One of my favorite Advent poems is Yeat’s “The Second Coming,” with its line, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/ Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” Granted, not your typical Advent/Christmas poem.
I grew up among pietists, evangelicals and biblical literalists to one extent or another. I must confess that a lot of the cognition in those traditions of faith never really took hold with me. Perhaps I was too critical for my own spiritual benefit even as a child. Issues about biblical inerrancy never interested me. During junior high school I learned that there are no extant original biblical manuscripts, the basis upon which the claims for biblical inerrancy are built (“There are no errors in the original manuscripts.”). That being the case it became apparent to me that it was a question of choice to believe in inerrant manuscripts—a belief that made no contribution to the quality of one’s Christian life or to one’s obedience to the message of the Bible, from what I could observe.
While I don’t hold to a literalist reading of apocalyptic literature I do enjoy scary movies (apparently it’s an enneagram 5 thing). I enjoyed the good scare I got watching the movie “A Thief in the Night,” in high school. I even find Hollywood apocalyptic good-vs evil movies fun to watch, even with their over-the-top populist misinterpretations of prophetic texts, angels, demons, heaven and hell, and end-times dystopia themes.
Literalist interpretations about end-times never go out of style. They’ve been around since before the middle ages. If anything, it preaches and sells books. And it doesn’t take long for someone to identify any new presidential American world leader as the Beast prophesied in Scripture and the harbinger of the end-of-days. It brought to mind an interpretive list of the number of the beast: 666.
666: Number of the beast
668: Number of the next door neighbor of the beast
660: Approximate number of the Beast
DCLXVI: Roman numeral of the Beast
666.0000: Number of the High Precision Beast
0.666: Number of the Millibeast
1/666: Common Denominator of the Beast
666[-/(-1)]: Imaginary number of the Beast
1010011010: Binary of the Beast
29A: Hexidecimal of the Beast
-666: Negative number of the Beast
00666-6666: Zip code of the Beast
$665.95: Retail price of the Beast
$699.25: Price of the Beast plus 5% state sales tax
$769.95: Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul
$656.66: Wal-Mart price of the Beast
$646.66: Next week’s Wal-Mart price of the Beast
Phillips 666: Gasoline of the Beast
Route 666: Way of the Beast
665: Older brother of the Beast
667: Younger brother of the Beast
6-6-6: Fertilizer of the Beast
666lb cap: Weight limit of the Beast
666 F: Oven temperature for cooking roast “Beast”
666k: Retirement plan of the Beast
666 mg: Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
6.66%: 5 year CD rate at First Beast of Hell, $666 minimum deposit.
1-800-666-6666: Toll free number of the Beast
Lotus 6-6-6: Spreadsheet of the Beast
Word 6.66: Word Processor of the Beast
i66686: CPU of the Beast
666i: BMW of the Beast
666-66-6666: Social security number of the Beast
666.AC.com: URL of the Beast
IAM 666: License plate number of the Beast
Formula 666: All Purpose Cleaner of the Beast
WD-666: Spray Lubricant of the Beast
66.6 MHz: FM radio station of the Beast
666 KHz: AM Radio station of the Beast
1-900-666-0666: Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! Only $6.66/minute. Over 18 only please.
DSM-666: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast
668: Next-door neighbor of the Beast
a+rw: The file permissions of the Beast
666: Dewey call number of the beast
HL666: LC call number of the beast
666@hell.org: E-mail of the beast
http://666.hell.org/~beast: Home page of the beast
666 666 666 6666: Visa Number of the Beast (It’s everywhere he wants to be). 6/66 – Expiration date (the card, not him)
66.6 C: Temperature of the beast
“Hell” v.6 n.66, pp. 6-66: Citation of the beast
Hell in A Major (op.66, no.6): Etude of the Beast
1666: The Beast “redecorates” London (The year of the great fire of London)
Thickth, thickth, thickth: Cindy Brady (with lithp) referring to the Beast
666 6th AVE #666: Mailing address of the Beast
666: Exact number of licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll Center of the Beast
666: The number that all VCR clocks flash in HELL
6.66%: percentage of fat of “lean” Beast prior to cooking
6/6/66: The birthdate of the Beast
6666: The PIN of the Beast
25.806975: The square root of the Beast.
