HERE IS WISDOM

hey bible thumpers,

kid i met at library said he believes in creationism, takes bible literally, and is fan of jack van imp and rush limbo.

also interested in fractals and astrophysics, so doesn't necessarily fit a religious-right stereotype, but he did eventually get banned from the place for antagonizing a person of color by making racist remarks on more than one occasion.

before that happened we sometimes had short conversations when we both left at closing time.

since i occasionally read the bible, i got curious about what he had to say on some things i'd noticed.

i wondered what he thought about the number of the beast in the book of revelation, but i approached it indirectly, which may not have been the best way:

since the last verse (new king james) reads "here is wisdom. let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: his number is 666," i asked if he knew anything about numerology.

he said numerology is "of the devil," which left me at a loss for words.

i never discussed it with him again, but i wonder about the motive of whoever taught him that, since it makes him hide from such forbidden knowledge, even when the bible calls it wisdom.

but i did think more about that number. i knew that in biblical times jews had no numerals, so they made numbers with the alphabet, as did romans, tho a different way. jews used the first 9 letters to represent 1 thru 9. the next 9 stood for 10, 20, 30,...up to 90. the remaining letters were 100, 200, etc.

when i tried that method with our alphabet i saw that 6=f, 60=o, and 600=x.

of course, there must be lots of other words and names that add up to 666, but "fox" is the shortest, and a fox is a beast, and it is reputed to be sly....