George Bush Was Not the Antichrist

Yesterday at noon, just as required by the Constitution of the United States, Barack Obama took the oath of office and officially became the 44th President of the United States. The peaceful transition of power between George Bush and Barack Obama is a proof that George W. Bush was not the Anticrist, the False Prophet, or the Beast.

I make the statement above aware that many people firmly believed that George Bush was the Antichrist. On June 6, 2006 (06-06-06 or 666 for short), a day called “The Day of the Antichrist,” I wrote a post, “Is George Bush the 666 (the Antichrist)?”

My post was written in response to a post written by Stephen Hanchett who developed a theory based on the letters in the name George Bush and concluded that when the letters are added up, the name in Hebrew comes out to 666.

In his post, Hanchett wrote:

“I submit to you that George Walker Bush is the ANTI-CHRIST. The violence and destruction that began when Bush first entered office, is now certain to culminate in the apocalypse, as predicted in the Bible over 2,000 years ago.”

My post on George Bush generated almost one hundred comments. Some readers agreed with my conclusions, while the majority agreed with Hanchett and declared in many different ways that George Bush was the Antichrist. I got so tired of debating with Bush haters that I promised that on January 21, 2009 I would write again on this subject.

I am not a prophet, but the peaceful transition of power proved that my interpretation of the Bible was right and that those who said that Bush was the Antichrist were wrong. Below, I have selected a sample of the comments of those who believed that Bush was the Devil incarnate.

Stephen Hanchett wrote:

“It’s obvious that the horns represent the powerful men who have come to successively rule over this American empire. Daniel even says so quite explicitly Dan 7: 24 >the ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones. (the Antichrist) America acquired superpower status and gained the reach of a world class Empire when it acquired the nuclear bomb, at the very end of WWII. Since then there have been exactly ten >kings= or post war presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, BushSr, and Clinton. The prophecy from Daniel says that after these ten presidents, there will appear another one, an arrogant ‘little horn’, which is the Antichrist, George W Bush Jr. It says this ‘little horn’ is unlike any of the other ten presidents, and this is an obvious reference to the fact that Bush has no popular mandate, that he lost the popular vote, and was appointed to the office by five un elected judges on the Supreme Court. This has never happened before in American history, and that’s what makes him so different from all his presidential predecessors - that and his arrogance, dishonesty and lust for world power.”

My response:

Anyone familiar with the interpretation of the book of Daniel realizes that most of the interpretation above is nonsense. The book of Daniel is an apocalyptic book that was written to inspire the Jewish community to endure the hardships the community was facing because of the oppressive policies of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Anonymous wrote:

I have read Hatchett's book and have found it to be extremely accurate. I am also a Baptist. Although, W is not Mabus (because Mabus first dies, then the antichrist is revealed) I do believe W is the antichrist. He will fool even the elect, so stay on guard at all times. Pray for everything. Believe in God above all else.

My response:

If you believe that Hatchett’s book is extremely accurate, then, you either misread what he wrote or else you want to believe what he wrote. You say that you believe W is the Antichrist. When January 2009 comes, you will discover how wrong you are.

Anonymous wrote:

george walker busche(actual spelling of his name, in english, numerically is: 666) is the antichrist. he has turned nation against nation, regular american people against each other, he has killed countless people and small animals. He talks peace out of one side of his mouth, and death and war out of the other. MABUS(Suddam, anagram for MABUS) has been hung, now or shortly, the antichrist will show his true colors and you will all know what I have suspected all along. Pray and be alert all you elect.

My response:

You and all those who say that George Bush is the Antichrist need to study your Bible a little bit more. Two years from now when Bush leaves the White House and becomes just another ex-President, you and all those who believe that he is the 666 will have a lot of explaining to do. It is because of people who misinterpret the Bible that the world laughs at the church and Christianity.

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe Bush intends to make himself the King of Iraq, who knows? Just keep a watch and be on guard.

My response:

In response to this comment I wrote a post entitled George W. Bush, King of Iraq


A reader wrote:

When I first saw the world famous film Conan The Barbarian, I knew then, based on my years of research on The Bible, the occult/satanists/secret societies, and all the other banned texts from The Bible, that The Biblical Antichrist was a man named Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger.

George W. Bush is The Biblical False Prophet. The most vile and evil liar I have ever seen. He will implement the 666. He is the leader of the Great Beast (USA) or what the Muslims call "The Great Satan." He will give power and authority over to Arnold. Exactly what Bush is, is Satan in human form.

Another reader wrote:

I accept that bush is the Anti-Christ. He is on the team with those who commit terror against their own people, and then blame it on a foreign power. 9/11 was a clear example of this.

Anonymous wrote:

The global reach of Bush is most certainly open for the possibility of him being an antichrist. In a way I could see this being a real possibility. He (with our military has subdued 2 kings and the bible states that the antichrist will subdue 3 kings. Bush has authorized and congress has already passed the real ID to be issued in 2008 which of course is not far off from an implantable chip. With the power grab Bush has created, it wouldn't take anything more than another imagined terrorist attack for him to stay in power.

A reader wrote:

A nuclear war or other giant catastrophe, such as the nuclear destruction of an American city by terrorism, could easily enable Bush to continue for another 4 years. This would then put the final apocalypse near the famous doomsday date, 2012.

A reader who calls himself “The Second Coming of Christ” wrote:

As the Second Coming of Christ....I can say with ALL “certainty” that George W. Bush IS INDEED the 3rd AntiChrist. When a person is the President of the United States ..... you aren't just supposed to do what you "think is best for America."

Anonymous wrote:

Beware of bush and the fascist government he has established in the U.S. bush may actually be the antichrist with Pat Robertson as his false prophet.

My response to several readers:

To all of you who posted comments to this post:

Thank you for your comments, opinions, and observations. Some of your ideas and views are too far out for me to respond.

In a few months the man will be out of office and at that time, all of you who believe George Bush is the Beast, the Antichrist, the False Prophet, Azazel, and a few other evil characters of history will have to confess that you were wrong.

An Anonymous who disagreed with my view that George Bush was not the Antichrist wrote:

Dr. Mariottini you are stupid, deluded, blind and arrogant.

My Response:

I may be all these things, but at least I know the Bible.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: 666, Antichrist, George Bush

George W. Bush, King of Iraq

On Tuesday, June 6, 2006 (06-06-06 or 666 for short), I wrote a post “Is George Bush the 666 (the Antichrist),” which has been the most popular and the most visited post in my blog. Every day people visit this post and many of them leave comments in favor or against the view that George Bush is the Antichrist.

I have answered many of the comments, but several others have been left unanswered. The reason for this is that some of the comments are so off the wall that I did not have the heart to answer. But, in the light of the few last comments, I have decided to answer some of the views left on the post.

Here are some examples of the comments about George Bush and the Antichrist:

Mairia cb48 wrote:

For many come saying "Christ, Christ and know him not and the Baptists hardly live out Ephesians 5 and 6 so they would fall for Bush being a real Christian.

Bush does not bow his head upon Christ's name nor do what Jesus could do and that is never pick up guns and go to war so Little Horn he just could be as this nation is so lukewarm after the King James and the missing books it would fall for Bush as a Christian.

Book of revelations warns never to add or subtract from the book of god and the protestors a/k/a protesting the covenants of g-d rebellion still goes on.

Read Isaiah 1:21-23 if you want to see us in living black and white.

All our protesting rebellious princes are our presidents and they are representative of the throne continued since king henry viii with the terrorism of divorce allowed still in our land.

Now, what can I say about this comment. She goes on talking about abortion, America as Sodom and Gomorrah, and comparing Bushism with fascism and socialism. To this reader, the real evidence that Bush is the Antichrist is because he allowed abortion to continue while he was the governor of Texas. If abortion is the mark of the Antichrist, then there are many Antichrists living in the world today.

A reader named John wrote:

The Risen Chirst [sic] is the Antichirst, the first beast that had the fatal wound that had been healed. Paul of Tarsus was his false prophet, the second beast who was servent [sic] to the first beast and extended its authority everywhere, making the world and all its people worship the first beast. If you don't believe me, read the Bible and no! you will not die if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods.

John must either be a secularist, an atheist, or someone who hates Christianity. If by reading the Bible, as he says, one discovers that the Risen Christ is the Antichrist and that Paul of Tarsus was his false prophet, then I wonder how he reads the Bible. However, since he uses the words of the serpent when he wrote that by reading the Bible one’s eyes are open and one becomes like gods, maybe John is, paraphrasing Blake here, on the side of the devil and he does not know it.

An anonymous reader wrote:

I have read Hatchett's book and have found it to be extremely accurate. I am also a Baptist. Although, W is not Mabus (because Mabus first dies, then the antichrist is revealed) I do believe W is the antichrist. He will fool even the elect, so stay on guard at all times. Pray for everything. Believe in God above all else.

For those who do not know Mabus, he is the Antichrist in the writings of Nostradamus. In modern apocalyptic writings, Mabus has become the anagram for the Antichrist. Some people have identified George Bush with Mabus. This reader believes that George Bush is the Antichrist and that he is deceiving many people.

This was my response to this comment:

Dear Anonymous,

If you believe that Hatchett's book is extremely accurate, then, you either misread what he wrote or else you want to believe what he wrote. You say that you believe W is the Antichrist. When January 2009 comes, you will discover how wrong you are.

Another reader, F&B wrote:

Clearly, George Bush is not the anti-christ. One person, however, that we really should keep a close eye on is Barack Obama. That guy is really scary. He can talk for an hour, have everyone in the room agreeing with him, and never say a thing of any substance.

I just wonder if the name Barack Obama adds to 666. Probably, what makes some people think Barack Obama is the Antichrist is because he has an infamous middle name: Hussein.

Anonymous wrote:

george walker busche(actual spelling of his name, in english, numerically is: 666) is the antichrist. he has turned nation against nation, regular american people against each other, he has killed countless people and small animals. He talks peace out of one side of his mouth, and death and war out of the other. MABUS(Suddam, anagram for MABUS) has been hung, now or shortly, the antichrist will show his true colors and you will all know what I have suspected all along. Pray and be alert all you elect.

I wrote an answer to this anonymous:

Dear Anonymous,

You and all those who say that George Bush is the Antichrist need to study your Bible a little bit more. Two years from now when Bush leaves the White House and becomes just another ex-President, you and all those who believe that he is the 666 will have a lot of explaining to do. It is because of people who misinterpret the Bible that the world laughs at the church and Christianity.

Anonymous responded to my comment and what he wrote explains the title of my post today. Anonymous wrote:

Don't get me wrong Dr. I'm not saying that he needs to be the president of anything. He has enough henchmen and money to set him up in any position of government or religion or both at any time. He may leave office and go to Israel as an embassador or something and set himself up there. We are not sure what his actual plans are for the following years. Expect anything from someone who talks peace out of one side of his mouth and war and killing out of the other side. I have read and listened to the entire Bible in book form and through CDs for many years. I don't necessarily believe in learning a book a verse here and there at a time. A verse may be taken out of context and the verse may loose it's true meaning. No where in the Bible is the word rapture found. There is some talk of being "caught up" in Luke and some other New Testament books. This I give as an example of the misinterpretation of the Bible by various religious beliefs, not necessarily quoted directly from the Bible. There are many examples of this.

Maybe Bush intends to make himself the King of Iraq, who knows? Just keep a watch and be on guard.

That’s it! The reason George W. Bush is the Antichrist and the reason he invaded Iraq is because George W. Bush wants to become King of Iraq.

It is amazing what people want to believe. Those who are predisposed to believe that George W. Bush is the Antichrist will believe anything else that is presented to them. These and the other comments reveal how gullible some Christians are and how weak their knowledge of the Bible really is.

Many people read the Bible but they cannot understand what they read. To them the Bible is a book full of mysteries that demand explanation and the more esoteric the explanation, the better the explanation becomes.

I do not believe for a moment that George W. Bush is the Antichrist. In a future post I will look at a few more comments and then explain once again the reason I do not believe Bush is the Antichrist.

George W. Bush, the King of Iraq. Amazing!

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: 666, Antichrist, George Bush

Is George Bush the 666 (the Antichrist)?

Today, according to many people, is the day of the Antichrist. Today is the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the new millennium. Today is 06-06-06 or 666 for short.

This is also the day the Omen, a remake of the 1976 horror classic The Omen opens in theaters. The movie is the story of an American official who realizes that his young son may literally be the devil incarnate.

There are many theories of who the Antichrist will be. A novel theory proposed by Stephen Hanchett is that the President of the United States, George W. Bush, is the Antichrist. In his Web page, Bush Is the Antichrist, he wrote:

“I submit to you that George Walker Bush is the ANTI-CHRIST. The violence and destruction that began when Bush first entered office, is now certain to culminate in the apocalypse, as predicted in the Bible over 2,000 years ago.”

In his blog, Is Bush the Antichrist?, Hanchett also calls for the impeachment of the president. He wrote:

“Bush’s crimes against America, and against our democracy, against Iraq, and against the world, against humanity and against God cannot be swept under the rug. We cannot simply wait for the next election or the one after that and hope that things will change. The longer he’s in power, the more innocent blood we have on our hands, and the more difficult it becomes to ever redeem ourselves as a nation.”

Putting politics aside, my desire is to study the biblical evidence Hanchett uses to prove that George Bush is the Antichrist. He provides evidence to prove his contention that the President is the Antichrist. One is them is taken from Revelation 13:8, a passage that reveals the number of the Beast, 666. The other is taken from Daniel 7:7-8, a passage that describes the beast in Daniel’s vision.

666: The Number of the Beast

In order to prove that George Bush is the Antichrist, Hanchett uses the letters of the name George Bush and compares them with the numerical equivalent using the Hebrew alphabet. The following is his calculation for the number 666. According to him, if the letters in the name George Bush are added up, the name in Hebrew letters comes out to 666:

G = 3 (gimel)
e = 5 (heh)
o = 70 (ayin)
r = 200 (resh)
g = 3 (gimel)
e = 5 (heh)

B = 2 (beth)
u = 70 (ayin)
s = 300 (shin)
h = 8 (cheth)
total = 666 (Antichrist)

This use of numbers surely seems to prove his point. The only problem (and it is a big one) is that his calculations of the symbolism of the name do not correspond to the correct value in the Hebrew alphabet.

For instance, he uses the vowel “e” in George to correspond to the consonant ה (he) in Hebrew, but the English “e” and the Hebrew he are not the same.

Hanchett uses the vowels “o” in George and the “u” in Bush to correspond to the consonant ע (‘ayin) in Hebrew but the “o” and the “u” in English are not the same as the Hebrew ‘ayin.

Hanchett used the “h” in Bush to correspond to the ח (het) in Hebrew. However, it is more probable that the “sh” in Bush is really the שּׁ (shin) in Hebrew, since it carries the “sh” sound.

Hanchett then concludes: “I would challenge anyone to find another powerful world leader, either now or in the past, whose name adds up to 666 in Hebrew. Unlike Hebrew, the the [sic] letters of the English alphabet don't automatically have a numeric value.”

The truth is, the name George W. Bush does not add up to 666 in Hebrew.

The Little Horn in Daniel

As for his evidence for the beast of Daniel and the little horn, Hanchett wrote:

“This beast is the image of a world empire-- the final world empire, and the one that gives rise to the Antichrist. Its body is likened to a leopard, because according to Victorinus, a father of the early church ‘This signifies the kingdom of that time of Antichrist, and the people mingled with the variety of nations.’ The spots on the leopard are representative of a multi-national, multi-racial and multi-cultural ‘melting pot.’ This was once the case with Rome, and it is currently the case with the United States of America. The mouth is like a lion because Americans speak English, and the United States was once an English colony, and England has always been represented by a lion on the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom. The bear is a symbol of Russia, and the bear-like feet of the beast is symbolic of the fact that the only other superpower for forty years was the Russian bear, but now the US is walking all over what was formerly Russian territory, and it now has its ‘feet’, or military bases planted in countries that were once part of the USSR, like Uzbekistan and Kyrgistan.”

“It says this beast comes out of the sea, and this is a reference to the fact that the New World was discovered by navigators like Columbus. The United States came out of the sea in the sense that at the time of St. John’s vision, it was widely assumed that the only thing west of Europe and east of the orient was a lot of water and the end of the world. So the United States, as part of the ‘New World’, seemed from the perspective of the Biblical or ‘Old World’, to come up and literally rise out of the sea.”

“It’s obvious that the horns represent the powerful men who have come to successively rule over this American empire. Daniel even says so quite explicitly Dan 7: 24 >the ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones. (the Antichrist) America acquired superpower status and gained the reach of a world class Empire when it acquired the nuclear bomb, at the very end of WWII. Since then there have been exactly ten >kings= or post war presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, BushSr, and Clinton. The prophecy from Daniel says that after these ten presidents, there will appear another one, an arrogant ‘little horn’, which is the Antichrist, George W Bush Jr. It says this ‘little horn’ is unlike any of the other ten presidents, and this is an obvious reference to the fact that Bush has no popular mandate, that he lost the popular vote, and was appointed to the office by five un elected judges on the Supreme Court. This has never happened before in American history, and that’s what makes him so different from all his presidential predecessors - that and his arrogance, dishonesty and lust for world power.”

Anyone familiar with the interpretation of the book of Daniel realizes that most of the interpretation above is nonsense. The book of Daniel is an apocalyptic book that was written to inspire the Jewish community to endure the hardships the community was facing because of the oppressive policies of Antiochus Epiphanes.

The exegetical methodology used by Hanchett is called “eisegesis.” According to the Wikipedia,

“Eisegesis is the process of interpretation of an existing text in such a way as to introduce one's own ideas. This is best understood when contrasted with exegesis. While exegesis draws out the meaning from the text, eisegesis occurs when a reader reads his/her interpretation into the text. As a result, exegesis tends to be objective when employed effectively while eisegesis is regarded as highly subjective.”

This is what Hanchett has done: he has introduced his own hatred of Bush into the biblical text. When people introduce their own views and ideas into the text, we call it “bad interpretation.” What Hanchett wrote is real bad interpretation and it does not deserve a passing grade.

It is amazing how George W. Bush is hated by so many people. This President has inspired more hostile criticism, hatred, vilification, and vituperation than any other President in recent time, including Johnson and Nixon put together. People may disagree with the President and his policies, the war in Iraq, and his views on a multitude of issues, but to call the President “the Devil's Spawn” is going beyond the norms of civility.

My conclusion: Hanchett's interpretation is wrong, it is biased, and it has no biblical foundation. The President of the United States is not the Devil’s Spawn. He is a man who is trying to do what he thinks is best for America and that is his right as the President. While Hanchett disagrees with Bush, he has to remember that there are millions of Americans who agree with the President.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bush, 666, Antichrist