••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Thursday, August 11, 2005

mark of the beast


you may've seen my ravings re the number of the beast here on 7/29/05.

it is commonly assumed that the mark of the beast is the number, but close analysis shows it may be otherwise.

i can't vouch for the accuracy of the translation—and they don't all agree—but rev 13:17 in the new king james version says "...that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

clearly, in that translation the mark is not the number.

i'll go further: the mark may be of a different beast than the name and number. "the mark or the name of the beast" isn't quite the same as "the mark of the beast or the name of the beast."

chapter 13 has two beasts. the first is described as "like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion." the 2nd "had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon." ("spoke like a dragon" may be related to chapter 16 replacing the 2nd beast with "the false prophet.")

13:17 likely connects the name and number to the first beast, but not so likely the mark.

the 2nd beast makes people take the mark, so it may be his mark.

what is an animal's mark? its footprint is all i've come up with.

but we don't know anything about the 2nd beast's feet—or do we?

from the description we can infer that the first beast has cat-like and bear-like traits: fur, claws, and fangs, so it's most likely a carnivore.

all we know about how the 2nd beast looks is it has lamb-like horns, so we can't directly infer anything about its feet, but the difference between the two descriptions may indirectly imply that it has other lamb-like traits, including cloven hooves.

since revelation is the most symbolic of biblical books, it's not far-fetched to expect the mark to be an abstract symbol. if i were inventing a symbol of a cloven hoofprint, i'd use two short parallel lines, like a ditto.

now, i don't know how a dragon speaks, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it sounds like rush limbo.

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