Another COVID fringe conspiracy theory!

Published in The Conversation* by Eric M. Vanden Eykel

OMG! No, the COVID-19 vaccine is not linked to the cryptic "mark of the beast" – but a first-century Roman tyrant probably is.

The mass rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has led to concerns from some people that can be described as rational: What are the side effects? How effective will the shot be? 

But, then there are those who are worried that the vaccine will brand people with the “mark of the beast” as described in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (!- Thank goodness for this essay, by Dr. Eykel.).

The mark of the beast – a cryptic mark in Revelation which indicates allegiance to Satan – has been invoked by fringe Christian figures throughout the pandemic in reference to what they deem to be the evil of masks and (OMG!) vaccines. It ranges from the seemingly metaphorical likening of vaccine passports by a Republican House representative to something like “Biden’s mark of the beast” to the more literal interpretation that those getting a vaccine would be marked as followers of Satan.

It is tempting to dismiss such beliefs out of hand. After all, it is a fringe idea promoted by conspiracy theorists. 

Nevertheless, the absurd idea has gained enough traction that some medical establishments have felt the need to address it head on. Minneapolis-based Hennepin Healthcare, for example, states in an online fact sheet that “the COVID-19 vaccines do not contain … The Mark of the Beast.”

As a scholar of early Christian literature, I would note that the mark of the beast in Revelation has throughout history been misunderstood as referring to various events and phenomena. Its connection to the COVID-19 vaccine is but the latest example of such (IMO- stupid!) misunderstanding.

Moreover, I argue that the mark in Revelation is best understood in the first-century context in which it was used, as a polemic against the Roman Empire.

Reading Revelation with first-century eyes

The Book of Revelation is a complicated text. Written toward the end of the first century by an author who calls himself John, the text is filled with symbolic imagery that has mystified readers for centuries.

Using visions of angels and demons, death and destruction, John tells a story of an ongoing cosmic battle between good and evil that will end with good triumphing eventually. The beast and its mark are both understood by this author to be evil, and they are some of the most well-known and most misunderstood parts of his story.

In Revelation 13, John describes the beast as having seven heads and 10 horns, a leopard’s body, the feet of a bear and a lion’s mouth. The beast in this text is powerful, Satanic and is an object of worship.

There is also a second beast that promotes worship of the first. The most notable thing about the second beast is that it causes people to receive a mark on their forehead or right hand with “the name of the beast or the number of its name.”

John concludes this chapter with a riddle: “Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.” (Rev 13:18).
The beast and the empire

Throughout history, this number has been used to demonize phenomena that readers are either wary of or don’t fully understand. It should come as no surprise, then, that some have tried to connect the COVID-19 vaccine to the mark in a similar way.

This interpretation is problematic, however, and for two reasons: First, the COVID-19 vaccines are modern phenomena that the author of Revelation and his earliest readers would have no familiarity with. Second, there is another explanation for the beast and its number that makes far more sense historically.

Many biblical scholars maintain that the first beast is a symbolic representation of first-century Roman emperors. In this reading, each head would represent one emperor. While there is some debate in scholarship on which specific emperors the author of Revelation is alluding to, there is fairly widespread agreement that Emperor Nero is one of them.

This conclusion is drawn not only from other references to Nero in Revelation, but also from his reputation in the first century for persecuting Christians in Rome.

In A.D. 64, when Nero was emperor, a great fire took hold in Rome and burned for nearly a week. Roman historians Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Tacitus claim that Nero himself was the one responsible for igniting the blaze, Tacitus adds that Nero attempted to free himself of blame by placing guilt on the Christians living in the city.

The Book of Revelation (also called the Apocalypse of John, Revelation to John or Revelation from Jesus Christ) is the final book of the New Testament, and consequently, is also the final book of the Christian Bible.

Nero’s number

There are a number of other points in Revelation where the author seems to allude to Nero. There is a possible reference to the great fire of Rome later in the text, for example, in Revelation 17:16. John’s description of one of the beast’s heads being “wounded” may likewise be a reference to Nero’s death, which Suetonius describes as a self-inflicted stab to the neck.

But perhaps the clearest reference to Nero in Revelation is the infamous “666,” the number of the beast that constitutes the beast’s mark.

Past, not future

Although there has been much speculation over the number’s significance in the past, there is a growing body of scholars who believe it to be a direct reference to Nero.

There is a well-known practice in the ancient world called “gematria,” in which letters are assigned numerical values. This allows authors to refer to individuals by using “the number of their name,” rather than their actual name. And biblical scholars have long noted that in Hebrew characters, the numerical value of Nero’s formal title – Caesar Nero – is 666.

This, along with the other allusions to Nero in Revelation, leaves little doubt, I argue, as to who the author is referencing with this number.

There is, however, one piece of this riddle left, and that is what exactly the mark of the beast in Revelation is. Given the symbolic nature of the book as a whole, the reference to being marked on the forehead or hand is likely not something to be taken at face value.

More important is John’s claim that no one would be able to buy or sell anything without having the mark that bears the name of the beast. So, what does one need to buy and sell that would also have the name of the beast on it? One possible answer to that question is money – and we have numerous examples in the archaeological record of Roman coinage that bears the name Caesar Nero.

One of the reasons that Revelation is often confusing to those trying to interpret the book today is that they frequently are trained to see it as a book about the future, when in fact, it is primarily a book about the past. Clearly, John and his first-century readers would have been able to know the answer to “What is the mark of the beast?” in their first-century context. 

Otherwise, the text wouldn’t have made much sense to anyone when it was first written.

In other words: when John gives his “number of the beast” riddle to readers in the first century, he anticipates that it is a riddle they will be equipped to solve in the first century.

While some may have lingering questions about COVID-19 vaccines, the question of whether those vaccines are linked to the mark of the beast shouldn’t be one of them.

*Eric M. Vanden Eykel is Associate Professor of Religion, Ferrum College, Virginia.

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Star of Bethlehem or comet?

On Dec. 21, 2020, Jupiter and Saturn will cross paths in the night’s sky and for a brief moment, they will appear to shine together as one body. While planetary conjunctions like this are not everyday events, they also are not particularly rare.

This year’s conjunction is different for at least two reasons. The first is the degree to which the two planets will be aligned. 

Experts predict that they will appear closer during this conjunction than they have in nearly eight centuries and also brighter.

Published in The Conversation authored by Eric M. Vanden Eykel
Associate Professor of Religion, Ferrum College.

But the second factor, and the one that has thrust this event into the spotlight, is that it will occur on the winter solstice, just before the Christmas holiday. The timing has led to a speculation whether this could be the same astronomical event that the Bible reports led the wise men to Joseph, Mary and the newly born Jesus – the Star of Bethlehem.

As a scholar of early Christian literature writing a book on the three wise men, I argue that the upcoming planetary conjunction is likely not the fabled Star of Bethlehem. The biblical story of the star is intended to convey theological rather than historical or astronomical truths.

Leading light

The story of the star has long fascinated readers, both ancient and modern. Within the New Testament, it is found only in the Gospel of Matthew, a first-century account of Jesus’ life that begins with the story of his birth.

Giotto

In this account, wise men arrive in Jerusalem and say to Herod, the king of Judea: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage.” The star then leads them to Bethlehem and stops over the house of Jesus and his family.

Many have read this story with the presupposition that Matthew must have been referencing an actual astronomical event that occurred around the time of Jesus’ birth. The astronomer Michael R. Molnar, for example, has argued that the Star of Bethlehem was an eclipse of Jupiter within the constellation Ares.

There are at least two issues involved in associating a specific event with Matthew’s star. The first is that scholars are not certain exactly when Jesus was born. The traditional date of his birth may be off by as many as six years.

The second is that measurable, predictable astronomical events occur with relative frequency. The quest to discover which event, if any, Matthew might have had in mind is therefore a complicated one.

Beliefs about the star

The theory that the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn may be the Star of Bethlehem is not new. It was proposed in the early 17th century by Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer and mathematician. Kepler argued that this same planetary conjunction in or around 6 B.C. could have served as inspiration for Matthew’s story of the star.

Kepler was not the first to suggest that the Star of Bethlehem may have been a recognizable astronomical event. Four hundred years prior to Kepler, between 1303 and 1305, the Italian artist Giotto painted the star as a comet on the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy.

Scholars have suggested that Giotto did this as an homage to Halley’s Comet, which astronomers have determined was visible in 1301, on one of its regular flights past the Earth. Astronomers have also determined that Halley’s Comet passed by the Earth in or around 12 B.C., between five and 10 years before most scholars argue that Jesus was born. It is possible that Giotto believed Matthew was referencing Halley’s Comet in his story of the star.

Attempts to discover the identity of Matthew’s star are often creative and insightful, but I would argue that they are also misguided.

The star in Matthew’s story may not be a “normal” natural phenomenon, and Matthew suggests as much in the way that he describes it. Matthew says that the wise men come to Jerusalem “from the East.” The star then leads them to Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem. The star therefore makes a sharp left turn. And astronomers will agree that stars do not make sharp turns.

Moreover, when the wise men arrive in Bethlehem, the star is low enough in the sky to lead them to a specific house. As physicist Aaron Adair puts it: “the Star is said to stop in place and hover over a particular lodging, acting as an ancient GPS unit.” The “description of the movements of the Star,” he noted, was “outside what is physically possible for any observable astronomical object.”

Theological underpinning

In short, there appears to be nothing “normal” or “natural” about the phenomenon that Matthew describes. Perhaps the point that Matthew is trying to make is a different one.

Matthew’s story of the star draws from a body of tradition in which stars are connected to rulers. The rising of a star signifies that a ruler has come to power.

In the biblical book of Numbers, for example, which dates to 5th century B.C., the prophet Balaam predicts the arrival of a ruler who will defeat the enemies of Israel. “A star shall come out of Jacob, [meaning Israel]…it shall crush the borderlands of Moab.”

One of the most well-known examples of this tradition from antiquity is the so-called “Sidus Iulium,” or “Julian Star,” a comet that appeared a few months after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Roman authors Suetonius and Pliny the Elder report that the comet was so bright that it was visible in the late afternoon, and that many Romans interpreted the spectacle as evidence that Julius Caesar was now a god.

In light of such traditions, I believe Matthew’s story of the star exists not to inform readers about a specific astronomical event, but to support claims that he is making about the character of Jesus.

Put another way, I argue that Matthew’s goal in telling this story is more theological than it is historical.

The upcoming conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is therefore likely not a return of the Star of Bethlehem, but Matthew would likely be pleased with the awe it inspires in those who anticipate it.