666

According to Revelations, today's date 6/6/6, are the devil's own digits. The key passage: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: For it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six."

However, as scholars have been saying almost from the time the book was published, identifying 666 with the devil misunderstands the message. In the first century, when Revelations was written, the arch-enemy of Christendom was the emperor Nero, a nasty old soul who took delight in using adherents to the new religion as lion food and garden torches. Rather than attack the emperor by name, Revelations uses code, a code Jews, in fact, are likely to recognize: Gematriah

Add is up and you'll see: The gematria of Nero Ceasar (nrv qsr) is 616.

Spotted the problem yet? Right. The beast's number is 666, not 616!

Luckily, there are two solutions to this problem, and you can judge for yourself if they seem legitimate.

First explanation: There are those who insist that in the first century, a Jew like Revelations author, would have referred to the Emporor as "Neron." Indeed, the Jastrow dictionary uses this spelling and the extra "N" at the ends adds 50, bringing our total to 666.

Second explanation: A fragmant from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament gives 616 as the beast's number.

Squaring the circle: The author of Revelations was a Jew who wrote in Greek, but thought in Hebrew, so it was natural for him to use and code Nero's Hebrew name: Thus, 666. Meanwhile, the copyist who wrote the 616 manuscript was thinking in Latin. He understood the author's intention, but realizing that it wouldn't work for a non-Jewish audience, he corrected the verse, changing 666 to 616 to coincide with the Latin form Nero Ceaser, rather than the Jewish Neron Ceaser.