Does Jewish prophetic tradition warn of a false Messiah, a "beast" whose identifying number is 666?

Does Jewish prophetic tradition warn of a false Messiah, a "beast" whose identifying number is 666? 

Editor: Boruch (Bryan) Ellison

Readers were either bewildered by this question or held sharply divided views. The result was that responses were more or less evenly divided between thoroughly accepting the warnings of a "beast," thoroughly rejecting them, and suggesting it's a partly true concept. In other words, there wasn't any trend at all in reader opinions. Comments tended to be longer than usual; here are a couple of brief excerpts:

• "…The modern misinterpretation of these predictions about the 'Beast' has been concocted in an attempt to manipulate Christians…".  

• "…We can all see in the world we live in today, everything is gearing up for a 'One World Religion,' a 'One World Order,' and 'One Leader' to be over all!…". 

Factual Background:
 
It is not hard to find numerous references in the Hebrew Scriptures to events of the "end of days," the generation in which Moshiach (the Messiah) is anointed king over the Jewish people and rebuilds the Jerusalem Temple permanently. Immediately preceding his rule, a War of Gog and Magog takes place, involving all the nations of the world in a cataclysmic, final struggle between good and evil before evil is defeated and purged from the world.
What you won't find are any references to a "Beast" or the number 666. Those concepts are only to be found in the Christian "New Testament," particularly in its book of Revelation. And even Christians have been sharply divided on the meaning of those passages.

For many centuries, the traditional view of virtually all Christians, including both Roman Catholics and Protestants, was that the "Beast" passages in Revelation were a reference to past events — referring to the Roman Emperor Nero and his alleged persecution of Christians.

But in the twentieth century, a new view emerged among fundamentalist and evangelical Christian leaders, one that reinterpreted the Revelation passages as referring to the end of days, in our immediate future. According to this notion, the prophetic War of Gog and Magog will not immediately be followed by the Messiah, but rather by an impostor, a false "messiah" who would end the war, institute world peace, and build a (false) temple in Jerusalem; in other words, he would appear to fulfill all the prophecies of the true Messiah (even causing Jews to become orthodox and to wear tefillin, or prayer phylacteries, referred to as a "sign" on the hand and head). But this world ruler would instead be a front for the forces of evil, leading the masses away from Christianity for seven years — until the Christian "messiah" (Jesus) would come to defeat him.

Any Torah-educated Jew who knows something of the prophecies of Moshiach can immediately see that the "Beast" story of the "New Testament" is exactly opposite to the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures (re-dubbed the "Old Testament" by the Christian church). Moreoever, it sounds very much like an attempt to discredit the true Messiah, to cause Christians to fear and hate the true Messiah (who, of course, won't be Jesus). And it's an obvious attempt to invalidate the Jerusalem Temple, which Christianity claims will no longer be needed. 

This new interpretation of the book of Revelation sounds very much like the influence of Amalek, the hidden nation of evil that seeks to pit the entire world in a war against the Jews and their influence, including against the true Messiah.

Indeed, the Christian leaders who have most aggressively pushed this "Beast" story have used this revised notion of prophecy as cover to promote various Marxist revolutionary goals, including labor union radicalism, class warfare, environmentalism, and the confusion over the mythical "Al Qaeda threat" as a diversion from fighting Communism. Or, at the very least, to paralyze conservative Christians with the un-Biblical notion that evil is immensely powerful, unstoppable, and in control of the physical world — leaving no possibility of repairing the world through fulfilling the commandments of Torah Law.

Among the most prominent forces in pushing this new "Beast" story have been the following:

• Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, one of the key founders of modern evangelical Christianity, virtually invented the modern "Beast" concept in the 1920s and 1930s. Our sister site, ATTAC Report, has already published a four-part exposé of Barnhouse's Marxist activities and Communist associations, leaving no doubt he was a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy his entire adult life. To give the "Beast" story credibility, Barnhouse fiendishly used it to "predict" various schemes his fellow Communists were planning to carry out; his predictions were borne out in those schemes that succeeded, but failed with respect to Communist plans that fell apart. 

• Hal Lindsey, author of such popular books as The Late, Great Planet Earth, has since the 1970s tried to co-opt the conservative-leaning evangelical movement while injecting Leftist concepts into it through the "Beast" story. Lindsey has associated with Communist-affiliated "Christian" leaders, his books are promoted by establishment Leftist media outlets, and his work fits the profile of a typical intelligence agent — such as of the CIA, which has extensively penetrated political movements inside the United States and which is thoroughly infiltrated by Communist agents. 

• Lindsey helped promote the career of Chuck Missler, who, prior to becoming an evangelical leader and "Beast"-story promoter, helped the Soviet Union acquire high-technology computer systems for its military. Missler's background strongly suggests he was recruited as a Soviet KGB agent in the 1970s. More recently, he has pushed Communist propaganda about a mythical "Islamist" threat, and he promotes the work of Jeff Nyquist, a CIA agent with a background in practicing witchcraft and in having affiliations with Marxists, yet who now pretends to be some kind of Christian. Nyquist has worked for years to infiltrate and disrupt anti-Communist efforts, passing off Soviet agents and their deceptions as reliable sources of information. Nyquist has privately expressed strong anti-Semitism even while posing as a conservative, while Missler pretends to be pro-Israel.

Beyond the modern Communist use of the "Beast" story, the original Greek text of Revelation raises other questions. Its authorship, attributed to "James," has been debated, and there was apparently some dispute among Christian leaders whether to include the book in the Roman-formulated "New Testament." It didn't seem to fit the general tenor of the rest of the "New Testament," and it was seemingly rejected by a major faction of early Christians. According to the traditional understanding, it was written during the reign of Emperor Nero with the intention of stirring up Christians against the ruler, rather than contributing anything philosophically to Christianity itself.

As we shall see, there was a hidden reason for such rabble-rousing disguised as a religious text.

Relevant Torah Principles:
 
1) Although Christian evangelicals now try to re-interpret various passages in Daniel and other prophetic books of the Hebrew Scriptures to fit the "Beast" story, a straight-forward reading of the Hebrew text easily shows that those passages directly contradict the assertions of the Greek-language Revelation. The Hebrew Scriptures, and Jewish traditions generally, clearly teach there will be absolutely no "false messiah," no "false temple," no seven-year "tribulation period," and no "false peace." The War of Gog and Magog will be won only by the true Messiah, who will defeat the forces of evil, exterminate the hidden Amaleki conspiracy, institute world peace, build the permanent Temple in Jerusalem in which animal sacrifices will be forever restored, and will bring all Jews and the entire human race back to the observance of G-d's eternal Law — Jewish Law for Jews, Noahide Laws for gentiles.

2) The older Christian tradition that says the number 666 refers to Emperor Nero is correct. The Hebrew language uniquely represents numerical values, with each letter of the Hebrew alphabet signifying a particular number; the gematria, or numerical equivalent, of a word is determined by adding up the values of its letters. In Roman times, the Jews referred to Nero as "Nero Caesar," or "Neiron Kaesar" in Hebrew (see the Babylonian edition of the Talmud, Gittin 56a). The Hebrew letters spelling that title, using the shorter, more common spelling, give us "NRON QSR" in transliteration (vowels aren't spelled in Hebrew), the value of which is precisely 666 ("Nero" = 306, "Caesar" = 360). Thus when Revelation tells us that the name of the "Beast" is the equivalent of the number 666, it is using coded language to refer to his name in Hebrew — and that is exactly Nero's name as it was used at that time.

3) Jewish tradition gives new insight into the Christian hatred of Nero. According to the Talmud (Gittin 56a), Nero converted to become a Jew, and he subsequently lived a righteous life. This was at the same time that the early Christian movement was struggling for power in the Roman empire, and it was fighting tooth and nail against the Jewish people and their influence — including the vast movement of Hasidic Gentiles at the time. Eventually, Christianity won the fight, crushed the Hasidic Gentile movement, and scattered the Jews out of Israel. But during Nero's earlier reign, he favored his fellow Jews against Christians. Thus the Christian Church invented vicious libels against Nero for defecting to their Jewish enemy, accusing him of horrible persecutions and of allowing Rome to burn. Most historians now acknowledge those anti-Nero stories were false, but lacking Jewish traditions, they haven't been able to explain why such stories would be fabricated.

Analysis:
 
The book of Revelation reads very much like a demagogical attempt to stir up hatred and rebellion against Jewish influence in Rome. As such, it mirrors the endless work of the underground Amaleki conspiracy, which for thousands of years has labored to pit the world against Jews and against the influence of Jewish and Noahide Law. Undoubtedly, the author(s) of Revelation were agents of Amalek, seeking to stoke the fires of revolutionary hatred against their Jewish enemy.

And once again, that same Amaleki conspiracy is reviving and re-adapting Revelation to the modern context, hoping to stir an uprising against the true Messiah. So the modern version of the "Beast" story describes (in twisted form) everything the true Messiah will accomplish, and then declares those very Messianic achievements to be the description of the mythical "Beast." It's a perfect formula for stirring up fear and hatred against the wrong target.

But soon the true Messiah will win the War of Gog and Magog and will expose and annihilate the Amaleki underground once and for all. Then Christians will realize they were deceived by their own leaders, and will finally embrace G-d's Noahide Laws — while rejecting the "New Testament."
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Important note:

Our intention in publishing this article is to show the interpretation of a sector of Judaism in relation to the mark of the beast in the book of Revelation.

However, we agree with the author's interpretation that Nero Cesar was the beast whose numerology was 666.

Pastor Gilberto Miguel Rufat
 
Article source: 

http://www.noahide.com/newsletter/news92.htm