𝘛𝘩𝘦 Antichrist.

When I write about antichrists, I of course mean people who are anti-Christ. They’re not just pagans who apathetically want nothing to do with Christ Jesus if they can help it; these folks actively oppose Christ and fight Christianity.

But when I write about antichrists, your average Evangelical gets confused. Because antichrist is a word they’re very familiar with… but they regularly define it wrong. They don’t mean just any individual who’s anti-Christ. They mean the Beast.

Θηρίον/Thiríon is the word the apostle John used to describe various animals in the visions Jesus gave him in Revelation. There are multiple thiría in his visions, same as there are weird animals in Daniel and other biblical apocalypses. None of them are literal animals; they only represent a literal being. Like the lamb with seven horns and seven eyes who looks like he’s been killed. Rv 5.6 That’s Jesus, who doesn’t literally have seven horns and eyes in his heavenly form; he’s been human since 7BC. Likewise this Beast isn’t literally as John described him below. (My translation. The dragon, by the way, is Satan. Rv 12.9)

Revelation 13.1-10 KWL

1 I see a Beast rising up from the sea,

which has 10 horns and seven heads,

and on its horns, 10 diadems;

and on its heads, slanderous names.

2 The Beast I see is like a panther;

its feet like a bear’s,

its mouth like a lion’s mouth.

The dragon gives it its power,

its throne, and great ability.

3 One of the Beast’s heads is as if maimed to death,

and its deadly wound is cured.

The whole world admires the Beast,

4 and worships the dragon which gives its ability to the Beast,

and worships the Beast, saying,

“Is anyone like the Beast?”

and “Is anyone able to fight it?”

 

5 A mouth is given to the Beast

to speak great and slanderous things,

and it’s given power to do things

for 42 months.

6 The Beast opens its mouth to slander God,

to slander his name and his tabernacle

—the one in heaven he encamps in—

7 and the Beast is allowed

to make war with the saints and conquer us.

It’s given ability over every tribe,

people, language, and ethnicity.

8Everyone who dwells on earth will worship it—

everyone whose name wasn’t written

when the world was founded

in the life-book of the Lamb who was slain.

 

9 If one has an ear, hear:

10 If one is going into captivity,

they’re going into captivity.

If one is going to be stabbed to death,

they’re getting stabbed to death.

So should be the endurance and trust of the saints.

John then describes a Second Beast which gets everyone to worship both this first Beast, and an εἰκόνα/eikóna, “ikon,” of the first Beast; Rv 13.13-15 and forbids trade among everyone who isn’t personally marked with the Beast’s name or number. Rv 13.16-17 And so many people are fixated on the number, 666, I gave it its own article.

666, the Beast’s number.

In Revelation John was given an apocalyptic vision of two animals. The first is a leopard with bear paws, seven heads, and 10 horns; and it fights the saints and gets the people of earth to worship it. Christian popular culture tends to call it the Beast, as the KJV translates θηρίον/thiríon; or the Antichrist, ’cause too many of us speculate it’ll claim to be Christ. (Even though Revelation says no such thing. Go look.) The second animal has horns like a lamb, performs “miracles” in support of the first animal, and forces everyone to worship the first animal and its talking ikon.

And this:

Revelation 13.16-18 KWL

16 It made it so everyone—small and great, rich and poor, freemen and slaves—

might give themselves a stamp on their right hand, or on their forehead.

17 Thus no one was able to buy nor sell unless they had the stamp:

The first animal’s name, or the number of its name.

18 Here’s some wisdom: Those with a brain, calculate the animal’s number.

It’s a person’s number, and its number is 666.

The UBS Greek New Testament spells it out as ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ/exakósiï exíkonta ex, “six hundred sixty six.” The Textus Receptus instead uses the Greek letters ΧΞϚ, which is how ancient Greeks wrote numbers before they discovered Arabic numerals: They borrowed letters from their alphabet. The first nine letters were the first nine numbers; the next nine were the numbers 10, 20, 30, and so on up to 90; the next nine were the numbers 100, 200, 300, till they ran out of letters. So chi was used for 600, xi for 60, and stigma for 6.

There’s a textual variant in some ancient copies of Revelation which says the number is 616. So a lot of bibles mention that in their footnotes… just in case. Y’never know.

So if you have a brain, and wanna know who the leopard with seven heads represents, its number is 666. Figure it out!

Here’s the problem: Too many people don’t have a brain, and aren’t gonna bother to figure it out. They’re just gonna connect the dots, then panic. Fear makes people stop thinking, y’know: Fight-or-flight kicks in, and that’s all they do from that part onward. It’s why John addresses those of us who pursue wisdom: Don’t squander this clue.

First we gotta learn what a person’s number is. And no, I’m not talking about your social security number, your employee ID number, your credit card number, your PIN number, or any of the other numbers arbitrarily or deliberately connected to you.

Gematria.

A lot of people correctly figure “the number of a man” Rv 13.18 KJV is figured out by taking their name, converting the letters into numbers, and adding up all the numbers. Or if you’re really desperate to find a connection, doing some other stuff to the numbers: Multiplying ’em, bunching ’em together; anything which adds up to 666. Anything which connects the dots.

So how do we convert letters into numbers?

Well, most of us learned to cypher when we were kids. Cypher is to substitute something else for the letters of our alphabet. Sometimes another letter; sometimes a number; sometimes a symbol. (Some daily newspapers still publish cyphers, give you a few hints as to which letter meant what, and let amateur codebreakers have a little fun trying to crack the cypher.) The most basic cypher we learned was the simple letter-to-number substitution cypher: A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on till Z=26.

And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught Christians trying to use this cypher to figure out if someone’s the Beast.

When John wrote Revelation, was he thinking about the English alphabet? Or its predecessor the Latin alphabet? (Same alphabet, but I was split into I and J, and V was split into U, V, and W.) Not even close. For that matter the Latins didn’t even do this themselves. They decided I=1, V=5, X=10… you know, Roman numerals. (As you’ve seen on clocks, Super Bowls, and Star Wars episodes.)

John wasn’t speaking of calculating “the number of a man” with the Latin alphabet. Nor even the Greek alphabet. He had Hebrew in mind. Because calculating a person’s number was a Jewish practice. They called it gematria—from a bad translation of γεωμετρία/geometria, “geometry.” Many Jews still practice it, as part of Kabbalah.

Same as the Greeks, the Hebrew alphabet assigns a numeric value to each Hebrew letter. Today’s Hebrew-speakers still use it sometimes, same as we do with Roman numerals.

LETTER	NAME	VALUE
א	alef	1
ב	beit	2
ג	gimel	3
ד	dalet	4
ה	he	5
ו	waw	6
ז	zayin	7

LETTER	NAME	VALUE
ח	khet	8
ט	tet	9
י	yod	10
ךכ	kaf	20
ל	lamed	30
םמ	mem	40
ןנ	nun	50

LETTER	NAME	VALUE
ס	samek	60
ע	ayin	70
ףפ	pe	80
ץצ	chadë	90
ק	qof	100
ר	resh	200
ש	sin	300
ת	tav	400

So alef is 1, bet 2, gimel 3, and so forth till 10; then they go up by tens, then hundreds till you’re out of alphabet.

Notice kaf, mem, nun, pe, and chadë have two letters. The second letter (usually the one with the tail) is a sofít, a final-case letter. You know how we have uppercase letters at the beginning of some words? Final-case is the form which goes at the end of words. Since some folks wish Hebrew had 27 letters instead of 22 so they could count up to 900, they claim those final-case letters have extra values:

LETTER	NAME	VALUE
ך	kaf sofit	500
ם	mem sofit	600
ן	nun sofit	700
ף	pe sofit	800
ץ	chadë sofit	900

But nearly every Jew gives the final-case letters the same value as usual.

So every Hebrew letter has a numerical value. And in gematria, every Hebrew word also has a numerical value. Add up the value of its letters, and there y’go. Jesus’s name ישוע consists of yod (10), shin (300), waw (6), and ayin (70). Add ’em up and you get 386. That’s Jesus’s number.

(Yeah, there are folks who insist Jesus’s number is 777. That’s because somebody told them so… and they really like sevens. But obviously they’ve never double-checcked. Few do. And no, we don’t get 777 any other legitimate way. “Messiah Jesus” is 744. “King Jesus” is 411. “Jesus of Nazareth” is 1166. “Jesus son of Mary” gets 618 in Hebrew and 838 in Aramaic. The only way you can squeeze 777 out of “Jesus” is to use the wrong alphabet, or a mishmash of wrong alphabets. And gematria isn’t that hard.)

I should point out: Both Christians and Jews are really leery of gematria. For good reason. It’s not just used to figure out the numerical values of words for fun. In Kabbalah, a sect of rabbinical Judaism which specializes in mystery, they claim any word can be swapped for any other word with the same numerical value: If they share a numerical value, they share a spiritual value too. So if you wanna have a “new revelation,” it’s simple: Pick any verse from the bible, swap a few words with their numerical “equivalents,” and presto: A new teaching!

Take lo tináf, “Don’t adulter.” Ex 20.14 Tináf is worth 531. And so, coincidentally enough, is Florence Henderson. So if you don’t really feel like watching Brady Bunch reruns, there y’go: “According to Kabbalah, Exodus 20.14 can also mean ‘No Florence Henderson.’ So I’m sorry; I just can’t watch that.”Which is all kinds of wrong to both bible and to national treasure Florence Henderson.

John’s advice in Revelation obviously refers to gematria. So we’re permitted to use it to figure out the Beast’s number: Take a given person’s name. Convert it into Hebrew. (Google Translate will do that job for you easily.) Add up the numerical value of the letters.

And once that person’s name adds up to 666, he or she might be the Beast. Might not be. But if they start doing anything Beast-like, the number of their name confirms they’re a valid suspect.

I had a student once who was worried she might be the Beast. So I taught her how to calculate the number of her name. Wasn’t even close. Was that a load off her mind.

Okay. So that’s the proper use of 666: It’s a checksum to make sure someone isn’t the Beast. That’s all. That person who is the Beast will be the person to worry about. The number itself isn’t the problem.

Various other irrational fears.

Of course, I tell people about gematria and they look at me sideways: “I’ve never heard that before. I don’t think that’s right.” And they go back to their other favorite, tried-and-never-proven methods of Beast detection.

Or, more commonly, superstition. Pure pagan, didn’t-come-from-God, never-would-come-from-God, superstition. Any time they come across the number 666, they flinch in fear. Won’t abide it in their phone numbers, their serial numbers, their license plates, anything. If they’re buying groceries and the total comes to $6.66, they quickly buy something else to bump it up to $7.65.

True, the second beast uses the stamp in relation to commerce. Rv 13.17 So Christians are particularly sensitive to 666 in financial transactions. After all, that’s the most likely place the number will come up. There used to be some rumor going round of the word “Visa” secretly representing 666: The VI is obviously the Roman numeral 6; the ancient Greeks used stigma, which kinda looks like an S, for six; and presumably A becomes a six in some other culture, though I’ve yet to see a satisfactory explanation for it. (Ask whichever friends of yours post the most conspiracy theories on Facebook. They’ll know.)

But out of context, the number’s nothing to fear. It only exposes fearful Christians as lacking wisdom.

TXAB’s 2020 Presidential Antichrist Watch.

As usual for every presidential election (and for that matter, many a congressional election), we get doomsayers claiming this or that candidate is likely the Beast of Revelation 13, or as popular Christian culture calls it, the Antichrist. Certainly they act mighty Beast-like.

And I guess this is now my usual thing: I’m here to tell you there’s a way we might confirm someone’s the Beast, in case you’re seriously worried. (I’m not.) It comes from Revelation, in which John told us how to identify the Beast in case we’re wondering.

Revelation 13.18 KWL

Here’s some wisdom: Count the Beast’s number, those who have a brain.

It’s a person’s number, and its number is 666.

Only problem is, your average person doesn’t know how to count the Beast’s number, and do it through various illegitimate methods. Just the other day I saw someone assign numbers to our Latin alphabet (i.e. A is one, B is two, C is three) and try to figure out some names thataway. Nope, not how it works. Latin letters don’t have any numerical values… unless you count the letters we use for Roman numerals, and good luck finding someone with the letters DCLXVI mixed into their name somewhere.

Nope, what John was talking about in Revelation was gematria, the Hebrew practice of converting their letters into numbers to get the numerical value. ’Cause before there were Arabic numerals (or even Roman numerals), people used their alphabets as numbers. I explain the details of gematria in my 2016 Presidential Antichrist Watch article, so I needn’t repeat ’em here. The gist is we gotta transliterate someone’s name into Hebrew (which is really easy to do, thanks to Google Translate), then add up the values of the letters.

Which I did, below, with all the candidates on the primary ballots. Some of them have dropped out already, but I included ’em anyway. Hey, they might run again, or get picked as vice-president; you never know.

Yeah, you get different results if you change people’s names around a little: Include their middle names, or not. Use birth names, nicknames, maiden names, etc. Sometimes a transliterated name, like ג'ון for John, is not the same as a translated name, like יוחנן/Yochanan, the original form of the name from the bible. What I did was choose the form of the name which got us closest to 666. So here y’go.

DEMOCRAT	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Michael Bennet	מייקל פארנד בנט (Michael Farrand Bennet)	586
Joe Biden	יוסף רובינט ביידן (Joseph Robinette Biden)	509
Michael Bloomberg	מיכאל רובנס בלומברג (Michael Rubens Bloomberg)	702
Pete Buttigieg	פיטר פול מונטגומרי באטיגיג (Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg)	817
John Delaney	יוחנן קווין דלייני (Jochanan [John] Kevin Delaney)	410
Tulsi Gabbard	טולסי גברד	324
Amy Klobuchar	איימי ז'אן קלוחאר (Amy Jean Klobuchar)	474
Deval Patrick	דוויל פטריק	455
Bernie Sanders	ברני סנדרס	636
Tom Steyer	טום שטייר	584
Elizabeth Warren	אליזבת וורן	712
Andrew Yang	אנדרו מ יאנג (Andrew M. Yang)	365

 

REPUBLICAN	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Rocky De La Fuente	רוק דה לה פואנטה (Roque De La Fuente)	501
Donald Trump	דונלד יוחנן טראמפ (Donald Yochanan [John] Trump)	548
Joe Walsh	ויליאם ג'וזף וולש (William Joseph Walsh)	535
Bill Weld	ויליאם פלויד וולד (William Floyd Weld)	273

Now yeah, if you’re dead certain one of these candidates is definitely the Beast, of course you’re gonna utterly disregard gematria, and grab hold of some alternative method for coming up with a number. One which gets you the results you want, of course. And I’m sure you can convince all your partisan friends you’ve really found evidence of devilry in the United States’ election—well, outside of gerrymandering, state legislators trying to discourage voter turnout in the opposition party, political action committees which illegally accept foreign contributions, foreign hackers manipulating Facebook algorithms; and a president who withholds foreign military aid to get that government will do opposition research for his campaign, yet somehow he’s not convicted when impeached. But nope; gematria is precisely what John and his readers had in mind. Not your “new math.”

If you’re still worried some of these characters definitely look like Beast material, I get that. But their numbers say they’re not. If they’re evil, it’s their own personal depravity you need to worry about, not end-of-the-world stuff. So chill out.

TXAB’s 2016 Presidential Antichrist Watch.

Every presidential election year in the United States, we get doomsayers who claim this or that candidate is probably the Beast of Revelation 13, or as popular Christian culture calls it, the Antichrist. Or wannabe prophets claim one of the candidates is Jesus’s personal choice; if he held American citizenship (and I’m surprised one of the parties hasn’t voted him an honorary one by now) he’d totally pick that guy.

Of course none of these folks have any insight, supernatural or not. They’re proclaiming their own personal politics. Some of ’em do it every election. In the process, any such “prophets” unwittingly expose themselves as false ones, even when their favored candidates win. Because God’s will is for Jesus to reign, not some party, nor some politician. Lucky for them, we no longer stone false prophets to death. Man would that be satisfying.

I will point out it’s totally possible to determine which of these contenders might actually be the Beast. Seriously. Because at the end of chapter 13, John stated the Beast’s number is that of a human, and it’s 666. Rv 13.18 Meaning if we know what John meant by “its number”—and we do—we can calculate it.

Ready to find out which of the candidates are devil-spawn? Wait, lemme rephrase that: Ready to find out which of these folks are the ultimate devil-spawn? Well then you’re ready for TXAB’s 2016 Presidential Antichrist Watch.

The 2016 list.

The tricky part was trying all the variants of each candidate’s names. ’Cause Revelation doesn’t offer instructions: It’s not necessarily one’s full name, first ’n last ’n middle ’n maiden. It’s one’s name… which, I figure, could mean any reasonable configuration which adds up to 666. So I tried all the possibilities: Full names, nicknames, Hebrew-equivalent names, initials. Whatever jiggery-pokery got us closest to 666. Because if I didn’t, some conspiracy-theorist would, so I figured I’d beat ’em to the punch. Hey, if any reasonable-enough variant hits 666, maybe we do have something. And maybe not. I’m just the messenger.

Below are the closest results: It’s no coincidence they’re in the 500-700 range, ’cause that’s the range I was aiming for. I included candidates, potential candidates, and drop-outs, just in case. Nope, didn’t include third parties; they don’t win.

REPUBLICAN	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Jeb Bush	יוחנן אליס בוש (Yochanan [John] Ellis Bush)	533
Ben Carson	בנימין ס קרסון (Benjamin S. Carson)	638
Chris Christie	כריס כריסטי	599
Ted Cruz	רפאל א קרוז (Rafael E. Cruz)	625
Mark Everson	מארק אוורסון	670
Jack Fellure	לואל ג'קסון פאללור (Lowell Jackson Fellure)	633
Carly Fiorina	קארלי פיורינה	702
Jim Gilmore	ג'יימס סטיוארט גילמור (James Stewart Gilmore)	707
Lindsey Graham	לינדסי אולין גרהם (Lindsey Olin Graham)	509
Mike Huckabee	מיכאל דייל האקבי (Michael Dale Huckabee)	273
Bobby Jindal	פיוש "בובי" ג'ינדאל (Piyush “Bobby” Jindal)	514
John Kasich	יוחנן ר קייסיק (Yochanan [John] R. Kasich)	614
George Pataki	ג'ורג' אלמר פטאקי (George Elmer Pataki)	683
Rand Paul	רנדל הווארד פול (Randal Howard Paul)	622
Rick Perry	יעקב ר פרי (Yaqov [James] R. Perry)	672
Marco Rubio	מרקו רוביו	570
Rick Santorum	ריק סנטורום	681
Donald Trump	דונלד יוחנן טראמפ (Donald Yochanan [John] Trump)	548
Scott Walker	סקוט קווין ווקר (Scott Kevin Walker)	659

 

DEMOCRAT	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Joe Biden	יוסף רובינט ביידן (Joseph Robinette Biden)	509
Jeff Boss	ג'ף בוס	151
Lincoln Chafee	לינקולן ד צאפי (Lincoln D. Chafee)	461
Hillary Clinton	הילארי ר קלינטון (Hillary R. Clinton)	711
Lawrence Lessig	לורנס לסיג	449
Martin O’Malley	מרטין יוסף אומאלי (Martin Joseph O’Malley)	553
Bernie Sanders	ברני סנדרס	636
Jim Webb	יעקב הנרי ווב (Yaqov [James] Henry Webb)	461
Robby Wells	רוברט ולס (Robert Wells)	513
Willie Wilson	וילי וילסון	218

So there we are: None of the candidates appear to hit the relevant number. Now, whether their behavior or policies are Beast-like is a whole other ball of wax.

Back in 2012…

Some years ago I got into a political discussion (seldom a wise idea) with a fan of Pat Robertson. So for fun—hey, maybe I’d hit the magic number and horrify him!—I calculated Robertson’s name. No dice. Oh well.

Out of curiosity I tried a few of the front-runners’ names. Then I plugged in Mitt Romney’s name… and stuff got serious. Well, semi-serious. ’Cause Romney’s full name (Willard Mitt Romney, וילארד מיט רומני in Hebrew) came up 616. And I just so happen to know that in a few ancient copies of Revelation, the Beast’s number isn’t 666. It’s that number: 616.

Now, 616 is a textual variant, which means it’s not what the best ancient copies of Revelation have. And since Romney didn’t win the 2012 election, any worries people might’ve had, have (thus far) gone unfounded. Still…

Really, that’s the whole point behind calculating people’s numbers. It’s so Christians can watch out for them. That’s all. It’s not divine determinism: Anyone whose name adds up to 666 is foreordained to be the Beast. Just because your parents didn’t stop by the local Kabbalist to make sure they named you something benign, doesn’t make you the Beast. Being the Beast makes you the Beast.

In other words: Pursuing power instead of surrendering it, lying instead of seeking the truth, being a hypocrite instead of being transparent… basically if you’re in politics at all, you’re a much better match for the Beast than the average citizen who covets none of those things. (Or, better, who follows Jesus.)

I was a little surprised some news outlet didn’t pick up on Romney’s number and have a little fun with it. Then again, maybe they knew all along and squelched it… or maybe that’s just paranoia talking. ’Cause paranoia will come out with all this Beast-talk. Gotta keep our heads, folks.