Is tomorrow’s date - 6-6-6 - merely a curious number, or could it mean our number is up?

There’s a devilishly odd nexus of theology, mathematics and commercialism on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year. OK, it’s just the sixth year of this millennium, but insisting on calling it 2006 takes the devil-may-care fun out of calendar-gazing.

Something about the number 666 brings out the worry, the hope and even the humor in people, said Felix Just, a professor of theology at the University of San Francisco. A Jesuit priest, Just has taught both apocalyptic theory and mathematics and maintains a "666-Numbers of the Beast" Web site that contai ns history, theology, math and precisely 66 one-line jokes about 666.

You can even make sport of it, betting online whether the apocalypse will happen on that date. The good news is that one online oddsmaker has made the world a 100,000-to-1 favorite to survive tomorrow - something that Just said is supported by theology.

"Many people avoid the number: They’re afraid of it almost, and there’s absolutely no reason to be afraid of it," said Just, pronounced Yoost. "It is not a prediction of future events. It is not supposed to be taken as a timetable for when the world is going to end."

It all started with Revelation 13:18 in the Bible: "This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six."

The beast is also known as the Antichrist, according to some apocalyptic theories.

Many scholars, such as Just, say that the beast is really a coded reference - using Hebrew letters for numbers - for the despotic Roman emperor Nero and that 616 appears instead of 666 in some ancient manuscripts. The Book of Revelation isn’t prophesying a specific end of times but "is about the overall cosmic struggle of good versus evil," Just said.

But for some more apocalyptic theologians, the end of times is coming, even if not specifically tomorrow. The evangelical Raptureready.com Web site puts its "rapture index" at 156, calling that "fasten your seat belts" time.

It’s not the date June 6 that’s worrisome, but the signs in our society of the approach of the 666 antichrist, said Tim LaHaye, founder of a self-named ministry and co-author of the best-selling "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic novels. And even though LaHaye said tomorrow isn’t the date of the apocalypse, his "Left Behind" Web site promotes his new book "The Rapture" with an ominous "06.06.06 Will You Be Ready."

People have looked for - and found - 666 in all sorts of places. Believers in the number’s power have used biblical letter-numeric code to convert the names of countless political leaders, including many popes, to come out 666, marking them as that generation’s Antichrist. That includes Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

In 1980, a TV host and others rigged the number 666 to come up in a Pennsylvania lottery drawing. It’s a number that is part of every UPC barcode on groceries a coincidence the code’s inventor said. With biblical coding, 666 also is the number for the "www" of the World Wide Web.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.