The Beast's Number

Revelation 13 features three figures who form an alliance against Yahweh: a dragon, a beast that emerges from the sea, and a beast that crawls out of the earth.  The second creature is said to have seven heads, one of which suffers what appears like a fatal wound (13:1-3).  Another beast comes out of the sea and imposes worship of the first beast, who has been empowered by the dragon, on the inhabitants of the world, culminating in absolute restrictions on buying and selling for those who do not have a mark that is described as "the name of the beast and the number of his name" (13:16-17).

The latter details will likely sound familiar to someone who has heard of the infamous "mark of the beast," the number of the beast being 666 according to Revelation 13:18.  Of course, 666 is involved in everything from random internet comments to genuine fears that deter people from doing things like opening page 666 of an abnormally large book.  Some Christians are so cautious about the number that they might act like it is morally inadvisable to even joke about it, as if it has the power to end lives or unleash some Biblically unconnected catastrophe.

The beast's number is humanity's number, or the number of "a man," as some translations put it.  The point of Revelation 13 is not that anyone who is in some way associated with the number 666, however minimally or trivially, is associated with the demonic, but that a number that is already associated with humankind in some way (or at least with some individual humans) is also affiliated with the "beast," regardless of whether the beast in question is a past, ongoing, or future figure.  Biblically speaking, page 666 of a book has no more malevolent power than an inanimate stone does.

A fear of 666 is an example of a superstition that the Christians who avoid the "beast's number" would otherwise perhaps even mock.  Thinking that a mere number has some sort of causal or spiritual power is asinine!  Substitute another superstitious idea for the idea that one must take care to avoid 666, and many Christians would probably see how irrational superstition is.  The potential of some Christians for hypocrisy and stupidity is grand, but the inconsistencies of the irrational do not reflect the nature of whatever ideas they may be misapplying or misunderstanding.