User blog comment:Admiral Leviathan/600TH EDIT!/@comment-1659940-20100421133613

The early Church father Irenaeus knew several occurrences of the 616-variant but regarded them as a scribal error and affirmed that the number 666 stood "in all the most approved and ancient copies" and is attested by "those men who saw John face to face". This testimony of Irenaeus is very important, because he was a disciple of Polycarp who in turn was a disciple of John the Evangelist himself.

Red arrow points to χιϛʹ (616) in P115 deciphered in May 2005.In May 2005, it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques[18] had been able to read previously illegible portions of the earliest known record of the Book of Revelation (a 1,700 year old papyrus), from the Oxyrhynchus site, Papyrus 115 or P115, dating one century after Irenaeus. The fragment gives the Number of the Beast as 616 (χ ι ϛ), rather than the majority text 666 (χ ξ ϛ).[1] The other early witness Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) has it written in full: hexakosiai deka hex (lit. six hundred sixteen).

Significantly, P115 aligns with Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) which are generally regarded as providing the best testimony to Revelation. Thus, P115 has superior testimony to that of P47 which aligns with Codex Sinaiticus and together form the second-best witness to the Book of Revelation. This has led some scholars to conclude that 616 is the original number of the beast.

Dr. Paul Lewes in his book, A Key to Christian Origins (1932) wrote:

"The figure 616 is given in one of the two best manuscripts, C (Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, Paris), by the Latin version of Tyconius (DCXVI, ed. Souter in the Journal of Theology, SE, April 1913), and by an ancient Armenian version (ed. Conybaere, 1907). Irenaeus knew about it [the 616 reading], but did not adopt it (Haer. v.30,3), Jerome adopted it (De Monogramm., ed. Dom G Morin in the Rev. Benedictine, 1903). It is probably original. The number 666 has been substituted for 616 either by analogy with 888, the [Greek] number of Jesus (Deissmann), or because it is a triangular number, the sum of the first 36 numbers (1+2+3+4+5+6...+36 = 666)".

Professor David C. Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, thinks that 616, although less memorable than 666, is the original. Dr. Ellen Aitken said: “Scholars have argued for a long time over this, and it now seems that 616 was the original number of the beast. It's probably about 100 years before any other version."