Monday, May 09, 2005

The Beast Gets a New Number?

Here's another weekend "leftover": The number 666, always assumed to be "the mark of the beast," may have lost some of its "bite" if a recent find turns out to be correct...
Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all.

A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist.
As always, read the whole thing.

I'm not saying that I believe the main story here, just that it's interesting. The only reason I bring this up is because my cell phone number has had a 616 in it for the entire time I've been a celluar customer--nearly 10 years now. That could possibly explain the somewhat possessed behavior of my old phone a little over a year ago.

Oh, and it also dilutes the little joke from when my sister was in high school: she dated a guy whose license plates had the number 666, and he was a minister's son!

This post has staying Power: Believe it or not, people are still commenting on last week's Tower of Power post. The most interesting thing so far is a back-and-forth between me and an anonymous commenter who has thus far declined to uncloak. I'm not yet at the point of disabling anonymous comments, but I know plenty of people who have. If you're a fellow blogger, what are your reasons for allowing or disallowing them?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

With the addition of Blogger's "Other" option in the comments, I don't see the need for an "Anonymous". It even states that all the fields are optional. If you don't have a website leave that field emtpy. Just write a name, random key strokes, or call yourself Mickey Mouse. The internet is all about handles anyway. I think Mr. 1of5 is just trying to stir things up.