888
888
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When I write it down it looks weird, but 888 is a symbol of Jesus Christ
This carpeting pattern has a lot of interesting details. There are a lot of repeating numerical elements based on the numbers 4, 7 and 8.
Right now I just want to focus on the number 8.
The main element is a dogwood blossom surrounded by an octagon.
An octagon has 8 sides.
Look at that octagon carefully and you can see that it is actually alternating blue and gold concentric octagons. There are 8 octagons in total.
Each dogwood blossom displays 4 petals and 4 leaves, so 8 elements there, too.
Put all that together and you can make 888
Let's take a step back and look at a related but opposite symbol: 666
This shows up in the Book of Revelation and is used as the mark of the beast or a symbol for Satan. For some reason the world has a fascination with that symbol. Every young person in the church can probably tell you that "six hundred, three score and six" is the mark of the beast.
This is the reason that 888 seems weird. The symbol of the mark of the beast is so well known that it kind of looks similar. 888 is related to 666. I think they are opposites.
So let's consider the number 666 for a moment before we move on:
6 is just short of 7.
6 is imperfect, 6 is counterfeit.
repeating the "6" three times just adds emphasis, it is an ancient way of marking a superlative, like good, better, best.
This is seen in scriptural text sometimes. In this case, I think it is more like: wo, wo, wo!
Also note that many Christians contemporary with the Book of Revelation thought that this represented Rome and the letters for "Nero Caesar" add up to 666.
There have been many other attempts to decipher the number 666, but this is probably far enough down that hole.
As noted elsewhere on this site, the number 8 is a symbol of Jesus Christ, especially the resurrected Lord.
So, combining "8" three times gives emphasis to that. In this case it is much more like: Holy, Holy, Holy!
In Greek, the name Jesus is written: Ἰησοῦς (That would look like Iesous in our modern letters.) Iota, Eta, Sigma, Omicron, Upsilon, Sigma
Each letter in Greek has a numeric value based on its position in the alphabet:
Iota= 10
Eta= 8
Sigma= 200
Omicron= 70
Upsilon= 400
Sigma= 200
The sum of all that is 888.
The ancient Christians used this as a numerical symbol of Jesus.
(In fact, Church father Irenaeus condemned this as "an act which reduced the Lord of all things to something alphabetical." And I agree with him a little bit, but I don't think there is anything wrong with spiritual Twinkies as long as you keep it in perspective)
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