Re: The Mark Of The Beast. Here you are not totally correct. The Arabs call their number Hindi. If you want Arabic number in Windows you have to specify Hindi. This leads me to believe that the Arabs got their numbers from India. Hence left to right numbers in a right to left written system.
I’m aware of the fact that so-called Arabic numerals were originally invented in India. But most people are familiar with the term “arabic numerals” from their school days so that’s what I used. My point was that since the Arabic language uses numbers as well as letters it wouldn’t make any sense to arbitrarily assign numerical values to Arabic letters in order to learn the name of the Anti-Christ.
But there are other problems with this author’s opinion. As I understand it, he said that when the handwritten text of a 4th century copy of Rev. 13 is turned sideways, it looks like crossed swords and the Arabic phrase “bismallah” which means “in the name of Allah”. But four times in Rev. 13:16-18 John referred to the mark as a number. Crossed swords and the phrase bismallah do not represent a number in any language.
Those who understand the technicalities of hand written Greek say there are other issues as well, but I believe the problems I’ve outlined here are sufficient to cast doubt on the accuracy of this author’s interpretation.