19 February 2010
666 PaleoBabble
Posted by MSH under: Wacky Bible Interpretation .
Someone kindly brought this piece of paleobabble to my attention recently. The site argues that certain Arabic letters/symbols visually resemble the Greek text of “666″ in the book of Revelation. More accurately, the Arabic allegedly resembles the common Greek New Testament manuscript abbreviation for “666″ (the number is abbreviated to correspond to the numbers “six hundred” – “sixty” – and “six”). Here’s a picture that explains the claim (Maybe it’s just me, but I only see a visual similarity for ONE (the blue line) of the three letters):
Some observations:
1. Arabic as we know it (and as this claim presents it) wasn’t a language until somewhere around the 4th century A.D. — 300 years after Revelation was written.
2. Literary Arabic of the kind this visual represents was even later – around the 7th century A.D.
3. The third letter (the numeral “6″) in the “Codex Vaticanus” manuscript image would likely not have been written that way originally. In earlier manuscripts, such as the papyri, the shape is different. Below is a picture of one of the few papyri of a portion of the book of Revelation that has survived. It is P115 and dates to 225-275 A.D. It has the passage that gives the number of the beast — except this is the famous example that has “616″ instead of “666″ (the red arrow points to the number). That difference doesn’t matter for us, since the last number/letter is “6″:
Below is also a closeup with the Vaticanus “6″ inserted for comparison:
Sorry boys and girls. Just more nonsense . . . er, paleobabble. Believing that the number of the beast points to a Muslim antichrist because of these Arabic letter/symbol shapes requires (among other things) believing that the writer of Revelation, writing in Greek, to be thinking the meaning of his Greek letters was to be found in letter shapes of a literary language that didn’t yet exist. Ridiculous. But fun.
14 Comments so far...
blop2008 Says:
20 February 2010 at 6:48 AM.
Do you read Arabic too Mike? How many ancient and modern languages can you read?
blop2008 Says:
20 February 2010 at 7:04 AM.
The website post points to Walid Shoebat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtquNNEO7Fw
The golden image doesn’t have the two other counterparts from what I can see and understand but Walid is still referencing what he sees in greek muniscule scripts and not necessarily the golden image on its own. But as you point out, it doesnt drive at all.
MSH Says:
21 February 2010 at 5:30 PM.
I don’t read Arabic. Don’t have to for this — it’s just about shapes.
MSH Says:
21 February 2010 at 5:30 PM.
yeah – where is the correlation and coherence?
Anonymous Says:
23 February 2010 at 5:37 PM.
It comes from Walid Shoebat and ex Muslim PLO member turned Christian end times prophecy enthusiast of the dispensational variety. He was reading through the Bible and said he saw Islam throughout but on the wrong side. He now advocates the view that Islam is the beast system. Some of his stuff is compelling. He said something along the lines of “what if John saw into the future and tried to write down what he saw…” His idea was John didn’t understand what it was but put down what he saw as best he could. So in this scenario it would not matter that Arabic wasn’t in existence. However it really doesn’t even match and this isn’t John’s autograph manuscript, so it’s still paleobabble. Still yet, praise God for his conversion!
Cris Putnam Says:
23 February 2010 at 5:43 PM.
Walid Shoebat converted from Islam after reading the bible and seeing Islam all through it, albeit on the wrong side. He’s now a dispensational endtimes prophecy guy – has a book out. His idea was that John had a vision of the future and just wrote what he saw, not knowing what it was… so it wouldn’t matter that Arabic wasn’t used. However, it doesn’t match that closely and the Vaticanus is not John’s autograph so it’s still Paleobabble.
MSH Says:
23 February 2010 at 5:54 PM.
This actually *does* matter. John in Revelation 13:18 and elsewhere is very clear — he is speaking about “the NUMBER of a man” (also could be translated, “a human number”). John gives the number: 666 (616 is a minority text-critical reading). This means that John wasn’t writing about SHAPES he saw — which shapes do *not* correspond to known spellings of known numbers. I can appreciate Shoebat’s journey, but this is bogus.
wayne Says:
2 March 2010 at 12:44 PM.
Well, the Arabic has been manipulated. It’s been turned on it’s side and reversed. Are Xtians saying John was dyslexic?
MSH Says:
2 March 2010 at 9:11 PM.
funny!
Eric Says:
4 March 2010 at 12:12 PM.
Salman Rushdie got death threats; this guy gets ridicule. Telling isn’t it?
Eric Says:
4 March 2010 at 3:51 PM.
I know the word eschatology is from a Greek root word and it is the study of the last of days or end times essentially. But with every doomsday weirdo like Walid having a website and ebook. It is ironic that eschatology is now very synonymous with E (for electronic) – Shat (as in biological exhaust)-ology. Kudos to the good Doctor’s website here for providing a respite.
MSH Says:
5 March 2010 at 12:25 AM.
thanks!
Anonymous Says:
17 August 2010 at 9:53 AM.
where is the visual counterpart to the other 2 letters?
Answer: the first symbol are muslim cross swords.
The 3rd symbol is the communist flag.
Check it out!
Anonymous Says:
24 August 2010 at 1:57 PM.
A communist flag? The codex vaticanus image look less like a hammer and sickle to me and more like an old hand drill. Maybe God is telling us that the anti-Christ is a Luddite. Hey, maybe the unibomber was the anti-Christ! No, he was probably just the false prophet since he had that manifesto and all.
See how silly we can get when we ignore that plain text of the Bible?
