Post #666

After three years and eight months I’ve made it to post number 666. Some careful mathing breaks that down to about 15 posts a month or an average of more or less one every other day. Which is better than I thought I was doing.

Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

I hold no special significance in the “Number of the Beast.” I’m way more aware of it through pop culture than I am through religious studies. Based on some quick, half-assed Internet research, 666 appears to have originally been used as code in order to write about Roman emperors (most likely Nero) without openly referring to them.

Through the ages, different beliefs have used different methods to sum different names, pretty much arriving at any person they feel is evil enough to be dubbed “The Beast.” Some scholars have decided the number was mistranslated and was supposed to have been 616, and would have referred to Caligula. Aleister Crowley believed he was the beast and adopted the name “The Great Beast.” By then using Greek gematria (assigning values to words), he was able to arrive at the sum of 666 for himself. I even found a Website where they had translated Al Gore into ASCII code and made it equal 666.

Be all that as it may, I’ve decided Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast” would be a swell way to acknowledge post number 666. This version comes from their March 15, 1985, show at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, Calif. This was one of the shows recorded for the classic Live After Death LP. What I’m posting comes from a Recording of Indeterminate Origin of the March 15 show and not from official release.

The Number of the Beast (live).mp3

Labels: live music, metal

posted by aikin @ 10:35 AM