But will Tim F. Lahaye really go back and re-edit all his novels, now?

[capri0mni]

According to a report that has come out this week, 666 is *not* "the number of the beast," after all.

I particularly find this comment, from David Parker, a professor specializing in the study of the New Testament and Paleontology, both interesting and disturbing:

"Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who [sic] they were attacking . . "

Secret codes? Planned attacks on your enemies? Really, now!

Reading that reminded me of a television program I had seen years ago on PBS: Secrets of the Dead: The Great Fire of Rome. Officailly, the cause of the great fire is still a secret, but one of the three theories put forth in the show, was that it was the Christians, who had been fighting back against their oppression by distributing pamphlets declaring that "Rome must burn."

Jesus may have been the Prince of Peace... but that can't be said for many of His followers...

Comments

[popesnarky.livejournal.com]

Hail Eris!

Heh, this is the second blog to mention it this weekend...janetmiles mentioned it a day or so ago.

Snarky

[trinalin.livejournal.com]

I dunno what the big hubbub is about. I've known about 616 since I was a teen ager at least...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

How did you learn about it?

[trinalin.livejournal.com]

My dad told me. Although he's more of a Biblical scholar now than he was back then, he still was reading the literature - Biblical Archeological Review et al. (I like his sermons a lot more now than back then too. Much more Universalist than Christian these days.)