"So 616 was the number of the beast all along," I marveled, "and 666 was the typo."

"That seems to be true, yes," Tuck commented. "616 may be a far less terrifying number than 666, but as far as we can tell, 616 was in the Bible about 100 years before the 666 error was made."

I suddenly remembered all the times I had tried to explain a similar situation to Oreo lovers. Everyone thinks that Oreo was the original chocolate sandwich cookie and Hydrox was a knockoff, but it's really the reverse. The Hydrox debuted four years earlier and was better than Oreos, having a tangy, less sweet filling and a crunchier cookie that stood up better in milk.

Hydrox had a great start, but it suffered from poor marketing and a name that sounds like an abrasive cleaning solvent. And so Oreo, the 666 of the cookie world, became America's favorite cookie.

"Wait a minute," I started, "if it's 616 and not 666, then the beast wasn't Nero!"

"Well, it depends on who you ask," Tuck explained. "I told you how 666 points to Nero, if you encode his name in gematria. Using the same method, 616 points to Caligula. Gaius Caligula Caesar in Hebrew is gsqlgs qsr. These letters in gematria are 200, 60, 100, 60, 3, 30, 100, 60, and 3, which add up to 616. And his Greek name, Gaios Kaisar, gives 3, 1, 10, 70, 200, 20, 1, 10, 200, 1, and 100, which also add up to 616."

Next: Page 103
Current: Page 102
Previous: Page 101
Table of Contents: Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York


Privacy Policy