For centuries, the number 666 has stirred imaginations and inspired fear as the so-called “number of the beast” from the book of Revelation. But according to Wesley Huff, a Canadian biblical scholar and apologist, the story is a bit more complex.
In a recent post on X, Huff clarified that while most modern Bibles render Revelation 13:18 as “his number is 666,” some of the earliest known manuscripts actually read “616.”
“This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666,” the verse states in most translations. But, Huff wrote, “our oldest fragmentary copy of Revelation that includes this text reads differently.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
That early copy, along with Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, one of the most important ancient witnesses to the book of Revelation, records the number as 616.
Still, Huff emphasized that the discrepancy is not cause for alarm.
“How important is this? Well, to be honest, not very,” he wrote, adding that early Church figures like Irenaeus, writing in the second century, were aware of the variant but affirmed 666 as the more accurate reading based on the earliest and most reliable copies available to them.
According to Huff, these kinds of textual variants are common and expected when studying ancient manuscripts.
“In the grand scheme of things, the presence of these types of scribal differences and textual variances … still has all the evidence on the side of Revelation 13:18 reading ‘666,’” Huff said.
In the ancient world, numbers often carried symbolic meaning, Huff explained. Many ancient languages, including Hebrew and Greek, used letters as numerals. By that logic, the name “Nero Caesar” transliterated into Hebrew adds up to 666. Removing the final “n” from “Neron” yields 616.
“Interestingly enough, the variant of ‘616’ does not change this,” Huff said. “616 calculated in Greek could also add up to Gaius Caesar written in the style of Caligula.”
Still, Huff cautioned against putting too much weight on numerology.
“These connections … while interesting, are of course, speculative,” he wrote.
Instead, Huff argued that the consistency of the Bible’s textual tradition, even in the face of such variants, strengthens confidence in the reliability of the Scriptures.
“The fact that we are able to pinpoint, discuss, and interact with these variants in the manuscript tradition — right down to letters and individual words — shows the reliability and confidence we have in the text we render and translate from today,” he said.
As previously reported by The Christian Post, in 2011, researchers at Oxford University announced the discovery of millions of fragments of ancient texts in Egypt that appeared to assign variations of the infamous number.
The texts, researchers said, called into question whether the number of the beast referred to in Revelation 13:18 is actually “616” or “665” rather than the widely understood “666.”
However, some scholars believe 666 corresponds to a historical figure, while others say the mark is either the name of the future Antichrist or the number of his name.
“Remember that Revelation is communicating the words of John to people in the first century and saying overtly that with wisdom and understanding they could discern the number of the beast, and the number of his name,” Hank Hanegraaff told The Christian Post in a 2012 interview. “Now, obviously, only a first century audience could understand the number of the beast and the number of his name.”
“Obviously no amount of wisdom and insight would have enabled a first century audience to calculate the number of a 21st century beast,” he added. “And therefore, it would have been cruel and dangerously misleading for John to suggest that first century Christians would be able to identify the beast if, in fact, the beast was a 21st century individual or institution.
