DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
It "was and is not and is to come" (Revelation 17:8). The phrase echoes the book's title for God in Revelation 1:4 and 1:8, "who is and who was and who is to come." Where God "is," the beast "is not."
Why it’s interesting
Revelation's title for God plays on the divine name God gives Moses in Exodus 3:14. The beast's version reads as a parody of it. The book says "was and is not" three times in four verses (Revelation 17:8-11).
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.