My Name Equals 666

After yesterday's music videos, Highway to Hell and Running with the Devil, some people might think that I am a Satanist now. No, I am not. I no more believe in Satanism as a religion than I do Evangelical Christianity. Actually one can only believe in Satan if one believes in Christianity.

Nevertheless, you might find it interesting that my name, Ken Pulliam, actually does equal 666. Below is a post I originally ran on Nov. 26, 2009.

It was the summer of 1983 and I was sitting in a Ph.D. class at Bob Jones University on the Book of Revelation. Dr. Stewart Custer was waxing eloquent on Revelation 13:18: Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number [is] 666. He was explaining the various interpretations of this passage. Some said it just referred to the number of man repeated three times (the number six is held by some to be the number of man in the Bible, the number seven is the number of God, etc), sort of like an ungodly trinity. Others believed it refered to a literal human being whose identity could be found by adding up the value of his name.

At this time in history, Arabic numerals were not used in the Graeco-Roman world but rather each letter of the alphabet had a corresponding numerical value. For example, in Greek, the first letter alpha equals one and beta, the second letter, equals two, etc. The same was true with the Hebrew alphabet. Many Bible scholars on this basis identified the beast of Revelation as Nero. They argued that the Greek spelling of his name, “Nerōn Kaisar,” transliterates into Hebrew as “נרון קסר”. When you add up the values of each Hebrew letter you get 666.

I thought this was fascinating so I decided to add up the letter values in my name. Ken Pulliam transliterates into Greek as Κεν Πυλλιαμ. When I added up the value of each letter, I was flabbergasted. The letters equaled 666. I thought this can't be possible. I added them up again thinking maybe I had made a mistake. I added them up a third time. There was no way around it. My name equaled 666.

I admit this actually bothered me for awhile. Then I realized that there were billions of people on the planet and, while I didn't know the precise statistical formula, I was certain there were probably thousands of people whose name also equaled 666.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I am sure that some of my former colleagues and students probably think that I am the man of sin or at least a type (forerunner) of the last great embodiment of evil. After all, I am an apostate. I knew the truth, believed the truth, and then turned away. Hebrews 6:4-6 says there is no hope for me.

For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put [Him] to an open shame.

So I guess for those fundamentalists and evangelicals that take the Bible literally, this is just further proof that it is the Word of God. What further proof do you need (spoken with tongue firmly in cheek)?