Originally posted by drinker dugThe number in question is somewhat of a riddle and takes a liitle bit of Biblical knowledge and wisdom to interpret. The is no consensus, however, on what those numbers actually represent. I can give you hints though. The number of man is 6 due to the fact that he was created on the 6th day of creation.
does anyone know the true meaning behind these numbers?
Originally posted by reader1107Right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast
There probably is no actual "true meaning" that someone in 2007 can proclaim. The wiki article actually does a good job though of explaining.
Just to add to the article: In Hebrew, not only do letters stand for numbers, they have to because there are no numbers. For a trivial example, the first three verses of the second chapter of a Biblical book would be marked (in Hebrew script): Ba, Bb and Bg (bet-alef, bet-bet, and bet-gimel). gematria (“numerology” ) is an accepted part of Jewish exegesis, and there are number puns and the like built into the HS texts.
No reason to assume that the author of the Apocalypse wouldn’t be familiar with the technique in writing his book.
So I tend to follow the scholars that go with “Nero.”