In the revelation to John given by Jesus Christ who in turn recieved the future destiny and prophesy of the human race from God the number given for the beast from the earth is 666 the decipherment of such a number will give us the main clue of this enigmatic individual that Christians for generations have feared. Most scholars and I suppose most of that fraternity believe not in prophesy but that the revelation of the beast pertains to that time circa 64ad which is pratically imposible because the revelation was written in 96AD during the end of the reign of Domitian which is confirmed by Irenaeus writing in 180ad himself a native of asia minor and a hearer of Polycarp who was a personal disciple of John thus there is no reason to doubt the validity of his story and its his account the church tradition is based on. So we come to the dechiperment of the number 666.
The three main languages of the early christians were Greek, Hebrew and Latin the manuscript was written in Greek. Most have identified the number according to the ancient practice of Gematria and have come up with the formula that the emperor NERO 54ad-68ad was the beast being refered too once again the manuscript was written in 96ad and therefore how could it claim to be a prophesy if it backdated events. To assume so would negate the fact that the document clearly states this work is a prophesy. Scholars clearly are blind as well as death and they try to eauate the meaning to what there ideas of what it should be. Ireneus was pretty clear about this kind of supposition for he clearly remarks 'if the beast was meant to be disclosed in our present season then he would of done who wrote the apocalypse' so it is clear even the church father was suggesting in no way whats so ever could the beast be identified with Nero or any previous emperor prior to 180ad at the time Iraneus was writing.
if we apply Gematria to the three known early languages we come up with three differentalternative readings to the identity of the beast so this is fool hardy to identitfy the beast in such a manner.
I must correct a statement here. The book of Revelation was definitely NOT written in 96AD. So, where can we turn to find evidence for the dating of Revelation? Within the book itself! It will be shown, from internal evidence, that Revelation was written before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.