666
if you search daniel for the word number, you get this
Daniel 9:2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
that is why I started thinking it was a year
very few history books have anything happening that year
but
some have islam attacking shortly thereafter
and
gibbon gets closer than any of them
he also points out the problem others have with the dates
“In this inquiry I shall unfold the events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbours of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran; that protected the majesty of Rome, and delayed the servitude of Constantinople; that invigorated the defence of the Christians, and scattered among their enemies the seeds of division and decay.”
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
I will always remember the first time I read this. It was early on in my research of the Apocalypse, Islam, and the Byzantine Empire and I was not sure where this was leading me but at that moment in time a historian of the eighteenth century told me I was on the right track.
Gibbon's footnote on the date is very interesting. His date 668 is at least five years earlier than most historians and I think he is still two years off
it's the year 666
back to
the apocalypse
mark is a date