66666.jpgOn the way back from our weekly visit with The Better Half’s Mom, I noticed the odometer on the SUV was about to rollover to five sixes. I grabbed the digital camera and took a photo of the event.

My first thought was the “sign of the beast” or the “number of the beast,” a vague notion that “666″ is a Christian representation of the anti-Christ. Tonight, I looked it up on Wikipedia. I am totally blown away by the extensive article on the variations of “Six Hundred Three Score and Six.”

The Number of the Beast is a concept from the Book of Revelation of the New Testament of the Christian Bible, relating to the figure of “The Beast”. The number is 666 in most manuscripts of the New Testament, and in modern translations and critical editions of the Greek text. Although Irenaeus (2nd century AD) affirmed the number to be 666 and reported several scribal errors of the number, there is still doubt by some theologians about the original reading, as some recently discovered 3rd century early manuscripts of Revelation read 616. This topic is a source of contention for many church groups and theologians. Most scholars contend that the number 666 is a code for the Roman Emperor Nero.

And it goes on and on . . .