The False Teaching of Walid Shoebat

3 April 2011: On 29 March I received a link to a YouTube video recorded in 2008 entitled Walid Shoebat – Mark of the Beast. Anyone familiar with this blog knows that I consider Walid Shoebat to be one of the most infamously eisegetical of all current Bible prophecy expositors. The YouTube link of Shoebat’s nauseating and unhinged eisegesis is included here only for the purpose of providing a direct reference to Eschatology Today’s readers; otherwise this kind of eisegesis should be avoided as if it were the plague.

It is specifically Shoebat’s patently ridiculous declaration within this video that the original Greek manuscript of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, Chapter 13 Verse 18, was not written in Greek, but in the Arabic language, and that the number of the Antichrist’s name has the meaning of, “In the name of allah” that will be proven to be false teaching. In making his assertions I believe Walid Shoebat, and those who support, defend and reiterate his false teaching on this subject matter, have firmly walked themselves directly into the most foreboding of all of the Lord’s promises regarding the adding to and taking away of the literal Word of God in The Revelation of Jesus Christ:

Revelation 22:18-19

“For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

To begin with, here is the plain, English-language translated (per the King James and New King James Versions) from the original Greek-language verse which is the crux of the matter:

“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 (Chi Xi Stigma) Six hundred three score and six, 666.”

Let’s go to the YouTube video tape, and this verbatim transcript of what was stated as fact by Walid Shoebat:

Joe Van Koevering: “It’s Chi, Xi and Stigma…”

Shoebat: “Yes…

Joe Van Koevering: “…in the original language.”

Shoebat: “Yes, that’s what they think it is. They didn’t know [what] these symbols - were. So, they thought they were Greek symbols. Then they began to evolve into, let’s see, what these symbols really mean. Why would there be three Greek symbols into the text? Why would God put three Greek symbols into the text as a mystery? Well, God is not an author of mysteries, by the way, His yoke is easy.

What they thought were symbols were in reality a different script than even the Greek. God is not interested in gematria! Gematria is the process of adding numerals regarding names. … Gematria is a process that was used in witchcraft; God is not interested in this gematria stuff, okay?

So, this devolved and then the translations started to put down six, six, six because they thought it was about the gematria. But if you look at the Codex Siniaticus, it’s a different codexes, they don’t have six six six, they got these symbols! Some even translated these symbols as six sixteen! But it’s not!. When I first saw the Codex Vaticanus (checks his on-stage notes), I was literally shocked. Because I could read the text! It was Arabic!”

Walid Shoebat goes on to eisegete how the original “Chi, Xi Stigma” text, six hundred three score and six was not written in the Greek language but in the Arabic language, and that the literal meaning of the Arabic text is “in the name of allah.”

What abject nonsense this is!

To begin with, it was in 1844 that the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus manuscript was discovered by Constantine Tischendorf on Mount Sinai within St. Catharine’s Monastery. The Codex Sinaiticus is not written in “symbols,” it is written in the uncial characters of the Greek language, and comprised a sum total of forty-three leaves of the Septuagint. Those Greek-language leaves of text were just portions of Chronicles, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, I and II Maccabees, Esther and two fragments of Genesis. The Revelation of Jesus Christ was not part of this codex manuscript.

Unical Greek Letter Characters

Secondly, the Codex Vaticanus, so named because it is kept in the Vatican Library, and also referred to as the Codex Vaticanus, is also a 4th century manuscript written on fine parchment in the uncial characters of the Greek language. The Codex Vaticanus also does not contain the Revelation of Jesus Christ (a/k/a The Apocalypse). Sometime during the 15th to 16th centuries the missing books and portions of books of both the Old and New Testaments were added to the codex so that it might be used in the Vatican Library.

In all of the past two thousand-some odd years and of all the innumerable, highly learned Bible scholars who have ever studied this passage, here in the first decade of the 21st century we have the appearance of one Walid Shoebat trying to impress upon us the truth that he alone possesses the wisdom necessary to understand this verse because it is, “in reality” written in Arabic. If only Shoebat were a standup comedian this would have some inherent and monumental humorous value. However, given the true reality of the situation, there is precisely as much veracity in Shoebat’s assertions on this issue are there are in his longstanding and highly disputed claim to be a former PLO terrorist. According to a former CIA chief-of-station in the Middle East I know, Shoebat was no PLO terrorist; a low-level go-fer, yes, but he was never, ever an operational PLO terrorist.

So, the plain text of this verse, which is identical in every language in the world to which it was translated from the original Greek, the Lord informs us of three prophetically important things:

1.) Calculate the number of the beast

2.) It is the number of a man

3.) The number is six hundred sixty six (666)

None of this has anything whatsoever to do with the false, satanically deceptive cult of islam, or of its false-god “allah.”

When it comes to the wisdom of understanding this verse, I reference the reader to 1 Corinthians 2:14, which teaches us, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” In this is the foolishness of Walid Shoebat exposed, for nothing he has said has come from the Spirit. It has, in fact, come from within his own fanciful mind as yet another feeble, snake oil salesman’s attempt to further the thoroughly discredited Islamic Antichrist eisegesis.

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