Help with translating a verse in Koine Greek

jmdewey60
reply to post by Utnapisjtim

 

This is a difficult one, for Gr. 'ánthrōpos' can refer to both 'a man', 'an individual' and 'humankind'.

What I had in mind when I made that post saying that 666 is the number of man, was the NET Bible translation.
That was where I used to look for the Greek meanings of the original text, before I started using the Bible Hub almost exclusively for that.

If you take the time to read through the many different translations of this verse, you'll see that there is no real consensus as to how it should be translated:

NIV: Rev. 13:18 This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.

KJV: Rev. 18:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

This is a good example of how 'a straw can break the camels back'.

Bedlam
IMHO utnapisjtim and elohim are right, and it's an argument I've made many times in the past regarding this verse.

Charagma can mean brand or tattoo, but it can also mean to take an oath or accept a belief, also I believe you can use it to mean signature (making your mark). In this case, I'm pretty sure it has to do with acceptance/embrace of something, because the description of the mark is that of a tefillin. You're expressing your choice of beliefs in your thoughts and actions. THAT's the mark of the beast, not a chip or social security card.

You are quite right. This verse has a figurative application, but mind you, it also has a very much physical side. The Hermetic mantras 'Mind over matter' and 'As above so below' comes to mind. Being a slave to the clock and money fits perfectly with the verse in question, and can turn the best of men into bleeding bastards showing animal-like behaviour, acquiring non-human instincts and cognitive behaviour normally seen with carnivores.

reply to post by Utnapisjtim

If you take the time to read through the many different translations of this verse, . . .

I did, after reading your earlier post about the possible meanings for anthropos, which is why I thought I would make a further comment.
I realize that the early Catholic writers thought that it meant a Roman emperor, which is one of the ways that people try to date the writing of Revelation.
I don't give those writers very much credit for being especially knowledgeable about where common beliefs came from, but just repeated things that went along with whatever they already thought.
Looking at how anthropos is used in the New Testament, it doesn't look like it is used to describe an individual person in particular.

ketsuko
Well, I haven't quite gotten to the level of equating our government with the anti-Christ yet.

The problem here is that Revelation 13 is not talking about an antichrist, its talking about two beasts. If you read Daniel, the first of Revelation's two beasts is a combination of the four beast's of Daniel. In Daniel, the beasts are clearly explained to be “kingdoms” not “men”. So when we carry that forward into revelation, we are also talking about Kingdoms.

In this instance many believe that the first beast is the Rome. Seven heads = seven hills of Rome, it comes from the ocean (the cradle of civilization at the time), it incorporates all the pagan stuff from the earlier beasts (Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece), etc... The second beast comes from the land (a sparse area), has two horns but no crowns (some division of power, but no royalty), plays at being a Christian country (lamb) but acts as a dragon.

This final beast is the last world superpower, and it will do things such as calling down fire from the heavens (maybe like detonating the first nuclear weapons, for example), and will enforce the mark system. There is a lot more to this as well, such as its rise relating to the wounding of Rome, but I don't have the inclination to go into all that atm.

Anyway, the idea that the Beasts of Revelation are men comes from the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Counter Reformation via the Council of Trent in the 1500's. Specifically a Jesuit Theologian named Francisco Ribera wrote that style of prophetic interpretation, and its called Futurism. IT became very popular again in the 70's with Hal Lindsy's book “the late great planet earth”.

Here is more to research here:
Francisco Ribera
The Catholic Origins of Futurism and Preterism

jmdewey60
Looking at how anthropos is used in the New Testament, it doesn't look like it is used to describe an individual person in particular.

You see the same word in modern terms like the field of anthropology, anthropomorphic religion and Steiner's anthroposophy. However in it's Koine Greek sense, it can indeed discribe a single individual, an arch-type or a man in particular. Ask.com gives the following definition:

Anthropos is a term used to mean a human being, whether female or male. It is often used as a general term to distinguish man from other beings belonging to a different order. The word was borrowed to English from Greek.

www.ask.com...

reply to post by Utnapisjtim

However in it's Koine Greek sense, it can indeed describe a single individual, an arch-type or a man in particular.

OK but can you give an example of it being used that way in the New Testament, other than "the son of man" where obviously it was Jesus referring to himself but anthropos itself in that phrase meant humanity in general.

jmdewey60
reply to post by Utnapisjtim

 

However in it's Koine Greek sense, it can indeed describe a single individual, an arch-type or a man in particular.

OK but can you give an example of it being used that way in the New Testament, other than "the son of man" where obviously it was Jesus referring to himself but anthropos itself in that phrase meant humanity in general.

There are a few. See for yourself at www.teknia.com...

reply to post by Utnapisjtim

There are a few.

But none that jumps out to get your attention?

I realize there are lists but I just don't see one, maybe you can, otherwise I would just figure no, there isn't.

jmdewey60
reply to post by Utnapisjtim

 

There are a few.

But none that jumps out to get your attention?

I realize there are lists but I just don't see one, maybe you can, otherwise I would just figure no, there isn't.

The following verses are NIV translations (2011, newest one from biblegateway.com) of anthropos collected from the Gospel of Matthew (there are more, I'm sure you can retrieve them yourself). If you compare the 2011 version of NIV with the 1984 version of Revelation 13:18, you will see that NIV has "man's number" in the 1984 version, while the 2011 version has "number of a man". This only shows how it is impossible to have one translation, one needs to research and compare different versions and editions, study the texts yourself and pretty much "gird up the loins of your mind" so to speak, to come to a conclusion or what sounds right to you. I have underlined the places in the texts where anthropos is translated "a man":

Matthew 8:5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” 7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” 8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

Matthew 9:9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

Matthew 9:32 While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33 And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”

Below is a wikipedia page explaining the vast amounts of manuscripts the are around for researchers to pick and choose from, delivering a complete Bible is the result of hundreds of researchers working around the clock, sifting through documents and lexica, dictionaries, performing deep exegesis and hermeneutics on contemporary texts and traditions, and then you have agendas and politics, doctrines and dogma. Well, to say the least, it's a bleeding nightmare of a minefield. A single letter or dot can change the whole Bible, or as the saying goes: a single straw can break the camel's back, or how John warns us of in his Apocalypse 22:19 (choose version, there are many variants )

--> en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by defcon5


Pardon, I haven't quite gotten that far with our government literally or figuratively.

Personally, I think we're going to be destroyed, more like mystery Babylon.

I do think there is something major going to happen to us. I just have a very bad feeling after the way the Democratic National Convention treated God and then we elected them to power again. Rejecting God three times has significance.

None of that means I'm going to run right out let them microchip me or mine, either.

reply to post by Utnapisjtim

. . . one needs to research and compare different versions and editions, study the texts yourself . . .

Your third example doesn't even have the word in the Westcott and Hort or Nestle editions of the Greek text.

I just don't see anthropos being used in the way that you are proposing that it is being used in Revelation 13:18.

You have one example where a person is sitting in a tax booth.
In the next clause, it gives his name in the context that Jesus calls him.

The first example someone is saying he is within a classification of "men under authority".

reply to post by jmdewey60


Like I said, this is difficult, since there are thousands of manuscripts for the NT texts and none, I repeat, none are equal, they all have differences, from minor spelling issues, to which words used, even whole passages missing or showing up out of nowhere. The earliest complete manuscripts are third century, and none of them in the original Aramaic and Hebrew, but rather Coptic, Greek and Latin, before that only fragments exist.

I am not an expert, not even a novise, but you asked me to show you examples of where Anthropos is translated "a man" and not "man" as in humankind and I showed you a few, and directed you to several more. It all comes down to which mss you choose to use for translation, typically a whole bunch of them put together, and try to reconstruct the original texts which for the most part wasn't written in Greek at all, but Aramaic and Hebrew (do a search for 'Gospel Q' or Fr. 'quelle' to see some of the work put into backwards engeneering the texts, if you have access to a University library, that's where to start looking). As it turns out these oldest manuscripts were destroyed because some outraged the different Jewish sects, some made the Romans see red and yet more were destroyed by the early Church and yet other Christian communities bucause of differing doctrines and differencies ranging from God is Light to God is Jesus to God is the Devil, some commentaries explain how some of these Aramaic texts used the Tetragrammathon for Jesus instead of Lord, some may even have used the word Ba'al with the same definition.

All texts that are available today have been tampered with and are copies of copies' copies. We can only hope that archaeologists one day will unearth some of these texts in proper more original state. Anyway, if you intend to enter this minefield, you'll need the best of luck. Highly interesting, but also extremely frustrating. So godspeed and journey wisely!

reply to post by Utnapisjtim

. . . you asked me to show you examples of where Anthropos is translated "a man" and not "man" as in humankind and I showed you a few, and directed you to several more.

I meant where it uses Anthropos in the New Testament in a way similar to how you think it is used in Revelation 13:18.
If it means one particular person, it never leaves it at just "anthropos" but will give some other details where "anthropos" would be a bit superfluous.
There isn't any such detail there but the subject is a number and of a particular type of number, which is a human number.

jmdewey60
reply to post by Utnapisjtim

 

. . . you asked me to show you examples of where Anthropos is translated "a man" and not "man" as in humankind and I showed you a few, and directed you to several more.

I meant where it uses Anthropos in the New Testament in a way similar to how you think it is used in Revelation 13:18.
If it means one particular person, it never leaves it at just "anthropos" but will give some other details where "anthropos" would be a bit superfluous.
There isn't any such detail there but the subject is a number and of a particular type of number, which is a human number.

What I meant was that if Revelation 13:18 is translated "number of a man" it means "one man", not "humankind", his number being code for his name, and seeing 616 is the geometry of Jesus in Hebrew gematria it is safe to assume the "particular man" is the false Jesus-stories which tell us that he died and came back to life over the weekend, which is obviously impossible, a lie, he survived because of a grand operation involving a certain centurion, a swift kid, a rich man, a woman with white linen and Rosemary and her sisters rushing to the rich man's tomb with healing herbs and antisceptics (not needed had he been dead). However, being written in code it can in theory be anyone whose name can be encrypted into 616 or 666. But seeing that no other person has been recorded being dead for three days and then come back to life, it is safe to assume the Beast is the false Jesus necromancy doctrine.