A calendar date to end all others approaches

The number brings out the worry, the hope and even the humor in people, a professor said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Is Tuesday's date -- 6-6-06 -- merely a curious number or could it mean our number is up?
There's a devilishly odd nexus of theology, mathematics and commercialism on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year. OK, it's just the sixth year of this millennium, but insisting on calling it 2006 takes the devil-may-care fun out of calendar-gazing.
Something about the number 666 brings out the worry, the hope and even the humor in people, said the Rev. Felix Just, a professor of theology at the University of San Francisco. A Jesuit priest, the Rev. Mr. Just has taught both apocalyptic theory and mathematics and maintains a "666-Numbers of the Beast" Web site that contains history, theology, math and precisely 66 one-line jokes about 666.
You can even make sport of it, betting online whether the apocalypse will happen on that date. The good news is that one online oddsmaker has made the world a 100,000-to-1 favorite to survive Tuesday -- something that Mr. Just said is supported by theology.
"Many people avoid the number; they're afraid of it almost and there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of it," Mr. Just said. "It is not a prediction of future events. It is not supposed to be taken as a timetable for when the world is going to end."
It all started with Revelation 13:18 in the Bible: "This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six."
Antichrist
The beast is also known as the Antichrist, according to some apocalyptic theories.
Many scholars, such as Mr. Just, say the beast is really a coded reference -- using Hebrew letters for numbers -- for the despotic Roman emperor Nero and 616 appears instead of 666 in some ancient manuscripts. The Book of Revelation isn't prophesying a specific end of times but "is about the overall cosmic struggle of good versus evil," Mr. Just said.
But for some more apocalyptic theologians, the end of times is coming, even if not specifically on Tuesday.
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