Tuesday, June 14, 2005

616

I don't know how much I trust this website, but my Yahoo! email reminder for Oxyrhynchus papyrus came up with a hit at The Anniston Star of Alabama. I have to do more research to see if this comes up again on another site.

"The reporter told of how, a few years ago, over in Egypt, near a place called Oxyrhynchus, archeologists found pieces of ancient manuscripts in what was described as a "historic dump." At the time, no one could read them, but recently, thanks to "new photographic techniques" a bunch of professors in England and Canada have been able to make out the words.
And guess what!
One fragment is from the "Book of Revelations."
Written in ancient Greek, dating from the late third century, it might be the oldest copy we have, the closest we can get to what the writer actually wrote.
And guess what else!
The fragment reveals that the number is NOT 666.
Nossir.
The number is (drum roll please) 616.
Which makes sense, explained David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham (England’s Birmingham, not ours). 'This is an example of gematria," he told a reporter for The (UK) Independent, 'where numbers are based on the numerical value of letters in people’s names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula.' "

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