As a Ph.D. student in New Testament, apologist Wes Huff has taken a deep dive into Scripture. In a recent social media post, Huff explained some discrepancies in the numbers associated with the Mark of the Beast.
“Everyone knows the number of the beast from the biblical book of Revelation, right?” Huff asked. “It’s 666. That’s just common knowledge!”
We ‘Often Expect To Find the Variants We Do,’ Says Wes Huff—Including Details of the Mark of the Beast
Apologist Wes Huff has become well-known for his appearances on “The Joe Rogan Experience” and other podcasts. Between various interviews and discussions about Christianity, Huff has continued working towards his Ph.D. in New Testament from the University of Toronto’s Wycliffe College.
In a series of posts, Huff covered a single topic from Revelation: the Mark of the Beast. The symbol of allegiance to the “Beast,” often referred to as the Antichrist, allows those who bear the mark to buy and sell goods. However, Scripture warns of punishment for taking the mark. Scholars have interpreted Scripture to mean that the mark is “666,” or the name of the beast.
“In the ancient world numbers held significance,” Huff said. “Many languages like, Hebrew and Greek, functioned alpha-numerically, with each letter equalling a number.”
Huff explained, “If you open a modern translation of the Bible to Revelation 13:18 it will read: ‘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.'”
There are thousands of biblical manuscripts. Throughout the process of capturing stories and details from biblical times, countless scribes have preserved this sacred text.
Huff explained that the “oldest fragmentary copy of Revelation” containing this text is different. The same verse in this manuscript “lists the number as 616 (chi (600) + i (1) + stau (6)).”
The same number is found in Codex Ephraemi Syri, one of the “most important copies of Revelation” according to Huff. The number referred to in Revelation 13:18 is 616.
Huff isn’t the first person to uncover this discrepancy. In fact, Irenaeus wrote “Against Heresies” around the year A.D. 180. Irenaeus outlined the same difference in numbers, 666 versus 616, in Revelation. He concluded that the “earliest and most reliable copies have ‘666’ and that is the one to be taken and preferred as the original.”
With access to manuscripts and evidence, Huff concluded the same, with “all the evidence on the side of Revelation 13:18 reading ‘666.’”
While he found it fascinating to compare ancient manuscripts of the Bible, Huff argued that this difference isn’t all that important. In fact, scholars have come to expect variants and are “never caught off guard or at a loss.”
