Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tuesday Trivia: The Number of the Beast






Did you ever wonder why "666" is associated with evil?

In college, I took a History of Greece, Rome and Israel class, and the professor explained it like this:

In Hebrew, the declarative is formed by saying a word once: holy = holy.

The comparative is formed by saying it twice: holier = holy, holy.

The superlative is formed by saying it three times: holiest = holy, holy, holy.

Also, in ancient numerology, 7 is considered the perfect number, making 6 an imperfect number.

So, based on Hebrew grammar, 666 is the most imperfect number.

Which reminds me of a kiddie joke: Why was 6 afraid of 7?

Because 7 8 9.

14 comments:

  1. Hee Hee

    What did 0 say to 8?

    Nice belt! :)

    Peace - Rene

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  2. Do you think those ancient Hebrew numerologists were high when they thought that up?

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  3. Oh No! And my Life Path number is 6! Thank goodness I only have one life, little ole imperfect me!

    And 7 8 9?!
    And 8 wears a belt?!

    So much to learn!!

    btw. The Hebrew value of the word "Love" is 13.. as is the value of the word "One", so 13 in Hebrew terms is a lucky number. And as Friday is the start of the Shabbat, I laugh in the face of Friday the 13th Mwah Ha Haaaarrr!!

    *sigh*

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  4. Very interesting stuff.

    My hubby was born Jan. 6/66. I always knew he was the devil incarnate.

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  5. For some reason that joke still gets a laugh out of me!

    So what does 69 mean :)

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  6. 666 is the combo number to my briefcase...Figures, don't it? HeeHeeHee...

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  7. but why not 8 instead of 6? Maybe that kiddie joke had something to do with it!
    Nice one!

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  8. Thanks for that little bit of trivia. . .

    I've gotta admit. . . I'm not getting the belt joke!

    Am I slow or something?

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  9. I hadn't heard the belt joke before, but the 789 one always cracks me up. I'm going to have to teach it to my son when he gets this whole counting thing down.

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  10. Thanks for sharing this knowledge. Old joke, ha.

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  11. The kind of jokes my boss would love!

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  12. To Chef E, regarding her curiosity about the meaning of 69....

    As a fellow musician, and twang box plucker myself, I would defer to Jimi Hendrix who noted...

    " If 6 turned out to be 9, I don't mind. I don't mind..."

    :) back

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  13. How did I end up laughing about that?

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  14. Now I heard a different story. It was that the early Christians were having some trouble with Roman persecution and took to communicating with one another using codes, often that used initial letters to denote whole words. DCLXVI (i.e. 666 in Roman numerals) was used as a warning that Diocletian Caesar was persecuting the Christians. Please don't ask me to give you all the words indicated by the initials because I can't remember and my Latin is very rusty. But you get my drift, I hope. 666 thus would have come into St John's mind as he was writing Revelations as indicative of a holocaust against the Christians, and he called it "the number of the Beast". Works for me!

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