) that the Talmud says somewhere that a cohen who can't pronounce the difference between לא and לו isn't allowed to bless the congregation.