Revelation By Joseph L. Mangina

The mark of the Beast is a topic that has long been debated. It has caused Christians grief ever since John first wrote it in the book of Revelation. There are many different explanations attempting to shed light on what it means. Through this paper, I will analyze three different commentaries takes on this passage (The passage being Revelation 13:16-18).
The first commentary I am writing on is Revelation by Joseph L. Mangina. It starts off by discussing verse 16, stating it has a twofold meaning. First, the Beast controls the market, it has authority over who can and cannot participate in it. Humans cannot help but produce goods and depend on them for life, this shows how distorted the community is. Second, under the Beast’s reign, humans

This one is quite out there. He is making claims as to who the Beast and Antichrist may be. According to this author Ronald Reagan may be the Antichrist, Pope John II is also a false prophet. He points out how these may be untrue but that you can, in fact, make an argument for it. He goes on to say that the Beast from Revelation can be found by a simple math equation. If you take Revelation 13:18 you know that the mark of the beast is 666. Take Martin Luther, Latinize his name to Martin Lutera. Now let the letters A to I represent the numbers 1-9, then K to S to represent 10-90 by multiples of 10 and t-z to represent the numbers 100-700 by multiples of 100. Then you get this result: M(30)+A(1)+R(80)+T(100)+I(9)+N(40)+L(20)+U(200)+T(100)+E(5)+R(80)+A(1)= 666. You can also apply the same code to Hitler and arrive at 666. This author expresses some more interesting theories, he begins discussing “Newton’s Gift”. Saying let him who has to calculate the number of the Beast. This theory is a story of how a man was going to travel back in time to give Isaac Newton a pocket calculator to help him. When he did so Newton saw it as an instrument of the devil. So the man attempted to show him by dividing 81,918 by 123 which equals 666. This causes Newton to be fearful and attack the man, believing that this was God showing him the man was the Devil himself. The author shares this story to show us how we should

There was not a whole lot of similarities between them, although there was one that I noticed. All three of these commentaries mentioned how significant the Beast was. They emphasized that this is something we must not forget. The Beast is powerful and wreaks havoc on people. All of the commentaries inform that John has given us the mark of the Beast as an identifier so that we will, in fact, be able to identify the Beast. When that time comes along we know the mark of the beast is 666 and we will be able to make that identification. I found these commentaries a different level of helpful. The most helpful were the first one, Revelation by Joseph L. Mangina. It certainly had the most information out of the three. It also seemed the most straightforward and the most factual. As a matter of fact, it was the only one that suggested the book of Revelation not only had something to offer the original audience but today’s audience as well. I found this to be encouraging in this commentary. Not only that, but it was also an interesting read. The second most helpful commentary I read was Sacra Pagina by Wilfrid J. Harrington. It also had lots of good information to offer. It did a good job of explaining how the text would have been read and understood by the original audience. I found this helpful in understanding. It was a little troubling, though, it gave no reason to suggest that Revelation is applicable today. Rather