I know that the oldest sources of the Book of Revelation have the Ancient Greek letters as XIS or XIC which translate into the number 616. So how, over time, did that become XES which translates as 666?
I also remember that Revelation is the only book in the bible that promises to punish anyone who tries to intentionally edit it through God's wrath. So are there any edits? I've seen mistranslations and differing interpretations but is there evidence of intentional editing like in the rest of the bible? And could the number 666 actually be an edit?
Edit- After doing some research, I've found that people are actually still debating about which number came first and Irenaeus himself talked about the two differing numbers in the late 2nd century before the oldest scripts of today even existed and he was adamant that 666 came first.
At the same time however, Irenaeus was zealously Catholic and had a polemical agenda and the vast majority of texts from that time are modern Catholic and Orthodox views since almost all non-Catholic views of the time had already been destroyed as heresies. I personally still currently think that 616 is the original but I'm not going to give my reasons why. I can only say that it fits a theory that I've come across, a theory that makes a ton of sense but I'm not absolutely certain.
Edit 2- I also found this comment that mentions the theory that it was changed to accommodate for different translations of the name 'Nero Caesar' since Nero was thought by some at the time to be the Antichrist.