--- In PotaDG@yahoogroups.com
, "Michael Whitty" <whitty@...> wrote:
>
> :-)
>
> Give me a planet of the amazons any day - as long as I'm still
around to enjoy it!
>
> Michael
*** Mike, I doubt if you'd really enjoy such a place. It helps to
know that the historical Amazons were so named because they would,
uh, hack off one of their breasts so that it wouldn't get in the way
of their archery skills. The Greek word "Mazos" means "one of the
breasts" (the word "sternon" meaning "the whole breast/chest", hence
our word Sternum, via the Latin transliteration + ending). When the
Greeks took a word like "Mazos" and tacked on the letter Alpha just
before it (called "Alpha privative"), it had the effect of negating
it, as in the word "atheist" meaning "no god", a- plus -theism.
Literally, the word Amazon means "no breast" -- because those warrior
women found that "one of the breasts" ("Mazos") got in the way of the
feather-end of the arrow when it was drawn back during aiming.
So, if you're a breast man (and who the hell isn't???), a planet of
one-teated arrow-shootin' gals is NOT gonna be all that fun...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PotaDG@yahoogroups.com [PotaDG@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Wendy Kostora
>
> I like Neil's answer. However, I didn't mean to imply that I don't
like men. My mom studied numerology. According to her 666 isn't
necessarily the beast. It is the number of man --- human. To take
this further, 616 was Nero's number, which to most Christians at that
time considered him the anti Christ, or beast. If you ask Patrick,
I'm sure he could explain this in infinite detail.
> Wendy
*** Nobody asked me, but since you brought it up, Wendy, here I go
with the "infinite detail"...
The relevant text is REVELATION 13:18 (this from the New
International Version):
"This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the
number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
Just for gits and shiggles, using "THE NIV INTERLINEAR GREEK-ENGLISH
NEW TESTAMENT", I'll give you a rough Greek transliteration of this
verse, using "o" for Omicron [pronounced like the "o" in the
word "hot"], "w" for Omega [pronounced like the "o" in the
word "go"], "e" for both Epsilon and Eta, and "h" (when not paired up
with other letters, as in ch- [Chi], th- [Theta], and ph- [Phi]) will
transliterate the "rough breathing mark" which is pronounced like the
letter H in English, used at the beginning of a word, but is NOT an
actual letter in the Greek alphabet:
"Hwde he sophia estin. ho echwn noun psephisatw ton arithmon tou
theriou; arithmos gar anthrwpou estin. Kai ho arithmos autou
hexakosioi hexekonta hex."
Literally, word-for-word [transposing "arithmos gar" so that "gar" is
translated before "arithmos" to make sense in English word order],
this translates as:
"Here (the) wisdom is. The-(one) having reason let-him-count the
number of-the beast; for (the)-number of-a-human it-is. And the
number of-it [is] six-hundreds sixty six."
The word for wisdom is "Sophia" which, incidentally, was also the
name of a goddess worshipped by the Gnostics, as those of you who've
read "THE DA VINCI CODE" (or seen the movie) will know.
The NUMBER of the Beast ("Therion", meaning "wild animal") should be
differentiated from the MARK of the Beast ("mark" being
Gr. "charagma" which is the same source for our English
word "character"). The MARK of the Beast is said to be placed on the
RIGHT HAND or the FOREHEAD of everyone -- small and great, rich and
poor, free and slave -- so that one has to have this Mark in order to
buy or sell. Just a few verses later, it mentions the 144,000
righteous ones having the names of the Lamb and of "his Father"
written on their Foreheads.
According to REV. 14:9-11, "A third angel followed them [i.e. the
first 2 angels] and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the
Beast and his Image and receives his Mark on the Forehead or on the
Hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been
poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented
with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the
Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever.. There
is no rest day or night for those who worship the Beast and his
Image, or for anyone who receives the Mark of his name."
You catch that? First it says that EVERYONE will receive the Mark of
the Beast (either in their Forehead or in their Right Hand) --
everyone, that is, except (presumably) those 144,000 saints who have
the names of the Lamb and his Father written on their Foreheads.
EVERYONE (except those 144,000 dudes) will have that Mark, if we're
to believe this crazy book. And ALL THOSE PEOPLE -- which would have
to number in the BILLIONS, if this book really does foretell the
Future -- ALL THOSE PEOPLE will suffer eternal torment, what with the
burning sulfur and the no rest day or night. Oy vey!
Mind you, we're never told what EXACTLY this Mark of the Beast is
supposed to be. Is it the dreaded UPC bar-code, that some people have
suspected? Is it a microchip implanted under the skin, as part of
some anti-Christian orwellian totalitarian plot?
Here's what it says in DEUTERONOMY 6:4-9 (this is Moses talking):
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the
LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be
upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your
children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when
you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And
you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as
frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the
doorposts of your house and on your gates."
The words which Moses commanded the Israelites comprised the 10
Commandments, the Statutes and the Ordinances. It is THESE which the
Israelites are supposed to bind "as a Sign" upon their HAND and which
shall be as "frontlets between [their] eyes". The Greek word for
these things which you've probably seen Hasidic Jews at the Wailing
Wall wearing is "Phylacterion" (English "phylactery") -- little boxes
with the 10 Commandments (etc) written on strips of paper inside 'em,
placed in the middle of their FOREHEADS with string-bands holding 'em
in place, wrapped around their head and their wrists.
So, the Mark of the Beast has something to do with this practice of
binding "God's Laws" literally on the Forehead and in the Right Hand.
Since the book of REVELATION specifically refers to the "patient
endurance on the part of the saints who keep God's commandments and
remain faithful to Jesus" (i.e. the Lamb), then it should be obvious
that the Mark of the Beast involves some sort of disobedience
regarding God's Laws.
Why the Forehead? Why the Right Hand?
Well, the Forehead represents the MIND and the Right Hand represents
one's ACTIONS or DEEDS. The Israelites were commanded to KNOW the 10
Commandments (in their Minds, their Foreheads) and to OBEY them with
their actions (with their Right Hands, just as Jesus is said to have
risen to Heaven to be seated at "the Right Hand of the Father"). The
Mark of the Beast, then, must represent the willing, mindful
disobedience of God's Laws and the willful acts/deeds of disobedience
in violation of those Laws, all so that people could "buy or sell"
under the thumb of the evil Antichrist's rigged system of commerce.
So, the entire population of the planet Earth -- minus those 144,000
saints -- is to suffer eternal torment, because they received the
Mark of the Beast. Ain't God merciful? Evidently not.
What about the NUMBER of the Beast? First off, is it REALLY the "666"
that we've been told for two millennia?
It seems that the earliest extant text of the book of REVELATION has
the dreaded number being "616" rather than "666". But, hey, none of
the innumerable Christian denominations out there is gonna re-write
their sacred scriptures at THIS point. So, it'll stay "666",
especially given the warning at the end of the book:
"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If
anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues
described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book
of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of
life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."
(REVELATION 22:18-19)
So... if the number originally WAS "616", then all those Christians
who mistakenly believed it was "666" were mistakenly believing an
ALTERED text, and they must share in the curse heaped on those who
would either add to or take away from the words of that crazy book.
This whole business about "666" being the Number of the Beast and
also the Number of a Man (or a Human, "arithmos anthrwpou") goes back
to a practice originating with the Greeks and called GEMATRIA.
The word "gematria" is a bastardized pronunciation of the Greek
word "Geometria" -- meaning Geometry, the Measure of the Earth.
Huh? Whazzat, you say? What the hell does Geometry have to do with it?
If you take each letter of the Greek alphabet in sequence and apply a
number to each letter, then the letter-number equivalence looks like
this:
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Digamma ["W"], Zeta, Eta, Theta
1...... 2... 3..... 4..... 5....... 6............. 7.... 8... 9....
Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Qoppa ["Q"]
10... 20.... 30..... 40, 50, 60, 70...... 80, 90.........
Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega, Sanpi [obsolete "S"]
100, 200... 300, 400..... 500, 600, 700, 800... 900.................
Three of the letters were dropped from the Greek alphabet prior to
the writing of the New Testament, but were retained for mathematical
purposes, since the numbers "6", "90", and "900" had to be
represented by a letter. Though they no longer used those
letters "W", "Q", and "old S" in their literature, they still
used 'em for math.
During the 1st Century, there was a Greek mystery cult that rivalled
Christianity for popularity amongst the "gentiles": the Cult of
Mithra. The Greek spelling of that Man-God's name was MEIThRAS
(the "Th" being Theta, and the "S" being Sigma, not Sanpi).
Using the above gematria chart, MEIThRAS (Mithra) equals the number:
M [40] + E [5] + I [10] + Th [9] + R [100] + A [1] + S [200] = 365
The pagan Man-God "Mithra"/MEIThRAS had a name that just happened to
equal the number of days-in-a-year, 365. Like Jesus, Mithra was born
on December 25th, was killed and resurrected and ascended into
Heaven, yada yada yada. He was symbolic of the cycle of the Sun-Earth
system, which is connected by Number -- the number 365.
Interestingly enough, in the last chapter of the 4th Gospel (John),
Jesus miraculously causes his fishermen/disciples to net "153" fish.
The Messiah was predicted to reform the calendar for the "true
believers", and this little miracle is a calendrical one. The square
root of the number 153 is 12.369317... which is the average number of
lunations in one year (each lunation, the cycle from New Moon to New
Moon, being almost exactly 29.53 days long). Multiply Sqr(153) by
29.53 and you get 365.26593... which is almost exactly the number of
days in a year. The MEIThRAS-number "365" is, of course, the WHOLE
NUMBER of days per year.
So... what about the number "666"? What word or words have letter-
number values equalling that number?
One word is LATEINOS ("e" being Epsilon, not Eta, and "o" being
Omicron, not Omega), since L + A + T + E + I + N + O + S = 30 + 1 +
300 + 5 + 10 + 50 + 70 + 200 = 666. The now-deceased crazy old coot
Herbert W. Armstrong -- founder of the "Worldwide Church of God" who
also just so happened to have been a habitual molester of his own
daughter -- argued that the "Beast" of REVELATION was the Roman
Empire ["Lateinos" supposedly being a Greek word for the "Latin"
people, descended from King Latinus of Latium in Italy]. Armstrong
preached that the Roman Empire would be "resurrected" in the End
Times, so that any attempt by Europe to form a "European Union" was
mistrusted by his fanatical followers. The "Scarlet Whore", by the
way, he interpreted as the Roman Catholic Church... which explains
Mel Gibson's recent high-speed meltdown, perhaps! "Sugar-tits..." and
all that.
However, the word LATEINOS is not found anywhere in the New
Testament, nor is it found in the GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON of Liddell
and Scott -- meaning that Armstrong's interpretation of "666"
as "LATEINOS" is a bunch of malarkey.
A better word/choice is TEITAN, an archaic spelling of "TITAN". T + E
+ I + T + A + N = 300 + 5 + 10 + 300 + 1 + 50 = 666. What's the
significance of "Titan" to this "Beast" of REVELATION?
Well, in Greek Myth, there was an ancient "Theomachia" or "War-
amongst-the-Gods" -- a truly "titanic" battle between the Titans and
the Gods. The Gods won, and the Titans were hurled down to defeat...
but those nasty Titans managed to interbreed with Earth beings,
creating all sorts of hybrid monsters.
Now go read the 6th chapter of GENESIS. Here we have the Hebrew-
Israelite parallel myth, involving the "Sons of God" who have carnal
relations with the "Daughters of Man/Adam". Having debased their
heavenly nature, the "Sons of God" are now called the "Nephilim": the
Fallen Ones. And their hybrid offspring are called the "Gibborim"
or "the Mighty Ones" -- the tyrants who wrought so much havoc that
God had no choice but to send the Deluge to wipe the slate clean.
Only Noah and his family were racially "pure": he was said to
be "pure in his generations", meaning that they hadn't participated
in the mixed-breeding of Fallen Angels with Mortal Women.
The Greek version of GENESIS translates the Hebrew word "Nephilim"
as "GIGANTES" -- which is why the King James Version
calls 'em "GIANTS".
The Titans of Greek Myth were also known as Giants. Thus, "GIGANTES"
and "TEITAN" were synonymous.
So, just as there was an unholy commingling of Fallen Angels with
Mortal Humans prior to the Deluge (God's "former-day" Judgment on the
Earth), so too did the author of REVELATION imply that a similar
unholy union would be made by the Antichrist (a "Teitan"/Titan) with
all of Mankind save those lucky 144,000 who, like Noah and the 7
others in the Ark, get to survive God's "latter-day" judgment.
Mind you, the word "TEITAN" is never used in the New Testament
either, and -- under that spelling -- is not found in Liddell &
Scott's GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON. But the word "TEITAN" was known to
Medieval scholars. I got my information about this from an article
written by a Dante scholar (last name: Kaske) who researched this.
I think this "TEITAN" interpretation makes the most sense. However,
having said that, I should point out that the number "666" is not
inherently evil. In fact, it is as "sacred" as the number 10. It is
not only one of the Triangular Numbers, but it is the 8th one.
If you make a Triangle of numbers like this:
+1
+2 +3
+4 +5 +6
+7 +8 +9 +10
+11 +12 +13 +14 +15
+16 +17 +18 +19 +20 +21
+22 +23 +24 +25 +26 +27 +28
+29 +30 +31 +32 +33 +34 +35 +36
+37 etc etc...
then the number on the far right of each column is the Triangular
Number: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, etc.
Just as "10" is the 4th Triangular Number (the last number on the 4th
line, the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4), so too is "36" the last number on
the 8th line. Now, add up those first 36 numbers: What do you get?
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16
+ 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28 + 29 + 30
+ 31 + 32 + 33 + 34 + 35 + 36 = 666.
Basically, if you pair off the 1st and last numbers, the 2nd and 2nd-
last, etc, so that 1 + 36 = 37... 2 + 35 = 37... etc, then you get 18
pairs of numbers, each pair equalling 37, and 18 x 37 = 666. The
number 37, by the way, is a Prime Number.
The Greek spelling of Jesus is IHSOUS (the H being capital-Eta, and
the O being Omicron). According to gematria, I + H + S + O + U + S =
10 + 8 + 200 + 70 + 400 + 200 = 888. The number "888" ["Jesus"] and
the number "666" are obviously similar, though "888" is not a
Triangular Number.
Incidentally, a guy named John Michell mentions in one of his books
that he interprets the numerology of Jesus (plus other Greek words in
the New Testament, especially in REVELATION, used in conjunction with
the name IHSOUS) to be Gnostic attempts to rag on the "literalist"
Pauline Christians, who believed that Jesus was a "god" and not
merely a "man". The Gnostics, in Michell's interpretation, believed
that Jesus was merely a man and that those who believed him to be a
God or a God-Man were basically blasphemers. So, the "number of a
Man" in REVELATION, in his interpretation, is the Gnostic's cryptic
way of saying that the belief in Jesus-as-a-God is the Mark of the
Beast, in that this "Number of the Beast" can be decoded to refer to
Jesus.
I think the Dante-scholar Kaske's "TEITAN" interpretation makes more
sense, myself, but then I'm not a "believer" in any of this stuff.
And there are as many interpretations of "666" and the Mark as there
are Christian denominations. I think it's unfortunate that the
number "666" -- a magnificent Triangular Number, the 8th one, in fact
[connected to the "888" number of IHSOUS, perhaps?] -- has been given
such a bad reputation.
One last thing about "666" and its numerical significances. The
Hebrew/Jewish lunisolar calendar is designed to harmonize a cycle of
19 solar years with 235 lunar months (lunations). The cycle lasts, on
average, about 6939.6 days or so. Every 19 years the Jews have to add
7 intercalary "13th" months, so that the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th,
17th, and 19th years of the cycle have 13 months instead of just 12.
Thus, (19 x 12) + 7 = 228 + 7 = 235 months.
Now, 35 cycles of 19 years each makes 665 years. The 1st year of the
36th cycle would then be the 666th year. Remember how the
number "666" is equal to 1 + 2 + 3 + .... + 34 + 35 + 36? Here's yet
another way that the number "666" is affiliated with the number "36".
It's a numerologist's wet-dream.
As Cornelius might say, "It's BEASTLY!"
Patrick "Number-Cruncher" Tilton
EARTH-TIME 8-13-2006
