You all know how much I hate the current Hollywood trend of remaking classics because they’re a guaranteed money-spinner. Especially when they remake them really badly, which they usually do. Well, there’s been a lot of press about the release of the new Omen today, particularly as it’s being released on 06/06/06. Or more accurately, the 6/6/06, which isn’t quite so cool. Still, why let correct get in the way of cool?
The best thing about it all is that 666 is not necessarily the number of the beast anyway, with many suggesting it’s more likely 616. Mistranslations and people refusing to give up on something once they’ve got their teeth into it means things are unlikely to change, however.
There’s a very enlightening article you can read about the whole number controversy in Phenomena Magazine. The article in question can be found by clicking here.
Interesting stuff.
I don’t know about describing the article as enlightening, but it certainly points out the human element evident in the bible. I’m not going to go off on a tirade about how the bible wasn’t meant to be taken literally. It most certainly was and it was assembled with that in mind. Once again the historical circumstances of the bible and existence of dozens of other gospels that are excluded from it clearly demonstrate that the bible, writing by man, for man, can be flawed.
So? To a man of faith, the humanity of the bible doesn’t matter. I’ve found that the contradictions and gotchas within are generally only such when things that are metaphorical are conveniently taken literally and vice versa. The bible is a complicated book, branching into many forms of language – you can’t just sit down and match words, unfortunately. Well you can for fun, but the book isn’t any less significant because someone chooses to interpret it in a manner that results in it sounding ridiculous. It’s still the mainstay of almost two thousand of history and culture for a huge proportional of the world and the book arguably still demonstrates more fundamental truths about people and the world around us than any other.
For the record, I’m not religious.
Thou shalt not kill is good enough for me, man.
As for ox’s, I’ve got too many of them to grind.