apocalyptic number

In the New Testament, the mystical number 666 (Revelation 13:18).

There have been various interpretations of this number. In Greek and Hebrew the letters of the alphabet were used for numbers, and so ‘the number of the beast’, being also ‘the number of a man’, was the value of the letters composing the name. The most generally accepted solution is ‘Neron Kesar’, the Hebrew for the Latin ‘Nero Caesar’.

In ancient Hebrew the vowels ‘e’ and ‘a’ are not represented, but ‘o’, being a long vowel, is. The value of the letters N R O N K S R is therefore 50 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 100 + 60 + 200 = 666.

Other interpretations are from the Hebrew word for ‘leader of blasphemy’ and from Greek Lateinos (the Roman Empire).