[geocentrism] Re: 666
- From: "Martin G. Selbrede" <mselbrede@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 10:30:02 -0500
Allen,
Let's discuss (1) how small a minority of commentators hold to 666
referring to a span of time and (2) why this is so.
Pope Innocent III was the first to propose this approach. Within
Protestantism, John Albrecht Bengel was the strong proponent of the
view. No serious scholars since have attempted to force the fit.
The closest is Ernest L. Martin, for the Foundation for BIblical
Research (published in 1984), observing that from the inauguration of
Nebuchadnezzar's reign in 604 BC to the beginning of Israel's last
sabbatical cycle (autumn of 63 AD), which ended in autumn of 70 AD,
we find 666 years (notice the correct handling of the absent year
zero: 604+63 = 666, not 667). We can add Allen Daves to this list,
circa 2007, which enlarges the list by a third.
Okay, so, WHY would this approach be so rare if it had "so much" to
commend it? Quite simply, it's because of the relationship of Rev.
13:17 to Rev. 13:18 -- the 18th verse is an explication of the 17th
verse, so the terms used in the 17th verse frame the meaning of the
18th verse. What we have here is a case of predicate truncation.
Here's an example in English:
"The man with a black coat walked around the corner. The man had a
beard." Would you think the man of the second sentence is a different
person than the man in the first sentence, merely because the
complete description wasn't repeated verbatim? Of course not -- once
he's identified, there's no reason to make the second sentence longer
by writing it thus: "The man with a black coat who walked around the
corner had a beard." It's not necessary -- if the subject is the
same subject, then the predicates from the first sentence are
operative throughout the second: the second sentence is understood as
adding information, NOT starting from ground zero, and certainly NOT
subtracting information already given, as if the man with a beard
didn't have a black coat.
This is precisely what's going on between the 17th and 18th verses of
Revelation 13. The reason you seem to think yourself free to turn
666 into a time-span is because of neglect of what is already
established about the situation in verse 17. People either receive
the mark (charagma) of the name of the beast (to onoma tou theriou)
or (he') the number of his name (ton arithmon tou onomatos autou). We
have compound predicates, where name (onoma, onomatos) is tied to
beast (theriou) and number (arithmon). This is what is established:
that the number is the number of the NAME of the beast. In verse 18,
this sequence is collapsed for the sake of truncating an otherwise
overly-long description that was just established with great care:
arithmon tou theriou is a conflation of the two terms in verse 17.
THIS is the closest context to verse 18 there is, because Chapter
14:1 starts a new subject entirely. Therefore, verse 17, if it has
anything to say at all, must shape the meaning of verse 18 -- and
indeed it does. What is being expressed in the 666 cipher is
precisely what is spoken of TWICE in verse 17: the onoma, the
onomatos, the NAME of the beast. The number corresponds to a name.
Moreover, the term "gar" means "because" or "for," assigning an
important determining factor: the number is a number associated NOT
with a beast's name but with a man's name. This doesn't mean that the
beast is a single individual human (not likely, with seven heads and
ten horns on the seventh head, with the sixth head currently alive in
the 1st century AD), but it does mean the beast's name corresponds to
a man's name. The words "onoma" and "onomatos" in verse 17 must be
NEGLECTED and IGNORED in order to turn 666 into a span of time. It is
for this reason that virtually nobody has followed the lead of
Innocent III or Bengel on this ill-advised theory: it makes mincemeat
of verse 17.
That's too high a price to pay just to float a personally-satisfying
theory. If the 17th verse didn't exist, there'd be a small chance
you'd be right. But the 17th verse DOES exist, it DOES deal with the
same issue, and it is written to forbid such callous handling of the
cipher.
To recap: verse 17 speaks of the NAME of the beast and the NUMBER of
the NAME, so that when verse 18 does a natural truncation to the
NUMBER of the beast, it refers to the NUMBER of the NAME of the
beast, which is a MAN'S number. Verse 17 does NOT refer to a
different number (arithmon) than verse 18, but the SAME number in
both instances; the number of the name. A duration of years is not a
man's name. Period. So only one lone Pope, and only one major
Protestant commentator, ever had the fortitude to throw out the
teaching of verse 17 to play the "time-span game" with Rev. 13:18.
It's a bad bargain: you lose too much of what John has already made
clear.
Martin
Other related posts:
