New Bible Fragment Reveals the Number of the Beast is Really 616

A fragment of the original Book of Revelation, written in Greek and dating back to the third century, has been deciphered using a revolutionary technique (SN reported) and has found that the number of the beast is not 666 but is in fact 616.

Refering to the writing, Professor David Parker, of the University of Birmingham says "This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people's names."

"Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula." he added. The number 666 is often refered to in sermons by fundamentalist Christians concerning the apocalypse.

They (the Christian fundamentalists) and satanists responded coolly to the new "Revelation". Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: "By using 666 we're using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we'll start using that."

(source)