The book of Revelation seems to have been originally a Jewish Messianic Apocalypse which was later Christianized to some degree, but still retains is "Dead Sea Scroll" flavouring, albeit in very bad Greek.
What is added into the margins ("marginalia") later gets copied into the body of the text so that the end result is that the book becomes longer and longer over time.
This is why there is a distinct warning at the end of the book:
WHOEVER ADDS ANYTHING TO THIS SCROLL SHALL BE ADDED TO HIM THE HORRORS AND PLAGUES MENTIONED IN THIS SCROLL....
But all these charms did not stop people from trying their hand at a little interpretation along the way as to the identity of some of the characters such as the "BEAST" etc...(a process which is still going on today in certain LAST DAYS Christian churches..)
Since the Apocalypse of Yohanon the Elder ("Book of Revelation") has TWO competing Gemmatrial Systems for the "name of the Beast", and was written during the 1st Jewish War against Rome (AD 66-72) the correct individual would have to fit both 616 and 666 manuscript families:
But don't forget: THE WHOLE PASSAGE OF Rev 13:13 is an INSERTED MARGINALIUM INTO THE TEXT AT THIS POINT.
(i.e. someone wrote it into the margin of the text, to try and point to what he believed was the identity of the BEAST and gradually, it got copied into the main body of the text)
Thus several ancient versions of the "Book of Revelation" (singular, by the way) show two numbering systems:
Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi (C) and the newly discovered Papyrus "P115/POxy4499" all of which have: "616" in the place of the more familiar 666 of Codex Sinaiticus or Codex Bezae or Codex Vaticanus etc.
Notice how the Marginalium is introduced : HERE IS WISDOM: that is a flag to a scholar that ["what we have here is an INSERTION" into the text !]
The Greek word SOPHIA "Widsom" (Heb: Chochmah) generally signified Kabbalistic Gemmatria (numerology) is being signalled, and it is the FLAG which introduces the Marginalium about the number of the "Beast"
QUOTE: from CODEX SINAIATICUS
Here is WISDOM:
Let he who hath Wisdom "calculate the number of the beast" for it is the number of a [son of] man, and his number is 666"
UNQUOTE
Here is the alternative version of the Greek found in Papyrus 115 and in the CODEX ALEXANDRINUS and CODEX EPHRAIMI
"Let he who hath Wisdom calculate the number of the beast for it is the number of a man, and his number is 616."
SO WHICH ONE IS THE REAL ONE?
DON'T FORGET THAT IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION WE ARE DEALING WITH A BAD TRANSLATION HERE INTO GREEK FROM ARAMAIC AND HEBREW...
The Apocalypse of Yohananon the Elder (whoever he was, but clearly someone who had first hand experience serving in the 2nd Herodian Temple Liturgy) aka the Book of Revelation, is written in the worst Greek in the New Testament, full of what are known as "Grammatical Howlers"--clearly this is a translation INTO Greek from Hebrew and Aramaic source material like the similar Apocalypic book of Daniel especially chapters 7 to 12 (both languages are found there).
The words "here is Wisdom" is the beginning of the footnote (or "marginalium" of Rev 13:13 if you want the technical term)
You can see at a glance that the whole paragraph about the Number of the Beast actually interrupts the flow of what is written in the Greek immediately before and after the verse, and can be removed with no real loss of meaning.
Why do you say the reference to the beast is clear, when you can see it is coded? Also why would you assume that the Apocalypse of Yohanon the Elder (whoever he was---apparently the aged Jerusalemite Presbuteros who apparently had met "Iesous" in the flesh (possibly one of the 70--certainly not Yohanon bar Zavdai--or John the son of Zebedee, who was killed by Herod in the 40s with his brother) who preached as a very old man to Polycarp when Polycarp was still a teenager some time in 95 AD).
Certainly Yohanon the Elder was a Levite in the 2nd temple to judge from his intimate knowledge of 2nd Temple litury (and the city of Ephesus actually has TWO different statues of saints named "John" standing next to each other, both calling themselves "dedicated to John", but both different John's)
The "mark on the right hand or the forehead" is a clear reference to the Mysteries of Mithras, whose inititates were branded generally on the wrists and sometimes on the forehead.
Rev. 13:5
and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
42 months = 1260 days
The number 666, therefore, IS TO BE BOUNDED BY 1260.
1260 actually has 36 divisors.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z
CHI XI STIGMA
36 42 48 54 60 66 72 78 84
(36, 66 and 78 are triangular numbers).
The number 37 can be said to represent the ‘key to wisdom’. Why the ‘key to wisdom’? Well, if it is a key it means it can be turned or used to open something. When 37 is ‘turned’ it becomes 73, which is the exact numerical value of the Hebrew word chokmah, which means wisdom.
The perimeter (boundary) of a triangular number.
P36 = 21 (3 x 7) 36 is generated by 8
P666 = 105 (3 x 35) 666 is generated by 36
P2701 = 216 (3 x 72) 2701 is generated by 73
666 = 6 x 111
111 = 45 + 66 = 74 + 37 = 73 + 38