What do the mysterious numbers in the Book of Revelation really mean? In this fascinating episode, we explore Revelation numbers meaning with distinguished biblical scholar Professor Craig Koester, author of the Anchor Bible Commentary on Revelation. From the infamous 666 to the seven churches and seven stars, discover how these ancient numerical symbols made perfect sense to first-century readers and what they reveal about early Christian struggles with Roman imperial power.

Professor Koester explains how the number 666 likely refers to Emperor Nero through ancient Hebrew letter-number calculations, why the seven churches represented completeness rather than limitation, and how the mark of the beast symbolized allegiance rather than literal markings. This episode transforms confusing biblical puzzles into clear historical insights, showing how understanding the original context unlocks the deeper meaning of Revelation's most enigmatic passages.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.

And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker and we have as our special guest today, ⁓ Professor Craig Koester, who's a returning guest and friend of the podcast, friend of ours. Craig is an emeritus professor of New Testament here at Luther Seminary. And it's so much fun to be in the same room with you. I'm glad to be here. So jealous. Yeah. Katie's out in Utah. ⁓

here.

I'm so jealous. I'm so jealous.

Craig, this is relevant for our questions today because we're going to be talking about the book of Revelation. And Craig has written quite a bit on the book of Revelation. In fact, he's really considered, I know he wouldn't necessarily say this himself, but he's a leading expert in the book of Revelation in New Testament studies. He's written the Anchor Bible Commentary on the book of Revelation, which was published in 2014. ⁓

Happy to be here.

As usual, listeners and viewers, if you have a question about the Bible, please go to enterthebible.org to ask your question. And we try to get to as many of them as we can. So this is one that I know a lot of listeners will be interested in. So there are a lot of numbers in the book of Revelation. But the one that people are probably most interested in is the number 666, which is the number of the beast.

Sounds scary.

It comes up in Revelation 13, is that right? Does it come up anywhere else? Just that one?

One verse in that one book in that one place.

It

has been the stuff of horror movies. remember back in the 80s, don't know, the Omen movies. Anyway, so 666, What in the World is that about Craig?

It's a question I get asked often. I'm sure you do. It's one of those things that even by people who've never read Revelation, it's one of those things people know it's in there somehow. It has to do with an awful thing. Revelation chapter 13 is a picture of a tyrannical beast, a seven-headed monster that is out there to kind of tyrannize the world and especially the Christian community and kind of imposing

its will on everything from politics to religious beliefs to the economy. I mean, it's kind of all in one tyrant. And at the very end of Revelation 13, this is the verse. Revelation 13 verse 18, where it talks about the beast having this number. And it said, this calls for wisdom, that anyone with understanding

Alright.

calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person or anthropos, a human being, and its number is 666. So that's, yeah, that's, that's the key verse. And one of the things that's kind of fun about it is, I don't know if most people think that the author of Revelation had a sense of humor, but I do. And I think one thing that the writer knew is that people love puzzles.

I mean, how many people do I know that the first thing they do when they get up in the morning is they do the wordle or something like that with the New York Times or they do a crossword. Guilty. You got to do the wordle. I mean, you love the puzzles. It's okay. How can I make these, you know, figure out from the clues, just what was going on here. Crossword puzzles. I mean, how do we make the words fit? How do we use this clue to find this word?

Guilty

People love puzzles. And that's what the writer is doing. He's saying, okay, if you think you're pretty smart, well, who's not? know, it's like, okay, I'm up to this. You know, here's the number. And it's the number of a person or a man. And the number is 666. my, okay. Now it would be pretty tough to do a crossword puzzle if there were no clues. If you just said, here's a box, find the words that fit. my, where would you even start?

And sometimes I think people are kind of like that with the number 666 is what could that number mean? But if you think about how puzzles work, maybe in this case, let's think about a jigsaw puzzle. It's really hard to put together a jigsaw puzzle if you're out to figure out what is this one piece that I'm holding up? What is this all about? If you don't know what the big picture is. On the other hand, if you know what the big picture is, ⁓ I can see how this piece fits.

you know, it's the corner of a building or it's a person's, you know, part of a person's face or a hand or whatever. Okay. I can see that. So when looking at this puzzle, what the writer is doing is he's given us a detailed picture of what this beast looks like. So let's go back and look at what are the clues that the writer has given. And then, okay, this is the, the, this is kind of the little teaser at the end. Can now that I've given you all these clues, can you put in the final piece?

Well, it's interesting that this beast is ⁓ clearly a ⁓ dominating global figure. mean, somebody who basically exercises dominion over the world. It's a beast who speaks blasphemy, a beast who is worshipped by the people of the earth, a beast who slays members of the Christian community.

Who was the big tyrant in kind of dominating everything? Well, the Roman emperor was. That was, know, the Roman emperor, he kept a heavy hand on things. And so when they're looking at this beast, yep, some of them could be pretty beastly. Did any of them persecute the Christians? Well, yeah, Nero was kind of the, he was the most notorious persecutor of Christians.

You know, the story is in the mid sixties, there was a big fire in the city of Rome and Nero needed a scapegoat. mean, here we've got a politician looking for somebody to blame. Imagine that. Imagine that. going wrong. need somebody to blame because the city's burning down and people said I didn't do anything to fix it. Okay, well, it must be due to these Christians. need people are kind of, they think that Christians are kind of odd anyway. There's this little, this little clique. then Nero,

rounded them up and ⁓ put a bunch of them to death. So he became known as the big persecutor of Christians. End of the first century Domitian was, he was also kind of brutal, but Nero was the one. It was also interesting when you ask, well, were leaders worshiped in the first century? Well, yes, there was a cult of the emperors. The Imperial cult was a big deal. And it's clear that John, writer of Revelation has

a big objection to the idea that you worship the head of state. That was a big issue. The Imperial cult was huge. And then one of the unique things about Nero was that he, he was kind of a pop star. ⁓ Nero made it big in all the tabloids, you know, because Nero was reported to have died by suicide, but

You

People thought maybe he's still out there and he's alive and coming back. It was a common legend. You know how for years it was like, well, JFK, he was assassinated supposedly, but he's really alive. Or Elvis ⁓ died, but he's really alive. Nero had celebrity status. People thought, some said he had died and others said, no, he hasn't. survived. He survived this mortal war.

was.

So that's the bit in verse 14, wounded by the sword and yet lived.

that

lived. Nero is the only person in the first century that can fit that. All of those clues say, okay, you've got a tyrannical beast, persecutor of Christians, worshiped in the imperial cult, supposedly slain and yet lived. Okay, that's Nero. Can we make that number fit? Could that be Nero's name? Now that's the way you have to go at it. You don't start by asking what could 666 mean? I mean, my goodness, how many different-

Yeah.

Could be a lot of things, right?

But

in this game, it says calculate the number. Now the Greek word there is a really distinctive one. The Greek word there is psephizo. Psephizo means to add up the numerical value of the letters. So in Greek, Hebrew, other ancient languages, know, A equals one, B equals two, and so on, up to the letter 10. And then it starts going and then 10, 20, 30 and...

all the way up to 100 and then it goes 100, 200, 300. And so you could ask, okay, you add up, Kathryn, okay, we start figuring out what's the numerical value of every letter and you would have a number for your name. And that was kind of a thing. You find it in graffiti, for example. I mean, we normally think of somebody scrolls a heart with...

J N plus, ⁓ F or something, whatever, you know, they use initials, in, in ancient Greece, they would use, you know, I love her whose number is five, four, five. You'd find it said Pompeii. You'd find it in places in Asia minor. Yeah. find these. And they to do this kind of graffiti and they were, they were doing riffs on Nero too. He made it into some of the say, psephizo wing, the calculation stuff. was kind of a.

I

that's funny.

Cause he was a pop star. Now the problem is in Greek, the name Nero doesn't add up to 666. But people say, well, John knew Hebrew. In fact, he refers to things using Hebrew names like Armageddon. says that's in Hebrew and the destroying angel he gives the name in Hebrew and so on. they couldn't be in Hebrew. And the answer is yes. If you, if you look at the numbers for Nero Caesar in Hebrew letters,

The way it was spelled in Hebrew, adds up to 666. Yeah. that's what most people think.

interesting.

So can I ask, this ⁓ is actually my question, not the listeners, but the thing a few verses before, so the beast causes all both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of its name. What's that?

⁓ That kind of gets into an identity thing. In Revelation, the writer is playing a lot with opposites. You've got the lamb on the one hand and you've got the beast on the other. lamb, know, worthy is Christ, the lamb who was slain. know, so you've got the slain lamb, you got the slain beast. Christ is alive, the beast is alive. They're playing back and forth. There's also in this same context, if you read on another verse or so, and once you get into chapter 14,

you find that those who belong to God and the Lamb have been sealed on the forehead. That that becomes an identity mark. It's not something that you would see, but it becomes a way of kind of identifying that you're, like in Deuteronomy, says, bind the word of God on your right hand and on your forehead between your eyes. And so it's kind of doing a riff on that. That it's, on the one hand, those who belong to God and the Lamb,

They have their God in the lamb essentially as frontlets between their eyes. And then the same with the beast is that you, it's a sign of belonging. It's a poetic or kind of a metaphor for belonging. So that's what it's describing.

And at least, well, I think most Christian denominations when you're baptized, you have the sign of the cross marked on your forehead with oil. That's really nice.

So that kind of fits too.

And it's interesting because if you look at the very last verse in chapter 13 talks about the beast's number of 666. Then the very next verse I looked in and there was the lamb standing on Mount Zion and with him were 144,000 who had his name and his father's name written on their forehead. So you've got that juxtaposition. I mean, it's also kind of fun. mean, the beast's number is 666.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How many has Jesus got following? 144,000. So you got all of these multiples of 12. Two times six equals 12, and 12 times 12 equals 144, and then you get the multiply by 1,000. Beast, he's got 12 divided by half times 100. I mean, there's no comparison.

You

Right.

You know, John is clearly having fun juxtaposing this paltry, beastie number of 666 with 144,000. Jesus has got in his court.

Okay, so I've heard one other explanation. This is very helpful. I've heard one other explanation for 666 as it's not quite perfection, right? Not quite 7. I've that 6 too. It's not 7.

Yeah, I've heard that too. It's a fairly common one. And I think you can get that in Revelation because Revelation does use the number for completeness. It's not that six was inherently defective or imperfect or something, know, ancient writers could make perfection out of any number. But certainly by comparison, mean, clearly there is some sense of really falling short, you know, the magnitude of the following of Jesus versus

You

those who belong to the beast. the six seems to kind of undercut any pretensions the beast might have.

This is perfect segue to the next question, actually, because you brought up the number seven and the completion or whatever. So, we actually have a couple questions about the number seven. I'll do one and then Kathryn will do the other. But this one says, what are the seven stars in Jesus's right hand in Revelation? And then I would add, is the fact that there seven of them kind of symbolic or coincidental or what?

Sure. Yeah, the question stems from ⁓ the very first vision in Revelation, goes back to Revelation ⁓ chapter one. And you do find sevens all over the place. Seven is ⁓ really a structuring device in the book of Revelation.

As it is obviously in Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and...

Exactly. I mean, you find it's a very biblical pattern ⁓ to have seven as kind of encompassing a whole, the seven days of the week being the most obvious. And so in the beginning of Revelation, when John has this inaugural vision, the very first vision he has is of the risen Christ or the one like a son of man. We don't have to guess too hard. It's Jesus. And the writer says that when he sees this majestic

vision of Christ kind of in glory. It says that he's walking among seven golden lampstands and he holds seven stars in his right hand. Now, in terms of what does it mean? Well, the writer's saying, I bet you're wondering what those things mean. And so the very last verse of that chapter, the writer says, here, I'll tell you. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands,

The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So the writer is giving an image using the image of a lampstand or we would call it a menorah. I mean, using the same kind of image. mean, you see it as a Jewish symbol today. I mean, it goes back to biblical tradition about the lampstand having kind of a central place in Israel's worship. And Revelation is written to seven.

churches ⁓ in Asia Minor, and each one was represented by a lampstand. becomes a symbol of the church. then, so he's walking among the lampstands, he's walking among the churches, and he's holding these seven stars in his right hand. the angels of the churches, I mean, there's a sense in which every church has its guardian angel, that there's a heavenly representative of the faith community. becomes a

sort of a vivid depiction of whatever is in your right hand is something that's being held safe. And so you get that image of the seven stars representing these seven angels who are the of the heavenly corollaries to the earthly churches. And Jesus has those in his right hand. So it's a symbol of kind of Jesus' care for the churches that they belong to him. They're his. It's a relational thing.

I like that. I've never thought about a church having an angel, a guardian angel. Yeah. Yeah, that's lovely. All right. So the related question from our listener is, are the seven churches who received a letter, the letter of revelation still in existence today?

The simple answer is no. Here's a little bit why. The seven churches, there's ⁓ a church, a faith community, they didn't necessarily have their own separate buildings with steeples on them. We're talking about a church as a gathering. And there are these gatherings in seven churches, Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum. Most of these cities no longer exist as cities.

⁓

That for example, Ephesus is a glorious ruin of a city. Spectacular to visit, but there's no, not a living thing. The one city that really remains, ⁓ well, are, mean, Theotira, there's still a city there and Philadelphia, there's still a city there. The Philadelphia.

Not a living settlement.

The Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.

Not the Philadelphia folks. had a church member once ask me that I was like, no, not Philadelphia.

So

there still are several places that still have cities ⁓ on them. The largest of them is ancient Smyrna, modern Izmir, ⁓ modern city on the west coast of Turkey. And there have been Christian communities there. Back in the first, second, third, fourth centuries, that was a heavily Christian area. Things changed dramatically.

when Islam came in. And so it was with the...

Sorry, all of these churches are in what is now...

What is now modern day Western Turkey? Western Turkey. So when you get into the seventh, eighth century and Islam really gets established, a lot of these churches begin to dwindle. ⁓ Islam becomes the dominant force in what today is Western Turkey. There were still Christian communities there. Kind of how long some of them lasted, it's hard to say. There were certainly Christians in

Izmir or ancient Smyrna for ⁓ centuries, after down into the modern period, but you don't find many left. And it was really with the Islamic conquest that that became a turning point. The heavily Eastern Orthodox Christian environment became heavily Muslim.

Well, good to know. All good questions from our listener. And we were right about the person.

right to the source.

thank you so much, Craig, for being with us today, and thank you to our questioners for their wonderful questions. And if you have more questions about the puzzles in the book of Revelation or anything else, please do not hesitate to submit your own question at enterthebible.org, where you can also find a whole lot of resources, reflections,

You

Craig's got some great stuff, some great videos on the book of Revelation answering a lot of common questions like this and providing a lot of theological reflections. It's a very rich book, theologically, not just a puzzle to be solved. So we'd invite you to check that out and watch our other videos, courses, commentaries, all that good stuff at enterthebible.org. If you enjoy this podcast, please rate and review us in your favorite podcast app or like and subscribe on YouTube.

And of course, the very best compliment you can pay us is to share the podcast with a friend. Until next time.