If I only had a ...

Daniel is mentoring a young man who is a nice enough guy, divorced with three children, one in high school already. You would think such a person would have a modicum of common sense, but of late this has been in doubt. He calls Daniel to ask for advice on the most trivial of matters and then goes off on his own and essentially falls for variations on the Nigerian-prince internet scam without consulting anyone.

Now he is in a dither because he keeps running into the number 666.

As you most likely know, thanks to bad movies and worse Christian preachers, the Number of the Beast (Greek: Ἀριθμὸς τοῦ θηρίου, Arithmos tou Thēriou) is a term in the Book of Revelation, of the New Testament, that is associated with the Beast of Revelation in chapter 13. In most manuscripts of the New Testament and in English translations of the Bible, the number of the beast is 666. In critical editions of the Greek text, such as the Novum Testamentum Graece, it is noted that 616 is a variant.

I suggested that Daniel mention this to his friend and see if he had been running into the number 616 all the time. He thought, with better knowledge of his friend's quirks, that this would simply add to the list of anxieties.

Anyway, next time someone tells you that 666 is the number of the Beast, and then proceeds through elaborate manipulations of the alphabet in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, to prove that the Beast is therefore Barack Obama/Donald Trump/Sarah Palin/Pope Francis, just mention that everyone knows that the real number is 616, and that the number 666 has been perpetrated on unsuspecting believers so that they will not recognize the Beast when that being arrives on the scene.

You may wish to create a schema of manipulated alphabets and numerological systems to prove that the Beast is, in fact, Christopher Hewitt, snotty star of television's Mr. Belvedere. Hewitt is alleged to have died in 2001 from diabetes. But the truth is otherwise! Just look into his eyes ...