Michael Wood

The Hidden Bible Michael Wood

In English, when we want to say that something is extremely obvious, we can say, "Anybody with half a brain will know it."  And the flipside would be to say, "Only a dimwit won't understand it."  In ancient Greek they had their own idiom to express the same thing.  When they wanted to say something is extremely obvious, they would say, "Anyone who has a mind will know it."  And the flipside was to say, "Only someone who doesn't have a mind won't know it."

The idiom "to have a mind" happens to be found in one of the more fascinating Biblical sentences - the sentence revealing the identity of the dreaded Beast of Revelation:

• Let anyone with a mind calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six. - Revelation 13:18 Literal Greek

The original Greek text of Revelation idiomatically declared, "Let anybody with half a brain calculate the number of the beast."  The author expected all his first century recipients to instantly and easily recognize the identity of the beast by the number 666.

The realization that the first century readers were intimately familiar with the beast convinced cryptographer Michael Wood that the 666 code was solvable.  Wrapped in a parable based on the liberal vs. conservative Christian debate, The Hidden Bible by Michael Wood pieces together the definitive solution to the 666 puzzle.  The historical facts converge on only one possibility regarding the identity of 666.  The 666 code has been cracked.