Kind of just an aside, but after constantly hearing about Mark of the Beast, and the antichrist doing bad stuff, from apocalyptic evangelists, I thought it was interesting that Revelation, the part of the bible the mark of the beast is from, makes 0 mention of the Antichrist, but just 'the Beast'.
I also like the general theories that a lot of these vague allusions, with the number of the beast, and the antichrist, and the Man of Sin, are pointed political commentary at the then-current Emperor Nero, and aren't really supposed to be far off predictions, but rather saying, "Hey, we gotta stop Nero NOW, or he'll fuck shit up like this!" Decent amount of evidence to this, though its still far from certain.
Kind of just an aside, but after constantly hearing about Mark of the Beast, and the antichrist doing bad stuff, from apocalyptic evangelists, I thought it was interesting that Revelation, the part of the bible the mark of the beast is from, makes 0 mention of the Antichrist, but just 'the Beast'.
I also like the general theories that a lot of these vague allusions, with the number of the beast, and the antichrist, and the Man of Sin, are pointed political commentary at the then-current Emperor Nero, and aren't really supposed to be far off predictions, but rather saying, "Hey, we gotta stop Nero NOW, or he'll fuck shit up like this!" Decent amount of evidence to this, though its still far from certain.