Here is another idea I had about 666. However, I do not tend to credit John with prophetic ability, and one might interpret his writings as the productions of a stir-crazy religious enthusiast. For example, his beast, that combines the features of a leopard, a bear, and a lion Rev 13.2 conflates the features of Daniel's first three beasts Dan 7.4-6, whereas it was the fourthbeast that was "fearsome, dreadful, and very powerful." Dan 7.7 So I do not think that John knew the jewish scriptures very well -it appears that he was not a scholar. Anyway, my idea, which is not very scholarly either, is that if you wrote 666 in Roman letters as three 6s, you would have VI VI VI, which may suggest that the beast has three features - perhaps John intended to mean the beast was the antithesis of the Holy Trinity, not that I care much what John meant. If 666 means six hundred and sixty-six, then it might be better to say it is the number of the beasts. Or maybe John meant to say it is the number of the bees. Perhaps he was the Beeman of Patmos.