Wednesday, June 07, 2006
666
Monday, Janice and I had lunch together and she mentioned that her students (she only has a baker's dozen this year) were all but going into a frenzie over Tuesday's date: 6-6-06. So who said 5th graders were ready to deal with the world's problems anyway? They have enough on their hands just surviving the first Tuesday in June!I told her for one thing, the date is not 6-6-6. We're not in the year 6AD. We're 2000 years beyond that. But so much for logic and reason. We're talking 5th graders.
Over the years we've seen people beyond 5th grade get just as crazy over numbers and Revelation. Chapter 13:18 reads (NLT): Wisdom is needed to understand this. Let the one who has understanding solve the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666.
Ancient people had a way of using letters of their alphabet as numerical values and would express words in values. For instance, on a wall of ancient Pompeii someone wrote, "I love her whose number is 545." Gematria was the adding up of numerical values of letters in a word or name. The number of the beast is not simply three sixes. Rather, it is 600 + 60 +6. Some have even postulated that the internet is the beast of Revelation (and often trying to work w/ Blogger.com adds some merit to this claim!) because the equivalent of "w" in Hebrew is the 6th letter of their alphabet. So www would be 666. But to add the value of the letter "waw" (or "vav") three times would not be 666 (six hundred sixty-six). It would be 18. (6+6+6) Those of you who know my math skills are probably picking yourselves up off the floor and declaring this day a holiday!
To think that John, who wrote long after the year 6AD, was referring to a date in June of 2006 is nothing less than stupid ... unless you are a 5th grader or a prophetic scholar! Then it's perfectly reasonable that yesterday something quite ominous occurred and we are too simple to have understood. If so, just slap me and call me "simple" ... or "stupid."
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I was sure you were going to tell us that the little thing hanging off the middle six was a Christmas stocking because everybody knows that Santa is a thinly disguised code name for Satan.
This is just the latest chorus in the same tune that had us in a tizzy at the turn of the millenium (was that 01/01/00 or 01/01/01?) I guess next year everyone will want their children born on 07/07/07 since that's the number of perfection.
This is just the latest chorus in the same tune that had us in a tizzy at the turn of the millenium (was that 01/01/00 or 01/01/01?) I guess next year everyone will want their children born on 07/07/07 since that's the number of perfection.
Great graphics, Greg.
Actually it gave me a chance to talk to the D Home kids about The Enemy and we spent very little time on 666 and a whole lot of time on how to stand up to the attacks of the evil one.
Actually it gave me a chance to talk to the D Home kids about The Enemy and we spent very little time on 666 and a whole lot of time on how to stand up to the attacks of the evil one.
Excellent work, Greg. I appreciate your sensitivity to the young ones among us. They are often like the canary in the mine shaft: our early warning system. We need to pay careful attention to them and what's on their minds. If we will listen to their questions, they'll tell us what adults are actually thinking, but have imagined themselves too sophisticated to ask. Jolly good show!
Still, anything that gets people interested in math....
I told my students that I would give them extra credit if they would do something kooky at 1:23 am this past April 5th and write about it. (Not TOO kooky.) That would have been 1:23 on 4/5/6 of course.
Math teachers are weird.
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I told my students that I would give them extra credit if they would do something kooky at 1:23 am this past April 5th and write about it. (Not TOO kooky.) That would have been 1:23 on 4/5/6 of course.
Math teachers are weird.
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