Rome is Babylon

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Amanah

I think that "666" referred to Nero,

There are numerous reasons to doubt that.

1. The Revelation was written in Greek, to Greek-reading and Greek-speaking Christians. The "666" which was to be "reckoned" or "counted" would need to be counted in Greek. Those who claim Nero as being the solution require the use of Hebrew gematria. They also require the transposition of several letters, changing Nero Kaesar to Nrwn Ksr, which means one has to use a technically incorrect spelling of Nero's name and title in Hebrew in order to get "666". The ordinary Hebrew spelling was Nrw Kysr. So you have to add a letter to "Nero" and drop a letter from "Caesar" to get a Hebrew variant that adds to 666 in Hebrew. In Greek, Nero's name adds up to 1005, and graffitti in Rome common at the time Nero murdered his mother referred to him as "1005" (which is also the numerical value of the phrase "murdered his mother"). It doesn't make sense for a Greek document, written to Greek-speakers, to require Hebrew gematria of a mispelled name, instead of Greek gematria of a Greek name.
   
2. The number is "the number of the Beast" and also "the number of (a) man". The Beast is undoubtedly Rome. While Nero was an emperor of Rome, he died prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, whereas the Beast continued on afterwards. Once Nero died, there would be no "mark of allegiance to Nero" left.
   
3. The mark was not instituted by the Beast itself, but by the Second Beast (aka False Prophet), which also instituted a policy that nobody could buy or sell without the mark, or the name, or the number of the Beast. Proponents of the Nero theory often point to Roman coins carrying Nero's name and profile pic, yet also claim the False Prophet is the High Priest. The problem is, the High Priest did not cause everyone to use Roman currency in order to transact any financial business.
   
4. As previously stated, if the Beast is Nero, then preterism is in error since Nero died prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. However, if the Beast is the Roman Empire, preterism is again in error because after the destruction of Babylon the Beast is taken and utterly destroyed, which historically could not possibly have happened until centuries after 70 AD. In other words, preterism becomes self-refuting at this point.
   
5. The Revelation presents a claim that the mark is given universally, and that those who have the victory over the mark are part of the company of saints. Yet if Nero is represented by the mark, then any upstart rebellion during his short tenure would be included in the company of saints, which is absurd. Nero reigned from 54 to 68 AD. During his tenure, there were several rebellions against his authority by pagans, including the one in Spain in AD 68 led by governor Caius Vindex. The Judeans rebelled in AD 66. The Bible, however, gives no indication that ANY of the Beast's subjects rebel, let alone Mystery Babylon. It makes no sense to say the Judeans were worshipping the Beast and in bed with the Beast and rebelling against the Beast all at the same time.
   
6. There is no record of anyone in the post-apostolic period claiming Nero as the solution to 666. The first appearance of Nero as the name signified by 666 appears to have come about in the 1800s. I have yet to find a source documenting anyone saying "666 signifies Nero" prior to the 1830s. Preterists claim the Apocalypse must have made sense to the people to whom it was written to, and conclude that first century Christians in Asia Minor who read and spoke Greek would have understood 666 to refer to a Hebrew mis-spelling of Nero's name and title. However, nobody immediately after the events seemed to have known that Nero was the meaning of 666. In fact, nobody seems to have figured it out until the 19th century. Which means either the Apocalypse utterly failed to convey needed and timely information to the readers, or the readers utterly failed to understand the information given them, or preterism and the Nero hypothesis are incorrect.
   
7. Some will try to argue for the variant reading "616" as proof of Nero being "666", but the argument is self-refuting and absurd since it presupposes an intentional corruption of the text of Revelation as a proof of the doctrine. Hardly solid ground worth standing on.
   
8. All external evidence and much internal evidence suggests that the Apocalypse was written and distributed AFTER the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This alone renders the question moot and refutes the idea that Nero is 666 unless one wishes to claim the book is not prophecy at all but a pious fraud. Arguments claiming an early date for the Revelation are circular (since a post AD 70 date for Revelation is completely and irrevocably fatal to the preterist interpretation). And even if it was written prior to Ad 70, the information it contained would only have been good for about 10 years (if preterist claims are true), which seems insufficient considering the slow speed with which Revelation was distributed and accepted throughout the churches. The only reason it is even considered part of the Bible and not apocryphal like the "Book of Enoch" and others, is because of the testimonies of early Antenicene writers. Yet those writers all seemed oblivious to and ignorant of any "Nero = 666" understanding. There were also Antenicene writers who rejected the book as being canonical. All this indicates the preterist claims regarding the purpose and scope of the book are factually in error and belied by the actual historical circumstances.

and that Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD as a judgement on Judean covenant breakers and for rejecting Messiah.

yes, as per the Olivet Prophecy of Christ Himself (Matthew 24).

Babel/Babylon is the mother of false religion, which infected the Judeans who were in captivity in Babylon, and that false doctrine not only corrupted the Judeans, but has corrupted the Church of Constantine and is still corrupting religion to this day.

Correct. But we have to ask "Where did the church of Constantine come from?" It did not drop out of the sky full-fledged and ready to go in the 4th century...