Why is 666 the number given to the beast?

Answer 1

An explanation of this can be found at www.carm.com (that is Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry)

This is what it says:

"Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six," (Rev. 13:18).

666 is the number of the antichrist, the end times figure who will arise with the purpose of opposing God and God's people. 666 is the gamatria of the name of the antichrist.

In Greek and Hebrew there are no numeric characters. There are only alpha characters. For example, the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, etc. are alpha characters. The numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, etc., are numeric characters. They are different -- except for the letter "o" and the number "0". When the Greeks wanted to write a number, they used letters for numbers. The Greek letter "alpha" had the numeric equivalent of 1. The next letter "beta" has the numeric equivalent of 2, and so on. (CARM has a chart of the Hebrew and Greek numeric equivalents if you are interested in more information.)

Therefore, whenever a word in Greek is written, because the letters are also numbers, every word has a numeric value. This numeric value is called a gematria. The Greek word for Jesus (IhsouV) has a mathematical equivalent of 888. Also, the Greek word for fish is 1224.

What The Bible is saying is that the future antichrist will have a name that when it is written in Greek, its numeric equivalent will be 666.

It is also symbolic as the number of a false Trinity. God's perfect number is 7 and God has 3 distinct persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The false trinity is the number of man (man was created on the 6th "day"), with the beast (father - devil) and the "false prophet" (unholy spirit), thus 6 6 6.

Answer 2

It can be either. The numbers are based on the numerical value of the letters of the name Nero Caesar. The difference in the numbers comes from the transliteration of the spelling of this name from Hebrew to Greek which includes an additional letter.